Yosemite Pines RV Resort

Don’t come here if you aren’t self sufficient. Because there’s no one here willing to help you. We drove in during a red flag warning - 30-40 mph winds. When we checked in, we had power. But it cut off shortly after. We walked into the office to see what was happening. They told us it was common during high winds and low humidity for the power company to turn off the power to keep the risk of wildfires low. We asked if we could buy a few things and the woman said no, that they couldn’t do it without power. They were unable to write down and add it to our account when the power was restored. At that time I was annoyed but figured the power would be back on soon enough. Boy was I wrong. Around 7:30 pm we found the number to the local power company. They could not locate the campground address that was printed on the campground map, so we asked them to check for outages in Groveland, which there were. We signed up for text messages to get an idea when the power would be back on. We were THANKFULLY able to plug into our neighbor’s generator. We kept a small heater plugged in to keep us warm overnight. Lows were mid thirties, and we have two small kids. At 7:00 am we got a text saying the power outage was due to equipment failure and would be back on around 2:00 pm (so out 22 hours total). Our neighbors with the generator left that morning so we knew we needed to come up with a plan. We thought we could get propane filled at the campground. We went inside to inquire and the woman stated she was not allowed to do propane at that time. She clarified that no power was required to fill the tanks - just that she wasn’t able to since she couldn’t “ring me up” after. She said it was her manager’s decision. I asked, given the fact that there was no power, could she check to see if an exception could be made, and she said she had no cell service to communicate with her manager. She said she had AT&T and I told her that I was able to call out with Verizon service and asked if I could call the manager. She said that was not allowed. She gave me the business card with the general email address to contact the manager. I asked for information about places in town that might have propane. She said there was a hardware store in town. We got ready to leave and talked briefly about our plan for the day. We said we were going out to find propane but if there was none available (spoiler alert -there wasn’t), we would come back to the campground and reassess. We asked the office person about refunding money if we had to leave due to lack of power. The woman, again, was not particularly helpful. She said we’d forfeit a night and since we’d already stayed past checkout for the day that meant we’d be paying for three nights when we just had stayed one. We had reservations for 4 nights so it still would have made sense to leave if the power was not coming back on at a reasonable time. While in town we got an alert the power had been restored, so we headed back to get propane and get prepared to go to Yosemite. Thankfully it stayed on after. The good about this place - spaces here are of decent size and we had full hookups. The cell reception on Verizon was BARELY enough to call out, but I expected no reception at all. So, I guess that’s a plus. I paid for Tengo internet and it’s barely ok, but it was $5 for three days. It was fine for checking email. Dump station is $5 for campers and $15 for outsiders. I imagine the shop is ok when there’s power. And just to clarify - I understand the power outage was not the park’s fault, I just really was astounded by the lack of concern or assistance available, especially since it seemed to be a common occurrence. Perhaps they could better address this on their website. And I assume it’s not a huge deal to them as they’re one of a handful of campgrounds close to Yosemite on this side of the park, and their bottom line won’t change because of this review. But it is worth certainly worth noting. Had we been set up to boondock, perhaps I would have nothing negative to say. But for anyone who relies on the stated services (water, power, sewer), you need to know that when (not if - when) something happens here, the people at the office will be of no help, and they might just head home for the day if there’s no power…leaving you to figure things out yourself. You’ve been warned!

Yosemite Pines RV Resort & Family Camping was very easy to find right off Hwy 120 just outside of the charming little town of Groveland en route to Yosemite Nat’l Park. Reservations were easily made online only about a month in advance and were reasonably priced. Check-in was quick and easy inside a convenience store with hours until 8pm. I was given a high-quality map of the resort with rules and some fun facts about the surrounding area. The resort sits on a gently sloped hillside with plenty of pine trees all around. The roads are paved and in terrific condition with speed bumps every 50 feet or so.
Our site was on the end of a row of mostly level, dirt, back-in RV sites with full connections. There were two more rows of these sites in our loop. These sites are pretty close together, but with sufficient room for our setup as well as for parking a second vehicle. There was a picnic table and fire pit provided, although no fires were permitted at the time we were there (August in California). In addition to the full-hookup sites, there were cabins, yurts, stationary trailers, and even covered wagons available for rental.
The entire facility was clean and well maintained. In fact, about 30 minutes after our neighbors checked out, a woman came in a golf cart and picked up every tiny piece of trash. We were directly across the street from the bathrooms and showers, which were also very clean and well stocked. There were three large dumpsters in our loop for disposing of trash. The trash truck came very early on Tuesday morning and was about the noisiest thing we heard during our entire stay. The rest of the facility was very quiet. The highway is not far away, but road noise was very sparse. There was minimal cell coverage with Verizon, enough to make a call and receive a few text messages. WiFi could be purchased through a third party vendor for a very reasonable rate.
Our kids really enjoyed the pool. The water was cool (not heated) but felt good in the 90-degree weather. The water was pretty murky - even with swim goggles I couldn’t see more than 5 feet in front of my face. There was also a playground, a tetherball court, a bocce ball court, and a volleyball court. The bocce balls can be checked out at the office for free. The deli is adjacent to the pool area and had ice cream and other treats available for purchase through a window. We did not try the gold panning due to hornets swarming the water but did see others trying it. The petting zoo was another big hit with our family. They have two donkeys, two large alpacas, rabbits, and chickens. Supervised feeding times are at 9:00am and 4:00pm.
The Yosemite Nat’l Park entrance gate is about 30 minutes away, and then it’s another 45 minutes before you reach the valley. There was a lovely swimming hole with some rock jumping called “Rainbow Pool” about a 15-minute drive to the east. It’s definitely worth checking out. We didn’t go into Groveland, although it seemed very charming with some restaurants, a museum, and a park that was advertising an outdoor movie on Saturday night.
All-in-all, we thoroughly enjoyed our stay here and were sad to leave. Our 9-year-old cried a little when checking out, and our 3-year-old kept shouting, “Go back to the river!” during the drive home. We will definitely be back.

