Paved Paradise? A Sun Outdoors Association Island Campground Review
One late night, Nicole was perusing RV Trip Wizard while Anthony was asleep. We needed to fill some gaps in upstate NY before we celebrated our 10-year Roadtrippiversary in Niagara Falls. Lake Ontario is not only beautiful, but it's massive, with 326 miles of shoreline in NY alone. Nicole scanned along the lake on the map and noticed some campgrounds that were sure to have lakefront sites, but none were more guaranteed than Sun Outdoors Association Island. Having been fairly pleased with our Sun Outdoors stays this year, Nicole dove into her research. Online reservations were easily navigable, allowing a choice of lakefront sunrise, lakefront sunset, back-in, and pull-in sites. Or, you could opt for a standard site which doesn't have the waterfront, but is a little more reasonably priced. Nicole sat for a few minutes, pondering the value of a premium lakefront site. Should she splurge on a triple-digits-per-night site, and better question, should she do it without consulting Anthony first? If she waited until morning, the few remaining sites might no longer be available. And so, she justified the splurge. The next day she told Anthony that the site would be worth it; we'd have Lake Ontario just steps away!
As if we hadn't had enough storm encounters in recent weeks, the drive to Association Island was full of pouring rain and terrible visibility. Thankfully when we arrived, the storms had subsided and we didn't need to unhitch in the rain. We were greeted with beautiful lake views behind us and a post-storm rainbow in front of us.
However, we quickly discovered that not everything was all lakes and rainbows. Our site was narrow and surprisingly unlevel, not what we want from an expensive corporate RV park. What was worse, though, was that the humidity brought about the bugs, and there were lots of them. We were fielding mosquitoes every time we stepped in and out of the trailer, and our night was filled with killing a bunch of mosquitoes that had made their way inside our camper.
The following day was another rainy one, so we weren't surprised the bugs had stuck around. The next day, however, was dry. The bugs didn't seem to care. They clearly had set up camp long before we did, and they were staking their claim. With August having delivered us a less-than-stellar experience thus far, we already felt down on the count. Now there we were, at a site where we should have finally been able to relax, spending tons of money for the views, but we couldn't enjoy them the way we wanted. The plus side was that it was the middle of the week, so lots of sites around us were empty. This gave us the freedom to head down to the lake without bothering our neighbors. By the lake, the bugs weren't as bad, and we were able to capture some incredible photos.
Over the course of a few days, we took a lot of walks around the campground, noting where there were swarms of bugs and wondering why they seemed to mainly be at our campsite. We also noticed that, along with the mosquitoes came the spiders, ants, flies, and tons of other insects. It was official; we were bugged big time.
We started wondering at what point this issue goes from being a nuisance to a real problem. What if our trailer got infested? What if we get one too many mosquito bites and one of them was carrying a disease? We contemplated telling the office, but first we needed to figure out what solution we actually wanted. At that point we were half-way through our stay, so would we want to hitch up and move sites for just a few nights? What if that site also had bug problems?
Or worse, what if it smelled? Our walks around the campground also opened our eyes (noses?) to the algae in the lake that gave off a horrendous odor. We also caught occasional whiffs of sewer at certain sites, possibly due to the fact that some of the lakefront sites have not 1, not 2, but 3 sewer connections. We guess this is so people have the choice of backing in or pulling into their site...but then why did the online reservations specify back-in and pull-in? That's a mystery we won't solve, but we thought about Sun Outdoors' attempt to accommodate all RVs, so everyone can enjoy a view. But who wants to be outside enjoying a view if there are bugs and smells everywhere? We certainly weren't about to put our patio down with our bug situation, which felt like a major waste given how amazing our views were.
Before going to the office, we also wanted to figure out the line of demarcation between bug swarms and pleasant, bug-free camping. Our site and the one next to ours (which was vacant) seemed to be the worst. Nicole spoke to the neighbors a couple sites down and they said the bugs weren't bad. Then on Thursday, the weekenders started rolling in, and we got next-door neighbors on our left, as well as neighbors two sites down on the right. Thursday evening turned into a comparison of who had which bugs, where they seemed worst, and what sprays, if any, seemed to keep them at bay. Our site: by far the most mosquitoes, and sprays were only a brief, temporary solution.
