Campground Review: Cherry Hill Park, College Park, MD
When traveling to the DC area by RV, Cherry Hill Park is the place to stay. Only 10 miles outside the District, surrounded by all the suburban shops and restaurants you could need, near the University of Maryland, and chock full of its own amenities, it's no wonder this place books up fast in the warmer months. But, we got to experience Cherry Hill during a cusp season, before all the vacationers come to enjoy the Cherry Blossom Festival, the famous celebration of blooms that marks the official start of warm weather here in this beautiful Mid-Atlantic region.
We knew when making our reservation that we wouldn't get the in-season Cherry Hill experience. Some amenities would be closed. However, on the other hand, we wouldn't have to deal with the crowds and cramping. Deciding it was a worthy trade-off, we planned for a two-week stay at the campground. This gave us plenty of time to catch up on work, run errands, and visit a friend we have in the area. As you all probably know by now, we were delayed hitting the road by a couple of months, so we initially had planned to stay here in January. However, due to our change of plans, we stayed here from late February to mid-March. The park was wonderful at handling our bookings and cancellations. We had a night's credit put on our account when we cancelled our first stay, which the staff forgot to honor when we arrived, but they quickly made it right. We also got 10% off our stay for being Good Sam members.
The campground is massive. On our first day here, we took a walk around the grounds to try and get oriented, and just when we thought we had seen it all, there was more! You don't need an RV to stay here. Cherry Hill offers tent camping in-season, plus cabins, tiny homes, yurts, and glamping pods. But, if you do have an RV, you can choose from back-in or pull-through sites, as well as standard or premium. Premium sites have a grill and patio with table, but since it's still too cold for outdoor dining, we opted for a standard back-in site.
When we book sites, we say that we're in a 34-foot travel trailer, even though we're 28 feet long. We do this because we have a 6-foot tongue that we don't want sticking out into the road, and we also figure it gives us a little more space if we put down our ramp door to create our patio. The site we were given barely fit us length-wise, even at 28 feet. We're not sure what an actual 34-foot trailer would have done, especially to get their truck to fit in the site. We had to really maneuver Clyde to fit in front of our trailer, parking perpendicular to the tongue and missing scraping the tongue by mere inches. With a campground that was at most 30% full at the most crowded we saw, we wondered why they gave us such a tight spot. Our wonderment continued when the park put us right next to another travel trailer, even though the whole row - and plenty of other rows - were open. We likened it to going on the subway and, when every seat is empty except one, going and sitting right next to that person like a creeper. We were ready to tread quietly around our poor neighbors for two weeks when we realized, no one is there! They aren't hooked up, slides aren't out, and there are no signs of movement. The mystery was never solved as to why there was an abandoned Passport sitting on a (very expensive) site for weeks, but we were happy to not be breathing down the necks of other campers. Our best guess is that the Passport is new (it has a 2021 sticker on it), and perhaps someone hasn't been able to take possession of it yet.
During the two weeks, campers came and went, and there were a couple of times when our row was mostly full. Gaining some more insight into the workings of the campground, we assumed they were placing people in our row starting in the middle and working their way out. We don't really get it, since we're the only ones staying for an extended period, but hey, we're not campground owners, so maybe they have a strategy we don't know. Thankfully, we lucked out with our (lack of) neighbors on our other side. Besides one night with a very abrasive couple and their even more abrasive dogs, we were neighborless until the last few days of our stay. We breathed a huge sigh of relief when our first set of neighbors left as quickly as they came. We don't exactly think it was planned for them to only stay one night, and here's why.
On top of trying to fit into our very short site, we also had issues with our water spigot. Maryland has a law that requires backflow regulators on all the spigots, but this poses a big issue when we're trying to hook up not just a hose, but a hose that's connected to a whole array of filters and connectors. At first, our connection to the spigot was causing leakage. Maintenance came immediately and replaced it for us. This helped, but we still spent the better part of an hour trying to tighten all our connections to stop the leaking. Eventually we got it to work, but we had to keep our water pressure really low as to not create the "backflow burst" that was happening due to the regulator.
