Thunderbird Resort Thousand Trails

This campground was easy to find and not too far from the little town of Monroe. Some cool little shops there and all the basics. The campground is split into 3 separate areas. The main campground with pool, facilities, etc. is on the inland side (and has full hookups on this side). They have two other areas on the other side of the road (river side) but no sewer in those areas.

I stayed on the river side. It's right next to the road, but traffic is minimal. Verizon coverage was great and I had a consistent 4 bars of 4G LTE with my booster. No OTA television though.

The campground is in need of maintenance. The first spot I tried had a 30 amp outlet that 1/3 of it had just disintegrated and didn't work. The next spot I tried wasn't very level at all, but I made it work (it was getting late and it had a good view). A few noisy neighbors (looks like they may be long term?) playing rap outside their rig a lot.

But finding anything in the Seattle area can be a challenge during the summer, so I'd come back!

When we first arrived it was a mad dash for all the other members checking in that day -- a mad dash to cruise the full hookup sites. The full hookup sites are on the opposite side of Ben Howard Road from the Skykomish River.

As I drove around I thought I found a site, but a man was parked in the site with his car... waiting for his wife to pull the rig in. While a bit of a bummer, it is first-come first-served as there are no specific site reservations.

Seeing no vacant sites in the full hookup section, I drove across Ben Howard Road to both of the areas that overlook the Skykomish River, as all the staff and the Park Ranger seemed to talk those areas up as being the most beautiful. My desire to have a sewer connection blinded me to what beauty there was at those sites.

It looked like partial hookup was what we were going to have to live with, until a Park Ranger pulled along side me in a golf cart and told me that some 'newbie' campers were leaving from a full hookup site -- they were just new to camping and were running late. I pulled the rig around and simply waited for them to pack up and leave, and then snagged the spot.

I was happy about getting a full hookup site at first -- since we were going to be there for a full week -- but that joy quickly faded. While I was able to level the rig well enough (not as good as I would have liked, but good enough) it was a difficult process (more so than other parks).

Most of the full hookup sites run up a bit of a hill. If you have a smaller travel trailer, I'm sure you can easily level out. If, however, you have a 40 foot diesel pusher, there is less room in the sites to move around to find a level configuration while still allowing room for your toad.

The sites were all 30 amp. Water pressure is really good.

I wasn't a huge fan of the park, right from the start, as there seemed to be a large number of annuals (permanent/seasonal folks) who, especially in this area, tend to have rigs that are a bit more run down... and there was a little bit of clutter here and there (although not much). It just didn't have the same nature/park feeling as much as it had a trailer park feeling. That aside, there are lots of trees everywhere, and plenty of visual beauty to take in. So... initial impressions aside, it worked for us.

They have a great large playground for the kids, a large group fire ring (that actually gets used), and the bathrooms were spotless, according to my wife.

I have a DISH Netowrk satellite on top of the rig, and a lot of other people had portable satellites on the ground. Depending on your site, you may be able to get a glimpse of the sky and pull in a signal. I was only able to get one satellite, limiting the channels we were able to pick up... but that didn't bother us too much, as we're not big TV watchers anyway.

The very next morning, we started to have electrical issues. I have a Progressive Industries EMS installed in the rig (one of several -- as I like backups to the system already in place). This unit measures for high and low voltage, as well as 'ground/neutral' issues and, of course, offers surge protection. Something EVERY person with an RV should have -- PERIOD!!! Our first morning I noticed that the EMS was tripping... and we were using battery power. And then it would kick back on, and the charger would start recharging the batteries... and when it quickly hit the "floating charge" stage, it would trip the EMS again. This cycle would repeat over and over. I wasn't sure what was going on, as we were only maxing out at 19-22 amps during Float Charge (and we were on a 30 amp box). After an hour, everything settled down, and I had no further issues during the day.

That night, however, the EMS started tripping again. It's hard to say when it started, exactly, as we can't really tell when we go to battery power (it's very transparent) unless I'm close enough to a battery backup system for my computer -- it will make a slight "buzz" for one second. That's when I know something has tripped and we're on battery power. I suspect this started again sometime around 5:30 PM.

The same thing happened the next morning... and during the day all was fine... but the problem picked back up later in the evening -- this time tripping when we only reached about 9 amps. By this time I had set our charger to only use 10% of available power for charging... and it would still trip the EMS. I was stumped as to what was happening.

I went outside to the power bay, and watched the remote control panel to see what was happening. That's when I realized that the EMS wasn't tripping because we were using too many amps... it was tripping because of low voltage.

It seems that as people wake up and blow-dry their hair, make coffee, and do other things to get ready for the day/work... the voltage would get so low that it would trip the EMS. And then again at night, when people were returning from work... the same thing would happen.

