Recreo Park — Attraction in Sainte-Catherine

Good: It's a great location. The scenery is beautiful, near the rapids on the St. Lawrence River with bike trails that lead to Montreal and elsewhere. There’s a beach and a boating area where you can rent a kayak or paddleboard or bring your own. The campsites are well-designed, very private and level with a wooden platform and spacious storage box for securing food and gear. The pavilion is attractive and comfortable with friendly, helpful staff, good services and showers. The snack bar has some good options although it has limited hours.

Dislike: It's a long walk from the parking to the campsite. The park provides luggage carts but its not convenient. It should be possible to drive the car closer to the site so you could load and unload gear and then take the car back to the lot. Campfires are one of the aspects of camping that we usually enjoy. Not here. The fire pits are excessively deep. There is not enough airflow to the fire, making it difficult to get it started and keep it going, and it’s hard to see the fire all the way down there in the deep pit. The fire pit is in a communal area by a shelter with four bright lights that are unnecessary, couldn’t be switched off and interfered with our enjoyment of the fire and natural surroundings. At 11 pm a park staff member came by and asked us to put out the fire. It felt like bed check. The parking lot is gated and locked after 8:30 pm so you can’t get in or out. We needed to go out to get food for dinner after returning on the bike path from visiting Montreal...

I went to this park for camping since it was close to Montreal yet it still has the wild outdoor atmosphere. It is well suited so it is not far from stores and the highway. The place is well organized and clean to stay at. They actually have wooden planks that are secured to the ground for the tents to stay on top of. This is good for packing out and leave without a mess on your tent. They also build hangers for clothes, a wooden L-shape bench that is great when you don't need to bring chairs and a table. Also, they included a bike rack to lock up bikes if you bike here. They included a common area where you can burn wood and have marshmellows and enjoy the fire. The best part of it is the wood is free. The washroom is those plastic portable. Each campsite has enough privacy from trees and shrubs that you will sleep peacefully at night. Lots of insects making noise at night. Be aware of lots of mosquitos. I stayed at Campsite #1 so it is close to the main building to use a flushed toilet and shower there. In the building, there are 3 picnic tables, a microwave, a double kitchen sink, laundromat, and washroom/shower area. The shower is powered by 25 cents. 25 cents is good for 1 minute. Will definitely come...

Recreo Park was a wonderful camp site to stay at and the beach was so close and amazing as well. The camp site offers trolleys for free to ship your camping gear to your tent site which is a bit of a drag but it is not that bad. Camp sites do not have water or electricity in them but the common areas which are close and central to every section of camp sites does have water, sun and rain shelter, and USB port for charging phones but I would not put my phone cable in them as they are subject to elements and rusted. The main office offers drinks, ice for coolers and premade sandwiches. For showers, they charge 25 cents per minute so you need to have coins but the main office can exchange your Bill's for coins. There is wifi and sinks in the lobby area under the main office and it is open 24/7. Every body can access that room because the camp site is a touristic area as well particularly for cyclists. The only drawback is that you need occasionally and randonly to wait around an hour for the bridge to be lowered because huge ships pass through the canal on which the bridge was put. Over the course of a week, we only had to wait 3 times so we parked the car and existed it to walk around and stretch...