Carowinds Camp Wilderness Resort - Charlotte, NC

[keith_h 420]

We spent this last weekend visiting Charlotte. We decided to stay at the Carowinds Camp Wilderness Resort. The GoodSam rate was $49.49/night on the weekend and $38.69/night on Sunday through Thursday. The rate includes taxes. It is still off season so I expect the rates could be higher during the summer. It is very close to I-77 at the NC/SC state line. It is easy to get into although there is a lot of traffic due to Carowinds Amusement Park using the same exit and roads. Watch your speed while on the SC portions of the local roads. Every time we drove we saw the Sheriff pulling people over and assume it is a big money generator for them. While on NC portions of the road we never saw a law enforcement officer of any type. 

The RV campsites are all fairly level and paved. From side to side I was able to level the trailer with a one inch board. Front to back was in the typical range I always use to level the TT. Some of the sites would take more front to back adjustment to level but I didn't see any where you wouldn't be within the range of the front jack although they might require a couple of blocks for the stabilizers. The space between the campsites is more than your typical KOA but not as much as the state parks we visit. A good portion of the campground is shaded or has large trees placed to give the RV shade during the day.

Over all the campground is clean with no visible garbage. The campground is very sandy however and a lot washes onto the RV pads which the campground does not appear to care about cleaning up. We ended up sweeping the site and putting down our rug to keep from dragging it into the trailer and truck. The restrooms and shower facilities were clean and look to be new or recently renovated. The building in the RV area is all family style with very large, fully equipped bathrooms. I would give them an A for those with disabilities or people needing more room or an assistant. There are also traditional and family style facilities at the lodge. The traditional are your typical facilities where there are stalls and showers for the disabled but they are not the largest and would be hard to use with an assistant. I assume the family style are the same as in the RV section based on the building size.

If you visit the Carowinds Amusement Park you can catch a free shuttle from the campground or drive as you get free parking as a guest. For the sports minded there is also a large Cabella's.

Drawbacks (or not depending upon your viewpoint):
The WiFi was disappointing. When it would stay connected actual speeds were in the 1 Mbps range. Fine for low content web browsing or e-mail but not for anything that moves much data. I noticed the closest repeater to us didn't even have equipment attached anymore so it doesn't appear that Carowinds puts a lot into it.

There is no cable TV but the local stations are easy to pick up via an antenna.

The biggy for us is the campground is under the landing path for Charlotte-Douglas Airport. This airport is the 5th busiest in the country and sees a lot of planes. When we arrived Friday it was non-stop until around midnight. It then kicked off about 5:30 AM Saturday. From noon Saturday through Monday morning the traffic wasn't as bad and it was pretty quiet most of the day with the planes stopping by 7-8 PM and starting after 8AM. I suspect it would have picked up starting Monday afternoon through Friday with flights coming in as late as midnight as it did when we arrived.

So we think the campground is nice enough and if it wasn't for the aircraft and me being a light sleeper would go there again. If I was traveling along I-77 and needed an overnight I would not let the planes stop me as it nice campground with decent rates. When the planes aren't flying over it is actually a quiet campground.

 

On a side note we decided to look at the Fort Mill KOA that is just south of Carowinds. It doesn't have a good reputation but we wanted to see it for ourselves. Since it was a sneak and see I cannot say what the inside of their facilities look like but based on outside and the rest of the campground I would avoid it. The campground is not level and looks very rundown. The roads and sites are all gravel with a small amount of dirt between the sites. I've seen tenements in better shape than many of the trailers in the seasonal section. It sits behind a Publix and the campground owners gas station/bar. All I can say is we will not ever be staying there.

Pictures:
 

The lodge/office

Inside the lodge

Pool

Our campsite

RV area Bathhouse

Obviously they don't care about wheels off the pavement

And just to show that is not an anomaly

 

[Ivy 36]

Very nice looking campground. I enjoyed your review.

[dblr....Rennie 224]

Another place I would like to get to, maybe next year with a platinum pass to visit their other parks also, sounds good a summer of coasters & camping.

[ftwildernessguy 778]

We stayed at the Fort Mill KOA twice.  Both over nighters, once to the Fort and once back on the same trip.  Check in was strange.  Just a sign in a little shed that said they would be back.  I waited a good half hour.  They made a big deal about the code to get into the bathrooms, but there weren't even any knobs on the doors, just a hole where they had once been.  To get to the place you drove thru a parking lot to a gas station.   The roads in the campground were narrow and the full timers had campfires right next to the roadway, with their chairs extended into the road and wouldn't move so I had to drive off the road to get around them.   They have a haunted attraction around Halloween so it is loud half the night.   Never again.

