-You know, Patty, we've been camping for almost 20 years. -I know in that crazy. -It is crazy. And our camping style, I have come to the conclusion, has come completely changed after our stay last week. -Oh, yeah. -And I thought what we do is we talk about this campground that I am super, super excited about. -We're in love with it. -Yes. -And we're going to tell you all about it. -I love it. -In this episode of "Troubles with Delaney." -The podcast. -Hey, everyone, welcome back. My name is Patrick. -I'm Patty. -And for those of you who don't know us, we have been RVing now for almost 20 years. And we have had everything from a 13-foot teardrop all the way up to a 35-foot fifth wheel. -Don't forget a backpacking tent and a condo tent. -That's right. We've had tents along the way. What we've never had is a pop-up. -Right. -Or a motorhome. -Correct. -So, but we've had-- this is the one we're currently in is number 12. -Yep. -It's a 33-foot fifth wheel. -Yep. -brand new 2024. -I love it. -All Access Series 29 RL. -We love it. -We do love it. And it's going to be our home not only this summer, but very shortly it will be our home for a couple of years. But we'll get into that in a whole 'nother episode. Because today we're going to talk about a campground that we had never stayed at before. And we are now in love with. -We love it. -But before we do that, Patty, we have to do another exciting round of this or that? -Of course. I'm ready. [MUSIC PLAYING] -You're ready for this one? -I think so. -All right. So Patty, if you are given the choice of either going out to dinner and having steak or going out to dinner and having pasta, which one would you choose? -Hmm. I like both. -I know you do. That's why I thought I posed it. -I think I would choose pasta because here's my reasoning. You do steak so well that I am so spoiled when you grill a steak. -Right. -You know how I like it. -I do. -You do all your happiness with it. And they are so hard to beat. That I really, really would go with pasta. -OK. Just because you can get good steak at home. -I can. -That's what you're saying. -Yep. -All right. There you go. I was just curious because I know you like both. And I thought, well, I do tend to always come up with these food challenges for you. Do you know this or that? -Yeah, because I think of, you know, like, one time went to Ruth Chris. Well, even our anniversary was Ruth Chris. -Yeah. -That was awesome. -I'd say Ruth Chris steaks. We've only ever ate twice at Ruth Chris because they're not cheap. -So they're going to be a Patrick steak or Ruth Chris steak. -Yeah. -It's usually my two hours. -You don't want to go to ponderosa. -No, I don't. -OK. -There's not many ponderosa's left, so they're pretty cheap. -I'm pretty lucky. -You want to have to, yeah. -That's a relief. -You know, I've had a good steak in restaurants, but-- -Yeah, I think, though, I like it the way you do it. -Well, thank you. I appreciate that. -These are Chef D'Zure. -Yeah. Well, I want to get right into today's topic. -Let's get into it. -Because I have a feeling this one could go on for a really long time. -I think so. -And we don't want to waste your guys' time. So we'll get right into this. So for the first time ever, we stayed at a brand new camp resort. -Yes. -And it was a resort. -And it was a resort. -And so we spent five nights at Camp Margaritaville in Pigeon Forge. And I will say, for those of you maybe not familiar with the Margaritaville branded campgrounds, there are now several, including the one we stayed at in Pigeon Forge, but also Auburndale, Florida, which is south of Orlando. -Right. And then didn't you say there's one in Texas by Houston? -Yep, there's one over at Crystal Beach in Texas, which is near Houston. I believe there's one in-- I know there's one in Georgia. There's one, I believe, in Louisiana. I saw on their website, there's one coming soon, it said, to the Poconos up in New York. So you can go to the Margaritaville website and find all their locations. But we had heard about the Margaritaville campgrounds. -And it was on our bucket list. -Yeah, we said someday we're going to go. And one of the things we had heard from people is they're a little pricey. -Yeah, we knew that, yeah. But we had heard positive things. I really hadn't heard anything negative other than the price. -Right. -And so, anyway, we checked in. -Yeah. -And number one, I will say, I did not think the price was that bad, especially for June in the smokey mountains. -Right. -They had a special, when I went online to book it, where if you stayed five nights or more, you-- I think it was 20 or 25% off your case today. -Okay. -So it brought the weekday nights down to $79. -Well, that's not bad. -I don't think that's bad at all. And the weekend, I can't remember the exact rate on the weekend. I do believe it jumped