Encore RV Resort Barrington Hills – Florida

Barrington Hills RV Resort is located in Hudson, Florida about an hour Northwest from Tampa. We ended up here due to the two week availability they had open. Most of the other Encore parks didn’t have this large of window open for the last two weeks of February. Lesson learned, book your winter Florida spots early!

Don’t Judge a Book…

This park is a recently converted Encore park so most of the residents are snowbirds and have permanent trailers and park model homes they use either full time or six months out of the year. It seemed like they only had a few empty lots that they were renting out to vacationers or Thousand Trails  members with the Trails collection add-on for Encore Resorts. This made it, at first glance, kind of an unwelcoming feeling when your are squeezing in between two homes. Our spot actually had one of the residence’s trucks parked right on it! But as soon as both of our neighbors came out they made us feel VERY at home. This was the parks shining attribute and 95% of the residents always smiled and waived. I was on a first name basis with about five of our neighbors within a couple days of our arrival.

Sites/Grounds

As I said our site (302) was sandwiched in between two permanent mobile homes and directly behind  was another home and then two rental lots. It was definitely the least private park we have been to, with very little trees and foliage. The Florida sun was pretty brutal from 9am to 5pm with out the shade.  The 390 sites at Barrington Hills are set in a rectangular shape with the office, pool, and activity center all in the front on the small end. If you happen to get a site at the other end of the rectangle you are looking at good third of a mile walk. We really enjoyed the length ourselves and would run laps around the nicely paved park roads after weights in the morning.

Amenities

This RV park has the usual list of amenities and here are some of the highlighted ones for us.

  • The pool looked like it had recently updated its pavers on the pad giving it a nice refreshed look. But, it was on the smaller side and only had about a dozen pool loungers.
  • The laundry facility was large and clean. This was the first time we ran across the washer and dryers taking credit cards, which was nice for the quarter supply ($2.25 and $2.00 in Feb 19).
  • The Activity center was a little out dated but had everything you needed including a gym with treadmills and a bowflex, books, games, two pool tables, and free keg beer! They did suggest donations of $1.00 per glass and $5.00 per pitcher though.
  • Shuffle board and horse shoes, that we never played.
  • Small fenced in dog park to let your little  guys run around unleashed.
  • There seemed to always be some sort of park run activity of pot lucks, dances, cards, BBQ food truck, along with pool and shuffle board tournaments going on.

Location

The location of Barrington Hills RV resort is nicely situated within a 10 minute drive to the beach at Robert J. Strickland Memorial Park. It is a small beach but is nice place to spend some time along with a few restaurants to dine at there in the marina.

Also a must is a visit to Weeki Wachee Springs State Park. This is a 25 minute drive from Barrington Hills and was recommended to us multiple times by residence and friends. Finally, after our newly met fellow RV friends offered us their inflatable kayak, we went. All I can say is look at the pictures below. WOW. It only cost $6 per kayak/canoe (self-launch fee) and they also have rentals available there. Just do it if you’re near the area, you won’t regret it.

Another fun time about 35 minutes South is the Tarpon Springs Sponge Docks. A fun, fair like atmosphere with Greek restaurants, bakeries, shopping, souvenirs, boat tours, and live entertainment! We had a great afternoon of people watching and delicious Greek food. A little tip on parking is not to go in to the pay lots on the main drag, but to go a block off and park for free on the side streets. No problem for our 2014 Sprinter Airstream.

Cell Service

At the time, we only used T-Mobile as our cell phones and hotspots. We got pretty poor service with just a couple bars on the voice and our data was atrocious around 1 mbps or worse at times. The same new friends that borrowed us their kayak also had an extra Verizon hotspot that worked just fine around 10-15 mbps. Thanks guys!

Unique Characteristic

The unique characteristic of this park was definitely all of the locals that lived there. We have not visited a park yet that has as many locals out on their porches smiling and waving as you walk by. It was like walking through a local neighborhood where you know everyone by first name.  Absolutely the most friendly place yet!

Final Thoughts

5 out of 10.  Because of the location and the people we would go back for a couple days if we were passing through the area just to say hi to some of our neighbors.  It was definitely more enjoyable because of the people than the place itself. Otherwise, it just wasn’t our perfect spot. I need a few more trees with out door spaces and the actual sites were just too tight!