St. Clair RV Campground - Thousand Trails

I'd put this around the middle of all the Thousand Trails parks where we have stayed. We had a short time here, but we enjoyed the campground. The easy access off I-94 made it especially nice as a stayover. We spent an afternoon in Port Huron and checked out the beach on the Lake. Plenty of places to re-stock supplies and a peaceful place to spend some time. We used the Blue Water Bridge to cross into Canada and found the process easy and efficient.

They have buddy sites and are kind of close together. But we’ve never had a problem with any of our neighbors. it was easy to get in and out of our spot. We had full hookups in a pull through for 40’ fifth wheel, was able to park truck right there with it. It was Labor Day weekend and they had all kinds of activities. The grounds are clean the clubhouse the pool were all a little dated but very clean. They have a really nice big grassy dog area that is gated. It’s perfect since we have a 75 pound black lab. There are a lot of full-time sites there but the people are very nice. The laundry room was acceptable and it uses quarters.

We have a 41 foot fifth wheel and and they gave us a pull through site and I thought that would be great since we were arriving late. But when I arrive at the site it was C circle the site was small and the were facing each other.
The campground was clean the employees were great nice pool and game room.
The only down fall was the site and the road noise from the nearby highway.

There are so many bad reviews about this place that all I can say is that a lot of people need to go home and sell their rigs. This campground is dated, but they make things work. Our water does not work in this site, but they have us connected to another site and the water pressure is great, so no worries. The community 30 amp box has ratty and should probably be replaced, but it works and my testing equipment say there are no issues.

There are a few narrow sites, so that can be a problem for some, but TT parks typically let you move if your site does not suit you, so I can't see a reason for complaint.

Coming in. The GPS says the entrance is further down the road, but as soon as you get off the highway, start looking for the entrance on the right. Unless the gate is down, just drive past the ranger station and go to the office to register.

The gravel roads are as good as any place else I've been recently and better than some. The staff are very helpful in the face of what I'm told are a lot of rude weekenders, so kudos to them for staying pleasant to new Sunday arrivals. So far I haven't met any rude people, but I'm among a bunch of full-timers here, so perhaps that's why.

Thousand Trails has been upgrading a number of campgrounds on the east coast over the past few years. They do have a new pool here and the buildings are clean and maintained, so when they get the go ahead on site upgrades, this campground will shine once again.

Verizon works well for streaming SD to my Apple TV, T-Mobile seems to pause now and then, but is otherwise fine as I'm not using it for streaming. Ting voice & data works well (using an unlocked AT&T iPhone) also with 2 bars.

I don't mind the highway traffic as I used to live (quite literally) a short stone throw off of I-95, but there is enough to notice now and then.

The location is really decent. It feels like out in the woods, but there's nearly every type of store within a 20 minute drive. The dog park south of St Clair is really nice and there is a new Love's truck stop going in near the exit. Fuel prices are all over the place so use Gas Buddy for the best deals.

I can see how a few sites might be undesirable during wet weather, but I typically don't park on grass with a big rig and can't imagine why anyone else would either. There are plenty of gravel sites and good drainage, so come in around noon for the best selection. The rangers are happy to help you figure out the best site for your rig.

The 3 star ratings is because I think corporate should have put some site upgrade money in the budget when they replaced the pool, otherwise it would be 5 stars.

One more thing. I will only stay again if I don't have to go around or through Detroit. OMFG! The interstate around the city is so bad we slowed down to 50mp and took the center lane lest we damage the rig or our kidneys! And a few of the overpasses caused a pucker because the rig is 13' 4" and we crawled under a 13' 7" and slowed down for a 13' 9".

Update: After staying for 2 weeks, my only real complaint is the amount of iron in the line for A loop, which by the looks is rust or they're pulling water from an iron mine. While the filter takes out any bad tastes or color, there is so much iron in the line that I'm working on my third filter. I'm using the blue ones which attach to the spigot and normally last 3 months. After 5 days the filter is plugged and the water is trickling in my rig, so I need to replace the filter. When I come next time, I'll be carrying a sediment filter. While the water tastes fine, it is VERY hard and I would invest in a water softener system if I decided to stay for the season.

As a Thousand Trails member, this park was free to us. Its been about four years since we stayed here and we noticed a huge increase in the number of 'annual' sites. That being said, we were able to grab a full hookup, pull thru site for the week of July 4th.

