We went to Red Top Mountain State Park for the 4th of July weekend for boating and camping. We rented a boat along with an innertube and water skis for a half day. We had an absolute blast. The lake was busy but it was still so big that there was room for everyone to have a great time.
The campground, on the other hand, was a hideous experience. Apparently, the forest rangers or camp employees do not monitor the sites at all during the night. The campsites are 10 feet away from each other. Unbeknownst to us, the campground next to ours was full of teenagers whose parents were camped further down the way. Apparently, the kids were allowed to drink all day long. They came back to their tent at various times. First two girls fighting because one had said the others butt was big. It was like a Jerry Springer fight with crying and yelling. This was probably around 8:30 or 9. We were still awake so we kind of laughed it off. We went to bed around midnight. The rest of the crew (sounded like 10 people) came back to the campsite next door around 1 or 2 in the morning. They were loud and turned on enough lights to light up Fenway park. They stayed up talking until 4:30 in the morning at which time one of them started feeling sick so everyone was screaming "Don't throw up! Don't throw up!". We were horrified that this person was going to stumble over and throw up on our tent. Then some of them left to drive home. They were nice enough to pull out of their parking space with their highbeams on so that, yet again, we were blinded. Finally, one of the women (we later learned in the morning that there was, perhaps, an adult in the mix) told them to all go to bed. At this point, the drunk fell into one of the tents causing an upset. Oh, then the air mattress they were sleeping on lost some air so they filled it up with the motorized air pump. That was a treat that took about 1/2 hr. Finally they all went to bed. Then the people across the way, probably also po'd about being woken up got up and turned on THEIR lights and made a bunch of noise for about an hour - I would assume to try and keep the kids awake. Finally, sleep.
Woke up at 9am and looked up to see a spider with a body about the size of a nickel between the tent and the rain cover of our tent. It looked like something out of a B movie and even the guys didn't want to go near it. We decided that due to lack of sleep we would not stay the extra day and go hiking as planned and we were damned if we were going to stay another night. We packed up all of our stuff and were sitting drinking coffee when one of the girls from next door had an epileptic seizure and an ambulance had to be called. While the park rangers were there you could hear the kids scrambling to pick up all of the beer bottles. We left and went to check out. I told the ranger at the desk what our experience was like and that there were probably others that would complain as well. His response was "I'm sorry you didn't have a very good experience." That was when I told him flat out we wanted our money back. They only gave us one days worth of a refund but we took it and ran.
Again, I highly recommend the boat rental but stay the hell away from the campground!
