Santee / Santee Lakes KOA Journey

I got this KOA as a cheap place to stay on our way home from a round trip road trip to Florida. This ended up being one of our favorite places to stay on the whole trip! I got the basic tent site with no hook ups and I couldn't be happier. There is a beautiful lake view directly outside the window of my tent, a small beach and swim area, fishing dock, boat launch, play ground, mini gold course, and so much more! The campground was nicely spaced and quiet. Everyone was incredibly friendly. Bathrooms were large and clean, comfortable enough fir a nice shower after a long day or swim. The staff were super helpful and kind! At the time of stay they offered complimentary coffee on an arcade/social area in the same building as the camp store. I did not partake however the pizza and wings they of

We have stayed at an RV site at KOA Santee Lakes many times on our way to/from Florida and also for a week for vacation. The campground is gorgeous with a lot of trees and it is right on Lake Marion. We can see the lake from our windows! The staff is friendly and very helpful too. We hired Kevin to wash and wax our camper and truck. We were blown away by the great job that he did! Our truck/RV haven't looked this good since they were brand new. KOA Santee Lakes is one of our favorite campgrounds.

This rating is solely based on the fact that we were offered a credit only towards a future stay ,rather than a refund. We were scheduled for an overnight stay on Friday, app. 6 days from now. However ,due to the very large storm of heavy snow & ice and temperatures in the single digits coming our way, we altered our travel plans by canceling our 1st overnight with the KOA in VA as felt more comfortable being further south due to freezing water lines etc. Since that would now make it over a 10 hour drive to Santee from MD, we picked a different campground that wasn't as far & then will continue trip to Fla. The VA KOA offered a refund due to storm. We were told by your KOA that no refund as no weather issue here. Well, we still have to get there! Very disappointing as it is doubtful we

Stayed one night on Site 13. $80 for Basically one giant ant hill. Woke up to the inside of our brand new travel trailer infested with ants. Even in the bed. Obviously very little pest control is being done. Took us two hours to clean up and we are still finding ants hours later. Manager gave us a refund and was apologetic. Did not use any facilities as we were too busy killing ants. Location is great. Nice dock on the river. Couldn’t even enjoy the sunset as the chairs were covered in ants. Ladies in the office were very nice. Please sort out your ant problem as it is ruining your business.

This isn’t one of the nicer looking KOAs I’ve seen. I kind of wonder why KOA lets it remain on their list. The grounds are well used and worn, with a rustic appearance. The tree cover is all tall pines with few mossy oaks. The campground is set up so all the sites sit parallel to each other in rows perpendicular to the lake so only a few have actual lake views down by the water. The buildings are old and dated and the bathhouse desperately needs to be renovated and updated. They were clean, but really old and in poor condition. Worst part was the site has lots of sugar ants. Everywhere. My RV was constantly having ant trails show up inside. Terrible. They clearly don’t do any insect control. The internet service is horrible. It is slow and drops out regularly. Don’t count on it if