Have to compliment the staff on getting us that site. Management goes out of its way to assure all the campers are on sites that fit them. They don't allow small campers/tents/pop ups to sit on sites designed for large rigs. Conversely, they don't allow large rigs to shoe horn into smaller sites. This is a balancing act that takes care and planning. I wish more campgrounds would take this approach.

Only real complaint is the roads could use some serious repair. Watch for crater-like potholes on all the roads.

St Clair is a cute little town, right on the St Clair river, across from Canada. They have a beautiful boardwalk park with lots of trees. Great for watching the big ships plying the river between the two countries. Port Huron is about 20 minutes away and well worth a visit. This is also where you take the bridge into Canada.

Really awesome stay here, way more relaxed than a lot of other Thousand Trails we've stayed at which we appreciate, every guest doesn't need to be babysat.

Definitely would stay here again. T-Mobile at one point reached 220mbps which is insane (stable around 60mbps). AT&T 60mbps. Verizon works but it's the weakest of the three.

Go Lions! Drive is about an hour or so from Detroit depending on traffic. There's a gas station close by, Meijer for other shopping, and good local food starting at 24 Mile which isn't too far away.

Date of camping 9/12/2018. Was a great stay for just five days. Could not really complain as the weather was cooperative. We have a full ELITE VIP membership; and this place is a campground (not a resort) so please have that perception before arrival (goes for all Thousand Trails no matter how they sell it). --- Very convenient for day trips to Sarnia, Canada; so be sure to visit the Stones & Bones museum. The bathrooms we had access to in C section worked okay, but did see that other sections had issues. The pool was fully up and running when we visited. As is typical with Thousand Trails there are lots of seasonal folks camping, and its all first come first serve. So arrive Monday to Thursday and you have a great spot with at least 30A or 50A. Arrive Friday to Sunday and you might be forced into a 20A spot (yes they still have those), that is too small and crowded near others.

We were apprehensive about this park after reading the reviews. The entrance was typical of a Thousand Trails, in need of repairs. Parking for check in and the check in process was easy, as usual you have to drive around and decide what sight you wanted. We started in the loop with the pull thru's and decided to try the other loop that was available to us. There were a couple other sites that were empty, but they were taken by annuals.

The site was not ideal, but we liked it better than the pull thrus. It looked a bit short, so we thought that we could angle it in. The pads are gravel based, but the outline is difficult to see. We ended up in the grass on one side and severely tilted on that side. We decided we needed to be more on the pad, we still needed blocks to level, but we managed to get level, but we left some pretty bad ruts behind. There had been a lot of rain in the area, it had dried up quite a bit by the time we arrived, but it was still bad. We were told the person that was in our site before us had to be towed out.

We had 50 amp FHU, but the hookups were on the opposite side of our rig, so we needed two fresh water hoses and our two sewer hoses barely reached. That isn't the case with all of the sites, just every other one, at least in our area. In addition, our sewer hookup was larger than the standard connector, making a seal impossible. We did not have a fire ring or a picnic table, but I suspect our table was one of the two on one of the empty annual sites. We probably could have had one moved to our site, but because of our sightseeing plans and predicted rains we decided to pass. We were really close to our neighbors, and because all the hookups are located at the back of the sites, their sewer water hoses ran through our site.

The bath house in our area was not open, it appeared that they were doing some work on it, and it really needed some work. We don't use them, so it wasn't a problem for us, but you would have a fairly long walk, or drive, if you needed a bath house. The pool was still empty and the gate was not operational, but we didn't see any people that didn't look like they belonged and felt safe. We had heard complaints of rust in the water, we checked our filter after four days and didn't see any evidence of rust, although the water was a bit soft for my taste. We had good AT&T signal and our spot was open so satellite wasn't a problem. About half of the pull thru sites had too much tree cover for satellite.

The location is convenient, easy access to Port Huron and even the Detroit area. The farmers market in Port Huron is one of the best we've been to and the St. Clair River location is beautiful.

More rain came and even a 1.5 days later there were still puddles under and around our neighbors RV and our grassy area was squishy. I know they can't control nature, but it would be nice if they could spend a little money on better drainage. The morning we left our neighbor moved to another spot that didn't look much better to us, but he felt it was higher ground. He was furious about the condition of the campsites, my husband agreed and thought this was one of the worst sites we have ever had.

I don't think we would stay here again.