Back to our neighbors. During our water debacle, we dragged our hose over to our neighboring site to see if that spigot was working better. It was worse. So we wonder if our neighbors were having water issues and decided not to stay. This was not just an issue with these two sites. During our day 1 campground walk, we saw a rig that had connected to the site behind it!
On the night of the noisy neighbors, we struggled to get a good night's sleep, and then were woken up to more than just yipping dogs and raspy-voiced owners. In preparation for the busy season, a lot of construction was happening at the park. Not something we'd normally complain about because we get that spring is on the horizon and the campers are going to be coming in like gangbusters. However, when the beeps of the backhoe start at 7:30am? Yeah, that's not exactly thrilling for us. We wondered about the other campers who were here to vacation and maybe wanted to sleep in a bit. Perhaps that's why our neighbors skedaddled! Now, we weren't expecting a metro-DC park to be the mecca of serenity, but between the construction, constant highway traffic sounds, traffic helicopters, trains, trucks, and dogs oh my, we found our stress levels a bit higher than we would have liked.
The advantage of a two-week stay in a practically empty campground is that we had all the open amenities right at our fingertips, with no need to wait or share. So we want to take you through all the amenities and give you our opinions.
Pools and splashpad
Obviously we were not able to try these amenities, but just to make a note of them, there are two pools and a splashpad. The pools are near the back of the campground and splashpad near the front. From what we saw, the pools looked nice, with a lot of patio space and a nearby café for some poolside nosh. The splashpad looked underwhelming, probably fine for young kiddos, but as Anthony stated, even as a kid would have been "bored with it in minutes."
Hot tub and sauna
On an afternoon of self-care, we decided to treat ourselves to a little spa time. This is where the off-season comes in handy, because we got to have a wonderful, quiet half-hour of solitude in the hot tub, sharing stories from our college days and celebrating the fact that our COVID 20s haven't stopped our swimsuits from fitting. We then headed into the sauna to dry off. About 10 minutes later, a group (who happened to also be our second set of neighbors) went to use the hot tub, and we commented on how un-relaxing the space must be in the busy parts of the year. The sauna is centrally located within the clubhouse, and every person that walked by, used the bathroom, or used the hot tub area, created enough noise to echo into our wooden chamber. I can't say I'd enjoy my sweat sesh if there was all this ruckus surrounding me. Otherwise, both the hot tub and sauna worked great (both could have been a tinge hotter), and at the end of the day, it's an RV park, so we're not expecting top-level serenity anyway.
Dog park
Cherry Hill has two dog parks, one with an agility course and one that's empty space. They're tucked in the back of the campground and were tough to find at first. When we did, they were right next to the highway. Not a safety issue as there were plenty of fences, but try calling your dog to come when he hardly listens anyway, is old and hard of hearing, and there's insane amounts of traffic noise. We went to the dog park twice during our stay, and both times we had to watch out for dog waste. We aren't sure how often the park maintains the dog area, but as far as doggy business goes, we mostly fault the owners for this one.
Did you know that Tanner's breed was initially bred as circus dogs? Can you tell?!
Playgrounds
The park has three playgrounds. The one closest to us seemed like the best of the three. It's ADA-compliant and has lots of fun obstacles for the kiddos. During our stay, the park staff put new woodchips down in preparation for the busy season, and it was looking spiffy. As for the other playgrounds...well, take your kids to this one (the "Tidal Basin playground)." Maybe the others are less sad looking in the summer, but that was just our observation.
Walking Trail
There is a wooded path that follows the perimeter of the campground, but don't think you'll get peace and quiet there. The path goes extremely close to the highway. We only walked it once, and the rest of the time stuck to the campground roads. If we're going to hike in the woods, we'll go find a more peaceful place. That being said, they paid attention to detail, adding lots of benches and woodchips to keep the path usable. It also gives you a way to scope out the far ends of the campground, like where the glamping pods are (if you want quiet, don't book them; they're right next to the highway).
Outdoor lawn games
On one of the milder days, we enjoyed a late afternoon round of ping pong on the outdoor table. We love ping pong and had lots of fun, but the table is very lopsided. The lawn game area also has cornhole, and according to the website, gaga - which we aren't sure what that is, but it involves some sort of pit?? We didn't see a pit, but maybe it's a seasonal offering.
