Maggie
For Pelican Lake Recreation Area: I would LOVE to give this a 5 star review, but the fact is the entire campground is RESERVATION ONLY !!!!!!
We arrived at the park office around 11:00 no one was around ANYWHERE, the sign on the building states that the sites are by reservation only... If you have one go to your site, if not you need to make one. There is a phone there that one is "supposed" to pick up and connect directly to someone at South Dakota Parks... The phone doesn't work.... There is another sign.... call, OR visit our website and make a reservation.... Problem... NO WIFI, so unless you have either US ROAMING AND A DATA PLAN...... Okay fortunately we planned ahead when we left Canada in that regard, we got a Us roam and data plan.. Now for problem number two.... We called the number and the sweet lady that answered asked which site we wanted to reserve, being that we were still at the park office we had no idea which sites were available, there isn't any white board with a map of the sites that show which are occupied or reserved... so ya know we are going to have to call back, before we did we asked her which sites were occupied...List in hand we circled the campground finding which site was not reserved and then called back to reserve it as we were setting up in the site! There is free WiFi in Watertown at the frozen yogurt restaurant on HWY 81 west of the campground FYI! There are two hosts in the park, not sure why two hosts and no one at the front office that could have assisted with all of this.... The bathrooms were clean, new and the free showers had lots of hot water. The fire pits are a generous size and the site we had was very level, not the case with several we looked at. The two playgrounds looked tidy, the equipment new and those childern in the park were making good use of it.mThe road ways were paved so good for walking or biking. There were nice wide groomed trails for non motorized vehicles wi ding thru the entire park. The fresh water pressure at the sani station was VERY low it took a long time to fill the water tank. The water pressure in the lav was also low at times which meant a second flush... The park is very open for the most part. The wind tend to blow off the lake towards the campground, great to keep what mosquito's we had away... But they can be string so I would not leave an awning up if you were leaving your site to head out onto the lake. There are loads of Pelicans to watch day and evening, the lake shore in front of the campground had lots of algae so I would not let childern or dogs play there.... A very nice park, quiet when we were there Sunday to Friday, but I suspect noisy come Friday night....We would stay again...
Posted Jun 27, 2015 by Maggie from Stonewall Manitoba Canada. This is the subjective opinion of a traveler and not of AllStays LLC.