up to maybe like 109 or something like that. -Right. -But, so price-wise, understand, it's a resort. If you're looking for cheap camping, there are-- -This is not it. -Yeah, Margaritavilles are not it. -But if you want a place for you, you never have to leave, unless you really want to, this is it. -No. So, when we arrived, and for those of you that don't know, the location in Pigeon Forge is the former home of a Boyd's Bear store, I guess. Years ago, Boyd's Bear had some stores. I know there was one in Gettysburg that we visited. -Right. -And then they had built this one in Pigeon Forge, and it was always like a big barn. -Yeah, it looked like it had a big silo and a barn, and it had levels, and-- -Yeah, and they built this up on like a hill there in Pigeon Forge. -Right before you go into the Smokies, right? -Yeah, to George Gatlinburg. -George Gatlinburg. -And it ended up closing, and I think it set empty for a couple of years, and then whoever came along bought the property and decided we're going to put in a campground, and that the barn was probably a little too big for your traditional camp store, because it was a four-story barn, and so what they did was they put in a lodge. So it's Camp Margarita Bill, RV Resort, and Lodge. So if you don't have an RV, you can still stay at this location in their hotel, in essence. -Right. -But the real focus there is not on the hotel is-- -They focus on the campground. -The campground. And so anyway, so we pull up, I booked this site, I call over to see if we can check in early. They're like, "Sure, come on over around 11.30 or 12." -We were there. -And so I went in and super friendly. The lady working, the check-in for the campground, you know, welcomed me, and she says to me, "Boy, I don't know if the site you chose is going to be big enough." She said, "It's only 38 feet." -Right, right. -And I said, "Well, we only have a 33-foot RV." And so the first thing she did was she started looking for, if there might be some else available. And she did find one that was 40 feet, but I really wanted the site I had chosen, and we'll talk about that in a bit of why I wanted it. But she was just so nice. And in fact, the site she had found me that was 40 feet. -It was like a bigger one, wasn't it? -It was a different category, it was a more expensive site. -I gotcha. -And I said to her, I said, "Well, we only paid for a standard." And she said, "Oh, that's okay, I'm in charge. I can put you in that if you want." -There you go. -And she told me, though, I asked her, "So what's the difference?" She said, "All of our sites here are basically the same." They do have a few, like, super sites. -Like wider. -Really wide with like a-- -With fancy fire pits, yeah. -But most of the sites, what you're paying for, is not anything different in terms of the site or the amenities. It's how close it is to, like, the pool area. -Yes. -To the closer you get to the hotel in the pool area. -It's going to cost more. -Yeah. But here's the thing, we were in the cheapest site they had. -Mm-hmm. -And I didn't think the walk to the pool was bad at all. -No, I think it was not a hard walk at all. -No. -It was not very far. -Yeah. -So, yeah. -So, and then-- -Not a big deal. -And I don't know if they do this all the time, but she gave us a bunch of coupons. -My goodness, so many coupons. -So, we had a 20% off for their breakfast buffet, because the hotel has a restaurant, and they do a daily breakfast buffet. -Wasn't there, like, an arcade card? -They gave us an arcade card that we never did use, but I don't know if it had, like, five or $10 on it, so we could have went to the arcade and played some games. -Coffee house card. -50% off of a coffee beverage. -Yep. -And then also 20% off of a peril or merchandise. -Right. -Like, stuff. -Yep. -And, yeah, like, just-- -So, anyway, so we go to our site and we get all set up, and it was no problem because this site was nice and deep and flat, so I was able to hang the RV over the concrete. -Right. -The only thing she asked was that I not-- that I make sure our landing gear was on the concrete, not on the grass. -And we like to do that anyway, so-- -And so we had this super nice, so the site was all concrete in terms of, like, not only could we park the RV on concrete, but we had it on the concrete. -You had a big area of concrete. You had a cool picnic table. -Yes. -You had room to park the truck. It wasn't sticking on the road and a nice fire. -And the reason I said I chose a site was on one side, which would have been our driver's side, which is the non-pattio site. There was nobody else. We were, like, at the end of the row. -Yes. -And so it was all grass. It was all grass behind us, and then it was, like, a hill that went up. -Right. -And then because it was almost, like, right on a corner, so we had a really huge patio