Whispering Pines Campground

I am giving it 2 stars for location to the southern outer banks and the cell service. Otherwise, I wouldn't stay here again. It is supposed to be an "Encore park" through Thousand Trails. They have about 10 spots allocated for these members. They are of course the worst, uneven spots. I get it, they don't make any $ on Thousand Trails/Encore members, but the uneven (also hard to back into due to trees directly in front of the sites to back around) sites aren't the only issue. There is drug activity here. We had to call the manager because of a woman who was clearly high walking around in just a kind of long shirt, dancing in the streets, talking and yelling at no one and spending hours doing this at the empty site directly next to us. Come to find out she is apparently the girlfriend of someone who lives here. It is just not a comfortable feeling to have this kind of activity right next to our site. I called Thousand Trails to let them know about the conditions of this park and they could really care less. They said it was my responsibility to call the police (we called the manager who did come to make sure she was removed from the property so we were thankful for that) but I could email member services if I chose to do so. I decided to share it here.

I booked 2 weeks here, it's in a nice location but exactly 1/2 the way to Emerald Isle going east or west. The park is right on route 24 and you can hear traffic 24/7 if your windows are open, otherwise the traffic noise is tolerable.

These are some really tight spaces, my neighbor is about (from my slide to his travel trailer) 15' and when his awning is out about 3-5' away. The spots seem mostly level (didn't need blocks under my jacks) and have full hookups. While it seems true that Thousand Trail members, including me this time, get the 9-24 row of wide-open, tight spots, I did meet others who were in pull-through spots of 38-45 that were also Thousand Trail members; maybe you have to ask for pull-through and not just take what they offer you at checkin.

The park has mostly permanent residents who, at least at this time in November, are very nice and cordial to visitors, I've chatted with many of them. Thre is a dog park but most of the roads in the park are nice for walking a dog.

The facilities are immaculate, the laundry room has 4 washers and 4 dryers, all working! The bathrooms are like new (see photos). The pool was very nice but closed in November. The staff are very helpful. The office store is filled with trinkets and art, not really anything useful, but fun to look at. Internet is so good here I didn't need my booster.

I'd stay here again without hesitation but I'd ask for one of those pull-through spots 138-145 instead of the 9-24 on the main drag.

As usual, the Thousand Trails section is not the same as other sites in the park. It’s rally style camping at best. We have a trailer with 3 pick up trucks next to us and then the 4 young children joined the party. Parents can make or break neighbors camping experience. We couldn’t take the excessive noise any longer.

Brian was nice enough to move us to the dog park side of the park, space 139, where we thoroughly enjoyed the end of our stay. We would camp again on this side. I’d rather pay for a site than endure the rally-style parking.

The campground is nice and maintained. Lots of pine trees and several ponds on premise where we enjoyed the ducklings each morning.

As part of the Thousand Trails membership trails collection, this campground separates, it's monthly members, from what they call translate guest. The regular sites, are 4 star, but the campsites provided for Thousand Trail members are small, muddy and on top of each other. Evident even by the site numbers, show the regular sites have been split into A and B sites.

The staff are very friendly, and helpful. The park is clean and the pool and it having a private boat launch is excellent. I would gladly stay here again on a regular site, but I would not stay here again in a Thousand Trails site.

The management of this place has no clue about customer service. They agreed to allow us to use our Clam screen room before paying but after we used it awhile they changed their minds and mad us take it down. No reason to do so.

Stay elsewhere if you can.

This is not really a campground as most of the tenants are long term leasers

Campground Name: Whispering Pines Campground
Location: Newport, NC
Overall Campground Rating (1-5): 4
Maneuverability*: Backing into sites is easy enough but the campground is somewhat difficult to navigate due to one-way roads and a median you’re not supposed to drive over. For example, we had to drive a short distance the wrong way on a one-way road to get to our campsite. While parking at the laundry room, you have to leave and re-enter the campsite to get back to your site. We did, however, see plenty of other people driving the wrong way down one-way roads. Also, the one-ways roads are only noted as such on the campground map; there are no physical markings on the roads themselves.
Campground Notes: Very peaceful and quiet place near the OBX beaches. Brenda at the office was friendly. Majority of sites are permanent or seasonal, but the place still had a nice vibe. This place was better than we expected by other reviews we had read, and we will stay here again in the future.

Site #: 20B
Site Rating (1-5): 3
Site Notes: Very long site, can fit any length rig. Full hookups with 50 amp electric, stable voltages, and good water pressure. Site was pretty muddy after tropical storm Eta but no flooding. No trees so there was no shade but that was also a benefit during the storm. There was a nice picnic table and fire ring.

Amenity Rating (1-5): 4
Amenity Notes: Great playground equipment, nice lake with an island you can go out on, nice laundry room - $1.25w/$1.50d (although there was something in one of the machines that got on our clothes), pool looked nice but was closed for the season

Reason for camping here: Heading South and were looking for an alternative to Carolina Landing that had good internet for work, near the beach
Miscellaneous Notes: Great location - Proximity to multiple nice beaches, restaurants, groceries, etc.

Dates Stayed: 11/8/2020 – 11/15/2020, 7 days
Price Paid: $0, with Thousand Trails membership
Weather: Hit by tropical storm Eta with rain and wind, otherwise it was in the 70s during the day and 50s at night. Great weather for relaxing (but not swimming) at the beach.
Verizon Cell Quality**: Excellent cell service, 55.6 Mb/s download and 29.8 Mb/s upload
Mail: NA - Did not have any mail delivered here

* For reference we are pulling a 33’ long Jayco travel trailer with a 2016 F350 Crew Cab Short Bed 4x4 which is 22’ with hitch giving us a total length of 55’.
**For reference we have two Google Pixel 2 XL on Verizon ‘Play More” unlimited data plans. For data we have an Inseego 8800L on Verizon’s expired prepaid unlimited hotspot plan. In areas of low signal we use a Netgear 6000450 MIMO antenna. Measurements are taken using the “Multi” test on Speedtest by Ookla.

A review by sdplusztravels, a fulltime family of three living on the road in a RV. This review is our opinion and we have not been sponsored or compensated by anyone. Follow us on Instagram (@sdplusztravels) and Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/SDplusZ/). YouTube coming soon!