Camanche Recreation Company - North Shore - Ione, California

Maira N. L.

As camping season is approaching, I wanted to share my experience.

This was the Yelp review I wrote last July when I vowed to NEVER return to this campsite which is crazy as I had gone 10 years recommending this place to everyone.

It is with a heavy heart that I write this review. My family and I have been loyal patrons of this site for over a decade (12 years), making at least two trips every summer. This amounts to a minimum of 24 visits, each one filled with cherished memories shared with our extended family and friends.

This weekend, we encountered a series of unfortunate events that culminated in an experience that was far from pleasant. The severity of the situation was such that I felt compelled to share my feedback, as I did not feel adequately heard by the staff during our stay.

First, when we arrived Friday night, the patrol agent gave us an official warning since we were too loud and would be asked to leave at 7 am the following day. I know their policy says no music, generators, or loud noises after 10 pm; however, it was only 11:30 when the officer rudely demanded we quiet down. We were talking/laughing and had not even been drinking, so we were baffled and uncomfortable. We didn't know what to do, so we all slept.
The following morning, another ranger came in to talk to us about our warning the previous night. We had violated their policy, and they were warning us. I said they needed to update their policy if loud talking was not allowed since I know there are quiet zones on Blue Oaks. Later that afternoon, another ranger stopped to tell us the strings on our campsite weren't allowed.

Later that night, we received yet another reminder that we were loud last night and to not "repeat last night's incident." At this point, this was the fourth time we had been approached by rangers, and although the second interaction was friendlier, we felt very harassed. On top of everything, the ranger gave us yet another warning, this time about "excessive trash" on our campsite. While we had a few glass bottles, we separated them since there weren't bins to recycle, but he said to throw them away. We had an extra bag and put them all in right that second, but go, Camanche Ranger, for discouraging eco-friendly habits! I guess everyone should throw away recyclables.

The craziest part was the next day, someone was drunk driving around the parking lot with a baby on the driver's side, and it took rangers forever to arrive, and they never escorted them out. My dad spoke to someone at the front, and it seems they have more funds to hire rangers and police people on their campsites but not enough to prevent harmful interactions. They should be funding their custodial staff, which is probably underpaid and understaffed by the extremely disgusting shape those bathrooms were in this weekend. No toilet paper for a whole day. It's so bad I canceled my and my friend's reservation for the fourth of July. There is no point in going somewhere you can't have fun. I highly suggest updating their website so people know what they're getting. I'm telling all my friends, coworkers, classmates, and everyone I've recommended how terrible the management is, which makes me sad since I loved this place.

Explorer45954159782

Had the best time with my grandparents! Everything was so fun it was my 1st time camping so we saw wild deer and a bucha other stuff. My favorite part was being able to go in the lake close to the rocks and just see nature in general. Food was the best part lmao homemade grandma's cooking never fails.

Gene X.

Worst service and BS statements all around (North Shore Entrance). Woke up at 3am to just get to the gate at 5am. I have a motorized Kayak, but I forgot my registration at home (only need registration if using motor btw). So fine, I told the girl with the nasty attitude that I won't put my motor on then, nope not good enough I need to turn around. Ok, so I already wasted my time and I don't really want to drive 2 hours back. So told her I will fish on shore then and not kayak at all. NOPE, sorry you have a kayak on the back of your car go somewhere else. What kind of BS is this Management? I'm pretty reasonable and I never write negative reviews, but this I can't let go. Will not be returning here ever, plenty of lakes that stock trout around here. This was crap!

edwinduerr

Stayed in one of the cottages, 4 person queen sized bed. There is a queen sized bed in the bedroom and a roll away bed in a closet. The room was very clean and everything was working. In the kitchen was a small 4 burner cooktop with built-in oven, a microwave, toaster, and coffee maker. There were also dish towels, dish soap, and sponges. There were basic pots, pans, and dishes. Soup bowls were pretty small. The sofa was comfy. TV had over air stations. No wifi but you could hook a laptop up to it if you bring an HDMI cable. I used my phone while I was there as a wifi hotspot. Bedroom has a reasonable sized closet which you can't see in the photo. Bathroom had liquid soap dispenser next to the sink and in the shower. No shampoo, no kleenex, but pleanty of towels and toilet paper. There was a small grill off the patio (like you find in many parks). Didn't use the A/C as it was cold but the heater worked just fine. Only complaint is that I did not like the taste of the tap water.

Susan G.

Parking area for horse trailers is Hard to find! Need more trails to ride. The trail that's there is a little rocky in sections, but easy ride with a pretty view of the lake.

H V.

