Campground Review: Mission Bay RV Resort, San Diego, CA (2013)

We split our two months in San Diego between two distinctly different RV parks: Santee Lakes and Mission Bay RV Resort. Santee Lakes had wonderful ambience and site size/separation (read our review here.). What Mission Bay has going for it is location.

Mission Bay RV Resort sits right on the banks of Mission Bay in San Diego. It is connected to miles of biking/walking trails around the Bay and via those trails, is about two miles from the Pacific Ocean. It is also a very central location to many of San Diego's main attractions and is close to three freeways (5, 8 and 52).

Basically the Resort is one big paved parking lot with a few patches of grass. There are 260 full hook up sites, restrooms/showers, laundry facility and boat launch. Rules are enforced about pets (breed restrictions) and guests (limited time parking inside the park), guest parking is offered outside the park. Not sure why it is called a resort as there are no resort-like amenities!

We chose one of the four sites that are adjacent to a restroom so we had a patch of grass outside our door and a neighbor on one side only. The only drawback to this location were the bright lights on the restroom overnight, though luckily it was dark enough in our bedroom for sleeping.

Sites are pretty tight and back-in only, with a tree separating every site at the front of the site. Had the park been full when we tried to back in to our site, it would have been really tough! We had to use the two sites across from us in order to maneuver into our site...though that could have been due to inexperience on our part! Backing in to these sites looked much easier for motorhomes.

Being about 1/3 of a mile (as the crow flies) from busy Interstate 5, the park does have some freeway noise, though we got used to it quickly.

We paid the winter rate of $800/month for the most basic site. Sites on the Bay are higher ($1200/mo in winter), as are summer rates. Monthly rates are not offered in the summer.

We had good 4G internet service using our Millenicom service; we did not try the parks wifi.

We will likely stay here again because we intend to return to San Diego to visit family on a regular basis and this location is ideal for our needs. Other nearby parks are either right on the freeway (Santa Fe RV Park) or have very tight sites and are family focused (Campland on the Bay).

Site 139 has grass next to it because it is next to a restroom. Most sites do not have grass.

Looking down our row...just a big parking lot with some trees.
At the end of this row are the premium sites along the Bay.

Sunset as seen from one of the premium Bayside sites.