It was a great overnight stop for us on our way to Yosemite. No AT&T cell service. Can get 1 hr of free wifi every 24hrs or pay for more wifi. The park is huge with a lot to do and different camping accommodations for all types. Easy asphalt roads throughout campground in the pines. Sites are spacious from neighbors. Gravel/Dirt back in site but pretty level.

Stayed here 13-16 October, 2020
We had a site near the teepees which was a quiet area with one of the largest sites we paid for on the trip.
We are not sure what to make of the older reviews, but we selected this place as they actually had sites available, but found it to be very charming. The petting zoo, bocce ball courts, laundry, restrooms and other amenities were all very nice.
WiFi was a token amount for free and ATT was intermittent at best.
Lots of deer and turkey came to visit our site.
We would have been comfortable staying there a week or more if it was in our itinerary.
Staff were very friendly.

Booked 2 nights but left after 1 night, because the restrooms/showers were so dirty that we didn’t want to use them. There aren’t that many campgrounds close to Yosemite, but try to book another campground... And this one isn’t even that close - it’s a 1hr drive to Yosemite Valley! No cell service. 1hr free WiFi included, afterwards you pay $5/day

Nice park, close to Yosemite NP. About 44 miles to the Valley. Level site, grass and gravel, no dirt. Bathrooms were average. Kid friendly with a petting zoo. Really nice diversity of flora. Don't expect to buy any supplies here. Pretty long and steep ascent into Groveland (8 miles of non-stop 6-7% grade) but the road is in excellent condition. Some lucky dude found a nugget of gold here that weighed around 1,200 ounces. Would visit again.

Check-in was a very slow process even though we came in with a pre-paid reservation.

We stayed in an RV lot and upon arrival someone was in our site with tents and the they could not move us to another spot so we had to wait until the person round up the people to move. Originally the employee was going to leave us alone there and we requested they stay as the the tent person was very angry.

The bathrooms were small and well used. While there were 3 shower stalls one of them had been screwed shut and only left 2 available which were full of dirt. They really need to add some showers and service the restrooms through out the day.

If you need wifi ---do not stay here. We travel and work remote and the park has not purchased enough bandwidth to supply the 200 campsites they offer. I wish parks would remove this as an amenity if they can't provide enough bandwidth to download a google search page. They claim it is just during peak time but I was up at 2am and was just as slow as 6pm. Also, we have TMobile so our only coverage was in the Yosemite Valley (not the parks problem but we could not use our mobile and were relying on the advertise wifi).

We had added an extra day to our stay which would have required us to move to another site. Which is not a problem as we are not people who hang out too much in an RV Park and were spending the full days in Yosemite hiking. We asked were we could park our RV in the morning so we could be out of our spot and then we'd move into our new spot in the afternoon when we got back. This was something I had asked on the phone when booking, asked again at the office when I checked in and each day after---to which I was told not a problem. 2 days before the move I asked for a specific location and had blank looks from the employee who said she would leave a note for the manager and the next day no one had any information. Since I needed to move the next day the office employee called the owner who said that I'd have to leave and come back. This clearly is not an option as we had a car and did not need nor want to drive our RV up and down all the mountains into Yosemite. We requested a full refund and found another campground that allowed us to park for the day until our site was open.

While the employees were not rude, we found that they were not helpful at all and the owner was downright hostile at my request to park some where until I could move to a new site.

Overall for the value of $47 a night with my Good Sam's discount--it was not worth the cost. There was an additional $5 dump fee and the station was locked and only open during store time. It seem at that cost they would allow one free dump per stay.

They did advertise a petting zoo, panning for gold, pool, walking trail and stables. My kids did enjoy panning for gold. But said the pool was very dirty, the petting zoo was just some animals behind a fence they could reach into, the trail/corral they said was full of trash and smelled bad.

Spots were very close and tight but a mix of shade/not shade. No issues with noise.

Plan early and stay at other parks (which all were sold out when we planned our trip) closer in or near a different Yosemite entrance. The park was a little over 30 minutes to the entrance and another hour into Yosemite Valley so an hour 1/2 each way which means were were leaving at 6am to beat the park rush.