Pine Acres Family Camping Resort – Oakham, MA
(33 votes, average: 3.82 out of 5)
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We were more than pleasantly surprised with our weekend stay at Pine Acres Family Camping Resort. The park is located in Central Massachusetts, about 15 miles northwest on Worcester in the town of Oakham. It’s a little off the beaten path but well worth the trip.
Our check-in was quick and the office staff made us feel right at home. We were escorted to our site by a friendly gentleman in a golf cart who asked if we were first time visitors and then reassured us that we would have a great stay. It turns out he was indeed correct.
Pine Acres Family Camping Resort – Oakham, MA
Pine Acres is a larger resort. They report 350 sites, all types and sizes. From very remote, primitive tenting sites to full hook-up premium lakefront locations. The Premium Lakefront sites were on the expensive side ($75/night), but since this was our first visit we decided to go for it. Despite the price, we were not disappointed.
Pine Acres Family Camping Resort – Lakeview Site
Our site was a comfortable size, with adequate room for our multiple slide-out 38′ Class A. The site included an oversized picnic table, complete with a cobblestone patio with a rustic double timber chairs overlooking Lake Dean, a small (70 acre) lake. Most of the heavily traveled interior roads are paved and wide enough for larger rigs. Once you get into some of the more remote locations, access is a tad more difficult via gravel roads(and some can be a little steep)… but if you’re a tenter there are some pretty isolated spots.
The restrooms and laundry facilities were clean and well maintained. In fact, my wife commented that these were among the cleanest that she has ever seen. Over the past 25 years we’ve stayed at campgrounds all around the country… so that’s saying a lot.
There are lots of amenities at this campground. I’ll try to cover most of them here…
Pine Acres Family Camping Resort – Rec Hall
A small marina is located near the park entrance and the main office building. The marina includes “Uncle John’s Bait Shop” a boat launch area and boat slips (the fountain is a nice touch!). You can fish for bass from the beach or rent paddle boats, canoes, rowboats and kayaks here.
Near the center of the campground is a complex of buildings and attractions. The pool… actually its more of a water entertainment area, is impressive. The pool itself is free-form, quite large and includes a spa and several water features that would keep most kids busy for hours. There’s also a poolside bar that’s open during the warmer months.
The complex has a nicely landscaped, reasonably priced ($3) mini-golf course, basketball, volleyball, and tennis courts as well as a playground for younger kids. “The Lodge”, is a large recreation hall that includes an adult lounge and “The Cave”, one of the largest video arcade rooms I’ve ever seen at a campground.
Pine Acres Family Camping Resort – Water Park
Across from the Lodge is “Pine Acres Country Store” a small, but nicely stocked convenience store carrying all the basic camping necessities. There’s also a 50-seat full-service snack bar serving breakfast, lunch and other goodies including ice cream. Prices are reasonable and the food is good. The same building houses restrooms, showers, a public telephone and an ATM machine.
The campground offers free Wi-Fi (Tengo). On a walk through the campground found several wi-fi repeaters, so coverage appears to be good. The signal from our site was a little low, but we had no problems connecting. They do have a 48 hour bandwidth limit but the limit is high and should be adequate for even moderate use.
You may be asking, “there must be something negative about this campground?”. Yes there were a few, but relatively minor…
Pine Acres Family Camping Resort – Sit and Relax
There appears to be just a single dumpster for your trash and it’s located near the entrance to the property. This is a large campground and it’s quite a hike to the dumpster for just about everybody. Adding a second location would be a great idea.
Pine Acres is pet friendly and the campground owners make every effort to accommodate your pet. They even have a pet beach! Just about every pet owner here was considerate of other campers… except for two. One never kept their dog on a leash, the other couldn’t keep their dog quiet. Its not the fault of the campground. You’ll always find a few inconsiderate campers at every campground.
This is truly a family resort and all in all, one of the most pleasant camping experiences we’ve had in a long time. This one’s a keeper. Keep up the good work Pine Acres!
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Wow! That’s a great review. I wish we lived in that part of the country. I would love to visit this campground. It sounds great!
We stayed here last summer… it was very crowded, but still clean. We had an enyoyable stay here.
We stayed here last weekend and were disappointed. The hours of everything there were terrible! The pool was only open from 11am-7pm and the rules they have for using the pool are extreme. Couldn’t get coffee until 8am and ice cream closed at 8pm. We checked in at 3pm (check in time) on Fri. I decided to take the kids down to the rec hall so my husband could set up tents, but the rec hall did not open until after 4pm. The nice thing about this campground is that everything was very clean and modern. That was a big plus. Campsite was very small also. Had trouble putting up 2 tents and finding room to park my car.
I just booked my third trip to Pines Acres for July 2010. This will be our first full week stay. I love this campground and refuse to go anywhere else lol. I had a two year old last summer, now 3 and she had a blast every time. They don’t allow motorized vehicles so you don’t have to worry about your kid getting run down by teenagers. The pool has the water sprinkler things to keep kids entertained for hours and the beach is small but very cute. It’s so clean and nice and the people are friendly! They had a family dance which was cute and also do trick or tricking if you stay later in the season, it was adorable. Boat rentals, fishing, great store, mini golf etc… I would recommend it to anyone! Have fun…The prices are a little higher so I hear but its worth it!
We just arrived home from Pine Acres resort after camping for a week with 4 other families. I have to say that we were very disappointed that the campground does not offer the poolside bar that is posted above and you aren’t allowed to bring beverages into the pool area. The Lodge is only open when they have special events going on which only seems to be on a Saturday it would be nice to be able to have some adult time while the kids are across the way at the craft tent.
Security is in abundance and never did we feel the resort was not a “safe” place. Quiet hours are strictly enforced. This campground is very clean and I did like that they cater to the pets offering many areas for doggie mess bags along the way as well as the doggy park and beach for your pets to swim.
We arrived back home yesterday from Pine Acres. Boy do they have strick rules… overboard if you ask me! There wasn’t a day that went by that staff didn’t address us for, “this isn’t allowed” circumstances. For example, a pedal go-cart that we brought was not allowed (for what reason ?) even though they had them to rent in their campground, the motorized scooters that we brought were, “not allowed”, chalking on the road was not allowed, small donut floats were not allowed in the pool, no food or beverages were allowed in the pool area, etc. The hours of the pool were 11-7 and they didn’t offer much activities for the children to do, except if you have lots of money to spend at the arcade. However, they did seem to cater to barking dogs throughout the day and night, doggie messes on the road, and the pool is not as large as it appears in their brochure. I will not be returning to Pine Acres anytime soon!
We just stayed for the weekend. I will never return. Our site was extremely uneven. The staff was anything but friendly. The rules are ridiculous! We were enjoying our campfire with friends, and had a staff member actually waiting until 11pm to come and be extremely rude to us. No friendly reminder that it is 11pm. Our kids were accused of being out causing trouble after hours the night before, when they were not out. They were in bed! The rules are over the top. You cannot even bring your own bottle of water in the pool area. On top of the $7.50 per child charge. This is certainly not a family campground!