site. We had a really huge patio site. So lots of places for us to take Truman and Bess out, or just for us to hang out. -Nice grass, green grass. The pups just loved it. I think they wanted to lie down in it a few times. It was so soft, but, yeah, it was beautiful. -Yep. And full hookups, you know, all new. -Oh, nice. -And I guess the other thing was that concrete is a minor detail, but all the pads were stamped with, like, the margarita bill logo. -The medallion, their logo. It was really, really cool. -And so anyway, I thought, and now I will say this, not all sites in all campgrounds are created equal. -Right. -Even though every site in there looked really nice, and they're all new, modern. -We did a walk around a lot. We did a lookin' around a lot, 'cause you want to remember sites for future. And some of them were tighter. -Yes, they were definitely some where you didn't have-- -They were closer. -Yeah, they were not as wide as ours. So nobody takes site 51 the next time I go. -We took a good mental note, yeah. -51 is our site. -Well, it's cool too, honey, is remember throughout the campground, they had pavilions with, like, tables and, like, one-head jenga and some games in there for kids to do that were just kind of scattered around, or you could eat out there with your family or friends or whatever. -Yep. -And playgrounds and one section had a gazebo, if you remember. And so, yeah. Now, here's the thing. For starters, I want to tell you guys this before you go, because I didn't find this out till halfway through. They have their own app, so you can download on your smartphone, and number one, you can go in and see each day's activities, and you can favorite them. So if you want to be reminded that you want to go to juggling at 11 a.m. out on the lawn, where they're teaching you how to juggle, you just hard it, and it will send you a notification. -Or if you want to make sure you're back at your campsite around 2.30, why would that be, honey? -Because, during the season, I don't think they do this in the off-season, and they are open your round, I believe. But in the off-season, they probably don't do this. But during the season, at 2.30, they have a margarita cart that drives around the campground selling $5 margaritas. -So cool. I mean, they've got a, what was it? -Inflatable pink flamingo on top of the cart. They're playing margarita, the song margarita bill from Jamie Buffett. They've got, you see, two options of margaritas, and then they even had kid popsicles. -Yeah, for the kid. -If we just cut the plastic out, you know, to cut the top, and you're good to go. -Yeah, and they're striving around announcing $5 margaritas. It was like the adult version of the ice cream thing. -I've never seen somebody hint, hint, my friend here. Looking out the window, like a little kid waiting on. We're at the police, like, "Okay, it's one o'clock." We got to get back. -We got to start the, I'm like, "It's one o'clock. We're not that far." Well, we got to get back and be ready for the margarita cart. -I love the margarita cart, but that app was great because I didn't realize it the first few days, and then once I found it, I was able to go in and find out exactly what's going. And they had, and that's the other thing. They had lots of activities. -If you wanted to do stuff. -If you wanted to do it. -Yep. -Okay, a dog park. Now, this is where I'm going to-- -This was, I think they need to do a little work. -They could do a little work on the dog park. They have a beautiful sign for the dog park. -It's a beautiful bark-or-read-a-ville. -Yeah. -Well, when we actually got to the dog park, it's just a big fence and grass area, but here's my real knock on it. It's single-gated. -I think, yeah, you need-- because these two are a little guy sometimes, get a little rambunctious when another dog comes into the park, and the poor other dog, you know, you need a little time to get him in there, and there's only one gate. We need a double gate. -Right. And we had just come from Hilton Head, National RV Resort, who has a fabulous dog park. -Yeah. -Not only is it double-gated, but they have two dog parks. One for small dogs, one for large dogs. -Yep. -Both of them have water for the dogs. -Water features. -And a little exercise. -Yes. -Like adventure things they could do. -I give Margaritaville credit for having a fence-dick grass area. -Something. Yep. -That's one area, though, that I would say they could do a little bit better. -Right. -That's about the only thing that I would knock them on. -Right. Because, you know, we have a male dog. You know, you need like a tree or something, or he likes a bush or a rock or something. And you need a place for, there was a place for humans to sit. But even, you know, you just need double-gate. That'd make it feel better. Yeah. -So, pickleball