Thursday night, we began looking for a place to stay so we could leave early. The stress was getting to us big time. We felt like we were wasting our money, we had to be armed with spray every time we left the trailer, and whenever we wanted to go anywhere, mosquitoes would accompany us in our truck. Anthony took the brunt of the bites (which NEVER happens...what kind of mosquito species was this?!) and wound up with bite marks all down his arm. Suddenly the view didn't seem so worth the price.
We don't take our decisions to leave early lightly, especially when it means eating the nightly cost of a campground that's close to triple what we ideally like to pay. But our well-being is important. We had already been through so much over the past few weeks and we couldn't take much more stress. Killing mosquitoes was consuming our time, and we felt like we were crawling with them. Then as more and more weekenders started rolling in, the narrow sites started feeling more and more congested. The campground rule is "1 RV and 1 vehicle per site," but everyone around us was parking 2 vehicles in their already-small site, making it hard to even maneuver our truck when we wanted to leave. This is where the tiny living aspect of RV gets tough. We can't use our outdoor space, bugs and neighbors are making us feel claustrophobic, and we're confined to 250 square feet. We wouldn't feel better until we could just wash our hands of the whole situation.
Before we left, we did alert the office to our problem. The campground staff was apologetic - and dumbfounded - having never heard of mosquito problems on the island. They told us they didn't have any other lakefront sites available, which we expected and didn't care at that point, anyway. They probably would have let us into a non-lakefront site, but if we were going to pack and hitch up anyway, we just wanted to leave. We told the staff that we weren't expecting anything and just wanted to let them know.
Thankfully we had found ourselves a Boondockers Welcome where we could stay for a couple of nights at no charge - and it had electric hookups, which we now needed every night, thanks to our electric surge and our busted generator. This seemed like the best solution because we could get off the island, make a dent in our distance to our next campground, and we wouldn't need to spend anymore money. So, we packed our belongings, hitched up in the swarm of mosquitoes, and bid farewell to our bug-free neighbors. (Side note: As we were leaving, neighbors did arrive at the site next to ours, the only other one that seemed to have mosquito problems. We warned them that, while their site didn't seem as bad as ours, that they might have issues).
We'd like to say that the bugs, smells, and narrow/unlevel sites were our only problems with the campground, but there was one more thing that nudged its way into our minds and left us with a bad impression. When we first towed ourselves onto Association Island, we passed by a bunch of houses with signs posted everywhere, opposing the "Association Island Expansion."
Putting two-and-two together, we realized that there is more to this campground than meets the eye. A few residents gave us dagger looks as we drove by in our rig. It was awkward, taking our trailer among all these residential streets, when clearly we were part of a bigger issue. Nicole wanted to get to the bottom of that issue, so she researched the plans for expansion. There was already a campground on Association Island, but Sun Outdoors purchased it in February 2021. The campground takes up the entirety of Association Island and already has over 300 sites and a lodge, but evidently there's been talk of Sun Outdoors expanding even further. We aren't sure how this would work because that means they'd be expanding beyond Association Island, and there are houses there. No wonder why the residents are up in arms! Many feel it's a safety issue; they want their kids to be able to play in the street without giant RVs coming up and down the road. While we empathize, we became more concerned with the gentrification of natural landscapes. We appreciate having the opportunity to park our RV in the middle of gorgeous scenery, but we also feel there can be a right and a wrong way to go about it. This campground packs in the sites, and clearly there are issues at this campground that need to be addressed. Before talking expansion, maybe first make sure that the current campers' needs are being met. Like so many other things, this smells like an attempt to make a pretty penny at the expense of both customer and nearby resident. Frankly, that smells even worse than the lake algae.
It's another campground review that leaves us torn. Do we recommend it for the lake views or do we let our story taint the whole experience? We suppose we'll leave it up to you to make your own decision. Don't let us influence you too much....
Campground:
Sun Outdoors Association Island
Site L12*, FHU, premium back in, lakefront sunset views
Picnic table, firepit
*Site not recommended