Birmingham South RV Park

Great night manager welcomed us and escorted us to our pull thru 50amp site. The camp was quieter than I expected after I read complaints about the train. I did hear it once per night.
While we had a pull thru site, many others without pull thru have great SHADE trees.

The location was a couple miles from several restaurants and 20 miles from Birmingham. We used the camp location as a home base as we traveled to Tuscaloosa for a game, Selma and Birmingham to visit. I worked here 1.5 days and on zoom calls using my Verizon hotspot.

The freight train and interstate noise are the price you pay for convenience... and and the Price! There is nothing scenic or exclusive about this place. It’s just an old KOA that’s convenient to I-65 and Birmingham. I think the pad actually used to be asphalt, but it has disintegrated into part gravel. On-line reservation put us in site 49, which was Under the dinette of the nice people in site 50. The staff was very nice about letting us move to 43... by the propane fill station and playground... so we had space outside our door. Most sites are packed in pretty close together. I would have more nice things to say if B’ham South wasn’t so unjustifiably expensive.

The only reason I did not give a 5 stars review was because the sites have some dirt and I prefer paved sites.
Other than that everything is great at this campground. The pool is beautiful and pristine clean, office and store very neat. Staff very accommodating, they even had a Independence Day celebration for guests with hot dogs, live music, refreshments, s’mores and campfire.
I wish I could have stayed more days at this campground that used to be a KOA.
I had issues calling them. An answering machine tells you all the time that they are busy and to leave a message but press 0 and you will be connected to front desk.

This was a former KOA park and based on the previous review, we decided to stay the night in order to explore Birmingham. The park is about 15 minutes south of Birmingham. It is right off the freeway, so we found it to be conveniently located. We did hear the trains throughout the night, as well as road noise.

We only require water and electricity in our Vanagon, and because we didn't require full hook-ups, the campground policy was to assign us to a corral of sorts. It is a circular wooden structure, divided into parts (like a bicycle wheel). The idea is that the electricity is at the very center of this circular corral. However, it is more than 25 feet away from where you can park your vehicle. This didn't work for us. Our electric cord was 30 feet long and it wouldn't reach. The person at the front desk suggested another site next to the dog run or else they could offer a refund.

There were plenty of empty paved sites, but their policy disallowed non-RV's to use them (even if we paid the higher rate). I was surprised at the non-flexibility of the campground. We moved to the run-down site that they offered us and determined we could make do for the night.

Because of the distance from our campsite to the bath house/administrative building, we could not access the campground's wi-fi. On the positive side, there is an outdoor kitchen area near the circular corral, which we didn't use, but it seemed like a nice touch.

Note: The $33.12 paid was for electricity and included a 10% discount (they still honor KOA memberships).

This is our 7th time at this former KOA park. It honors the Good Sam discount now and the rate of $36.90 for 50 amp full hook up site, reflects that. Our 1st time was in June 2011 and it has gotten better on each visit. We have stayed in 8 different sites.

On this visit we were in a long term back-in site, and the monthly rate (30 days) for a 50 amp site is $627. That includes electric and a state tax of $75. We were in a 33 foot 5th wheel.

The asphalt site was in fair shape and almost level. The surfaces of the sites we have stayed in have been fair to good. Some are gravel, some are asphalt, some have concrete walks, but it has been a while since the sites have been worked on. A lot of the concrete is broken and a lot of the asphalt sites need resurfacing. There are a few sites that look unusable and we have never seen rigs in them. Water and electric and sewer has always worked fine. There has been a lot of asphalt patching and the roads are much better, but there are still a fair number of pot holes. The Wi-Fi has recently improved too. We have always been able to get a good shot with our DirecTV portable dish. Verizon 4G works fairly well too.

The staff is extremely nice and helpful. Once when we pulled in, we had a problem with the site next to us and as soon as we brought it to the attention of the office, they took care of it.

There are some negatives. The only dog "run" is a quite small fenced area on the extreme north side. It would be nice if there was another one on the south side. The cable TV is very bad. After being told several times that it will be upgraded soon, there are now signs up stating that they no longer have cable TV. Overall, the park is quiet with a mix of full/long timers and transients. There are 2 active train tracks within a quarter mile, with crossings that require train horns; you will hear trains 24/7. We didn't mind it a bit because we like, and are used to train sounds, but some might not like it.

We will stay again.