course. -Yes. People were on that all the time. -Cornhole. -Yep. -We actually went up and played quantum. -Yeah, it was fun. -Yeah. They have like, what is it? Like, it almost looks like miniature golf turf or something. -Yeah, it was all turf. Yeah, real nice. And just lots of Adirondack chairs you could sit out there. -Oh, and tables and chairs and umbrellas. And yeah. -When you are up at the lodge area, it's buffet music. All day. -It's party. -Yes. -And so, it has a vibe. They have a camp store right in the hotel. -Yeah, huge. -So, if you need your RV supplies, things like that. -Birds for souvenirs. -Subineers. -You can have doggy souvenirs. -Yep. -They also sold ice cream. -The ice cream, yep. -And they had like a little coffee bar over there. -Right. -So, they had that. I mentioned earlier, they have a restaurant. -Mm-hmm. -So, during the week, they do a breakfast buffet. -We did that. -I think maybe on Saturday, too. I don't know if they do it on Sunday, because I know they have brunch on the weekends. -We did the breakfast buffet one day. -Yeah, and it was honestly-- -It was good. -At $14.95, which was the regular price. I think it was worth it. -Well, there's so many choices. -Right. It was your basic scrambled eggs. -The bacon. -Sausage. Fried baloney. -Potatoes. Then they had fresh fruit. And then you could have cereals and-- -Biscuits and gravy. -Biggles and muffins. -And cakes and French toast and-- -Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Old meal and cereals for kids. And yeah, all kinds of stuff. Coffee, juices, yeah. -Yeah. And with our 20% off coupon, I mean, it was a steal to get filled up one morning. -Yeah. -So, but we also ate there one night. Now, we didn't eat inside because-- you can sit out at the pool and get the full menu. -We did, yeah. -And we did that. We sat out at the pool area. -Yeah, I had a salad with chicken. -And I had half a barbecue chicken. -Mm-hmm. -And so, yeah. So, they have a restaurant on site. They have multiple bars. -Yes, they do. -And then, so lots of food and beverage options. -Right. -They have a pool. -Main pool with the slide. -Hot tub. -It's a zero entry. It's a hot tub. And they have like a water feature for little ones. Looks like a palm tree with water spewing out the top on little kids that look tiny ones. -Yep. And several days we were there, they did like pool parties and had DJs up there. -All kinds of fun. -It's just a complete buy party. -It's a fun, fun party. And when I say party, I'm not talking about like out of control party. I'm talking about tropics. You're with Jimmy and the keys, that type of thing. -If you're a parrot head, this is perfect. -Yep. -And then the opposite side of the pool had the-- -Lazy River, which we loved. -We spent a lot of time at the lazy river. It was less crowded than the pool. -You could sit around it. They had umbrellas. They had Adirondack chairs. They had regular tubes that clear or they had-- -Surfular ones. -Surfular ones. -And they had the others that look like a seat. -And you could sit on them. -Where one side's open and you can sit on it and it has handles. And oh, it was so nice. -Yes. And they have a bar there. -Yes. -That partaked in that too. -And they do limited food service there. But I will say, if you go there and you're at the lazy river, I highly recommend getting those nachos. -We were a little munchy because we were there around lunchtime and those nachos and you could choose what kind of meat and I think we put brisket. -We went brisket, yeah. -And they were $18 and trust me, we couldn't eat them all. -No. -We split an order. -It was so good. -Yeah. -So very good. -And the land shark was good. -That land shark's always good. -So that's from that standpoint. But we're not done. There's more. So down in the basement of the lodge. -But they call it the Finns. -Something Finns. -Finns city. -Finns city, yeah, like Finns city. -Yeah. -Yeah. -They have a huge arcade. If you have kids or you're a kid at heart. -Huge. They had, like, what, indoor? It looked like a big chessboard. People were playing that. They had a huge football table. I wish we'd have had a lot of people there. -Well, they had six people. -Six people to play this football. A pool table. They did, like, activities down there with kids. Like, they had one day they had stamping and making tie-dye shirts and whatnot. And there's a little, like, place to get souvenirs there. -Yep. -They had these awesome gaming chairs. And you could sign up. I guess rent the area to play out. -Yeah. You had to pay to use it. But they had, yeah, video gaming. -Video gaming. A little bar there. And then there was what, duck bowling? -They called it duck pin bowling. It looked to me, like, miniature bowling alley. -Yeah. It was awesome. -Yeah. -And then they had to pay for that. -Right. -But. -And sometimes