I walked around and it appeared that everyone in my "leg" (the leg of power I was on that is shared by other sites in the leg) were for the most part clueless as to what was going on. I feel sorry for them, as they obviously don't have a EMS installed... and I wonder what kind of damage is happening to their electronics because of poor power conditions).

In any event -- I notified the ranger. She didn't seem to think there was an issue, since "no one else reported issues." Ugggh!!!! The next day I talked with another ranger... who pretty much said the same thing. I pleaded with her to tell the maintenance staff about the low voltage in that power leg, for the sake of the people who were there and clueless about it... but she didn't really "get" what I was talking about, so I'm not really sure how well that all played out.

Either way, we decided to pick up and move -- and we found a nice end spot in the first section of partial hookups overlooking the river.

This is where my opinion of the park changes drastically.

While I always enjoy having sewer connections, we have large tanks and have no issues going a few days, or even a week, or so, without dumping... so I wasn't too concerned. I found a spot, and leveled out -- absolutely no issues leveling the rig, as the spots by the river are rather large (with large green grassy yards behind them) and plenty of space all around... and when I went to hook up the power, to my surprise, we had 30 amp and 50 amp service!! YEAH!!!! We LOVE having a full 50 amps.

We quickly hooked up the power, and I watched the EMS control panel... and it showed a reading of 117 volts on Leg 1; and 120 volts on Leg 2. PERFECT!!! We had strong, clean power -- and 50 amps of it. No more power issues to deal with.

No only that, but the view from the partial hookup river sites is MUCH better than the full hookup sites. Since they are partial hookups, they tend to NOT attract the annual crowd -- so you get less of that "trailer park" feel from your neighbors. Sure, there were some older rigs, and travel trailers, and 5th wheels, and even a teardrop or two -- but even the older ones tended to look like they were well maintained.

Had I known that 50 amp power was available from the partial hookup section to begin with, I never would have messed around with the 30 amp full hookup sites and I would have been much happier.

So... when I first arrived, I was pretty sure we'd never return again... but after having moved to the partial hookups by the river, my opinion has changed. I'd return.

Satellite reception is a no-go at the partial hookups where I was (sites 60-76) and you're unlikely to get a clear view of the sky in the second section of partial hookups if you're on the back row (sites 77-83). You 'might' have a chance of seeing over the trees in that second section, if you're backed up to the river (sites 84-98) but it's no guarantee. But that's okay, as the river view is better than watching TV anyways.

The staff here is VERY nice. Even though I don't think I made any headway asking them to look into the low-voltage issue, everyone we talked to was extremely nice and very helpful otherwise.

The small town of Monroe is just a 10 minute drive and has plenty of good eating locations, Walmart, Lowes, etc.

There is a train track that runs nearby -- so if you hate trains, you may not like this place. It doesn't run often, but it runs early and late. Trains don't bother me... and normally cars and trucks don't either... but there is something about this area that tells me that the locals LOVE their LOUD vehicles. I think they knock the tailpipes off just so they're extra noisy. And they also love loud motorcycles. HA! It's not constant non-stop... but you'll likely hear them buzzing up and down the road.

As far as internet goes... If you have AT&T, you'll likely get 1-2 bars of LTE... but that could change to "No Service" at times. It kind of bounces around -- so you'll want to have a booster if that is your only cellular option. Data speeds are decent, when you have a bar or two... but long phone conversations will almost certainly end with a disconnect, or two, since your phone will likely toggle between 1-2 bars and "No Service" multiple times.

Here are my cellular data tests:

Date: May 20, 2017

NON-BOOSTED HOTSPOTS
AT&T - PING (86 ms); DOWN (6.59 Mbps); UP (4.52 Mbps) - 1 bar LTE
Verizon - PING (36 ms); DOWN (26.54 Mbps); UP (30.20 Mbps) - 3 bars LTE
Sprint - PING (62 ms); DOWN (8.46 Mbps); UP (0.57 Mbps) - 1 bar LTE
T-Mobile - NOT TESTED
Park WiFi - See NOTE *

NOTE: AT&T is 1-2 bars in some areas, but can easily drop to “No Service.” Having a booster will help the signal hold up, and speeds will be better than noted above.

NOTE: The park does have WiFi, if you’re lucky enough to get close enough to the Rangers’ Station or the Office (which means you’ll need to be in the partial hookup sites along the river — Sites 60-98). While I was able to connect to the park WiFi during the day, it was moderately slow (good enough for casual web browsing, but not good enough for video streaming), and I could not seem to connect in the late evenings -- which could indicate that the internet is disconnected when the Ranger and/or Office Staff leave for the day.

