Wild West Ranch & RV Resort

It appears that sites A-M are for those traveling through. We were hoping for a cement (or even gravel) area with a picnic table to accompany our pull through site. A few did have a cement pad, fewer had a picnic table. The small restroom and shower building was recently remodeled, tiled floor and walls and very clean.

The long term and/or snowbird area was pretty full. Again, some with cement pads, most not. Some sites were fixed up, probably by those occupying the site. The office sold a variety of wine nicely displayed, craft beer, honey and fresh eggs, that was about it. The large laundry room is attached to the office. There are dairy farms and cattle ranches in the area along with the smells associated with them, no smell in the evening, but we did smell it this morning before we left. We could hear the highway, although not too bad. Their wifi was pretty good from our site. The staff was very friendly.

As we said, we really think this place has potential, and with the remodeled restrooms and office perhaps that is where it is going.

We booked a whole month here, and for $300 + electric, we felt like we got a good deal. That deal came with some catches, though. Apparently there were some major issues going on with the staff while we were there and this translated into somewhat of a mess. Like, nobody in the office, EVER, the whole time we stayed there. Not once. When we checked in, I had called that same morning to confirm our arrival and let them know that we would be arriving in about 2 hours. When we showed up, the host had no idea who we were, how long we were staying or where to put us. As we found throughout our stay, communication was very poor between the campground owners, staff, and campers. Lucky for us, the seasonal campers there were able to help us with most of our questions regarding where to find our mail, wifi password, laundry questions, etc. Hook-ups are fine with solid 50amp and good water pressure. We had a back in site and it was a very large site - very wide. The park is all hard-packed dirt/sand. Our site was fairly level. Depending on where you are in the park, there are some nice views of Table Mountain. The last week we were there, it looked like they were starting to plant some fruit trees, so maybe fresh fruit will be available to campers. You can also get your propane tank filled here, which we did take advantage of, and was a nice perk. There are many permanent residents here and some of them tend to get into some trouble, so the sheriff made a few visits during our stay. Also, this area tends to be in a main thoroughfare for human trafficking, as evidenced by the trail of discarded clothing (check out the shoe tree) a few hundred yards south of the park. We didn't feel unsafe, but just be aware of your surroundings when out on a walk. Water is crap...use a filter, or three, and a water softener. As suggested by the residents in the park, we drove into Casa Grande to do our laundry instead of using the laundry in the rv park. You're in the middle of nowhere with not a whole lot to do in the area, so you have to drive quite a bit to get to something. We liked the movie theater at the casino in Maricopa. We drove to Casa Grande Mountain Park for hiking every week, several times a week. We hiked Picacho Peak, which was about an hour drive, one way - such a GREAT hike! We liked the Maricopa Fry's for grocery shopping. For coffee: Honeycutt Coffee and Crate Coffee in Maricopa and Brownie's in Casa Grande. For dinner: you have to check out Bedillon's in Casa Grande, but make sure you have reservations, even on a weekday. As for the barnyard funk.... I grew up in the country in the midwest surrounded by livestock - I know what a farm smells like and it is not an unpleasant or unwelcome aroma to me. Wild West RV Park is a mere 1.5 miles west of two VERY large dairy operations and, as such, has a constant and powerful smell of barnyard funk that will permeate all aspects of your rig and clothing.This isn't some gentle pasture smell of fresh cow pie, it's the highly concentrated fecal and urine smell of some 10,000+ head of cattle crammed together in a pen, and it's completely overwhelming. The wind seemed to blow from the east almost everyday and I felt like I was doing my lungs a great disservice by breathing in that foulness for so many days in a row. You can tour one of the operations, Shamrock Farms, if you feel inclined to learn more about a high volume commercial dairy operation. I would stay here, again, but only for one or two nights.

We stayed at Wild West Ranch for the first and last time this winter. We payed for one month of camping and stayed about 3 weeks of that month. The only time we were able to get information or an audience with the owner was right after we pulled in when he came immediately to collect rent and deposit. After that there was never anyone in the office ever and no one to get any information from. We purposely did not use very much electric as we found propane to be much more cost effective. We ran our fridge, water heater, and furnace all on propane and at the end of our stay our electric meter read between 51 and 52 which should have cost us about $8 at .16cents a kw. When we left they told us the owner had gone on holiday and no one else could refund us. I took pictures of our meter reading which I later sent to Wild West. My husband called numerous times to get our refund and was told that no one ever has such a low reading so therefore we must be lying about our reading. We were given a refund of $28 and change and after more calls were told we would receive an additional $40 which we agreed to even though it was not an accurate amount. WE NEVER RECEIVED ANY OF THIS MONEY. These are not honest people. Add to that the smell of cow urine and feces that was often present and very, very strong. Even though we spent most of our time with family and were only there to sleep it turned out to be a very negative experience.

