The Very Popular Thousand Trails Orlando and all it’s Amentities

What do you look for in an RV campground? Big sites? Check. Amenities? Check. Pool? Check. Friendly staff? Check. We’d heard great things about Thousand Trails Orlando (TTO) from fellow RVers, and now that we’ve been here for 2 months, we’d have to say we agree – it’s one of the best Thousand Trails campgrounds there is! (A close second for us to the one in Chesapeake Bay – read about it here!)

As you probably know, a Thousand Trails Membership lets you stay at one location for up to 21 days, which is how long we were originally booked. We liked the campground so much that we decided to pay a little extra to stay here for 3 months. This place has everything we need and we’ve loved our time here! Plus it’s near everything! We’d probably stay here longer if we didn’t have a lot of other destinations to venture to!

While the campground is listed as Orlando, it is actually in Clermont, FL – a little West of Orlando. It’s a very popular spot for those wanting to go to Disney. However, we prefer quieter more nature-ish destinations, so haven’t been there ourselves. Clermont is close to equidistant from the East and West coasts of Florida, so we’ve spent time going both directions from here. Daytona is North East from here, Cocoa Beach is South East, and Tampa and Clearwater are both South West. It takes us close to the same amount of time to get to each of those areas – and each is as beautiful as the others. Because all of these destinations are equidistant, Clermont has really been a great place for us.

Back to TTO and the reason for this post! Here is our official bike-through of the campground. We did edit it down quite a bit so it wasn’t so long as this campground is big! (When we walk around the entire perimeter, my tracker says it’s over 3 miles around!) Watch this to get a feel for the campground and amenities:

We first arrived here on December 1st with our travel trailer behind us. The campground has a noon check-in, which we were told was quite strict. We didn’t think too much about it, and arrived at about 12:15. There were campers everywhere! There was a long line of campers lined all the way up the entrance, as well as down Route 27. They were right that the noon check-in time is strictly enforced as campers were lined up waiting for that 12 p.m. time to hit. You will actually get turned away if you arrive prior to 12 p.m. (We’ve seen people have to turn around!) And every day we’ve been here at noon there is a long line of campers waiting to get in. It’s been a joke of ours to make sure we don’t try running to the store or anywhere else during that time because you’ll have to wait in a long line to reenter.

Why would everyone wait in line? Because it’s first come first serve! No booking what site you want, which is quite common with Thousand Trails campgrounds. Upon check-in at the security gate, you are guided to a staging area near the rec center. From there, all the campers coming in are lined up. A ranger in a golf cart will come to talk to you and lead you to an open site. Our ranger asked if we’d been here before (which we hadn’t) and asked what type of site we wanted. Having never been here before, we didn’t really know what to expect. He said he had a perfect site open in the newest section of the campground and led us there.

This new section of the campground is beautiful. While I’m not sure how new “new” is, it gives the look and feel of being new. The cement roads are all still perfect without cracks or bumps, and the concrete slabs on each site are still perfect. It was a perfect site.

However – it wasn’t long after we got set up with our dog fences and rugs out front that a ranger came by to tell us nothing could be put on the grass in this new section. Meaning, yes, our dog fences couldn’t be on the grass. We moved them around so they were on the edges of the slab, but our dogs do not want to pee on cement – they want grass. This is how we were set up and had to move it all over to the concrete pad. This was a big downfall for us!

One of the things this lifestyle has improved life for us is being able to just let the dogs out the camper door whenever they need to go out. We lived on a busy street in our house and the dogs couldn’t just be loose. One of them is a beagle and definitely could never be loose because she would run away. We bought these awesome FXW fences from Amazon (check them out here) when we hit the road. They are very easy to put up and the dogs have free range anywhere in there. We can open the camper door and they can be free. WELL, not in this new section. They had a little room to be in the fence, but it was on hot concrete. Not ideal for our dogs. Keep that in mind when you arrive and tell them where you want to be.

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We were making it work at this site and just walking the dogs more instead of letting them have the freedom to roam around in the fence. But something amazing happened next. Our butts got sore. Wait, what??? Yes, our butts got sore whenever we sat in the dinette in our camper to play cards, do schoolwork, or eat. We needed some new cushions we thought. When we went to a camper show last year in New Hampshire (the one that we bought our camper at) there were all kinds of vendors there selling everything. And like a mind reader, Facebook showed me an ad for a camper show in Daytona. So we thought we would go there and check out the vendors and see if there was anything about dinette cushions.

We drove over to Daytona to have a bite to eat, walk the beach, and check out the vendors at the camper show. Well, unbeknownst to us – that day we fell in love.

First of all, there were no vendors. It was just a camper show for one camper dealership. So we did what any reasonable people would do – walked around and went in every camper we could – from toy haulers to Class As & Cs, to fifth-wheelers. Well one of them was the Solitude. And after being squeezed into our 29 ft. travel trailer, this thing was amazing.

