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Travel Review: Carolina Pines

8/22/2021

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​This past weekend my family and I stayed at the new RV Campground Carolina Pines and had an amazing time. This was the first time in years that I have stayed in an RV campground and the first time ever for us to vacation together. Hopefully, this will be the first of many more to come.
 
Besides commenting on our experiences, I will also do my best to rate different aspects of the RV park. I'll be looking at the living quarters, entertainment, cost, staff, and location. These areas of interest are important to me when choosing vacation spots. They are also universally applicable, AKA reusable when rating future experiences.
 
Please know that this review is not a paid advertisement for any of the establishments listed. It is solely based on the experiences of my family and me.

Living Quarters

​When planning this trip, we wanted to make sure the five of us could stay in the accommodations for four nights comfortably. We ended up going with a tiny house-style cabin that had one bedroom, a loft, a bunkroom, a kitchen, and one bathroom. This ended up being the perfect size for three adults and two kids. In fact, it would have probably been ok for four adults and three kids. 
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The Loft
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The Bedroom
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The Bunkroom
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The Stairs to The Loft
​Just because I said you can fit a ton of people in the cabin doesn’t mean it was luxurious. A downside of having that many people in a tiny home is that there aren't five seats on the couch or at the dining room table. The table had four chairs, and the sofa could fit four people comfortably as well. But fortunately, the close proximity of the living room to the dining room still allowed us to be together during meals and relaxing out of the sun. The areas were so close I could almost touch the sofa from the dinner table.
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The Kitchen and Dining Room Table. Sorry forgot to get the Living Room
One of the things you may not think about but that I was concerned with was the air conditioner. In South Carolina, it can get insanely hot if the AC isn't working well. We were all surprised by how cool the three mini-split units kept the cabin. The place was actually pretty frigid until we turned the thermostat up about 5 degrees. Believe me, you will not have to worry about being cool here. After spending all day in the hot sun, the cool cabin was a welcome feeling.
 
Another favorite feature of the cabin is that the kitchen came fully stock with plates, pots, pans, cups, and anything else you would need to cook and eat. Minus the food, of course. If you have read some of my financial blogs on The Cyber Union, you know that we like to save money. The fact that you have a full kitchen at your disposal means you can save tons of money by bringing groceries and cooking. They even have a charcoal grill outside, ready to go for hot dogs and hamburgers.
 
Although the kitchen was mostly stocked, a few things were missing that you should bring. To ensure you can be self-sufficient and not have to run to the store, I would recommend bringing:
​
  • coffee and filters
  • paper towels
  • food
  • drinks
  • dish soap
  • hand soap

Moving to the outside of the cabin now. One of the areas of concern at RV parks is the space between you and the next lot. Most RV parks are cramped to keep it mildly. This makes sense from a business perspective, but for consumers, it sucks. Carolina Pines does a great job creating a nice buffer space between each unit or lot. My brother-in-law swears that for every two lots here, Ocean Lakes would have three campers squeezed in.
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A row of tiny houses
If I had to pick a few things to gripe about, I would say that they could do a little better with the general maintenance of the unit. A few bars were missing from the loft ladder, a wooden cover was missing under the bunk bed, and the shower seemed a little cramp. These little things didn’t detract much from the unit by any means.
 
Without taking costs into consideration, I would rate the Living Quarters 4 out of 5 Stars. It wasn't perfect, but it was way better than we expected.
I would rate the Living Quarters 4 out of 5 Stars

Entertainment

​So far the living space is great but what is there to do at Carolina Pines? There are tons actually tons of entertainment options at Carolina Pines.
 
Free options include:
  • multiple pools including indoor and outdoor,
  • small water park (which the kids loved),
  • 18-hole putt-putt course, 
  • horse shoe area
  • corn hole
  • gym
  • billiards (I think this was free)
  • basketball
  • jumping pillow
  • beach shuttle
 
Paid Activities include:
  • mini bowling
  • arcade
  • restaurant
  • bar
  • store
 
Besides these activities, Carolina Pines offers a mix of events that change continuously. Events such as fortnight tournaments, musicians playing by the pool, yoga, street hockey, and movies by the pool. The staff does a great job of finding exciting activities for both the kids and the family.
 
In addition to the stuff on-premise, Carolina Pines also has a beach clubhouse. The park doesn’t sit by the beach as many of the other RV parks. It is actually about 20 minutes away. They offer a shuttle service that runs about every half hour.
 
At the clubhouse, which sits by the beach, you can either hang around the pool or walk over to the beach. The clubhouse has bathrooms and places to eat lunch in the shade.
 
As a tip, you are better off taking the shuttle to the clubhouse. At first, we thought you could park in the clubhouse parking lot, but you must use public beach parking if you drive. Save money and take the shuttle. You don’t want to get sand in your car anyway. 
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The Indoor Pool
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The Common Area
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The Water Park
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A Outdoor Pool
​Overall I would rate their list of activities at a 5 out of 5. I like that Carolina Pines doesn’t try to gouge you with excursions once you get there, and they have a broad offering of activities to choose from. To add to the long list of activities, they will be adding a lazy river, and I can’t wait. 
​Overall I would rate their list of activities at a 5 out of 5

Staff

​Customer service has always been a big thing for me. There is nothing that can ruin a good time like unhospitable staff members. Before COVID, I enjoyed taking cruise ships because they have some of the best customer service in the world (I know not super F.I.R.E. conscious).
 
