Smith Lake Army RV Park

Oh buyer beware!!! I used to love this place and then there's the office staff, specifically Jessica and a David, not that the manager is any better!!! These folks cover each others poor manners and lack of respect. I have had problems with all 3 of these lovely folks! It floors me how the speak to people let alone treat them! I still really love this place, the small cabins are great experience and the kids love it! The large cabins are just as well, although you can hear right through the walls and there is only one bathroom, still a good choice, full kitchen a plus! Value is good..... The amenities were great until they started to charge, you have to pay per person too. A bit annoying but, I can understand why they did it..... If you can totally ignore the poor form of the office staff this is still a great place to camp out and have some family fun.

I am not going to sugarcoat this, as I do not plan on coming back except for an overnight stay. 1. Location: Close to Ft Bragg, this is a plus. The road to the RV camp leaves very much to be desired. To navigate the front entrance you must climb your RV over a very steep railroad tracks and without exception, scrap bottom. (Note the large long scars at the entrance.) To come in the back way you must travel down a long, dusty, bumpy gravel road. There is an alternate back road just as you leave Honeycutt Road, (first right turn) go down the smaller dirt road. This is a can do for smaller rigs and cars, low hanging tree limbs will damage the bigger rigs. 2. Cleanliness/Hospitality: This depends on who is on that day. At the desk everyone is nice and friendly but the overall manager can be hard to deal with at times. She makes up the rules as she goes along. They do have contract grounds maintenance people that do a fantastic job. However, there is no cleaning of the RV camp on a daily basis. The fire rings are being used for trash burning and trash litters the grounds. I watched a discarded Styrofoam container lay on the ground close to two weeks just to see how long it would take for it to be picked up. The park manager should make a visual inspection each morning and assign duties as needed to the working staff. It appears that they like to stay around the office when not “doing anything”. 3. Amenities/Facilities: If you are lucky you can have a table. Be careful of sitting on them because they have some very sharp edges on some. If you stay in a cabin, for God’s sake, do not move one to the front of your cabin! Nowhere in the “rules” does it say this but like I said before…the overall manager makes up the rules on the fly. She did this to one soldier who was told by a previous manager he could. He selected a table from and empty site but was rudely told to put it back and clean up the road where they brought it over. He vows to never come back and is advising all his buddies not to come here either. You may have a fire every night if you wish, fire rings are provided however they are so deep that grilling on them is pretty much out of the question. The woods have pretty much been cleaned of firewood so you may have to purchase some from a local vendor. 4. Cabins: They should be known as “Party Cabins and/or Party Houses”. Large numbers of young soldiers book these on the weekends and raise hell all night. These should NOT be located close to the RV'ers who just want to live a peaceful life without all the loud noise, screaming yelling drunks, and thumping music. 5. Value: About the same price as most MWR parks. However, NOT NEARLY as nice as you would think a post like Fort Bragg would have. It seems there is very little money spent here. Some of the older sites have not been improved since they were first put in almost 20 years ago. These sites are very unlevel (a large mound of crushed rock) and impossible to get some RVs level on them. The older sites are all ass-backwards as far as hookups, electric on the correct side but sewer and water hookups are on the wrong side. You must either use your neighbor’s sewer or drag yours under your rig risking a spill and causing a safety hazard for falling. Three days before we left the electrical box on our site went bad, for three days we reported it. It wasn’t fixed when we left but our plug in had been fried. 6. Overall Experience: Well, if you stay inside your rig so you don’t have to breath the dust from the vehicles speeding by your site, (yes, even the MPs and staff, worst violators) then you may have a pleasant stay. This is the only MWR where we have experienced this. Barking dogs…there aren’t any rules enforce on this issue. On one occasion I almost got into a fight with a soldier who let his two full-grown Rottweilers and German Shepard run loose. We found a pile of dog crap at our front door on one occasion. The German Shepard was then tied up and barked non-stop for 3 hours. When I ask the guy to shut the dog up he said they were authorized to have dogs here. I said, “I’m authorized to have an air-horn on my RV but I don’t honk it all day long. The Rottweilers were locked up in the house when a sign says, “no pets”. The hard working staff are overworked and the not so hard working staff slide. Young workers are given “gators” which they speed around on and doing very little work. When I ask one to slow it down I was given an attitude “stare” or a “hateful look” every time he went by. Helicopters fly overhead most of the day until up to 0200 (2:00 AM) but this is to be expected, as the RV camp is located on the edge of a helicopter base. Grin and bear it. This has the potential of being a very; very nice campground if it had proper management and support from the Fort Bragg Commander. Change the management and allot funding would be the best thing MWR could do here.

