Wawaloam Campground
510 Gardiner Road
West Kingston, RI 02892
Sometimes you just can't go by what the brochure says (or the on line reviews). This campground was also highly rated and reported to have many amenities. Well this campground would also qualify as a very family friendly place, as long as your rig is not too big. This campground is very similar to the one we just left in that most of the sites are long term/seasonal campers. Diane made a reservation for this campground back in January when she was planning the trip. She specifically provided our RV size and that we requested FHU and a ?lightly treed? site. They assured her that is was no problem, and we made the reservation for a week stay.
Upon arrival that wasn't exactly what we found. The sites we were given was up at the end of a long narrow road in a cave of trees. When I got backed in we quickly figured out that the site was too small for the motorhome to fit on the pad. The site had a cement RV pad that was on a site that was uphill from the road. Only the pad itself was semi level, and the dirt at either end dropped off quickly. No matter where I put the RV, one set of jacks was not on the pad, and into the very off camber dirt.
We went back to the office to discuss the issue with the staff (which were very friendly by the way). They looked at their campground map and declared that the site was ?too small? for our size rig. With few options available, we took another site, W&E only. I dodged some tree limbs to pull in, and found it too was pretty off camber in both directions. I was able to block the jacks to get us level, but we still were not overly pleased with the site. This one backed up to a large green moss covered water hole, and was next to the play area and campground store which made our site the ?pass through? for all the campground traffic to go through.
We quickly decided to cut the stay down to 3 days, just long enough to get us through the weekend and move on down the road. The site was $50 a night, which included a $3 a day pet fee, which I think is excessive. The restrooms were clean, but old and not handicapped accessible. WiFi was offered for checking email only. The cell signal here was also very weak, so the Verizon air card struggled as well.
Fisherman?s Memorial State Park
1011 Point Judith Road
Narragansett, RI 02882
After deciding to cut the stay short, Diane went on line and checked Fisherman?s Memorial State Park. A really popular place she had tried to get into before settling on Wawaloam. Surprisingly she found a site that was available for the 4 days that we needed to fill. It was in loop 2, a W&E site, but it fit or needs nicely. The park is so in demand that most of the sites sell out year to year with the same folks reserving far in advance. The roads and pads are paved, but the patio area is all grass. When we arrived at the park, it was mostly sold out. We found our site and after a little shrub trimming by me, we settled in.
While hooking up I had a nice surprise. The on line web site lists only loop 1 as FHU, 2&3 as W&E, and 4 as dry camping. While hooking up I quickly realized that we had sewer as well! It appears that loop #2 had sewer added last year, and the web site has not been updated.
The sites were good size, and some had trees and shrubs between the sites. Even though the park is on the coast, only a few sites in loop 1 could actually have a small view of the bay area off of the main body of water. The restrooms are clean but small, and may be handicapped accessible to some extent. The Verizon air card worked pretty well here, and better with the antenna mast extended.
The prices were better too, we paid $35 a night for the FHU site. The worst part about this location is that we noted that some of the sites are extremely out of level. The campground is slightly terraced so one end of the site is higher than the other. If you get lucky enough to get a site here, try using Google earth to scope out the sites first. Our site, #51 was one of the more level sites.
There were some pretty strict rules that applied to this park, although in the 4 days we were there, not one ranger or park employee came by or patrolled the park. One that almost no one cares about in the east, is ?absolutely no parking on the grass?. The other was ?no alcohol permitted in the park?. I did actually see folks not exactly adhering to either rule, but no one ever did anything about it.
While in this park we did a tour of the mansions in Newport, RI. While many of the ?cottages? as the wealthy owners referred to them are pretty spectacular, it is interesting that many are now owned by the the state, or the Preservation Society. Apparently the owners couldn't afford to keep them, so they just let them go, or sold them on the cheap. Many of the mansions are open and available for tours.
Either way, if you are going to stay in RI, this is a top choice to stay.