Swinomish Casino RV Park – Anacortes, WA
The Swinomish Casino Hotel requires that RV’s pay a RV parking Fee to stay in the parking lot. It’s $10 to $30 plus tax according to Security.
They do not charge cars to stay in the parking lot! I find this ridiculous that RV must pay to be able to go to the Casino play Slots/Bingo and eat food at the Casino. RVs are parked in a little used vacant part of the parking lot and no services are used except in my case one car parking spot. They do have a substandard RV Park that has very limited services and very low power (about 90 volts or less), which can damage your electrical and electronic equipment. Which it has done to me! My power supply and my fridge were damaged and I had to replace them at my cost, as the manufacture would not honor the warranty. Camping World in Burlington had my RV for about eight months trying to get the manufacture to pay.
I agree with many of the reviews posted on line, many which are as follows. In the fifteen or so years we have visited Northern Lights/ Swinomish Casino/RV Park there has been no real improvements and little maintenance to the RV Park, lights, damage plugs and pipes are repaired when someone complaints about them in writing. No facilities for the RV campers, no washrooms, no showers, no laundry, and sewer connector located between RV where the picnic tables are located, not pleasant to eat or sit at. Train runs right beside the camp ground at all times of the day and night, sounds its air horn three times before crossing the rail bridge, wakes everyone up at around 4AM in the Hotel and RV Park. Hotel has taken over reservations from the casino and wants everything charged to your credit card, they have to call a supervisor if you want to pay in cash and they still may charge your credit card which will take months to get a refund. Hotel does not take reservations but assigns campsites regardless of the size and type of RV. They have been very unorganized and it can take some time to check in. Power is low, (about 90- Volts) you must have a cable box to get cable and channels are very iffy, possible due to the low power. Water pressure is very high so be sure to use a pressure regulator. A large air conditioner is located behind the hotel next to the RV Park that can be quite noisy, Ducts can pulsate and some times has a high frequency noise that only some people can hear, I am one that can hear it and have to use ear plugs to sleep and not get a headache.
Finding your way into the RV Park is difficult and at night as it is very poorly lighted. Wifi is intermittent; you can connect to the router but not the Internet. Site numbers are difficult to see they are now painted on road where road dirt will obscure them, before they were on posts.
They water the grass at inappropriate times, it can be a real challenge to get between the RV park and hotel especially at night as you can hear the sprinklers but can not see them. Granted the Casino is open 24/7 so no mater what time they turn on the sprinklers someone will get wet, but they could have them on between 1 and 4AM instead of the busy times of the day, timers are set by the lawn maintain people who, I do not think have considered that people need to get back and forth between the hotel and RV park.
There is not much of a variety of food offered at Swinomish just about all of it is very spicy and is more for the Spanish palate, which maybe is there customer base. They went high class and fancy after the Hotel was built.
As no washrooms for the RV Park I have witnessed some disgusting acts. When camping in site 11 I had to take my dog for a walk at 4AM and saw someone squatting at the rear of their RV in site 8. Later after they left I realized he had taken a dump behind the RV. I called the Casino and they sent someone out with a dustpan and broom to clean it up. While staying in site 32, I saw two people in site 33 who had a van, not an RV, use a bucket to go to the bathroom, later when it got dark they dumped the bucket in the long grass. I have also seen the same thing happen at the Silver Reef Casino. Another time we stayed in site 20, at least 10 people with five cars stayed in site 21 in a large popup camper. In the morning I witnessed both men and women taking a pee behind their RV and two males took a pee in the area behind my slide out where my power cord, water hose and cable cord is. I expect this also happened during the night, which I did not see. After they left I got my hose and washed the area. When you see something on the ground don’t assume someone did not clean up after their dog! I realize that the Hotel cannot control the discussing actions of some of the campers but providing services such as washrooms would greatly reduce this activity. Or only lettings RV that are self-contained use the RV Park. Some campers have nothing more than a Van or pickup with a canopy; they must think they are staying in a full service RV park and do not want to walk to the Hotel to go to the bathroom or get wet from the sprinklers.
They give themselves a high positive rating I suspect the positive rating are by employees.
From: I-5 Camping
