Our last night, ready to go
Capsule summary: it was ok. How’s that for lukewarm? It is a perfectly fine park, but is more oriented toward people living in “park models” than vagabond people like us. The park has a fair number of sites – maybe 15% of its 365 sites or about 55 – that are occupied by full-time, year-round residents. Most other parks we have stayed at seasonally either do not stay open year-round or do not allow seasonal residents to stay more than 6 months. This “permanent” population changes the character of the park and, from the perspective of a transient seasonal resident, not for the better as they tend to form cliques. There were fewer activities than we enjoyed last year at Gulf Waters. We were less active, overall. Bottom line was that we enjoyed our season less this year than last.
We have to take some of the blame. Jett was not feeling well most of the winter, so even when we went to a dance, we left early. I didn’t try real hard to join in on activities. For example, I never once went to the Euchre card events. I did try to play poker, but quickly got discouraged when my cards stunk. We didn’t try to start any new activities, such as a genealogy club. We were stick-in-the-muds and it is not surprising that we didn’t have a great time
But another factor was the English/French split. Many residents – probably more than a third – were French Canadian. The ones I met could speak English adequately, with a few exceptions. And they were lovely people. But there was a bit of an us-vs-them feel. Not hostility, just separation. The French-speaking people kept to themselves at dances. They did join in on things like poker and golf outings, but usually in small groups, so that they could speak their native language when they wanted to do so. I can’t fault them for this – I would do the same in Quebec, I suppose. But it affected our view of the park as a friendly, unified place.
Another factor was that, unlike Gulf Waters where we arrived belonging to a group of people from Tennessee who adopted us (thanks, guys), we had to make new friends here. We can do that, but it takes some effort and it was made difficult by Jett’s chronic illness. We were fortunate in being placed initially next to Alan and Rojean and, next to them, John and Joy. Those two couples – and their friends Dick and Dee and John’s brother Mike – formed our only close social circle. They were a lot of fun and we appreciate being included in their “happy hours” and parties. But overall Paradise Pointe was, for us, not as much fun as Gulf Waters.
The facilities were very nice. The clubhouse was large and very functional. It had a community bulletin board (with event signup sheets) and a paperback exchange – pretty standard stuff for residential RV parks. It had a mail room and a laundry room, both small but adequate. The dog park was dusty but otherwise nice and the pickleball courts and the pool were excellent. Negatives? The cable TV was pretty basic, often went out and had only analog feeds, which translates to “not very good picture quality.” The twice-a-week garbage collection was adequate but the park has absolutely no recycling – I traveled 15 miles at least once a month to recycle our paper, plastic and glass.
So everything was ok – better than ok, really – but I don’t think there is anything I will miss. Except for John, Joy, Alan and Rojean.