Jellystone Park Hill Country

In Kentucky 2012

A few years ago, on an RV road trip to Louisville, Kentucky for the NAD Conference, we stopped at a Jellystone RV Park in Mammoth Caves and had the time of our lives! (Except for Ken, who was sick that day.)

I was surprised to learn that Texas has several Jellystone Parks, as I hadn't heard of them before our road trip in 2012.  The Brown Family needed a quick getaway.  While we are SO ready to go on a cruise again, we've recently replaced a vehicle and leased a new home, so our savings is sparse.  When we saw the Living Social deal for Jellystone Park Hill Country, we jumped at the opportunity!

In Texas 2015

Check-in is at 3pm, but in our usual style, we were running behind our goal to leave Austin by 3:00.  Around 3:30, we got a courtesy call from Jellystone, asking if we were on our way and still planning to be there. They gave us instructions on how to check ourselves in since we would be arriving after their closing time of 5:00. We left Austin at 4:00, which put us at Jellystone at about 10 after 5:00. Fortunately, the staff was still there and checked us in!  Whew!

Living Social gave us a s'mores gift bag, complete with charcoal.  Jellystone gave me a Mother's Day pocket mirror.  Free swag! I'll take it!

We drove up to our cabin, which had parking for two, a fire pit, a grill, and covered patio with picnic table.

Inside this "Deluxe 2-Bedroom Cabin," we had 2 bedrooms, each with one queen bed, a set of twin bunkbeds, and a full bathroom.  The common area housed a full kitchen, large dining table with benches, a sleeper sofa, and cable TV, which I wouldn't have minded being without.

The kitchen was stocked with pots, pans, a baking sheet, measuring cups, serving bowls, dishes and utensils.  It was a truly complete kitchen with oven, range, microwave and coffee maker.  I said we went camping; I didn't say we were roughing it.

The kids' first stop was the jumping pillow. With a thunderstorm predicted and storm clouds looming, we decided to get outside and stay there until the sun set or the storms let loose.  Jumping worked up a muggy sweat, so we headed a few steps over to the pool.  Between the pool and jumping pillow, a huge construction project is going on.  They are building a new water feature much like those you see at Great Wolf Lodge or Hawaiian Falls.  This new water feature is due to open in July of this year.  If you want to see photos of the planned construction, as well as all the photos from our trip, check them out here.

Splashing in the shallow end.

The stormclouds loomed, but the storm never came. Yay!

After swimming, we headed back up to the cabin for taco salad.  Thursday, we spent the day jumping, swimming, and exploring.  We took a quick jaunt out of the park to see the Guatalupe River, but ended up finding Canyon Lake Dam. It was gorgeous!  (See photos)  I'm sure there is much more to explore in that area, but we had come for a slow-paced, low-key getaway, so headed back to camp to more relaxing.  (Jellystone isn't the only camping resort in the area. You can read my sister's blog for a brief review of Hill Country RV Resort.)

Jellystone has a pretty rad laser tag arena.  We didn't play because we were there mid-week, so there wasn't enough staff to run the game.  They said we could ask and they might get it all set up, but we weren't that motivated to play.  They also had pedal cars for rent, but after seeing some other people ride them, we didn't think it would be worth the $5 per seat, per half-hour.  We stuck to what we were enjoying the most: swimming and jumping.

We bought some fire starters for $1 in the gift shop. We enjoyed grilling burgers and, of course, assembling s'mores.

Because of the season and weekday stay, we were almost alone in the camp.  For this trip, we enjoyed the solitude, but decided it would be fun to come back in August of 2016 for the Water War Weekend, like we had enjoyed in Kentucky.  There wasn't an empty campsite that weekend and it was a blast!

We highly recommend Jellystone Canyon Lake. It's an excellent getaway for Austin or San Antonio families, as the camp is only about an hour away from either city.  As for the other Jellystones, they are each independently-owned, but the two we've stayed in have been clean, well-run, and lots of fun!

I must thank God for two major blessings on this trip. Literally on our way to Canyon Lake, we received a completely unexpected check that covered our stay. In addition, storms were predicted with a 60-80% chance all weekend long, but it never did more than sprinkle for a few minutes 2 or 3 times.  We had decided we would find fun, rain or shine, but were happy that we didn't have to settle for a rain-soaked vacation. It was just what we needed!