Traveling Light Reflections
Thousand Trails Campground Review
Chesapeake Bay RV Resort
Glouchester, Virgina
The drive in
Route 198 from route 17 heading south into the campground is a little tight with little to no shoulders. Coming from the south your GPS may lead you up route 606 from route 17. This road has no shoulders. The driveway into the park is about ½ mile of paved road. It too is a bit tight in some spots if you need to pass an outgoing rig. There is plenty of room if both drivers are conscientious and follow the posted speed limit. Arriving at the gate we were quickly checked in and directed to a campsite that met the criteria we were looking for. They also allow you to explore and choose a site of your preference.
Campsites
All sites at Chesapeake Bay RV Resort have full hook-ups. We were immediately impressed by the size of our campsite and noticed this was true throughout the campground. The sites are larger/wider than most campgrounds we have been to. There is quite a bit of room between sites so we were not cramped. The majority of the sites are easily accessible even for big rigs. There is a mix of tree-covered sites as well as open-sky sites. We had site D02 which gave us the ability to use our Starlink after some repositioning. There are a number of seasonal sites but these sites are generally in the outside areas of the park. The stretch of sites that are along the pools, pickleball, and other activity areas are however predominately seasonal sites.
Campground amenities
I have to start with the ice cream! They have a great selection of Hersey’s brand hard-serve ice cream. The prices and quality are similar or better than you may find at an ice cream shop. The White House Cherry was a favorite. We also bought an extra pint of Coldbrew Caramocha to indulge in at desperate times when there is no good ice cream nearby. Additionally, the camp store is well stocked with your usual supplies. They were closed on Monday, but open the rest of the week. We are picky about our coffee so we can not tell you how the camp store coffee was, but we can say the coffee we make is excellent! Feel free to stop by for a cup.
For access to the Piankatank river, they have a concrete boat ramp with 2 fishing piers. This is a great spot to watch the sunrise and enjoy the morning fish jumping and an occasional blue heron in flight. The “beach” area is not far from the piers but it is not a sand beach as you might expect. Instead, it is a break-wall with a set of steps entering the water. In another section of the park, they have a kayak rack near a small lake that is large enough for a small adventure. Sadly, we did not get our ORUs out on this trip because I am still recovering from a spinal cord stimulator surgery.
The campground has 2 pools, 4 pickleball courts, a game room, mini golf, a playground, a hot tub, and probably a few other things I missed. We sat in the hot tub twice and we were alone both times. Oddly the shower heads in both the men’s and women's showers next to the hot tub are awkwardly low. Lower than the shower in our old KZ camper, where I always felt like I was doing squats while taking my military-style shower. You need to crouch down to get under them. The water was plenty hot enough though. The 2 pools were closed for the season, but I imagine they would be very refreshing in the hot Virginia summer. We felt that most of the park was clean and well maintained. We were there in the last week of September, so they were decorating the park with a fall and Halloween theme. We learned that they do Halloween here. They close the roads to traffic and let the kids trick-or-treat. They do this not once but 3 times! They have Halloween the weekend before and after Halloween too. If you are going to be there, stock up on candy.
Campground activities
While we were there they had line dancing, candy bar bingo, tie dying, a chili cook-off, a scavenger hunt, and some other family-friendly activities. I wish we could tell you about some of these activities but we did not make it to any of them.
Sites, views, walks around the campground
We always walk and explore every campground we visit. It is fun to see the different campers and meet new people. One day we walked out to the section with the cabins. They were all empty however it was a nice walk. This then led us to a small trail past the kayak pond and back down to the river. It’s a short, but worthwhile adventure.
Cell reception
Cell reception with Verizon was great. A neighbor with T-Mobile was not too happy with their service. Sorry, we can not write about other cell providers. We use Star Link as a primary source of internet on the road. We intentionally found a site with a view of the north sky. We were on site D02. There are just enough trees though that we needed to be pretty strategic while setting it up. Ours was great for watching Umbrella Academy on Netflix, There were interruptions to our internet every once in a while. Most of the time it worked great. Other times it was incredibly frustrating. Star Links are getting more popular! We saw about 6 other Star Links in use here. Dish Networks were all over the place. It seemed like everybody had 2 or more Dish network dishes! What is up with that? Are we missing something?