My family and I have been camping at South Shore for over 10 years. We have always had a great fun time and a great customer experience with front gate people. ||We never had such a bad experience until this time for over 10 years!||All the young ladies at the South Shore front gate needs to have more training - they all needs to be properly trained on how to greet customers with a happy face and to have a pleasant attitude with customers. The ladies were are all so rude. But expect the older lady…the older lady was very nice and she had a pleasant customer friendly attitude. ||Ok now… let’s get to the real topic for my review.||Each year for over 10 years, we’ve always reserved 5 days stay here. Our site was always a group site and are allowed 24 people and 6 vehicles. ||When some of our party had to leave we were always able to return the parking tags at front desk to have the parking tag for another vehicle that came out later. We have never reached over our capacity of persons on our site, and we’ve always made sure on how many vehicles are parked on our campsite and never reached over capacity (if it were over vehicle capacity then they would always pay for daily pass). But this time it was such a big hassle and issue with this specific RANGER GREG PERSON regarding how many vehicles or how many people are coming into our camp site. ||The Ranger GREG PERSON didn’t allow this process. GREG PERSON said “WHICHEVER COMES FIRST POLICY” - 24 people or 6 vehicles- he will not allow any other people or vehicle to enter to our site. ||Ranger GREG PERSON also had the audacity to say the we were sneaking people in. Why the hell would we need to sneak people in when we didn’t even meet the capacity of people!! We are not the type of people to be sneaking anyone into our campsite. We literally only left campus when needed to get ice bags from the local store in town. We were always able to drive in and out of the gates to buy some ice at the local store near town and we never had an issue or anyone accusing us of sneaking people into our campsite.||And now…my brother drove 3 hours to get here and wasn’t allowed in. The front desk wouldn’t let him in, because of Ranger GREG PERSON didn’t allow it.|(We had 5 vehicles parked at our site and still had 1 vehicle tag left for my brother to park, and had 18 people at our site)||GREG PERSON said the only way this would work to let my brother into our campsite is that we had to pay for another campsite (we’ve already paid $1,144 for our group site). So of course, since my brother drove 3 hours to get here. I paid for another campsite $54.75 to let my brother into our camp, while paying for the additional site the lady that took my payment said my brother isn’t allowed on our campsite. Really!?! The Ranger GREG PERSON said “the only way this would work” is for me to purchase another site, which I did!!||When a vehicle left our campsite for the whole stay, we were always able to switch out the vehicle tags for the next vehicle that were staying.||We’ve been doing this for over 10 years. There’s nothing stated on their website, or on our itinerary, or receipt payment, or emails reminders of our upcoming stay that states a “WHICHEVER COMES FIRST POLICY”||If the Ranger Greg Person and or the front gates ladies had an issue or doubts with head counts and vehicles on our campsite then they should ALL JUST DO THEIR JOB! GO CHECK how many people and vehicles are on our campsite…then there wouldn’t be such an issue and I wouldn’t have had to be pressured to purchase another campsite. ||From reading some of the others reviews that had the same issue as us. Ranger GREG PERSON is prejudiced towards Asian people. ||Ranger GREG PERSON made our stay a nightmare. He was happy giving us a hard time and forcing us with no choice to purchase another site||WILL NEVER COME BACK CAMPING HERE.|Unless if this Ranger GREG PERSON is no longer working at this lake, and all the young ladies at the front gate are all properly trained to have a nice attitude with customers, then we may think about coming back.

Becca S.

The customer service is awful! First, their "Terms and conditions" state that they only allow "2 vehicles max per site" but do not state that no other vehicles were allowed to be on the property at all. I have camped at many different lakes and campgrounds in the past that have vehicle restrictions per site but still allow extra vehicles to be parked in an overflow parking area and just charge a daily fee for the extra vehicle. So when we arrived with 3 vehicles and were told that our family in the 3rd vehicle would have to park their vehicle off the property, and after an hour and a half drive to the lake, we were quite frustrated to say the least. Then I was told that they could drive to the camp site and unload their vehicle, after we arrived to the camp site a park ranger showed up and said that they needed to leave immediately and should have never driven into the campgrounds. After explaining that we were told they could unload the park ranger reluctantly allowed them to stay to unload. We then were told, by the same park ranger, that if there was another site around us that only had one vehicle at their site we could ask them if we could park there and pay the additional fees for the extra vehicle. Which we immediately were told by a neighbor camp that we could use their extra site. So our family member drove back to the front gate to pay the fees and when they arrived at the gate they were told to leave the campgrounds immediately, when they explained what they were trying to do, which is what the park ranger had told us we could do, they were told "No you can't do that because you didn't listen the first time when you came through the gate without permission" which was not true because we were told that they could come in and unload the vehicle. So our family member had to leave and did not get to spend the weekend with us. This was extremely frustrating and ridiculous. There was no reason they needed to make them leave. The campgrounds have a "strict" and I say that with sarcasm, quiet hours from 10:00pm-8:00am which states in their terms and conditions that there is to be no music at all, and no loud noises but they don't do any monitoring of this whatsoever because there was non stop partying and loud music and noise all night long. Dogs barking from 6:00am and non stop all day. I will never return to this campground again. They way my family was treated was unacceptable. The fact that they were so ridiculously strict about an extra vehicle but allowed extreme chaos and noise to ramble on all night long was just ridiculous. Take your family to a different campground and actually enjoy your camping experience.

Angie M.

It was a beautiful place to camp and the lake was amazing. There were dead fishes which smelled bad but that's not the reason for the 3 stars. I actually didn't mind the dead fishes. It was the absolutely horrific amount of spiders near our campsite. There was this tree right above our tent and table, and spiders would come down on their webs onto our things. It was like a horror movie. I swear at least 10 spiders would come down every minute. I have a very big fear of spiders, but we also wanted shade. And many landed on me. When we were packing everything up, we tried to take the spiders off but they were literally EVERYWHERE. On our cars, on the tents, inside, on the stove, table, chairs ground. It was horrible. I understand that it was THEIR environment and not ours, but this is just a warning to people who have arachnophobia. Everything else was perfect just be careful in the showers because there are spiders there too and you have to pay.