[CJHokie 43]

I just drove through this one yesterday to check it out.  My husband has no interest, but one of our camping friends was staying a few days this week so I was hoping to talk him into taking our motorhome down (we are in N. Charlotte, so about 30 min.)  It was shadier than I was expecting, so I may be able to talk him into it after all.  He thought it was going to be a big parking lot, but it really does remind me of campgrounds I went to in the 70s when I was a kid.  

We're in season now, and I think it's more like $50-60/night.  It was way more crowded yesterday than I was expecting. 

I think it would be a great overnight stop right off the interstate if I was coming or going to the north.

[BradyBzLyn...Mo 2,023]

Great info and pics - thanks for sharing!

[BuckeyeFortFan 35]

We had reservations at camp wilderness once.  We left home at 8 am on a June morning and drove all day to Charlotte.  We arrived at 4 or 5 pm and checked in, set up the TT and headed for the pool as it was in the 90s and 3 kids had been couped up in the truck all day with only promises of swimming to keep them going.  Pool was closed.  It wasn't 6pm yet.  Hours of daylight left.  I enquired as to the pool closing situation.  Apparently the pool had to close when the amusement park did....or some equally stupid reason.  I got our money back, hitched the trailer back up, and drove to the 5 miles down 77 to the fort Mill koa, where the pool was open until 10....because people like to swim in June.....after 4 o'clock.

[CJHokie 43]

3 hours ago, BuckeyeFortFan said:

We had reservations at camp wilderness once.  We left home at 8 am on a June morning and drove all day to Charlotte.  We arrived at 4 or 5 pm and checked in, set up the TT and headed for the pool as it was in the 90s and 3 kids had been couped up in the truck all day with only promises of swimming to keep them going.  Pool was closed.  It wasn't 6pm yet.  Hours of daylight left.  I enquired as to the pool closing situation.  Apparently the pool had to close when the amusement park did....or some equally stupid reason.  I got our money back, hitched the trailer back up, and drove to the 5 miles down 77 to the fort Mill koa, where the pool was open until 10....because people like to swim in June.....after 4 o'clock.

That is weird. The park is open late in the summer.  Must have been early June before schools are out here.  My friend is camping there now. I will ask her what the pool hours are.

[CJHokie 43]

According to my friend, the pool is open until 8 right now (still early, I know). 

Carowinds has a water park that is included in the park ticket (take that, Dolly!), and it is only open until 7 right now.

Like I said above, I'm guessing you were here before area schools were out (we go to around June 10) and Carowinds did not have summer hours yet.  And Carowinds does close in the summer winter (whoops), but the campground is open all year if anyone needed a quick overnight during the winter.

[keith_h 420]

When we were there in May they were just starting to fill the pool. The water park wasn't open either. My guess is the pool follows the same season as the water park.

[BuckeyeFortFan 35]

I believe it was early June as our schools finish around memorial day....and it likely was a weeknight too.  

[CJHokie 43]

Just spent the weekend at Carowinds Camp Wilderness with a couple of other camping families. I didn't take any pics whatsoever, not even of our campsite. It rained all day Fri. and until about 4pm on Sat.

As mentioned before, I had driven through, so I knew what it looked like. I think my husband was pleasantly surprised and will go back (hope so, as I bought 2017 season passes for me & the youngest). We were right near a brand new bathhouse. It had 4 individual rooms with toilet/shower. The sites are paved and pretty level. I think they are all pull-through. Ours was long enough for our 40 ft MH and my Buick Enclave. Pretty easy in and out of the parks and right off the interstate. They do not have fire pits but you can bring your own. They do have charcoal grills. We never use those but ours was full of cigarette butts.  

They have a shuttle that runs to the park and you can buy discounted tickets in the campground store. On Sat. night the kids (all teenagers) went to Scarowinds and then Sunday afternoon they went to Carowinds for a few rides. Sunday night everyone left (kids were in school today) but me and one of my friends. We had a nice, quiet dinner and then went to Scarowinds by ourselves.

I think we paid $168 for 3 nights. Some other friends came to visit Sat. night and they had looked at renting one of the cabins there - $250 for one night! There is no cable hook-up, but we picked up quite a few antenna channels. They must have fixed the wifi since keith_h was there, because this was easily the best wifi we've had out of many campgrounds. My friend was even watching Netflix all weekend and didn't have any buffering. There was one time during the rain on Sat. it got a little slow, I guess due to everyone being stuck inside.

The campground was way more full than we were expecting, and several people we talked to were evacuees from Hurricane Matthew, incl. 2 guys from Charleston who were there with their miniature horses and would walk them around every so often.