Portal RV Resort - Moab

If you need a place with full hook-ups in Moab, this is a good option. It was clean, has laundry ($1.25 -- super cheap), and is right between town and the entrance to Arches. The only thing I wish it had -- more shaded spots. Also, we had great cell and internet here.

Portal RV Resort has two parts. The north campground is open to anyone with gravel pull thu sites. Most have full hook ups but there is a row without sewer. The south side of the park is the resort half where many of the sites have owners. All of these sites are 40'x 70' and paved. There are specific requirements to which vehicles are accepted in this section. We stay in the resort side and so enjoy the over sized sites with lots of room to spread out. The park is located between town and Arches NP. It is surrounded by beautiful views and far enough from the road for quiet. This is our second stay in the south side of the park. The WiFi wasn't as good as we expected but worked most of the time. But with good Verizon service we were fine.

We wished we could have stayed longer, but it was packed, along with all the other sites in Moab. Just a matter of the season. I'm only speaking about the campground. The sites were maintained nicely, the staff was super friendly and helpful. The main office is under construction now, new buildings, so expect it to be even better, now they are using a portable building.

The rules are very tight here, and everyone seemed to obey, no dangerous dog breeds, no drunks, large parties etc. There are other parks to go to if you have a large group of off road vehicles and like to have a loud party after a day on the trails, but this is not the spot for you, it's just a nice quiet place to relax.

Off road vehicles and trailers are allowed, and they have space to put your trailer, it's just more low key, relaxed, not rowdy, affair here.

There is a pond to swim in, large patio area to hang out, and a nice dog park. All very clean

We had planned to boondock in the Moab area, but all the BLM sites were full, extremely crowded and/or had little or no cell reception (and we needed to get some work done). So...we were fortunate enough to get a spot here during the busy month of May in Moab. We did have to change sites during our stay, but we are just thrilled they were able to find a spot for us! Excellent customer service!!

Brand new restrooms, showers, and laundry area...super clean and nice! The older restrooms are kept very clean, too. They clearly take care of this RV park. There is some construction going on, so should be even nicer in the future!

The park seems to have more trees than many parks in the area and some nice views.

Although the quiet hours were quiet, it was sometimes loud until the quiet hours started. Which if you are trying to work during the day or want to go to sleep before 10 might be an issue. Not complaining, just sharing our experience. We understand that many people are on vacation and just having a good time!

The location is great for visiting Arches, Canyonlands, and Dead Horse Point State Park. Short drive to gas, groceries, and lots of wonderful places to eat.

Cell and WiFi:
3-4 bars of LTE on T-Mobile
2-3 bars of LTE on Verizon
The WiFi is better than most RV parks, especially for a large busy park. However, the WiFi would just go down sometimes for short periods of time.

I’m surprised by the reviews here about good customer service because we experienced the complete opposite. First thing, they boasted about having a hot tub opening up on their website in March. We arrived in late March and the hot tub wasn’t even close to ready (sitting in the dirt). Their water was off at the dump station and the person at the front desk didn’t even know where the dump station was. When we complained about the hot tub and the water being off the owners told us “We only want happy campers here so you can leave. There are 18 other places to camp in Moab.” Finally, we got to our site and the electric wouldn’t work and the bathrooms were out of soap. I had to convince my husband to stay after that because there weren’t many other options during this busy weekend. The only reason I gave this place two stars is because they had a nice playground for my son and the bathrooms were recently updated. We would not stay here again and would not recommend this place to anyone.

I have mixed feelings about this RV park. On one hand, the proximity to Arches National Park, Canyonlands National Park, Dead Horse State Park can't be beat. It was so convenient to get up every morning to hike and then come back to the RV park in the afternoon to work. That said, the nature of their WiFi policy made the working part all but impossible.

Essentially, they slow your Internet speeds when they detect you are streaming Netflix (or any video service), or if you upload files like I do for work. Not only do they artificially slow your connection, they also will kick you off and block you from getting back on. We weren't interested in streaming video, but I was not able to upload the ~50MB files I need to for work, so I had to switch over to our data plans. I can get that managing the connection of a ton of campers is a difficult task, but I've never been anywhere with such a restrictive policy. We met up with some campers a week later who also happened to stay at Portal RV Resort, and the first thing they mentioned was the Internet policy, so I know it's not just us.

Anyway, all that said, we would stay here again, just not if we had to work for an extended period of time. The park itself was well maintained and the staff was helpful. The laundry facility was small, but nice and new. Also, it appeared there was some new construction going on to add new offices and a pool area. Maybe in a year or two the experience will be better.

We stayed here for one night before heading up to Devil's Garden in Arches NP, and it was the perfect jump off point. It is close to town, has a little store with a few RV basics, the pool and hot tub were open and warm in mid-March (!!). They have dog parks (two) and a dog pond, so this would be a great place to go with fur-babies. The bathrooms were quite nice, but one awkward aspect is that the only toilet in the women's shower area is in the ADA shower and bath, and I felt it was not my place to use it. It also create a line in mornings, when folks take a shower in the only room with a toilet! There might have been another toilet area for women, but I didn't see one, and used the men's room twice.

The only drawbacks are that it is expensive (the most expensive rv park I've stayed at) and many of the RV guests have quads or atvs that they cram into their sites. The park has a strict limit on number of vehicles (trailer or rv, towing vehicle and atvs included), but I didn't see this being enforced, and we had a couple of quads sitting on our "property line" so to speak. One challenge with the place is making a left onto the highway to go to Arches, Deadhorse, or Canyonlands. At some times of day, there is a steady line of cars and it ain't ain't easy to get out. .

We stayed in the resort section of this park, sites individually owned and rented out when owners are not using their site. The roads are paved in this section, the sites are concrete and landscaped, some have covered patios with patio tables & chairs. If you get a site next to one of the three story homes, you probably won’t get a satellite signal, so bring your coaxial cable to plug in.

Beware - some reviews are for the "back" area, which is extremely high-end. Other reviews are for the front area, which is standard campground quality. Our 3-star review is of the front part of the campground since you have to be Class A/Fifth Wheel to get into luxury side.

This park is ideally located to Arches and Canyonlands. Also, downtown Moab is a couple of miles south of the park. As state above, the front of the park is standard campground quality. You are packed in, not that clean, and pretty loud if you are there during a busy time of the year.

I would opt for trying to get into Dead Horse Point State Park or Devil's Garden Campground (Arches NP). We didn't plan far enough in advance to get either of those spots.

This review pertains to the premium deluxe South side. The site itself was very nice. We chose the premium site because that is our preference when it comes to CG's that offer them. Outside of the quality of the site, pretty much everything else was NOT as advertised. The bathroom toilets were left uncleaned for days and some stalls had no went without TP for a couple days. The showers we were told on arrival were "off limits" while we were there. The roads on the South side were frequently used as a race track for young children from the north side on their bicycles. Our assumption is because the South side roads are nicely paved while the North side roads are not. Our neighbors dogs were not leashed and were even inside the pool fence not leashed even though we spoke to them about it. There is basically no security provided to enforce the rules they make sure you are made aware of. The South side pool was not maintained and/or cleaned except for the last day we were there. This CG charges a premium price, but they do not provide premium services they advertise. They don't even come close. Our recommendation is if you are going to stay here, choose the cheaper rates on the North side.