Laurel Lake Camping Resort

This was my first time staying at an independently owned campground and honestly, I didn’t plan to book it when I initially called to ask questions. After an extensive conversation, I decided to book it for a weekend. I could tell that they were selective, by the questions that were asked when I called. I explained what kind of site that I like and she put us in site #10. The only complaint that I had with the stay was that our site backed up to a house, it was about 2 acres away, but the annoying thing was the barking dog. All hours of the night, I was randomly awoken by the random barking. Seriously, why have a dog if you’re going to leave it outside to bark and annoy people?! That’s not the resort owner’s fault, but a huge observation.
My purpose for staying in the area was to see the moonbow at Cumberland Falls… which is about 20 minutes away from the campground. Another surrounding attraction was the lake. This place isn’t really near the lake. There are several hiking trails on site, and the one that leads to the lake is about a 30 minute hike. The other trails lead to a moonshine still cave, a natural arch and a waterfall. There were so many trails that other than seeing the moonbow, that is what we did all weekend… hiked. The paths are cleared weekly, so if a tree falls in the pathway, they chop it and clear the way. That was a nice touch.
They make and deliver pizza from the campground country store. It was $ 9.99 for a medium sized pizza that served it’s purpose. The country store is where you checkin before to head through the gate. It is a gated community. They gave me the code when I booked, just in case I got there later than when the country store was open. But we made it. My husband went inside to checkin and I stayed in the Jeep. Johnny, the owner came over and introduced himself. Again, I could tell that they were selective. I guess that’s a good thing, since it’s a private, gated, small camp ground.
There is only one bathhouse. The bathrooms are in the front and the unisex showers are in the back. It was different, but not bad.
They’re the only campground in the area that offers wifi. The signal wasn’t strong all of the time, but I’ve had worse.
They had a fishing pond onsite too. It’s a catch and release pond and it’s an extra $ 5 per day. There really wasn’t any shade around the pond, so it was way too hot to fish when we were there.
The roads and site pads are all gravel, so it’s probably not a good camp ground to take your fur kids. My fur princesses hate gravel, I’m not sure if that’s the norm or not…