Crystal Cove State Park

Just a one night stay, but it’s a well laid out campground with newer restrooms and showers. Tokens for showers uses credit cards which was nice, since I needed 16 quarters at the last campground. Of course the main attraction is the beach and views, both of which are amazing. Disappointed in restrictions on dogs, but understand and complied. A bit hard to find, I thought my navigation lady was lying to me, but she was correct. Pricey, but it’s the beach.

(stayed here 12/5-9/2021). Clean, quiet campground with ocean views. Sure, they have lots of rules (other reviewers seemed peeved) but since this is such a popular location, things need to be well-managed and orderly. All of the sites have ocean views and picnic table. We stayed in a "tent" site which is limited to 25ft TTs. Plenty of room for our TT and lots of space for the F-150. Easy access to the beach even with the steep road and water in the underpass. You can walk all the way to the Crystal Cove "village" of rental cabins, bar and restaurant, and visitor's center. At the campground, there is also a visitor's center with maps for the canyon hiking trails. Clean restrooms and pleasant staff. Your camping reservation also covers the other state parking lots along the coast for the duration of your camping trip.

As another reviewer commented, they will not let you in until 3:00, so don't bother driving up there until then There are plenty of day use areas along the Newport Coast that you can take advantage of if you're willing to pay the day use fee.

Saw no ants but dropped a star due to the dirt pitches. They're not even gravel, just dusty dirt which is really too bad.

Parking a normal car is almost impossible in Laguna Beach so don't plan on parking your RV down there for the day. :-)

I have a 16 ft trailer so I camped in the tent spaces which are much preferable to me as you have a lot more space. I have been here many times, this is one of my favorite places to camp. Beautiful views of the ocean.

Just like another review below stated, the ant issue here is insane. We just spent a month driving across the entire United States and never experienced anything close to this. I’m not even sure we saw an ant the entire trip, but now we’ve seen enough to last us forever.

When we arrived, we noticed lots of sites had 4-5 faded white circles on the ground. Weird. We got settled into our site and within an hour had a line of ants going from one side of our RV to the other, totally ignoring peaches, a glass half full of kombucha....and there were hundreds of them. We thought it a fluke, closed up all food items (though the ants didn’t seem to care about food) and got rid of the ants we could find.

By the time we got back to the rig from a trip up to Huntington, the original line was back but this time it was thousands of ants. I pleaded with my husband to ask the gate guard if they were aware of this issue and when he returned, I was shocked to hear that yes, in fact, they do know about it AND recommended a product to us but didn’t inform us or warn us when we checked in. So, at 9:30 at night we headed back out towards Huntington to find a store that was open that carried anything that could help remedy the situation.

Shame on the staff here - it was like they were laughing, waiting to see how long it would take for the ants to show up.

Bring diatomaceous earth to protect your rig before checking into this otherwise beautiful park. Our neighbors said they were “spraying” for ants, which is a terrible disservice to the longevity of the park and water quality - a quick fix would be for the staff to be honest and possibly stock a product at the gate or store for campers to use or buy.

UPDATE: 9/22/19
This is an update to my previous review about ants at Crystal Cove. We stayed there 5 days ago and are STILL having massive attacks of ants inside our rig from where they got in between the outer shell and the interior. What a nightmare.

We are from So. California originally, so have been to Crystal Cove in years past, but this was our first time coming in a long time. There are several entrances to the park as a whole. None of them indicate where the campground is and the entrance to the CG (at the El Morro entrance) is a little unusual. It looks like you are turning into a school with a very narrow street coming down the hill beside it. That is the entrance and is not fun if you arrive when school is letting out since you have to yield to downhill traffic.

We arrived at 1:30 and were told that under no circumstances would they let us in until 3. We asked if there was somewhere we could pull over to wait and were told "No" although, we did end up going to the Visitor Center and found space there with a couple of others who were also waiting. One ranger told us he would go ahead and register us and make an exception and let us in at 2:30. But when we came back at 2:30, a different ranger was very upset and denied that anyone would have said that. He said he wouldn't let us in until 2:55.

Eventually, we got to our site and decided to pull front in so we could take advantage of the beautiful views. We weren't settled for 30 minutes when the camp host said we were going to be ticketed if we didn't turn around and go back in instead of front in. He also didn't seem to be enjoying his duties.

The sites are packed sand and gravel and marked with an area your tires need to stay within. There is a spot for your tow car beside it and a large area to put chairs out behind with beautiful ocean views.

The maximum length is listed as 35' and our 32' fit with enough room to pull our car in front of it. The dry camping sites are listed as max. 25', but a rough measure of them indicated we could have fit in a number of them, also. We would have definitely taken advantage of them if we could because they are half the price and at $73/night with no sewer, etc., the upper sites are expensive.

The beach is walking distance. The tide pools are almost empty of sea life. There were a few sea anemones, but that was it. Very different from how it used to be. There is also a lot of tar on the beach so check your feet when you come back up the hill to your RV.

There are pretty, well maintained hiking trails within walking distance of the CG. Our granddaughter did the Jr. Ranger book. Most of her ranger experiences are so positive and engaging, but again, the ranger seemed very unhappy.

There were many campers who packed more than the maximum number of people allowed into their campsites. It was VERY noisy at times. Also, people were bathing and doing dishes with the outside water hose to avoid paying for the showers causing a lot of detergent, etc. to go on the ground.

Before leaving, I asked a ranger why you couldn't pull in front first to take advantage of the view. His answer was that they needed to see the ticket with your check-out date on it. I asked why it couldn't be posted on the back window and he said no one ever asked.

Beautiful ocean views and walking distance access to the beach are hard to beat no matter what.