CAL-WOOD EDUCATION CENTER

Cal-Wood is a truly wonderful place to go for both education programming and retreats. I have done both - participated in a middle school day trip and had our wedding there. Our wedding at Cal-Wood was truly the most perfect experience. It's a beautiful setting and has everything you could need for a weekend retreat. The staff made it incredibly seamless - they were communicative and very accommodating. The food was absolutely phenomenal. They definitely take it up several notches for retreats. The kitchen staff did an incredible job accommodating our dietary restrictions and really took care of us. The presentation of each meal was lovely and well-done. Cal-Wood will forever hold a special place in our hearts and we hope to come back to share in the place where we got married.

What a great experience! I was the chaperone for our kid's 5th grade trip. I can't say enough about the staff. They were all very professional and courteous. The kids all had a great time! They run these camps like a well oiled machine. There is some planned downtime, but everyone is essentially busy learning and doing from sun up to sundown! I, can't express enough, HIGHLY recommend this camp if you're able to take part! Again... WHAT A GREAT EXPERIENCE!!!

Rave reviews from my wife and daughter who were there with a group. You can tell that the staff has been exceptionally trained. The food was amazing, catered to all food sensitivities and dietary restrictions. The activities were well planned, the attention to detail, the hospitality, all is fantastic.

I would NOT recommend sending your child to Cal-Wood Education Center for an overnight Summer camp. My child had a terrible time at the 4 night sleep away camp! He complained that the counsellors were impatient, uninterested in getting to know the kids, overly strict and authoritative in their approach. He also mentioned that there was not enough food to eat! My advice would be to consider going to the YMCA Lake Tumbleson camp, which is nearby. He LOVED his experience at that camp over last Summer.

I think if your child is in elementary school, this would be a better experience, but for my type A, hardworking, 4.0 gpa almost 17-year-old, it was rough to put it mildly. There were some good counselors, but she found quite a few of them to be overly strict, creating arbitrary rules more geared toward littles than age appropriate, responsible almost adults, and included games that felt more childish. And despite having overly strict rules at times (can't play games at the dinner table, what?!), there were some kids vaping in the bathroom. She was told she was being negative for making a lighthearted, self-deprecating joke about her own tie dye shirt and honestly felt like she couldn't do much right for most of the week. Additionally, she found some of them clearly pushed their political opinions and beliefs and made my daughter feel like an outsider for not being comfortable in certain situations, specifically a transgender boy living in the girls dorms and sharing a shower and bathroom facility with girls, separated only by a shower curtain!! If you aren't going to have a locked, individual bathroom/shower facility, this is absolutely appalling!!! So other than the tree climbing experience and night hike, which were wonderful and why I gave it a generous two stars, it was one of the worst experiences she's ever had. And she's been to camps before. All those Hollywood movies where kids go to camp and it's a hellish experience, I always thought were overexaggerated until this experience. If your child is young, they'll have a great time, if they are in high school, it will feel like a strict school prison camp for problem kids.