Chesapeake Campground

My niece used to love going over to the campground to ride the horses every weekend. The instructors were very patient with her (she was 3 – 6 years old when she was interested in riding). She even had one horse that she claimed as her own.
Campground could really use a facelift and a few gallons of fresh paint to spruce it up.

Chesapeake Campground runs several businesses from the same facility and his review is for the storage facilities they offer. They storage facilities are basically several large fields set up like a parking lot with split rail fencing used to separate the individual spaces. For your monthly storage fee you receive 24hr access to your stored items and maintenance personnel keep the grass cut around your items. I personnel stowed my boat at the facility for approx 5 years with no issues. It is only recently that I made the decision to find a new storage facility and found issue with the business. When I originally stored by boat I signed a month to month contract. The contract basically requires me to pay the agreed upon fee and stipulates that if I am delinquent by 30 days I nust remove my property or it shall become the legal possession of Chesapeake Campgrounds. As I have no issues paying my bill on time this was not of a major concern to me. Shortly after signing the contract we were informed that the storage fee would be increasing. The increase was reasonable so we maintained our contract. There we no changes in this agreement for several years. Then approx 18 months ago we were informed that the fee would be going up. Again the increase was reasonable and we chose to maintain our contract. Then 6 months later we were again informed that the storage fees would be going up. This seemed a little excessive as so we started to look at other facilities. In the mean time we decided to pay up to the end of the year in order to lock in the current rate. This seemed to be the right decision as we again received a letter stating that the fees would again be going up at the end of the year. This was the third rate increase in 18 months and the reason we decided it was time to find a new storage facility. The new facility was not only closer to my home but the monthly fee was less than the original fee I had contracted for with Chesapeake Campground. I contracted Chesapeake Campground to cancel my storage agreement on the 25^th of May. When speaking with the employee who runs the facilities retail store I was told that they do not give refunds and that I would simply be out the 7 months of fees that I had paid in advance. I informed the employee that my contract did not stipulate that the fees were not refundable. I was informed that there was a sign in the retail store that stated there were no refunds. As I had only been in the retail store one time, when I originally signed the contract 5 years ago, I could not recall any such sign. I asked to speak with the owner and was told that the owner was not available. I asked for a phone number so that I could contact the owner directly and was informed that the owner would not speak to me directly. The employee would relay my request for the refund and then contact me. They could not give me any idea of how long this would take as they were not going to actively reach out to the owner but would simply wait for the owner to come in to the retail facility. The next day my wife received a phone call from another employee and was informed that the owner had been contacted and had agreed to a partial reimbursement. If I removed my boat and canceled the agreement before the end of May I would be charged for June. If my property stayed on the facility for any portion of June I would be charged for all of June and for July. Remember that the contract I signed was a month to month agreement. If I had not paid ahead Chesapeake Campground would not have any way of assessing this additional fee/​penalty. So if I wanted any portion of my money back I had no choice but to agree to pay the additional month’s fee. I believe that this practice is not only immoral but illegal. However, the cost of perusing any legal action would far exceed the amount I have lost. When we went in to the retail store to close out the account and get our refund check I looked for the no refund sign. It atates that there are np refunds on purchases, rentals, or camping. Based on the fact that I signed a contract for the storage facilities which never mention that there is a no refund policy I would not have connected the sign with anything outside of the retail store. I did noticed that there was another individual signing a storage contract while we were waiting. The contract that individual had in front of him appeared to be much more detailed than the one I had signed 5 years ago. I cannot go into any detail about what it does or does not stipulate. I do know from my conversation with the original employee I spoke with that Chesapeake Campground now charges a deposit when signing a storage contract. My advice to anyone seeking to store items with this facility would be to read the contract closely. Never pay ahead and when terminating your contract, be prepared to lose any deposit you may have paid. I believe this to be the reason I was charged for an additional month. They had no deposit to keep.