New York City North / Newburgh KOA

Our only surprise was that the pool and snack bar closed at 8pm… even on the weekends. Other than that it is a great place… oh and the water smells really bad… but it’s ok at the showers and bathrooms.

Nice campground. Staff is friendly, the grounds are well kept and there is a lot for kids to do. The location is perfect; country setting and a nice train ride into the city. What could be better? Internet (wifi), ‘grill’ and hook-​ups. The rest rooms could use some updating as well. The store is probably one of the best I have seen; well stocked and quite a variety. My family (2 trailers and 7 people) had a wonderful time. We have already picked out sites for next year!

Not impressed. I’ve been to much better KOA’s. Stayed in a one room cabin. It was webby and little spiders everywhere. Now I don’t mind rustic but the full bed squeaked so bad. You woke up every time you moved. It was loud especially the group across from us and they let their dogs roam. Sites are stacked so close. Won’t be back.

Very nice place. We visited the weekend of 8÷2−8÷4. We stayed in a basic one room cabin that was set among trailers. The lot and the cabin both were clean and well maintained. See my photos for more details. The cabin offered electricity and cable TV. The mattress was too hard for my liking. I recommend bringing a foam mattress topper if you prefer a soft mattress. The lots in our area were spaced nicely and were wooded. The roads are narrow but I didn’t see anyone get stuck or have too much difficulty maneuvering. There is a general store that has A LOT to offer. If you need anything else, such as a mattress topper, then you can drive 15 minutes down the road on RT300 and you will find Walmart, Home Depot or the Newburgh Mall. There are also a slew of restaurants in the area of the mall and Walmart. **Do not ask Siri for directions to Walmart — she will get you lost!** The campsite has 2 pools but offers no oversight therefore you will find that teenage kids are often in the area unsupervised. During one of our visits to the pool we encountered a teenage girl who could not contain her urge to say the ‘F’ word. The campsite was filled with little children so her behavior was quite disturbing. That only happened once but it was annoying. Free pancakes were served in the morning. You can also purchase egg sandwiches, hashbrowns, coffee, tea, cappuccino, etc. They offer hot dogs, chicken nuggets and French fries and other items. The bacon egg & cheese sandwich and coffee was surprisingly good and very inexpensive. The pancakes were delicious. The hashbrowns were bland. There is a wine shop on premise. They offered wine tastings. There are activities for the kids just about every hour of the day. Our favorite was the fire truck ride. Overall this was a very nice place and we really had an enjoyable time. I hope to return this summer for another visit.

This is not up to KOA Standards
Pluses:
The campground is very clean.
There are a lot of activities for the children.
Free pancake breakfast in the morning.
Negatives:
The campground was experiencing problems with their electrical system, where sections of the campground had no electricity. Someone in our group complained to the office about that at 8pm at night and was told that they could not fix it until the next morning. It was a very hot night; he had young children and wanted to run his camper’s air conditioner, but could not because of this issue. This is unacceptable.
While the spaces are private, they are tough to get into. I saw several people who had difficulty pulling their campers into spaces. The camper next to me had issues and I spoke to him and he said that he was a commercial truck driver and this was tough for him.
The campground calls itself KOA NYC North. This is misleading. Its 75 miles north of Times Square, and without traffic, which is rare, (we even hit traffic coming home in the middle of a Sunday afternoon), it takes about an hour and 45 minutes each way. If you are planning on using this campground as a base for exploring NYC, you will be doing a lot of driving.
There are two 60×120 foot swimming pools in the campground that are next to each other. There is no lifeguard on duty, however there needs to be some type of supervision. We saw a man throwing a toddler into the air and letting the toddler land in the water. This toddler could have easily have landed the wrong way and been hurt. Kids were randomly jumping into the pool, not even caring that there were people below them that they could have landed on. Other people were diving and doing back flips into 4 foot deep water. My feeling that is within the next 5 years, someone will get seriously hurt here.
The campground has a serious problem with mosquitos. I do a lot of camping and it’s been at least twenty years since I came back from a camping trip this bitten. We even had to go out to the store to get additional citronella candles. This took away a lot of the fun from the trip. I saw KOA employees driving around in golf carts all day, how they were not aware of this infestation, I don’t know. This is a serious public health issue that the management of this campground needs to address.
The campground has a problem with poison ivy around the edges of the spots. We were having a campfire at night and one of my friends warned me that I should watch where I sat in case I got too close to the poison ivy. Again, this is something that the campgrounds management needs to address. How difficult is it to go to Home Depot and get some weed killer?
The campground is pricey. It was $ 65 per night, including a $ 5 «resort fee».
With all these negatives, I cannot recommend this campground. We had a great time on our summer camping trip, however next year we will be going elsewhere.

If I could give out 1 ½ stars I would. And for one simple reason. While this is a very nice campground with plenty to do, the owners do a really really REALLY terrible job of enforcing quiet hours. It is non-​existent. I wish I could say that it has only happened once but we have come here many many times and have been kept awake pretty much through the night. Right now it is 1am and I will be awake all night listening to the sounds of someone who has their (very loud) generator running. Even though generators are forbidden, at all times, not just quiet hours.
This is really going to make me think about coming back. If you value getting _​any_​sleep at all this is not the place for you.

Narrow roads but if take your time it’s fine. Very nice tree covered sites. Lots for the kids to do. Staff was very friendly and accomadating.