Rating: 🐈 🐈 🐈 🐈 4 out of 4 cats
About the Park
We spent a year (2018-2019) at Destiny RV Resort in Goodyear, Arizona. This was our first experience spending any significant time at an RV park with all its nice amenities and features.
Overall, this was a great park, and we feel like subsequent parks, even the great ones, have been a bit of a let-down because of our good experiences here. Destiny had just about everything we wanted in a park, so now we’ve got some high standards to live up to when visiting other parks!
Pros
- Easy on/off access from the highway (I-10).
- Very roomy and level spaces, many of which have trees that offer a little shade. The patio is cement but the parking space and roads are asphalt. (So be sure to use jack pads or leveling blocks in the hot Arizona sun, or you’ll sink and put holes in their nice sites!) We had plenty of room to park our 38′ trailer and our truck.
- TONS of citrus trees, and you’re encouraged to help yourself to fresh fruit. Many residents will pick fruit and leave it out for others if they’re parked next to an especially delicious tree.
- A big pool (3′-5′ depths) with a nice hot tub (spa), which is wheelchair accessible (including a lift). When we were leaving in August, the hot tub was being renovated and it sounded like it was going to be even better.
- Full hookups. 20/30/50 amp service at every site, with water and sewer.
- Free, recently upgraded WiFi (tip: we had much faster speeds when we parked closer to the office/clubhouse) which was suitable for remote work.
- Friendly and kind office staff who were always full of great local tips and information.
- 24-hour security, with key-code access after-hours and friendly security staff.
- Clean, reliable laundry facilities (at the time of our visit, each machine was $1.75, with 56-minute dryers, and quarters and detergent available for purchase in the office). Even during the busy season, we never had any trouble finding an open machine.
- Multiple bath houses with separate shower and toilet stalls, which were always clean and in good repair.
- You can bring a 10-pin garage door opener to the office and have the staff program it for you, so you don’t have to punch in your gate code every time you come and go.
- The park will accept mail and packages on your behalf.
- Several conveniently located dumpsters, with a couple somewhat-randomly placed recycle bins for cardboard, paper, and aluminum. We had many, many Amazon deliveries, so we really appreciated the cardboard recycling.
- Outstanding 4 or 5 bars of LTE service for T-Mobile and Verizon (we can’t vouch for other carriers, but none of the neighbors we spoke to had any complaints).
- Tons of interesting birds, which the cats loved to watch.
- Friendly long-term and returning seasonal residents made the park feel like a nice little community.
- During the winter, there are lots of activities and pot lucks.
- They were very positive and understanding about minor repairs and improvements we needed to do (like after the first rain with our brand new rig, when we installed slide awnings, or when we installed a Maxxair fan, or when we wrapped our slides in foam board to keep us cool.).
- Really nice landscaping, with trees, flowers, and metal sculptures. We lived in Goodyear (in a house) for 3 years prior to moving into the RV and this park, and this was the prettiest place in town.
- RVs of all ages are welcome, which meant we saw some really beautiful vintage rigs and really interesting older rigs. We personally don’t like RV age restrictions, and being able to see really interesting RV’s was a great perk.
Cons
- The pool closes at 10pm and the laundry closes at 9pm. Since a key is required to get into either area, we wished these were open later or even 24 hours.
- Smoking is allowed on the property, which was a big asthma trigger. Workers smoked while driving in golf carts, and you never knew when you’d get a chain-smoking neighbor.
- While the park is technically wheelchair accessible, we had a little trouble with Jen’s manual wheelchair, because of ruts and potholes, particularly on the pathways leading to the pool and laundry. However, someone using a scooter or power chair probably wouldn’t even notice.
- Dog rules are selectively enforced: any breed restriction at all is a big negative in our book, because there’s no such thing as a bad dog breed, only bad owners. But do understand that most breed restrictions are imposed by ignorant insurance companies, not ignorant park owners. However, non-restricted-breed dogs with obvious behavioral issues (such as a large poodle that wouldn’t stop barking at, growling at, or lunging at guests) were allowed to stay the whole season or live there permanently.
- Related to dog rules: there was a cute dog run area, but you could smell it whenever you were downwind. The dog run really needed a thorough cleaning, especially after the busy winter season.
- Black widow spiders and scorpions: this is an Arizona problem, NOT a park-specific problem, and Destiny was very transparent about what we could expect in this area. Residents are encouraged to treat the areas outside their own units with pesticides if necessary. However, if you’re new to Arizona, your first black widow spider might be a big shock.
- Roundup usage: this is also a regional problem, not just at this park, but still a concern. Roundup is known to harm our honeybees and butterflies, and has been identified as a potential carcinogen. We really didn’t mind the rare weeds we saw cropping up (the Phoenix area is so brown, that it’s nice to get a little green once in awhile), especially if the trade-off is environmental harm.
- The decor: Destiny RV Park has a kitschy “cowboys and indians” theme, which is pretty common in the southwest. However, despite everyone’s best intentions, it’s actually and unfortunately offensive. We hope to see themes like these fade away as more people recognize this racism for what it is. Destiny would do well to adopt an adorable cactus-and-roadrunner theme, in honor of all the lovely roadrunners we saw while there. (If you’re not sure why this is racist, you might be interested in reading about red-face, why Native American mascots are dehumanizing, confronting racist objects, and why we need to eradicate racist mythologies.)
Conclusion
All in all, Destiny RV Resort had great amenities in a great location. If you’re looking for an RV park in the West Valley of the greater Phoenix area, Destiny RV Resort is the absolute BEST in the area.