Lake Minden RV Resort Thousand Trails

The limited fhu area is so cramped it's hard to want to sit outside. My only view is a huge class A. The number of feral cats is so bad and they use the gravel around my rv as their litter box. The mosquitoes are so bad (probably due to the nasty, green, lake water) that the citronella candle has no effect. The only "real" playground and the ONLY dog park is on the other side of the lake 3/4 of a mile around. Ranger Pat was very helpful but I haven't spoken to any others. Wifi is only in the lodge, but at least it's available there. Laundry room is TINY, but clean, as is the ladies room/showers.
I'll be back because I'm a TT member and it's the closest one to Redding (2.5 hrs away) but they have some improvements they should do.

I stayed at the Lake Minden Resort for about 10 days. I was in the area visiting a dying family member in the hospital. I held unusual hours becuase of being in the hospital at night. When I checked into the park, I specifically reviewed ALL materials given to me to make sure I would not be breaking any rules by sleeeping during the day and leaving the trailer at night. There was no rule stating NOT to leave the trailer overnight. I am aware that some parks have this rule. Usually the checkin materials include wording about this - if this rule exists. It was only after they left a "violation" note on my door that I knew they had this Rule. How can it be a violation, if it is not communicated to you! I immediately, upon receiving a note on my door, contacted the office and explained the situation. They seemed fine with my unusual hours. They NEVER told me they were going to complain to Thousand Trails. I pay a large amount of money to Thousand Trails for my membership and, becuase of their complaint, my membership was temporarily suspended. I would have left if they had informed me that they were going to complain. This situation is extremely upsetting. I had a family member dying. They knew the situation and yet they complained. The worst of it is that I was in my trailer every day!! This complaint shows a lack of empathy/compassion. I would never stay here again. I prefer to stay at places where people are friendly and empathic. Shame on them.

The Thousand Trails Lake Minden Resort is located convenient to Lincoln, California and the greater Sacramento area. We stayed four overnights at the Thousand Trails Lake Minden Resort. The Lake Minden Resort is more of a campground than a resort. In this video, I provide a tour of the campground and amenities. Lake Minden Thousand Trails is a great place to resupply as there is a Sam’s Club, Costco, a Costco fuel center with diesel fuel, and a wide variety of shopping, banking, and restaurants available within 25 miles of the campground. Verizon cellular service clocked in at 28.8 Mbps download speed and 4.60 Mbps upload speed. AT&T cellular service clocked in at 128 Mbps download speed and 21.8 Mbps upload speed. T-Mobile cellular service clocked in at 0.79 Mbps download speed and 0.84 Mbps upload speed.

Tolerable TT campground. Very small sites, limited full hookup. No pool, lake water is nasty. Small bathroom/shower facility in full hookup section. Fair quality. Full hookup sites mixed in with cabins. Clientele was rather rough. Nice open field with soccer goals and basketball court, but on the opposite side of the lake from the full hookup section. Camp store is very limited. The “restaurant” on site is open but the word restaurant envisions something far more substantial and developed than what’s there.

Just pulled into Lake Minden and we’re in the section at the front; A I believe, with FHU.

The sites are super tight-were right up next to one of the cabins! But the people are nice, the staff is friendly, it’s pretty quiet here,and we can see the lake. The sunset over the water is beautiful. We have seen mosquitoes but not to excess; but it we did get her around 7 pm.

There is a bit of trash in our site that my hubby picked up but otherwise it’s not a bad stopover place; not sure we’d come here to stay longer.

It's a nice park, easy to get to, and fairly well maintained. The road leading in is marginal in spots, but the gravel road in the campground is pretty good. The A section, which has sewer, is designed for smaller rigs and is quite tight. The D section, which is electric/water only, boasts much larger and wider sites. There is a dump right in the middle of D section near the bath house.

Cell data has been overall decent, but at times was marginal. Streaming had few problems, so the download speeds seem to be fine with plenty of capacity; with only a couple of issues with downloading files while we were here. The upload speeds seem to vary greatly. Speedtest.net says Verizon is 34mb down and 18mb up at 5:48am on a Monday. After 3 weeks, I would say that T-Mobile is the best signal for my experience as my iPad mini usually has 3 bars while everything else struggles for 2 bars. AT&T often times drops down to 1 and sometimes goes to No-Service. Sprint often times drops out completely, so a booster would really make things nicer.

For some reason there is no airport or train track nearby and traffic noise is nonexistent as highway 99 is about a mile through the woods/orchards. Don't get me wrong, there are a few airports around, but we aren't directly under the landing path so my 5th wheel walls easily block it out most of the passing traffic. Occasionally you'll hear a small plane overhead. The train, which appears to be even farther away then the highway, is best heard outside and I've never noticed it when I'm indoors. No rumbling, just the occasional horn. If you want to hear any of that you'll need to leave your window open.