Mini golf course
Probably our favorite amenity, it's a wildlife and tiki-themed mini golf course that you can play for just $1 per person, and the money goes to charity. The course was incredibly well maintained and was challenging enough for adults and kids alike. We had extra fun being the only ones on the course, so we got to take our time getting a whole lot of 6s on par 2 holes. However, if you come in the busy season and need to wait your turn at each hole, rest assured that there are plenty of places to sit - even Adirondack rocking chairs! - under the shade of Tiki umbrellas. Don't forget your iced tea!
Basketball court
We have our own basketball (and there's a story there!), so we didn't need to borrow one from the camp store, but they have them available for free. The court is well-maintained and a good gravel material that allows the sneakers to be buoyant enough for some killer vertical jumps (you know, if you can actually get air when you jump). However, there were no lines, so playing games on the court needed a lot of estimating of where the foul line, three-point line, and out-of-bounds were.
Game room
We were doing laundry in the Clubhouse (there are a few laundry rooms around the park, and we actually recommend the one in the Waterfalls building near the office. Cheaper and better equipment) and decided to pop into the game room while our clothes were washing. The selection of games was decent, having the classics like Pac Man, pinball, and skeeball, but each game cost a fair amount of money ($1 for a game of pinball on a machine where balls kept getting stuck? No thanks. Go up the street for 50-cent pinball instead). We had some games eat our quarters, the basketballs were so low on air that they kept getting stuck between the hoop and the side of the cage, and fooseball didn't let us play a full game despite paying $.75. Frankly, we arcade-game lovers found the experience more hassle than entertainment. Before we left Cherry Hill, we decided to give the game room a second chance...aka it was cold and rainy out and we were bored. This time, we knew what to expect from the games, so we didn't feel the sting of disappointment as much. We had a friendly competition of who could win the most games (ahem Nicole) and had a few laughs while we were at it. If we could recommend one game, it would be the air hockey. $1 for a full 7-point game, and the table was in good shape, unlike many of the other games.
Fitness areas
The outdoor fitness area has about 4 different pieces of equipment, allowing you to target almost 1/36 of the muscles in your body. While we found the leg press extremely fun, the space isn't really conducive to a full-body workout, unless you bring your own ingenuity and at least a mat (but good luck finding a place to put it on the woodchip-covered ground). The indoor fitness center is worse. It's an extremely small room with 2 stationary bikes, 1 elliptical, and 1 treadmill. It has zero strength-training equipment and doesn't have a space to even lay own a mat. Safe to say that when you come to Cherry Hill, don't expect to get in tip-top shape.
There are tons of amenities that are more service-related, like the campground stores, bathhouses, bus depot, and propane delivery. All of these were running efficiently - well-oiled machines to help our well-oiled machine run like a well-oiled machine. (If you followed that, bless you). Our only minor hiccup was buying firewood from the store that turned out to have too much moisture in it, but they gave us a new bundle for no charge. Then of course, there is the list of amenities for the summer season, that we were not privy to.
Our overall thoughts on Cherry Hill Park? There is a lot they do right, some stuff that's questionable, and some where they seem to just offer things to say they have them (like the fitness center). If we could do it again, we probably wouldn't spend two weeks here, and if coming in the summer, we would brace ourselves to be jam packed with a lot of noise surrounding us. The take-home message for us was, it's a great park overall, but for the price point, some parts were just tough to get over. We spent over $80/night here with our Good Sam discount, and that is one big dent in our budget to have to deal with amenity closures, construction noise, and being squeezed into a site next to an empty trailer. All that to say, we do think it's your best bet if you're coming to the DC area. Just know ahead of time that some of the hype is just that - hype. But, what you will get is a big, clean park with tons of activities to keep kids of all ages occupied. Plus remember, we may not be the best judges; we're more about the country and less about the rock 'n roll.
Campground:
Cherry Hill Park, College Park, MD
Site 718: standard back-in (barely fits a 34-footer), FHU, gravel site, picnic table, small grassy area with fire ring, middle of the campground, near Tidal Basin playground and outdoor fitness area