Jellystone Park in Luray, VA is located off exit #264 of Highway 81. It’s pretty direct although you do have to drive through some mountains and switchbacks with fairly steep grades before you get into Luray. Totally manageable as long as you take your time. It’s quite close to Luray Caverns and Shenandoah National Park and if you’re camping with children I highly recommend it as there are abundant activities and amenities to keep the kids busy. They have a great, fully stocked camp store, two bounce pillows, two playgrounds, laser tag (which you have to be 6 years or older), a fishing/paddleboat lake and mini golf. While we were there the pool area was undergoing construction as they are adding a set of really high water slides. This didn’t bother us as we were not there during swimming season. One thing I noticed here was the numerous cabins. They must have a hundred cabins dotting the campground as well as just exclusively cabins up the hill to the Three Bears Lodge behind our mountain view site.
We stayed here in early April and to be honest, we had higher hopes for the weather. Perhaps this time of year we should have headed a bit further south but it actually snowed the last day we were here. I was a little nervous if it accumulated as it was necessary to travel back on those mountain roads back to I-81 or I-95. Nonetheless the kids had a great time. When they’re active they don’t seem to feel the cold. They could spend hours at the jumping pillows and Sarah turned out to be quite good at gaga ball (like dodgeball on the ground in a small ring).
The kids loved Yogi and the crew as well. They couldn’t meet them without hugging them. Besides the amenities above, we also took a snowy paddle boat ride, spent a lot of time at the playground and went to a foam party on Saturday night. Not ideal with the cold weather. The foam soaked the kids more than I thought it would and we were left with soaked jackets and sneakers. The laundry did not seem to be set up yet as we had problems with the machines, but hey, you only live once right. When’re we going to go to a foam party in freezing weather again?
I definitely want to go back here again during warmer weather when to slides are set up and the pool is open. It’s only a six hour drive from NY and I can see us staying for an action packed weekend and heading back home. The picture below is Ryan with my underwear on his head and mom’s glasses. I’m saving it along with a few choice others for his wedding slideshow video!
You can see more of the campground, weather, gaga ball, foam party, etc. on the video below. Stay tuned as we”ll show you some of our outings while using Jellystone Luray as our basecamp. Thanks for stopping by.
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