When night comes, it gets fairly dark as there are not a lot of artificial lighting in D section. Enough to maneuver around, usually, but not enough to bother most people.

The people here seem very friendly and the workers were very nice and professional. They do ask to see your registration and proof of insurance, so there must be a story behind that as this is the first campground that I've run into asking for that information.

The smallish lake is stocked with catfish and bass and there are boat rentals. The park is gated and has someone at the guard house after the office closes for late check ins. Day use is noticeable here but nothing to really speak about in November.

Sacramento is an easy drive away and San Francisco is an easy day trip. There is a gas station with diesel nearby on Hwy 99 with better prices found north about 10 miles near Yuba. The camp store is small but has a good variety of items. They have a cafe here that serves the basics and people talk about highly, but I didn't get a chance to try it out.

The geese are everywhere right now and make for some lovely pictures, especially near sunset.

As Thousand Trails members we are aware that many of the parks seem to be distressed properties that are bought and minimally maintained, but we have had very good experiences at several locations. So, despite the reviews here and elsewhere, we had to be in the area for a few days and decided to give it a shot. We won't do that again...

When we arrived we were lucky to get a site in the water/electric only section that backed up to a field, however, when I walked up to the electric pedestal it looked as old as I was, and the site to the right of us had a trash bag over the pedestal, signalling that it was out of service. So, I pulled out my electrical tester and found that when moving the electrical socket slightly side to side it would show a short. Our choices were to make it work, or find another park, so I very carefully inserted the 30 amp cable in such a way it wouldn't move, verifying all was well before turning on our breaker. On the way back around the trailer, I noticed the neighbor on the left had a brand new electrical pedestal, whereas most of the others looked like ours...

And, an Amazon package was stolen, or lost, one or the other. Amazon shows it was delivered, but it wasn't there. Thankfully it was only a $30. order and not critical. They do leave guest packages in a public hallway on the floor, so it's possible someone walking by saw an Amazon box, picked it up and walked out with it. That is what I choose to believe, would hate to think employees would do that sort of thing. Regardless, leaving packages in a hallway unattended isn't very smart.

There is more, but I don't want to sound bitchy. And, there are the things others mentioned, the place being somewhat run down, some unsightly long term sites, and so forth. While I am sure some people have good experiences at this park, it seems important to point out a few of these things, as we have not had these issues anywhere else, including other Thousand Trails parks.

Update: Amazon just informed me, 9 days later, that our package has been returned. My name was on the package and the Thousand Trails account, so why it was accepted and then afterwards handed back to UPS I cannot say, but it does still speak to an overall level of inefficiency in the office that should alert guests to be extra diligent when having packages shipped to the park.

Horrible experience with this campground. All the negative reviews are spot on with homeless people living here. I purchased an annual site but had to cancel because of one individual person that moves from site to site(within the annual section) without leaving the campground as stipulated within thousand trails policies. The employees are fully aware of this individual and how he violates these polices. I can also guarantee you that there are many more “regulars” that do the same thing. This person walks his dogs into our site and allows his dogs to poop around our RV. We also had to unhook HIS water line from our utility box. I heard others had complained about him, but nothing was done about it. I have video of these events. We made the terrible choice of choosing this site as our annual spot. Now we are out of thousands of dollars because corporate will not refund the difference and stated we should have made a complaint. REALLY? He’s already breaking policies that you are fully aware of and other people have had complaints about him but if I would’ve made a complaint then he would’ve been taken care of? Not true at all. Avoid this dump at all costs. Thank me later.

Being that we were traveling south through CA and trying to save money with Thousand Trails, this park was okay - but just be cautious here for the bugs and such.

Because we have a large RV, all the FHU spots were taken so we went out to D section. That was fine, but the drive out is around the lake and in the large RV I got nervous a few times. In our spot, it was pretty good and with shade, but only 30AMP power. We made due, but it was not ideal. One of the dump stations was closed so we needed to backtrack a bit to dump before leaving. Bathrooms were okay but nothing special for kids to shower in.

The bugs were pretty bad the entire time because of the lake. Actually, they were really bad - we almost spent no time outside which was unfortunate.

The had playgrounds and other activities for kids on the other side of the lake and everything was quite dated.

Sites were large and easy to get in and out.

Staff was unfortunately not too kind most of the time. On check-in the person acted a bit like I was inconveniencing him and he assumed I knew what I was doing since he did not give many directions. Oh well...

Overall, this place is okay but since it is first come first serve you are taking your chances on the site location and hookup. Good to save some money if you need to stop for a night or 2.