APACHE PALMS RV PARK, TEMPE, ARIZONA

Our Opinion: Neutral. A small, well-maintained urban park on the Phoenix light rail line.

Date of Stay: January 9 through 16, 2011. We returned February 14 through 16; I updated this review after our second stay.

Weather During Stay: Sunny, cool days; cold nights.

Site Description: This is a small (71 sites), clean, tidy RV park in an urban setting. Most sites are back-ins, but there are a few pull-throughs. Sites are gravel; each has a concrete slab patio. It appears that all sites are FHU (30/50 amps), with cable TV included.

Sites are very level. Our first site (59) was barely long enough for our 38’ motor home, though we had sufficient room for our slides and Jeep in our site. (In the picture of our site, you can see the chair and reflector we set under the corner of our slide to aid our neighbor when she parked her truck next to us!) During our second stay, we had a long, roomy pull through with a picnic table, considerably large and more pleasant.

The park has a small pool and spa, and a laundry room with 4 washers/4 dryers.

Rate: For our first site, we paid $210 for one week, plus another $31.50 for the extra day (this included a AAA discount). For the pull-through, we paid $35.20/night (with AAA discount). Reasonable for the amenities and urban location.

Site 59, our first, much smaller site.	Site 16, a long, roomy pull through with picnic table.

Phone/radio/TV: Excellent Verizon signal here for both phones and aircard (blazing fast). WiFi is included, but we didn’t use it. Our site had no obstacles for our roof-mounted satellite TV dish worked, and the included cable TV had dozens of channels. NPR on 91.5.

Elevation/landscape/terrain: This is a flat campground in a flat urban area at 1,140 ft. elevation. Views are of neighboring rigs and palm trees.

Lighting/noise: Our site was comfortably dark at night. The big surprise: very little noise at night, in spite of the urban location.

Favorite Sites: The largest sites are the few pull-throughs and some of the sites in the back of the park. If we returned, we would be willing to pay the extra fee (around $4/night) for the roomier pull through sites.

Hiking/Walking: Sidewalks outside the park, or drive to parks in the Phoenix metro area.

Comments: Planning renovations to our motor home, we needed a conveniently located urban park. Apache Palms is very tidy, fairly quiet, located on the light rail line, very close to ASU, and convenient to Best Buy, Costco, etc. Not a normal choice for us, but it worked well for what we needed. The small size makes it more appealing to us than most of the HUGE RV parks in the Phoenix metro area.