Grand Oaks Resort – July 2015

We stayed at Grand Oaks Resort for a weekend in July. It was only our second visit to a private park since we started RVing in 2007. Usually it’s provincial parks and conservation areas for us. This was a not a bad change. We were parked close to our friends – Albert & Diane, in fact we were neighbors. You can see their trailer parked right beside us in the photo above! The site quality was okay, but a little tight backing in due to a second firepit that someone added. Our site was serviced with 30 amp and water. The owner of the park escorted us to our site and helped us to move things around to get our trailer situated. Great service!

We walked around the park and checked out the recreation hall, seasonal area, swimming pool, playground and showers. The park was very, very clean and well maintained. Despite being very busy, the park was well patrolled and somewhat quiet considering. The park put on a beautiful fireworks display on Saturday night and also a dance at the rec hall. There are wagon rides for little ones and also a really nice pool area and playground. Here are some park photos:

Grand Oaks is one of quite a few Carefree Resorts located in Ontario. It is located on the Grand River outside of Cayuga. There is a place to launch your boat at the park and the park will shuttle you up river to York and drop you off if you’d like to canoe or kayak the Grand River. The beauty of this is that you can pull up right on shore at the park and bring your kayak or canoe in at the end of your paddle.

We got our friends to drive us up to York so we could do this stretch in our kayaks. The river was very high and rather fast flowing. It was a scenic, fast paddle that we enjoyed very much!

One of the best things about our weekend here was being able to spend it with our camping friends Albert & Diane. We had so much fun and were introduced to a really cool game. Dave took the measurements and made us a set of our own! Here are some photos of us relaxing and having some friendly, competitive games of “washer toss”. I must say – the girls did rule!

So, here’s my review of Grand Oaks. It was a decent park with minimal privacy but good quality sites. The service was great at the park with regular patrols and helpful staff. It was very, very clean and well maintained. The seasonal sites were separate from the overnight ones. There were a few pull thrus and a lot of decent size sites for larger units. If you have kids, as I mentioned above, they’d love the wagon rides, pool, playground and rec hall complete with pool tables and air hockey. The park runs programs such as dances and had a nice fireworks display while we were there. There is boat access to the Grand River and also, as mentioned above, the park staff will shuttle you to York or upriver even farther to launch a kayak or canoe.

There are also some cool things to do nearby while you’re camped here, such as Ruthven Park National Historical Site, Toronto Motorsports Park, both in Cayuga and Grand River Diner Cruises in nearby Caledonia.

This is not a “wilderness” park. It can’t be compared to a provincial park or conservation area. If you’re looking for secluded sites with buffers in between, you won’t find that here. So, having said that, would we come back? I’d have to say yes if we were looking for a park close to any of the attractions I listed above. Here are some helpful links!

http://www.carefreervresorts.com/rv-parks/ontario/grand-oaks/

http://ruthvenpark.ca/

http://www.torontomotorsportspark.com/

http://www.grandrivercruises.ca/

Well, there you have it!

HAPPY CAMPING!!!