Pedder Bay RV Resort & Marina - Victoria, BC

[Orangepeel]

We spent last week (eight days actually) at the Pedder Bay RV Resort & Marina in beautiful Victoria BC. Technically I think they are in Metchosin. Just wanted to post a mini-review about this campground.

The Good:
This is not an overly large campground and it is laid out very nicely. We were in a pull thru spot but could see that those that were in a back-in spots would have no difficulty.

This is a beautiful and peaceful location. There are some water view sites and even a few with wooden decks over looking the water.

Each camping space is nice and wide and is flanked on the left and right with a wall of juniper trees. Just enough to give you some privacy without being so much that you feel walled in.

Each space also has a fire ring and wood is available to purchase at the office for a nominal fee.

The main office facility has a small store and a cafe with full espresso service. It was nice to be able to walk down there in the mornings and treat ourselves to lattes.

For those who like boating the marina has boat rentals available by the hour at very reasonable prices.

For those who like biking there are two neat bike trails adjacent to the park. The only one I can remember off the top of my head is the Galloping Goose Trail.

The bathrooms, showers and laundry facility is very nice, well maintained and kept very clean. We saw someone each day cleaning in the morning and again at night. See "The Not So Good" section on why I know so much about their restroom facilities.

The "Depending on your perspective":

There were a lot of children at this park while we were there and it seems to most definitely be a family campground. This is great for us as we have kids and they enjoyed meeting other children, riding bikes, etc. I'd say there were close to 15-18 kids while we were there. To put that in context this is a campground that only has 78 spots, so that is a fair amount of kiddos out and about playing.

While the roads were paved the sites themselves were gravel…big pieces of gravel which I would call rock. I prefer either a cement pad with grass, a packed dirt site or a fine gravel site. You could absolutely not walk barefoot in the site. For others this could be no biggie at all.

This is a remote campground if you are going to the island for site seeing. If you are only staying for a short period of time you may get tired of the excessive driving to go site seeing. At first we did not mind, but by day 6 or 7 we were not looking forward to a 30+ minute drive to get anywhere of interest. That is partially due to having three boys in tow, if it was just myself and DH we might have a different perspective.

Your nearest little market (think small country market for staples and some goodies) is in Metchosin about 10 minutes away. Your closest major grocery store is about 20 minutes away. To get downtown Victoria you are looking at a 40 minute drive. To Butchart Gardens, about a 45 minute car drive. In other words, if you do not have a toad you are not getting to any place by foot.

The Not So Good:

Some sites are not remotely level. The site we were in was on an incline left to right and the back was much higher than the front as well. We spent a good hour trying to get level between using our auto leveling jacks and blocks. We even had a gentleman from the campground office trying to assist us at one point. There was just no possible way to get really level on that site unfortunately.

We figured we just had poor luck in getting an extremely unlevel site, but talking to campers through the week we found that others had this or similar issues as well. It seems to be a problem just in the lower loop of the campground, not the upper loop. One woman told us that it had been mentioned to the site owners and they are aware of it.

The utilities are set all the way at the end of the sites. Make sure you carry a long hose and an extension for your stinky slinky cause you are not going to reach things otherwise.

Because the site was not level and we could never get fully leveled left to right we had a *&%^ of a time draining our tanks. It was such a PITA that I eventually made everyone use the campground showers rather than the shower in our rig. The showers are pay for use - one loonie for every five minutes. But they are very clean and well maintained.

All in all it was a very pleasant place to stay and the good definitely outweighed the not so good. I am not sure if we would stay there again but do recommend people give it a try and draw their own conclusions.