they show movies down there. -Yes, every day they would have a movie. And some days they had live music. -Mm-hmm. -And, like I said, and then right behind that, which was, like, the lower level near the lazy river, there was a big grass area. In the evenings they do, like, a community bonfire with roasting marshmallows. -Which is near the lazy river. -And then they had activities out there throughout the day. Like, the one day the guy that was juggling. -The poor guy was by himself. -Yeah, nobody showed up for the juggling. -But he showed up for juggling. -Gull bad for him. But we were in the lazy river. -He was doing a good job. -And I wasn't getting out. -He was juggling those plates. -Yeah, he did. -Yeah, he's spinning plates. -Oh, my gosh. It was cool. -Yeah. -Yeah. -So, is that everything? I think. I mean, it was just- -There was so much. Um, it was just awesome. It was a place like- -We didn't want to leave. -I didn't want to leave. It was just so relaxing. So at night it got so quiet. -Yep. -Yeah, you can hear Dollywood from there. -Well, you could hear the train from Dollywood. -And you could hear the fireworks. -No biggie. -But that was it. -No, nothing else after that. -And it was. It was quiet. -People were respectful of the quiet hours. And people were great. It was a good spot. And don't forget the coolest thing out front. I don't know if all of them do this. They had one of Jimmy's Airstreams. -Yes. The Airstream that sits in front. It said was actually Jimmy's Airstream that he had used as a recording studio for one of his albums. -I think it was like far side of them. -Far side of the world? -Far side of the world or something. Whatever it's called. But yeah, they had actually you could- they had a little, um, what do they call it? You take you scan it and you can- -A QR code and then you can get the video. -Yeah. -Of him singing in there. -In there. -You see him in that trailer when they recorded the song. That's how they did it. -Yeah. -It's really cool. -No. Overall though, I'll tell you what- -It's an awesome place. -I mean, honestly, we will definitely go back. I don't know when because for us, it's about a 10-hour actual drive time to get there. -You don't even want to go back tomorrow? -I wish we could. I mean, fins up. I'm in. -Bends up. I'm in. -I mean, it was just a complete- -And we're very heads. So this is perfect. -We're a huge buffet fix to have been since we were young. -We were lucky enough to see him in concert years ago. -Yeah. -So it was a pleasure to be there. -What I really want to do is try another location to see if does Pigeon Forge just check all the boxes? -No. -Or do all the Margaritavilles have that same island vibe? -I was looking in RV destinations magazine earlier. -Which just came today. -And there is a section in here about the Auburndale- -Margaritavilles? -Margaritavilles. -Which is in Florida. For those of you who are like, where is Auburndale? Think kind of down towards Lakeland, Florida off of i4. And if you're watching our video podcast, which you can find over on Travels with Delaney, the podcast YouTube channel, Patty's holding it up. So that's cool. I had not looked at this. It literally came in a mail today. -I was looking at it. I was looking at it because I'm like, what's similar? What's different? Because I want to go there. -I mean, I think the layout. Obviously, one of the things we really enjoyed at the Pigeon Forge was it's up on a hill. And depending on where your site is, you can have some really good mountain views. -Yeah, we had a beautiful view. And then when we walked on other section, even a better view of the mountain. And I'm like, wouldn't this be cool in the fall with all the foliage to be able to sit in the lazy river, looking at the mountain in its colors? That would be awesome. -And see, Patty, we didn't do a very good job here. If you were thinking, you pulled out the RV destinations magazine, which it should have told everybody was, if you want to find cool places like Margaritaville, all you have to do is subscribe to RV destinations magazine. And we're going to leave a link down below in the show description. You will save 20% on any subscription you choose by using our link. And just so you know, we make no money off of it. There's no affiliate commission or anything like that. We're not being paid. We just happen to be friends with Randy and Callie behind her. -And their magazine is so, I was looking through it. It's so beautiful. There's some places I'm like, I want to go there. That's another place I want to go. -We might not even be friends with them anymore. They sell the magazine to somebody else, because we love the magazine that much. -I want to make no disclosure. We're not being paid to say this. We just literally love that magazine. -And I just happen to be flipping through