We are glass half full kind of folks so it's rare we write bad reviews but this is a place we feel we need to warn our fellow RVers about. To back up previous reviewers comments, the management of this place are not only completely lacking in any kind of service but they are dishonest, unethical and liars - and we do not use those words lightly. We actually had made a 2 month reservation in July 2016 to stay in December/January at $300/mo plus electric, but had to cancel that reservation in August due to a change in plans. Manager advised by phone she would cancel the res and refund my $100 deposit. My bad for not checking my credit card statement right away as it wasn't until February 2017 I realized the funds had never been credited back to me. You see, in December 2016 we had made another month reservation for the month of February 2017 - were charged another $100 deposit fee - and advised we would have the second from the end site at the back, overlooking the Sonoran Desert. We wanted a safe place to leave our coach while we flew home to CO for 10 days and a quiet location to work from. We arrived just before 6pm on a Sunday evening and (understandably) the office was closed - but there was no check-in packet waiting for us. We unhooked the toad and I drove around to find our site - it was occupied by someone else. Eventually the owner came out and seemed confused to see us - completely unaware of our reservation, and said they were fully booked. Naturally we were annoyed. They tried to placate us with wine. Eventually said we could stay in an overnight spot and "see if any spaces opened up during the week" which they couldn't guarantee, and literally said their RV tenants lie to them about their plans and they never know. Nice. Upon driving around the place, it was weird - part of it looked nice in a rustic kind of way, but driving around the rest of the place it felt trashy and we did not feel comfortable leaving our coach unattended while we were in CO. We decided to leave as Owner had disappeared by then, I called the next day to leave a voicemail for the manager to advise we had left as our site was not available as it had been promised and requested a refund of our $100. Long story short, they ignored all of my phone calls and emails, and eventually I filed a dispute claim with my bank. This behavior prompted me to check if they had actually refunded the first $100 from 6 months prior and I realized they had not. So they had $200 from us and we never even stayed a night, we were there 20 minutes tops. The manager eventually emailed to say that according to her notes the first $100 was refunded on August 26. A lie as she has since disputed my claim with the bank incorrectly stating that "we stayed a night and used $30 worth of services" when we weren't anywhere near the place in Dec/Jan. However the second $100 from the failed Feb stay WAS refunded, after us showing up and spending 20 mins unhooking/rehooking and leaving. It's all very bizarre and their way of doing business is dishonest and unacceptable. So they got $100 out of us just for messing us around and clearly don't care that it affects their reputation. I had held off writing any reviews, in the hope it could be resolved (I realize miscommunications and mistakes do happen and wanted to give them the benefit of the doubt) but it is now apparent this is a a shady business managed by dysfunctional and dishonest people. It's a shame that people like this are out there running businesses that make a practice out of dishonesty and ripping people off. Fortunately, in our 3 years of full-time RVing this is the first and only experience like this, so the majority of RV park owners are decent people running reputable businesses. Sadly, Wild West Ranch is not one of them.

PS. After posting my review and sharing on our Facebook Page, we were viciously attacked on our page by Wild West Ranch and it's Management, who made several wildly exaggerated accusations and outright lies. Before we even got to read them, our community who know and trust us and our judgement, jumped to our defense. The concerns we expressed in our review above were completely validated by the extreme, bullying and dishonesty displayed by the manager on our feed. Two of our followers also commented they had similar experiences with that Park/Management and shared our post - then reported they were also being trolled and harassed by the owner/manager on their own pages. I also learned that the management has been "caught" by an RV Review site writing negative reviews about their neighboring parks and giving themselves 5 star reviews (which were removed by the Site Admin). Do your research and read multiple reviews and make your own decision. It is our hope no-one else has an experience like this, but be very careful about giving them your credit card and know that even if you have something in writing, it won't necessarily be honored. We agree with one of the earlier reviewers that the park "has potential" but not under the current management, which seems to be it's biggest problem. Well that... and the troublesome tenants and the barnyard funk (see below). In the end, we we believe we had a lucky escape.

