My family has stayed in the waterfront cabins 10x and we have ALWAYS had a wonderful time and made fantastic memories during our staycations in Santee. However, the last stay after check out we were wrongly charged $250 for smoking cigarettes in the cabin, which never happened while we were there. No one in my family smokes and no one smoked in the cabin while we were there. Besides, the smell of cigarette smoke makes me physically ill. I would never have my children and grandbaby stay in a cabin that had been smoked in.
But Santee Lakes unbelievably still charged us $250. And we were never even given the opportunity to come back to the cabin and smell whatever they smelled.
If you do plan on staying in the cabins I would highly recommend having a park employee walk the entire cabin with you at check out. This will hopefully avoid any gross, false, and surprise fees that Santee Lakes may randomly charge against you. Or I suggest staying elsewhere would be easier to avoid any false accusations and charges on your credit card

beautiful setting, great amenities, wireless good, nice pools and jacuzzi. family oriented. we had a spacious corner site for one night. great place for a longer stay. staff in office gave barely enough info to get by, thus the reason for not highest rating.

great place best kept secret in San Diego county