So much room. So much storage. Separate sleeping areas for the girls. Space for a washer and dryer. It was truly amazing.

Of course, we were just looking for dinette cushions. But walking inside this thing and realizing the space we could have, we knew we had to have it. In fact, walking out of it that day, Emma looked at us and said “Well, that really was Love At First Sight.” A week later, we had it at the campground. Check out our walk-through video of this fifth wheel.

It’s been amazing to add this to our journey as now we are no longer camping, but more have a house on wheels. It’s so homey and just perfect for us.

With this new RV, we have to buy a bigger truck to pull it. Our old truck didn’t even pull our travel trailer well, let alone this week. So, this is another reason why we extended our stay at TTO – to give us time to shop around and find the perfect truck to pull this with. And here we are, two months later, still at TTO, with one more month to go on our reservation here.

We had the new fifth wheel delivered here and moved to a seasonal site in a different section of the campground. This was great for us because this is considered an “older” section so you can put things on the grass! The dogs have a grassy area to lay down. We can have our dog fence out and we are just very happy it all worked out as it did.

Since we have spent extra time at this campground, we have really gotten to experience more of the events and amenities than we would have if we had only been here a short time.

There are two beautiful heated pools and a hot tub. They are wonderful places to hang out on hot days, and quite popular. With lounge chairs scattered around and music playing – it makes for a quite enjoyable day.

Some days (especially this past week when it’s been about 90) it was too hot to sit in the sun and too popular at the pool, so we opted to go at night instead. Just as nice! The air temperature was still in the 70s so it was nice and quiet in the pool, and not too cold to get out to dry off. Nothing like some quiet lap swimming after a hot day!

Another favorite thing of ours to do here is Bingo. It’s quite a big to-do. They offer several different kinds of Bingo at different times of day. A couple of times in the middle of the afternoon we played Wheel of Prizes Bingo and Candy Bar Bingo. The kids were allowed to play these games and at each one, we won three times.

The other Bingo we play that the kids are allowed to play here is Meat Bingo, which is once per month. We have one three times at each one of these we’ve gone to and won Chicken Tenders, Pork Tenderloin, Ham Steak, and TBones. Not a bad score! This type of Bingo is played with three playing cards – an entirely new game we’ve never seen before.

Each player has a card, which is three separate playing cards laminated together. The Bingo caller begins drawing cards from a shuffled deck and reading each one aloud. You put a marker on each one of yours as she calls it. The first one to cover all three of their cards up yells “Bingo” and wins. It’s quite interesting, and again, not a Bingo version we had ever played before.

The other type of Bingo we have joined in on is Adults only – and it’s for cash. While I’ve mentioned that we won 3x each time at each of the other Bingos, our luck hasn’t traveled with us on the cash bingo. We have yet to win that in the couple of times we’ve played. This is traditional Bingo. There is a caller that calls the numbers and you must complete the Bingo pattern of that game. It takes longer, but there is a lot of cash to be had. We were the ones that showed up the first time totally unprepared without daubers! We have since purchased some. I’ve seen some ladies with cute Bingo bags to hold them (like this one) and thinking that might be the next thing I order. Definitely a fun thing for Jesse and me to do separate from the kids, but again – no luck on bringing home any cash yet. They offer this every Wednesday night.

There are many other events that take place in the rec center, including Line Dancing, Aerobics, musicians, dances, trivia – you name it! There is ping pong and a pool table there, as well as books and puzzles to do. It’s a common area that is usually pretty popular!

What we probably do here most often though is ride our bikes. There are so many roads and turns to take that it makes a bike ride such an enjoyable experience. This past week it has been in the 80s every day, so riding our bikes is about the only breeze we’ve had – and it feels great!

It’s so great to see so many people of all ages out riding bikes – regular and electric. Everyone is friendly and says hi when you pass. People are out enjoying the nice weather and getting a little exercise at the same time.

On our bike rides, we usually swing down by the pond and pause to look at the water. There are kayaks to rent for a day, but we have yet to try them.

There are also several swampy ponds around the property and if you are paying attention, you can often see a turtle or an alligator sunbathing beside them. But you have to be looking for them to see them!

A couple of other things to mention here are the outdoor amenities near the rec center. There are a couple of basketball courts, a mini golf, shuffleboard, pickleball, and a kid’s playground – all of which are quite popular. Great things to get involved in and stay active while you are at TTO.

Something very cool and to watch out for here are the Gopher Tortoises. There are signs posted in the common areas to watch for them. But we can rarely go for a walk or bike ride without seeing one. We got to see one defending its territory in a way we’ve never seen before. Check it out here:

I’ve never seen anything like that. The next day we saw another one running for his salad:

You just never know what you might see when you keep your eyes open. It’s amazing to watch and watch the kid’s excitement as well.

Thousand Trails Orlando – it has the amenities and locale to make for a perfect spot for you and your family. If you have a membership, check out this campground while you are in Florida.