it. -Yeah, because I did not know that. -And I didn't, I'm like, oh my gosh. -I was like, where is she going with this? I'm thinking, she's going to just do a promo. Because we do like to share the word about the magazine, her people. And we just do it to help out. -I'm one up on you. -Yeah, I guess. Nice job. But I had no idea that Margaritaville, Aubrendale was in there. -Yeah, nice. -Well, I do know this. I was texting Randy when we were at Margaritaville. And he was almost jealous that we were there, because he said they've, I think he told me they've been there twice. -They've been there, yeah. They're going back, aren't they? -And they have a reservation coming up this fall. -And they love the Lazy River too. But they didn't have the Margarita carts. -Yeah, because he said last time there was in April, so evidently we weren't doing the Margarita cart yet. What would be awesome is to be able to go with Randy and Callie to a Margarita, but I think we would all have a great time. -But don't forget, one more thing I was thinking of, hon, you could rent golf carts there. They're even delivering to your site. Electric bikes, is that correct? -They did rent e-bikes if you wanted to rent one though. You could rent them by the day or whatever. -And I think they would deliver campfire, if you want to campfire. -Yeah, they would, they won't deliver the fire, but they'll deliver the wood. -I meant the wood, isn't that silly? -Yeah, that is silly, but that's okay. It's late, you know? -I'm trying, okay, stay awake. -No, I think when I checked in, she said they could deliver firewood. -It's just a beautiful place, it was clean. We love cleanliness. -The bathrooms, the shower houses. -The laundry. -We didn't even mention the laundry. Because we all were, I swear, we were taking every laundry room. -Well, you gotta do laundry. -Well, you do, you do. Even when you're traveling, on vacation. -I mean, they just kept it up, they mowed, and they were doing all the weed, whipping, and all that when we were there, and they just kept it all clean, and yeah. -It was beautiful. -I honestly never tried their Wi-Fi, because we now have Starlink. -We just used our Starlink. -And I just don't mess around anymore. I just bought the old Starlink. -We don't mess around. -For what we pay for it, I want to get every megabyte usage that we get. -Yeah, so I don't know, I would ask you, would you go back? -Yeah, this is, I think, we already talked about this. I think this is my new, like when we want to go, let's say unwind. This is the spot, yeah. -And I will tell you, for those of you who have listened to our podcast, or followed our YouTube channel for years, you know we always say Fort Wilderness, Disney's Fort Wilderness, Hill and Head National. -Hill and Head National, and now. -Now Margaritaville, Camp Margaritaville. -In Pigeon Forge, yeah. -For our favorite RV resorts. -Yeah, they are true. All those are true resorts. -I'm just waiting for one of our friends, either here at Camp Happy Acres and ankle, or up at Forest Ridge in Ellsworth, Maine. Jeff and Lynn and Kevin and Andrew were like, "Hey, how's come we're not on the list?" Because you're our favorite family, small campgrounds. That's why, because there's a big difference. I don't even know how many sites they had there at Camp Margaritaville. I mean, it's obviously not as big as Fort Wilderness. -Right. -I don't even think it's as big as Hilton Head National. -No, I think it's in the middle. But it was awesome. -Beautiful spot. -All right, love it. -Well, a huge thank you to all of you for sitting here, listening to us to geek out over Jimmy Buffett, if I ever read it. -We are pared as we're geeking out, yeah. -But we appreciate you tuning in every week, taking some time out of your day to listen to our podcast, or watch us on YouTube. -Thank you so much. -And also, a huge thank you to our friend and producer, Mr. Jim Coosman. -Jim, thank you. -I know, Jim. -We're here to listen to this. -Yeah, we could not do this every week without Jim's help. He's the one for the audio site he goes in and makes it sound just pitch-perfect. -Yeah, he's great. -And he's also the one that makes us look goofy with the bloopers at the end. -Yeah. -That's the audio version, so. -And I'll still wait until you do. -Yeah. Anyway, thank you to Jim, thank you to all of you. And until next time, we'll see you. -On down to go. -Bye. -Travels with the lady. We'll see you on down the road. -So there you go. We just wasted a minute and 47 seconds of Jim's life that he's never getting back. -I'll sing to him. -My name, my name, my name, my name, my name. -Because there was some jibber jabber there at the beginning. -Jibber, jibber, jibber, jibber. -We're really good at jibber jabber. -Jibber, jibber, jibber. - I do, yeah. - Jibby Jabber. How many times can you say that?
