Living in an RV or Why I Use My Wife’s Deodorant

We spent a month at Elite Resorts Crystal River (Florida). This RV park was called Rock Crusher Canyon RV Park until Elite Resorts purchased it during our stay in January, 2008. We chose this park due to its high ranking in Woodall’s directory (5W5W). We originally opted to stay for one week, but quickly extended to one month. We decided to stay for a month mostly due to the fact that we were just exhausted after traveling for almost a week without a break.

The campground itself is absolutely beautiful with many large, wooded sites. Many of the sites were occupied by snowbirds who had been coming to this park for many years. The fellow campers were very friendly. All sites had 20/30/50 amp connections, water with good pressure, sewer connections, and cable tv. The usual range of activities from bingo to card games were offered. During our time at the campground, wireless internet connectivity was very limited and the heated swimming pool was unheated. Supposedly these were victims of the change of ownership process, but they were very unwelcome.

The Crystal River area we found to have very few things to recommend a long stay in the area. The main attraction to the area appears to be manatee viewing. However, once you’ve seen the manatees, there is little else in the immediate area. For example, the nearest super wal-mart is in Inverness, over fifteen miles from the park. The choice in restaurants is also very limited – both ourselves and others in the campground regularly traveled to Inverness to eat out. If you’re into kayaking, this area appears to attract those who are active kayakers. There are three state parks in the immediate area. Crystal River is also far enough north that we regularly had to use our furnace here.

As i mentioned, Elite Resorts purchased this park during our stay. This was our first experience with a park whose owner is involved solely in selling RV lots. During an introductory luncheon with the new owners, it became very apparent that most of the campers who had been coming to the park for many years were having big problems with the new owner. For example, many people had been staying in the same site year after year. This will no longer be possible. The new owners did promise improvements such as actually having wireless internet in all the park, building a new bigger activities building and pool, and fixing the heater in the old pool.

As much as I wanted to like this park, I won’t be coming back here. I’ve pretty much done everything there is to do in the area. Also, if I’m going to travel to Florida for the winter, I really want to stay some place where the temperatures are warmer than in Crystal River. For example, there was a hard freeze during our stay and several nights below freezing. With the antagonism towards the current owners, I just don’t want to be involved in a situation where the campers do not trust the owners.