In late September 2021, we suddenly found ourselves in need to a place to stay in the Phoenix metro area for the next few months for medical reasons. A tall order, considering the area is popular with snowbirds and many RV parks are only open to folks aged 55 or older. But after researching our options, we called Val Vista Village, a...moreIn late September 2021, we suddenly found ourselves in need to a place to stay in the Phoenix metro area for the next few months for medical reasons. A tall order, considering the area is popular with snowbirds and many RV parks are only open to folks aged 55 or older. But after researching our options, we called Val Vista Village, and even though we were several years younger than the age requirement, they sympathized with our situation and let us book a long stay (we probably got lucky: in a normal year without COVID restrictions at the border and without a lockout disrupting spring training, which is a big draw in Phoenix, they might not have had room for us).The per night cost reflects what we paid during the March segment of our stay: we paid a special promotional price of $1500 that covered our October through December stay at our first site, then we stayed 6 more weeks at another site before leaving for another campground, only to come back and end up in a third site at the beginning of March for a final medical procedure. There are monthly utility bills for electrical, sewer, and trash services (each site gets a trash can and recycling bin), which on average came out to around $100.The resort has about 1000 sites, which are a mix of permanent small houses (mostly former trailers) and RV sites. There are several rows of long pull-through sites located throughout the property, which seem to all be spoken for by annual residents. The rest are back-in sites where the campers sits on gravel next to a concrete pad that serves as a patio, and you park any vehicles next to the patio (in some sites the parking area was gravel; in others it was also paved). Resort staff members (“rangers”) guide you to your site and will help you back in, which is good because the sites are tight and some of the resort streets are narrow. They didn’t have any trouble getting us into our first two sites (340 and 301A), which were sites next to a house. But when we came back for our March stay, the site the office had picked for us (613) was on a street with trees and houses that made backing in our 37-foot RV problematic. Because it was a Saturday, the office wasn’t open to authorize picking a different site, but the ranger made the decision to put us in site 608 instead and said he would clear it with the office on Monday, which he did.We didn’t take advantage of the multitude of activities and amenities they had, partly out of a lack of interest and partly because most organized activities (except for the concerts) take place on weekdays when I work. We did use the resort post office to receive mail and packages (although many packages just came directly to our site), and the dog parks scattered around the resort. Pets are only allowed to take care of their business at your site or in the parks: any other landscaped public area was off-limits (this was true of a lot of the 55+ resorts in the area). Our older dog couldn’t always hold it until we made it to a park, so we took a water spray bottle with us to clean up after her as best we could. Fortunately our final site was right next to two adjacent dog parks which was super convenient. The parks themselves were nice and grassy, but the fact that they all got watered at the same time once left me without any place to take the dogs during an emergency 4am potty break.In terms of cell service, the best speed I got on my Verizon Jetpack with MIMO antenna during our stay was about 36Mbps down and 11Mbps up. Other than the very occasional buffering, we had no trouble steaming video during our stay. The speed tests I did with my AT&T phone showed 66Mbps down and 16 up.The proximity of grocery stores and other services made up for the lack of scenery, but you could see the mountains to the east in certain parts of the park, which made for some beautiful sunrises.We would stay here again if we needed a long winter stay near Phoenix.