W.T. left this review using the Directory software: This travel camp desperately needs attention. We stayed here only because it was the least bad of the other available commercial campgrounds in the Fayetteville vicinity. The long, dusty gravel entrance road empties into two campgrounds, the upper one with concrete pads, tall weeds, dusty roads and neglected area, the lower campground the same with the exception of no sewer hook-ups. The campground host (recognizable by the amount of clutter around his coach) stated that he was an unpaid volunteer, who pays a site fee like everyone else. A bath house is being constructed in the upper campground, but the completion date is unclear. We will not return.

I have been to 44 military campgrounds during the past 5 years and this one is in the bottom 10. The entrance is almost 3 miles of dirt road with its share of potholes. It was dry and dusty today but it must be a mess after a heavy downpour. I stayed in the upper section where the sites have a concrete pad but the sites are surrounded by mostly bare ground with very little grass. The overall appearance of the campground is poor. Several RVs had a very trashy appearance as if they had been here a long time and were not concerned about their appearance. Quite a few barking dogs unattended outside the RV. Lots of trash on the ground throughout the campground. It seems that little or no resources are devoted to the maintenance of the campground. The only positive is the price - $10 with a Senior Pass.

Live about two hours from Bragg. Stopped at CG to decide if we wanted to stay for the next Special Ops Grad. We will absolutely PASS! With the MILLIONS poured into Fort Bragg, the installation should be ashamed of what they call a CG. Hope you can get in over the RR tracks with you big rig without damage. Heavy dust from dirt roads, low tree limbs may cause a problem. Being stationed here for over 12 years, (back in the 80's) I would recommend that they start all over and put a new CG some where north of Spring Lake area. I am embarrassed to see a facility like this one on a military installation

This was our third trip to Smith Lake and this time we were at site 5A with a cement pad, which was nice considering all the rain we have had. They have 5 cement pad pull throughs and 3 back in cement pads.The cabins are new and look very nice- were in use.Bathhouse was locked up when we were there but it was not inviting before. No tables, or fire rings but woods and lake are pretty. We have stayed at site #10 and #12 previously which were nicely wooded but could be more level. The railroad tracks are worse than before, spikes are protruding and will destroy someones tires. If you are staying there the post has a nice laundomat at the Mini Mall off Reily, cheap and clean.A little TLC and perhaps maps at check in would be nice.

Infrastructure is very good and that's about all I can say good about this place. We were scheduled to spend a week here and left after the first night. Roads are very dusty. Red mud everywhere on the sites. Very dismal place. The staff were very nice and the must expect unhappy people because they had no problem refunding our money. I'm going to add a picture of the site we were on for your viewing. It tells a lot.

I agree with the reviewer that said the CG does not do Bragg justice. I live at Ft. Bragg and we went there just for a weekend getaway. Our site was on the lake and beautiful view. We heard the occasional helicopter but, other than that, it was quiet. The roads are dusty, but we did not mind. There are more cabins there now. There are no grills and very few picnic tables. Also, there are only 1 or 2 fire rings. Makes roasting marshmallows rough. We were at site 18, which is for popups. We had a great view and a fire ring. It was very unlevel though. My main complaint is the facilities. The beautiful lake is off limits. No boating, fishing, canoeing, etc. The is a small ant infested swimming area that is open until 5pm. The waterslide advertised is broken. There appears to be a place where you used to be able to rent some sort of water craft that is now closed and looks about to fall down. It was depressing looking out from our campsite at such a gorgeous lake knowing that we could not go canoeing on it. The bathhouse was also scary. The facility itself was above average, it was just infested with spiders and not well maintained.The brass at Bragg need to take notice of this diamond in the rough they have here and make it worthy of Ft. Bragg.