I had to tell myself “but it’s free” numerous times. We live full time on the road now and have been for a little over a year. That said, we do watch television and like to use the internet occasionally. No way could we get satellite and we tried for hours, no antenna signal and no cable, which is a bummer for us. We parked on the river that you could hardly see because of the tall grass and bushes....but it’s free. Our site was level but hard to back into site because manager was watching and was mad cause we were touching the grass saying it was just seeded. Ok I get that but the grass was very high so the seeding worked. It was raining so walking to our vehicle was hard cause of the tall grass. They had a grassy area across from us so hard to straighten trailer without touching dang grass....but it’s free.

Oh and I funny rule I think. Ranger told us there has to be someone in rv at all times or we have to let them know if we both wanted to go to town. Although the map they give you just says you have to have someone spending the night or you need to get permission from them ahead of time.

Thunderbird has the potential of being a top-notch campground but management doesn't seem to be concerned about maintenance. We stayed here for basically 2 months from late Jan through early March 2018 while I was on a nursing contract in Seattle. Admittedly, it was the rainy season and dirt roads don't mix well with non-stop rain...but the huge potholes in the roads were not new. You basically have to choose between 50A with no sewer hookup (River side) or 30A if you want sewer hookup (main campground). If we had paid full price for staying here (used our thousand trails membership, so free) we would have been very upset. At least half of the lots in the main campground side seem to be permanent residents, many with trailers that probably can't be moved because they have been there so long. We mostly stayed on the river side and broke camp weekly to dump our tanks and return. The view of the river was beautiful, and the laundry room was clean and very well maintained. There is a pool (in season only), and a barn that is a clubhouse. Miniature golf course was dilapidated, and the dog area was just mud with the fences falling in.

I would camp here again only because it is free with our membership, but I would not pay full price to stay here. However, if they do some upgrades this park could be tremendous!!

We loved staying here, not as much private space but everything was really nice, it was memorial weekend that we stayed through and they had alot of really nice activites for the kids, the adult and kids pool were nice and clean, the staff was really nice, and the had alot of really nice amenities. If you're looking for glamping then this isn't the place but most thousand trails aren't this is a nice place and they even give you an option to have in home wifi for a small price really awesome! We really enjoyed staying!

This was our first time staying at Thunderbird with our Thousand Trails pass. They were booked up on the website, but I called and the wonderful gal in the office (Cheryl, I think?) was able to piece 2 full weeks together for us. We were so grateful.

Tech Specs (WeBoost + Omnidirectional Antenna) -------
Verizon - our Verizon hotspot battery swelled up, so we weren't able to test Verizon this time.
AT&T - 13.6 mbps download | 1.29 mbps upload | 70 ms ping

Note: AT&T was spotty around the park. We were fine on data with our WeBoost, but struggled with phone calls if we weren't standing right beside the booster.

The Good --------
- The staff is super friendly and helpful
- Sites on the sewer side of the park are well shaded and fairly spacious (we admittedly had one of the better spots!)
- Activities are all close to the sewer campsites (playground, pool, mini golf), so I felt okay letting our kiddo play at the playground by himself.
- Pool was excellent (regular pool, "quiet pool", kiddie pool, and hot tub
- Monroe shopping is only about 10 minutes away, so it was super convenient to go to Safeway (free pickup!) and several restaurants nearby.
- River nearby is beautiful and crystal clear. Lots of folks floating in tubes and playing in the shallow areas.

The Bad --------
- If you don't get a sewer site on the "main" side of the park and have to camp on the river side, you have to cross a road to get to the pool, office, playground, etc. That would have been really inconvenient with kids. It's not the kind of road I'd want my kids crossing alone.
- On the sewer side, the men's bathroom only had one functioning shower (looks like they are remodeling), but the pool bathroom has 3 showers.

We took one of the interior sites instead of waterfront (which look amazing) because there is no sewer by the waterfront. If we were only here for 7 days, we'd take the waterfront in a second.

The interior sites range from not bad spacing to kind of tight for a big rig. Site 58 is one of the tighter ones and with our 43' rig we found the fire ring unusable. It was too bloody cold for us anyway, being early October, so no loss. There were lots of sites available shortly after noon on Sunday, but the park was almost full again by 4pm.

There is no 50 amp service in our site, but there are quite a few 50 amp sites in the interior loops. Waterfront is all 30 amp. The water from the spigot is clear and the sites are mostly flat, even going up the steep little hill on the far end. The roads could be better as even at 5 mph you will feel the pot holes. Staff is friendly has all heck and they try to make things right for you. They fill LP tanks on-site and there are several 24 hr gas stations that swap the smaller tanks.

