Hickory Creek Park — Attraction in Arkansas

We camp quite a bit and try out different places for new experiences. We won't return to this one. Like many places these days, they are not staffed well, so check-in process is somewhat annoying, but worse is that anyone can just roll in and drive around and even park in YOUR RESERVED campsite and there is no ranger (no one answers the phones either). Only person we saw was a lady on an electric wheelchair that came over one day to hand us parking passes (I am assuming that means she is the park attendant), did not introduce herself or give any info, just handed us a parking pass, she also didn't even check out reservations or ask our name, so there's that too. For some of the details I'll list, you should know we were at site 43 for a weekend stay. Pro's: The sites all have power (from what we could tell), so hookup or powering your phone or whatever is pretty simple. Some guy came around selling ice and fire wood at least once a day, not sure he works there, but it was a nice convenience. The lake is right there, it's pretty accessible to walk down to from just about all the sites. The park also has two different boat launch areas if you need that. We had a canoe and walked it in right by out site.

Con's: Site (43) is advertised as FULL SHADE, it is NOT even partial shade. The trees near the lake will provide shade until maybe 10am if you keep moving your chair closer and closer. The only other tree on the plot will provide shade about 2 hours of the day. If shade is important (esp tent camping in HEAT), choose a different site, recommend one near the boat launch as those were wooded. Site does NOT have water at it, just power. This was a pretty big inconvenience esp. if you didn't want to bring a 24 pack of water bottles. We try to keep the earth clean, so we'd rather refill a bottle then use a ton of plastic! No one around to check you in, to check that people belong there and paid, or to answer questions. Somewhat makes it feel less safe as well. The bathrooms (you can see in my pics) were disgusting AND not convenient to most the sites. We either had to walk one way (about 7 min walk) to a vault toilet that was absolutely gross (no sinks, no soap or hand cleaner... ummm). Or, we had to drive about 4 mins (would have been about a 15 min walk) to the "flushing" toilets and shower room. That one was (in pics) very dirty and stained and not upkept (the ceiling is flaking off everywhere). They should be ashamed of these bathrooms, I don't care that it's a campsite, it doesn't give them a pass for being disgusting! They do NOT honor any noise ordinances or rules. There was a party over on the DAY USE side and we could hear (VERY LOUD) music the entire day Saturday. What gives that party the right to play music SO LOUD the ENTIRE DAY and well into the evening (9pm still!). It's just rude and obnoxious, we don't all want to hear your music and some of us camp to listen to nature and relax!! Firepits are pretty small and a "grill grate" covers about half of it and didn't seem to be moveable. We did use the grill part, so that was fine for the need, but the grates were very bent and half the food fell through and we lost about half our meal to the fire below. Also, the firepits look like they've never been cleaned out and have about 16years of soot in them. Water (lake) is pretty dirty. I know, not much they can probably do about this. It's just a warning for others who might mind. Day use side was packed full most every time we went over there, and I am going to go ahead and assume half of them didn't pay the fee, because there is no-one driving around checking - that we saw. Also, we learned the pavilions are not rentable, but just show up and use... seems kinda lame. The Marina shop is incredibly hard to find! Note: It's down one of the slips at the very end. Convenient from the water, but from land, you would never know it existed. No signs. Just figure it out.

I know, sounds like a lot of complaining... because I was not thrilled with this park at all and we...

Ali Shalhoub doesn’t know what he’s talking about. (Probably fake review.) WON’T RETURN!!! To date, the WORST USACE park, in which I have camped. First, probably my fault for not reading site details more closely before I booked; however, each site has electric pedestal, but NO WATER! Probably a total of five (5) water spigots broadly placed throughout the entire park. Obviously, for camping - a minor inconvenience, but paying $24 per night, one would normally have expected electricity AND water at each site as I have experienced with other USACE parks for comparable price. Second, the most glaring issue with this park is there is NO CONTROLLED ENTRY. There is a little registration shack at entrance, but not staffed. (Informed by park host shack was closed “for maintenance”. NO GATES at park entrance to keep unregistered vehicles/people out of park after closing time. (Which I assume is 10PM). Thus, one night at 10:30PM, inconsiderate RV campers with a huge 5th wheel toy hauler disturbed our entire small, camping loop attempting (in the dark) to back their huge camper into a narrow back-in site. Topping that off, the same night, at 11PM, some irresponsible person(s) began discharging 20-30 rounds of high-powered rifle fire in the vicinity of the park marina. Yes, you read this review correctly. People firing high-powered semi-automatic rifles in the a USACE park at 11PM. There are tent campers in the park, which makes for very unsafe conditions with people discharging firearms, let alone high-powered rifles. Lastly, people (some registered campers, I think, and some not) driving into campsites at midnight; making all kinds of noise with their pickup trucks. Some stayed; while some left. AT MIDNIGHT! Needless to say, I was unimpressed with the lack of security and coordinated control at this park. I was concerned about my safety, so departed a day earlier than planned. Contracted park hosts were friendly and helpful, but are not paid to be awake 24/7; thus, they are trying to sleep when all the raucous behavior and extraneous vehicular traffic ensues. Which makes the lack of FRONT ENTRANCE GATES that much more peculiar. It wouldn’t break the USACE budget to install an entrance gate as seen at other USACE parks. Gates lock at 10PM, no one gets in (or out) until staff open gates at scheduled time. Easy peasy! Paying guests (campers) are safe, as well as...

My husband and I spent nearly 2 weeks during October at a lakeside campsite. The park is nearly quiet, with a few louder cars truck/boat trailers travelling the roads nearby. The sites and shower house were kept clean. There is a sign stating they don't provide it, but I only wished for a soap dispenser to wash my hands after using the toilet while walking about. I wasn't going back to my site immediately. One item that did concern me was the security. I did see presence of a ranger driving through periodically but of all the times that we came and went from the campground-1 to 2 times daily x 13 days =26 times minimum, there was no one at the gate house except 3 times. The day we arrived at 4:30 pm, no one was in the gatehouse. There was never a gate closure. We never had a hang tag given to us for the truck. We never had a tag on our site indicating the dates of stay. All sites are reserved, no drive ins- but who is to stop them? One day a car dwelling trio of people and dog hung out unpacking and repacking their car in the shower house parking lot and using the showers. I can't say for certain, but I don't think they had a reserved site here. The day use area across the water on the peninsula was not exactly day use only. Cars (not ranger trucks) drove in and out of there many times after the dusk closure. One night a car pulled in and parked near the closed restaurant and sensual sounds rolled across the water from a boat docked in the marina. Campfire serenade for the kids... All that said, we would stay here again. It is beautiful, mostly peaceful and we do have security cameras on...