Furnace Creek Ranch RV Park, Death Valley, CA

We are in site #T35--a full hookup, 50 amp site in the midst of the employee housing area.  The cost is $32/night.  Some employees stay in cabins, others in RVs.  The employee pads are similar to the one we have but many of them have a storage shed, too.  All the sites are dirt/gravel but the roads are paved.   In the following picture, both of the sites on either side of us are empty at the moment.  You can't see it in this picture, but our front tires are off the ground and we are resting on jacks, in order to get this site level. Some sites are more level than others.

We are very near the laundromat which serves the whole village.  The laundromat prices are reasonable, at $1 per wash and $1 per dry.   There are four washers and four dryers, and one of the washers had a "broken" sign on it.

The restrooms for the village are nothing special and the toilet stalls were messy with paper when I took the picture.  The sinks looked clean.  There weren't any showers, but the pool area has showers.

The pool was a lovely, big spring-fed heated pool.  Several people were swimming.  There was no hot tub, but there were several areas near the pool for lounging.  We were given key cards to use when entering the pool.  Both hotel guests and RV guests are allowed to use the pool.  And, the pool is open from 7 am until 11 pm, which in my opinion, are very generous hours.  We've stayed in RV parks where the pool and laundry closed at 6 pm!

Outside of the pool was a putting green, shuffleboard court, and bocce ball court, and a lighted sport court with basketball and volleyball on one side and a tennis court on the other side.  In addition, there is an 18-hole golf course on the property.  Rates this time of the year are $37 for 18 holes, including a cart.  Riders are free--again, sometimes golf courses don't allow riders.

There's a nice-looking playground which I forgot to take a picture of.  It's located in front of the hotel cabins.    There are also stables for horseback riding, and a bike shop that rents bicycles.  You can also rent Jeeps in the village.  The place has a definite Western theme and appears to be very family-friendly.  We've seen lots of families with children and there are lots of activities to keep everyone busy.

The general store is open from 7am - 10 pm, and carries the usual type of camp groceries as well as souvenirs and items unique to Death Valley.  Prices are fairly high because this area is miles from the nearest regular grocery store.

We ate at the 49ers Cafe this evening, just so I could give a review of it--right? ;-)  The food was okay, prices kind of high--$13 for a hamburger and fries and $13 for a turkey sandwich and side salad.  The place was hopping as this was the most affordable of the four eating places.  There's also a tavern that has pizza and other bar-type food,  The Wrangler which is a steakhouse offering $40 steaks, and a buffet which operates for all meals and charges around $12 for breakfast, $15 for lunch, and $30 for dinner.  All the eating places were busy tonight.  There's also an elegant dining room and bar up at the spendy Furnace Creek Inn up the hill from the Ranch.

The village his its own post office with mail going out at 11 am Monday-Saturday.

We didn't go inside the small Borax museum at the Ranch and there's also a larger Borax museum about a mile north of the Ranch.

There's a fairly large outdoor display of mining equipment.  Not really my thing, but people were looking at it.

I took all these photos between 3:30 and 4 pm, so the lighting wasn't the best, but hopefully you get the idea.  There is also a registration building for RV and cabin guests, and various buildings for accounting, human resources, and maintenance.  The maintenance people and employees all run around in golf carts. 

Oh, one more thing--we were impressed that we were escorted to our site, and it's a good thing we were, because the RV area is kind of a maze mixed in with employee housing.  But the sites are all very close to all the activities, which is a definite plus.  The visitor's center is about 1/4 mile north of here, and so is the gas station with prices over $5/gallon for unleaded.  Wow!  The internet cost is also outrageous at $4.95/hour, but we were able to connect to the hotel's "complimentary" wifi and it's fast and reliable.  We just had to enter our site number and our name and it's good for three days.  Verizon gave us a signal of 4 bars of 1x service--slow for data, but adequate for phone calls.  If you read Dave's blog, you will see how he got us connected to cable TV and of course, our satellite is up and running, too.  The RV park is very quiet. 

All in all, I would recommend this place!  If you have any questions about the facilities, please just ask and I will try to answer.  ;-)