Winchester Bay RV Resort

Sometimes resort parks can feel too "Stepford" for us, but this one is a nice mix of immaculate and laid back.

Asphalt roads and concrete sites keeps everything very clean. Well maintained lawn and landscaping makes being outside enjoying the views even better. Nice to have a separate space for the toad.

There are several price options depending on your access to water views. We were up one level from the waterfront and had a great view.

Large, clean picnic table (no grills on the table). Metal fire pits with folding grill tops at each site. FHUs with 50 amp. All worked well and were easy to set up.

Access off Hwy 101 is easy with adequate signage. Wide road to the park and good signage at check-in.

No ATVs are allowed to run in the park so it's nice and quiet. Short walk or drive to the Umpqua River or to the little marina for good eats.

Park WiFi worked for us.

Terrific place to spend a week. We rode bikes to the Umpqua lighthouse (take a tour if you have time), the rode further down a paved rode towards some amazing sand dunes. This resort is clean, with nice landscaping, good wifi, and good Verizon reception (important for us because we work while on the road). Easy to ride bikes to another spit and buy cooked crab. Yum! This will be a go-to location for us.

Winchester Bay RV Park is a fancy place for fancy rigs with hermits who stay in their RV and watch TV. Maybe the non-stop wind contributed to this phenomenon. Anyway, we prefer parks where there is some life to them, so we weren't a big fan of this. Next time, we'll try staying across the street at Windy Cove. (Despite the name, its position against a hillside looks to give that park some wind protection)

The park itself is nice enough, with ten feet of well-manicured grass and a shrub between spaces. The setting is brilliant, right on the harbor, but again, it was so windy and cold (in July!) that we didn't want to sit out and enjoy it. Laundry room was nice. Playground was small. Grass was well-kept. Wifi was good. List of rules was immense, pushing 2,000 words!

We stayed from 12/26/16-4/5/17. We thought a nice winter on the ocean with the occasional rainy period would be great. What we didn't expect was a record breaking amount of rain to fall. In excess of 40" fell during our stay. Drainage on our site wasn't great so we were left with standing puddles. Not a huge deal but still frustrating when you never get to step on dry land.

Wifi at the park is exceptional, https://www.facebook.com/DPH.Rover/posts/1250674941665238 The wifi was exceptional even on the rare occasion that the park filled up with weekenders. It is probably not as exceptional during high season when everyone is trying to stream Netflix, movies, music, and YouTube. But as park wifi goes, it is truly fast and reliable.

The sites are pretty cramped for a resort. There is no pool or hot tub either. The showers and laundry are clean and well maintained. Water pressure for showers is abysmal and the water is not hot, in fact it is barely tepid. If we had to use the showers for our entire stay and not just one night, we would have been very, very unhappy campers.

The town of Winchester Bay is great. The general store has the best cinnamon rolls on earth and Fishpatrick's Crabby Café is worth many a delicious visit. The people are all friendly and helpful.

We might return. There are a lot of sights and things we didn't get to do because of the incessant downpour. But the death of our beloved older dog during the last week of our visit may prevent our return. Memories would be around every corner. We also had our first theft during our visit. Admittedly it was two resin garden mushrooms worth $30 but it was still a theft.

Our site was on the ocean, we fit but just barely. Access is there for big rigs but if the park were full it would have been tight backing in to our spot. Satellite reception was stellar, but if you do not have a satellite cable is also stellar. There are no over the air channels available however. Our full review can be found here, http://travelswithpickles.com/2017/03/28/first-quarter-2017/.

I had a blast while we were here. The office gives you lots of info when you check in about what there is to do locally. We did a bunch of crabbing. The sites are long enough that we could open our back patio with no problem. There was separate parking for the truck. The resort was laid out to help block the wind when you are sitting outside. Each site had a picnic table and fire pit. Level, paved pull-thrus with some pull-ins for motorhomes. I would definitely come back.

Our rate was a weekly rate for a full hookup waterfront site overlooking the mouth of the Umpqua River. These campsites are set up for fifth wheels to have a view through their window in the back, but we have extra long hoses and drove our motorhome in face forward and ran our hoses to the opposite side - a slight inconvenience. The rest of the waterfront sites, which face the marina, are set up for motorhomes to face forward with hookups on the correct side.

All sites have picnic tables, fire pits and are about average size for a private park but are nicely landscaped. The "large interior" sites and "small interior" sites are each a little less expensive.

The campground has restrooms and showers and a nice sized laundry room as well as a small playground and putting green. Their Wi-Fi worked great while we were there, but it was pretty empty, so don't know if that is the case year round. We used their cable a few times and it was ok. There are bike and walking paths from the campground.

There are small shops and restaurants nearby, including a fish market that has fresh oysters. There is a small Safeway four miles away in Reedsport. The Umpqua Lighthouse is a few minutes away. It is a working 24/7 lighthouse. During the summer season, there are tours of the lighthouse. I highly recommend going to see it at night, it has a first order red and white Fresnel lens that is striking.