Wow! This has to be our favorite casino RV campground. We’ve been here twice now, once during Road Trip 2018 (August 9-12) and again during Road Trip 2019 (September 4-8). The first time we chose it as a convenient location on our way from Vermont towards Michigan, but the second time we chose it because we just liked it! We could have traveled farther across New York in 2019 after departing Lake George Schroon Valley Resort, but we wanted to spend some time at the casino and we had some time to kill before getting to Michigan.
Granted, we’ve only stayed at three casino campgrounds in our three years (to date) of RV road-tripping, but this one has the best layout and the best landscaping of them all. It’s lush, comfortable spread out, and has plenty of space to go walking the girls, with water features and wildlife for your viewing pleasure.
The campground is set up as a collection of loops, some of which are within view of a pond. We were fortunate enough to get a water view for both of our stays here. The sites are refreshingly wide, providing plenty of elbow room between neighboring rigs. We felt the Yellow Birch Village loop was a bit quieter than the Poplar Village loop, but overall we were satisfied with our sites here.
Our 2018 site – Yellow Birch Village 
Our 2019 site – Poplar Village
The casino offers a 24-hour shuttle service to the Turning Stone Resort Casino, which we visited several times during each stay. Because we’re from Las Vegas, you’d think we’d be tired of casinos, but we’re not. As long as the casino has some worthwhile amenities. We don’t really gamble much, but we do like good food and shows. We took advantage of both at Turning Stone.
As for cell signals, Verizon service is pretty decent here with speeds at 36.7 Mbps. AT&T service was not as good, but still acceptable at 23.3 Mbps.
Dining
Between our two stays at Turning Stone, we managed to try a number of the casino’s restaurants.
For my birthday in 2018, we went to the TS Steakhouse. Unfortunately, we wound up leaving early with our boxed up dinner as I wasn’t feeling well. The food was great and there’s a lovely view of the area as the steakhouse is high above anything around.
Another night in 2018, we tried Tin Rooster which offers barbeque and other country-style foods. I don’t particularly remember how well we liked the food, but the ambiance was interesting. In addition, there was line dancing which many people participated in (but not us – not our thing, sorry!).
In 2019, we tried the other restaurants, starting with Pino Bianco. It turned out to be our favorite, so we went more than once. It features upscale Italian dining with a nice wine selection. We enjoyed meat specials one night (I think veal and lamb), and another night I couldn’t resist the Zuppa di Pesce.
We also tried the Asian restaurant, Peach Blossom, one night before a comedy show in 2019. The food and service were excellent here as well. I’m sure we overate as we selected more family-style dishes than two people ought to consume.
As for the comedy show, we thought it would be a fun thing to do, but we just didn’t care for the style of humor. So I won’t name any names.
Wine Tasting
Because we stayed longer in 2019, we were able to go farther afield. We needed to do some banking in Syracuse, so we took advantage of our day trip to explore some local wineries.
We started out at Greenwood Winery & Bistro in East Syracuse. Unfortunately, we arrived on a day that wine tastings were not available, but… there’s a bistro! We enjoyed a couple glasses of wine and had a light lunch on the outdoor patio. It was a lovely day, the wine was nice, as was the food and service. A fire pit on the patio looks like a nice place to enjoy an evening with friends.
We then ventured out to Cazenovia, NY, taking one route on the way there and a different route on the way back. This is New York farm country, and very interestingly different from other farm country that we see on our travels.
Our destination in Cazenovia was Owera Winery, which is definitely a place that we would revisit if we were in the area again in the future. They have lovely wines, a beautiful venue, and great food. There are even music and trivia events throughout the week. We HAD to try the do-it-yourself deviled eggs here. It’s an interesting concept. I would just say that it could use some more seasoning in the egg yolk mixture.
Next stops
From here, we continued west. In 2018, we aimed towards Niagara Falls to fulfill another bucket list item. We may wind up there again someday, but in 2019, we decided we would spend a few days near Lake Erie at Westfield, NY. New York is such a huge state, with lots of variety in its sights to see and things to do. We’re definitely looking forward to many returns in the future!