I mean, Carolina Pines wasn't at cruise ship levels, but their staff was very courteous and eager to help solve your problems. I found it easy to approach and ask questions of the staff, and my brother-in-law seemed to be always chatting them up about something.
 
Most notably of the Carolina Pines Team:
  • the maintenance staff chatted with my brother-in-law about the park,
  • the cashier in the store treated you like a neighbor,
  • the young man who seemed to be in charge of the water park was very friendly and kept it running smoothly
 
Not much to say about the staff other than they did a great job picking employees and had enough team members to keep things running smoothly. I would rate the staff at a 4 out of 5.
I would rate the staff at a 4 out of 5.

Location
​

​The location was Conway, SC about twenty minutes from the beach. Because the park is downtown Myrtle Beach like the handful of other parks, the traffic isn't bad, and the park is easy to get to. This also means there aren't many establishments right next door. Dollar General, two gas stations, and Wendy's are all about five minutes away. But everything else is probably closer to 15 to 30 minutes away. This includes Myrtle Beach and North Myrtle Beach. If you are from out of town, you are not far from more activities if you want to get out of the RV park.
 
Popular attractions relatively close include:
  • Broadway at the Beach
  • The beach
  • Ripley’s Aquarium
  • Family Kingdom
  • Pirate’s Voyage
  • Medieval Times
  • Grand Prix
  • Myrtle Beach Pelicans
 
In the grand scheme of things 30 minutes, isn't that far, actually about the same as the grocery store where I live. In Charleston, just about everything worth going to is about 20 to 30 minutes away.
 
On a sided note, I am sure as Carolina Pines gains more popularity, more places will be built closer to the park to meet the demand of the camp goers.
 
Overall, I would say the location is a 5 out of 5. You are close to everything Myrtle Beach has to offer.
I would say the location is a 5 out of 5

Internet

​Time for the bad stuff. The one downside to this place and one that plagues every RV park I have been to is the internet. It was hit or miss, mostly miss. If I needed to do anything important, I had to rely on my mobile hotspot. Luckily the cellular signal was phenomenal here. I just happened to run out of data real fast. My plan of 10 GB meets my usual demand but not my vacation demand.
 
Their internet is powered by Ubiquiti's Aircubes, which uses centralized Airmax  antennas to send the signal to the tiny houses. It may have been that our antenna wasn’t aligned correctly, or our cube was just bad. At one point I called the technical support line for some assistance and was not rewarded with much improvement. The support guy did some resetting and looked at the network connection from his end, but he said the device wasn’t “bridging” properly.
 
Although we were unlucky this year, the internet doesn’t seem to always be bad. My sister and her family stayed last year. She said their cabin’s internet was fantastic back then. Morale of the story is to make sure and bring your own internet source if you are planning to work any. Don’t trust luck if you need to get stuff done on the internet.
 
For the internet, I will rate the quality at 1 out of 5. Based on two experiences, you have a 50/50 shot in having good internet in the cabins. Better than Vegas odds but not reliable enough for nomadic workers. 
For the internet, I will rate the quality at 1 out of 5.

Cost
​

For one family, I would say the cost is on the high side. But if you could combine families as we did, you can see some savings, and I think Carolina Pines is worth it.

If you are a full-time RVer, I do not think this would be a budget-friendly place to stay months on end.  Instead, it could be one of the RV sites you splurge on for a few days. Carolina Pines does market itself as “luxurious” on its website.

Let’s take a look at the actual costs now. I will have to use September and October for pricing because the site will not let me go back in time. And I will also get the daily rate based on a four day stay.

  • RV Backin Site - $91.00
  • RV Pull-through Site - $101.17
  • Two Bedroom Cabin -  $233.45
  • One Bedroom Cabin w/loft (what we stayed in) - $226.68
  • One Bedroom Cabin - $212.17

​We lucked on our vacation and were able to take advantage of a Veteran special; Pay for two days and get a third for free. This helped us save a couple of hundred bucks making the vacation a little sweeter.
Taking into account the activities, location, roomy lots, and the typical rental cost, I would rate the pricing at 3 out of 5.
 I would rate the pricing at 3 out of 5.

​Conclusion

​We had a great vacation at Carolina Pines, and I think we will also be making it a yearly preschool tradition. If you are hoping for a budget-friendly experience, this will not be your jam. But if you are ok with the costs and don’t mind the smaller accommodations or hanging out in an RV park, I think you and your family will have a blast. We certainly did.
 
Using an average of my scores, I rate Carolina Pines at a 3.6 out of 5 for a summer vacation. I hope you enjoyed my review, and I definitely recommend giving Carolina Pines a chance.
 I rate Carolina Pines at a 3.6 out of 5 for a summer vacation.
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