Dishonest ownership and a very poorly run park in general.

Pictures posted on their website and on Facebook are very outdated. The park is very run down and most spots are just gravel parking spaces, there are a few with concrete pads but not many. Water seems to be an issue as we spent 2 days without it. Sewage backed up in the bathrooms. Activity building looks like it hasn't seen any activity in years. Office looks more like a booze store. WiFi is sporadic at best. Dog feces can be found all over the park. There are no decent spaces as these are taken by what looks like permanent residents. Laundry room while clean had mostly out of order machines. Can't say anything about the owners as we never met them, The manager Erin is very rude and doesn't seem care who she offends. The shuffle boards and horseshoe area looked like it had been many years since their use. There is no pool or activities of any kind here.

Fellow RVers: STEER CLEAR OF THIS UNETHICAL PLACE. Our experience this past winter at Wild West Ranch & RV Park (formerly John Wayne RV Ranch, LLC) in Maricopa, Arizona
We paid a $100.00 deposit via credit card to this campground on 11/10/2017 for a month's stay beginning on 12/18/2017. Upon arrival, we wrote a check for $400.00 for the monthly rent. We left the campground on 1/13/2018, and my husband had made arrangements earlier in the week to return for another month beginning on 1/28/2018. Our credit card was charged by the campground for our electricity usage through 1/13/2018 on 1/29/2018. The amount charged was overstated, and a credit was issued to our card for the difference. We had not authorized this charge. Upon our return to Wild West on 1/28/2018, we wrote another check for $400.00 to cover the month ending on 2/28/2018. (At this time, our initial $100.00 deposit is still on the books as a credit). On the morning of our departure, March 1, 2018 we discovered the campground had charged our credit card 5 times between 10:57 and 11:08 am on 1/28/2018 for a total of $80.00 for electricity usage. We had not authorized this charge. We went to the office to inquire and ask for a final invoice along with the return of the deposit since it had not been used. I was told we would not receive our deposit because we owed money to the campground. We totally disagree with this and they have offered no proof of it. The owner (wife) was offsite and would only communicate via text. The owner (husband) was onsite but offered nothing but insults to my husband. As of this post, we have yet to receive any communication from the campground and our many emails and texts continue to go unanswered. We have filed a complaint with BBB-Arizona. A complaint has been filed with our bank as well. It turns out, this is not an isolated incident, and other campers have had similar problems involving the return of deposits and unauthorized credit card charges. There are several reviews out there. CAUTION: DO NOT USE YOUR CREDIT CARD WITH THIS CAMPGROUND!

I’ve stayed here 3 times and thought all the crooked accusations where hooey. However, this third time I had the “un”pleasure of meeting the owner and just immediately had an uneasy dealing, you know, something just didn’t feel good. So I paid for the week and actually got a military discount, but his demeanor still indicated something weird. This was the 3rd week of June. Now on September 10 I get an invoice in my email wanting me to pay $1.00 for a roll of toilet paper that I’ve never purchased.

I called Wild West ranch and spoke to the owner and told him about it and he had a VERY bad attitude insisting that my email had been hacked. When I explained to him that many, many other reviews I read said they had credit card issues with his establishment and it was his invoice system that billed me, he got EXTREMELY rude, defensive and vulgar, yes he started dropping the “F” bomb left and right.

My recommendation is DO NOT, DO NOT, DO NOT stay at this park. But if by chance you do, pay with cash and don’t give them any personal info ie; email phone# etc. 😡😡😡😡😡😡😡😡

All dirt roads with many FHU sites. It would have gotten a 5 if regular maintenance was obvious. There were almost all of the concrete pads that have, and have not for a long time not been repaired. This causes many tripping hazards. My wife sprained her ankle on the broken pad the first night there.

Otherwise it was a nice park with many friendly people. With the exception of the birds in the trees near our site (from 5:30-7:00pm every night the sound of the roosting birds was almost deafening.
Otherwise peaceful quiet days spent at the resort

It wouldn’t be my first choice but this is not a bad spot for an overnight stay when passing through on Interstate 8. There are some large dairy farms nearby so, when the wind blows from that direction, the smell can be very strong. If you can get past that, the campground office has a good selection of wine and beer, the laundry room is good, the price is fair and the scenery is good as you’re right on the edge of the desert.