No TV reception with our little HD antenna, but Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile are great. Unlike some locations, when we select a show on Hulu, it starts within seconds.

The road to the campground is in good repair, but very narrow with tight corners and narrow to nonexistent shoulders; I suspect it's a 35 mph road for that reason. Watch the corners as some of the electric poles are literally up against the road.

The whole area is one big beautiful park-like setting and Seattle is just 30 minutes away. There are nice grocery stores, hardware, and tons of local restaurants within 20 minutes. We plan to be back here in 2021 and will make this a three-week stop during early August.

The obligatory railroad is far enough away so it won't affect anyone except the very light sleepers. Traffic noise is a non-issue as it's a tight, little country road.

We got here March 31 st, just as Covid 19 was shutting the state down. We were only going to stay 16 days but the state issued a stay in place order so we ended up staying into May. The manager here, Kim Brunskill was an angel. She updated us directly whenever she got new info or instructions. The clubhouse and pools were closed by state order but they have a clean laundry area with 6 washers and 6 dryers. They also do propane refill here on Sundays through Thursdays during limited hours. The campgrounds are about 7 miles from Monroe which has a Walmart, Fred Myers, and Safeway. All the restaurants were closed for sit-in dining but some were open for takeout. There are dozens of drive-thru coffee shops so if that's your thing, your covered. This are es a small campground on the side of a hill and one does have to work at getting level but it's doable. Big rigs have some difficulties but they seem to manage as there are a number of them here. The campground on the north side of the road all have FHU, save one while the 2 campgrounds south of the road are water and electric only but are on the lovely Skykomish River. To the east are the Cascade mountains.
You're in the forest here Skyview with a dish is hit or miss and there is zero over the air TV reception. However, our Verizon coverage (using a booster) as just fine and we had no trouble streaming movies. We will stay here again.

We've been members since this was Leisure Time (30+ years), and used to come all the time tent camping with the kids. They're all grown now, and we come once or twice a year now that we're full-timers - summer and Xmas - to spend time with the kids and grandkids. To correct a few of the incorrect reviews, it's the Skykomish River, not the Snohomish. The north side of Ben Howard Rd, and therefore the north part of the campground and next to the river, is 50-amp and no sewer. The south side of the campground, where all the amenities are located, is 30-amp and FHU. At this time with the COVID restrictions, all the amenities are closed except restrooms and laundry.

Arrival was easy, we go into the day-parking lot, turn around, and walk to the ranger station next to it, because we're so big it's difficult to turn around to get back out of the main campground area if we go up to the ranger station like you would normally. The turns are tight in the main section, and there are only a couple spots we would fit it, one of which is handicapped, which we are not, and the other has been turned into an annual site. We already know that we'll fit in the west section river sites, 77-98. All sites are back-in, and sites 60-76 in the east river section are difficult to back into because of our length and the narrowness of the access "road". We pull our 45' toyhauler with a Freightliner, so we need a bit of room to maneuver the truck if the sites are too 90-degree square to the roads, like they are in the main campground. They're at a better angle in 77-98.

In the winter when it's rainy, this place is a mudhole. Nothing is paved, so it's mud, gravel, wet grass, you get the picture. In the summer when it's dry, it's pretty pleasant. The river is floatable from the campground down to the Monroe bridge, where there's great access with parking.

Ben Howard road is narrow, hilly, no shoulders. The one improvement we noticed is that they've lowered the speed limit to 25 in the vicinity of the campground, which is nice since you have to cross the road to get from the river side to the main side where the restrooms are located. Whether people observe that new speed limit or not seems to be hit or miss, but at least it can now be enforced if the county so chooses.

There is new management the past year or so, and things seem a little better, but this campground is so old that many things are in serious need of upgrading. It doesn't appear that Equity Lifestyle Properties (the overall owner) seems to spend much money on anything here, including regular maintenance. One toilet at the shower bathroom has been removed from the floor and was out of order the last time we were here nine months ago. Seems to me that kind of work should be done immediately. Perhaps it's COVID-related this time, but there's always at least one out-of-order each time we visit.

It's a great location for us because our kids live nearby, but if we had a better option we'd take it. I'm sure we'll be back, because no one is building new RV parks anywhere nearby.

Our favorite thing about this campground is the location near our family, and the river. We see eagles, and there's just something about the water that makes everything else bearable.

A very nice resort just outside the hustle and bustle of the city. On the shores of the Skykomish river (but waterfront sites don't have sewer). Two pools and a hot tub, a playground, and minigolf. Roads are gravel but despite heavy rain weren't muddy and are smooth enough for kids to ride their bikes.