Willow Beach Marina — Attraction in Boulder City

Mixed review on this place... The campground specifically.

Pros: Very clean restrooms and common areas Kayaking the river is beautiful Very quiet at night There's a store at the marina for essentials Big horn sheep roam the hills and I got to see them Lots of birds and rabbits Late check in was easy Boulder is close by....

Cons: Two MAJOR problems with this place. I stayed in a tent site for 3 nights. The first thing I noticed was there are no shade covers at any of the sites! Nothing. Just open sand and gravel (little did I know this sand and gravel would become my only weapon against an invasion) with a pit and a concrete table. The sun here beats down relentlessly. It's obvious a lot of money was spent building this place and I just couldn't believe there's no shade in any the sites. This requires that a person bring a shade canopy or use their tent to protect themselves from the unforgiving sun. One finds themselves hoping for a breeze 15 minutes after the sun comes up. And when the breeze comes, it rips through here! So much so that my tent was collapsing in the gale force winds two of the three days and two neighbors shade canopies blew completely over and ripped the steaks out of the ground! So... why weren't shade structures built for these sites? Protect people from the sun and from having their canopies catapulting into the air? The ROACHES! OMG! My last night here I stayed up later than I had the two nights before and happened to turn on my lantern instead of using the dim fireside light to navigate to the tent. To my HORROR my entire tent site was surrounded by those big red and black roaches! And even worse I hadn't zipped my tent fully closed so 4 or 5 had gotten in the door while I was star gazing by the fire! I was panicking chasing roaches out of my tent! You know those scenes when people are throwing things at the mouse in the house... yeah that was me with a lantern in my tent chasing big nasty roaches out with them running in multiple directions! I over turned everything while getting the disgusting critters out! But even while chasing them out the door and throwing the bodies of the couple I squished out the door... I could see I was still surrounded by these beasts! So I took to fighting them off outside! I didn't have any insecticide so I started throwing handfuls of sand and gravel at them. There were dozens! Chase some off on one side just to walk around to the other side and there were more! My head and my lantern were constantly on a swivel as I kept throwing sand and gravel. Squished a few and flicked the dead ones out to the live ones as a warning to let them know they weren't coming in my tent even if I had to do this ALL NIGHT! I even put more wood on the fire and made another drink. I was in this for the long haul! After two hours of gravel attacks these nasty things realized I wasn't going to back down and as a group they just disappeared into the darkness. It was creepy and so dang grose! I stayed up for another hour keeping watch, rechecked the tent, shook out my sleeping bag, double triple checked ALL tent zippers and finally laid my head down. Couldn't fall asleep well... had major creepy crawlies. I woke up at the first crack of dawn... literally just a few hours after I closed my eyes... packed up and immediately left. If I had seen the roaches the first night, I never would have stayed. It wasn't just one or two... DOZENS OF HUGE ROACHES SURROUNDED MY TENT! Tent site was spotless. No trash sitting out. No food scraps. It was just a nasty invasion.

So... beautiful place, awesome river to Kayak, good location... but unforgiving sun and wind... no shade structures that won't blow away... and ROACHES GALORE!!! I'll kayak here again. But I'll never...

Our Son, Daughter-in-law and two grandchildren, were coming in town, so we rented a Pontoon at Willow Beach AZ.

We arrived at Willow Beach and when we turned off our rental van, we realized we left the Fob key at home! 😲 We went in the office and spoke to Teresa about what we did and she offered to let us use their phone and after contacting our rental office, Budget, we were told by Budget that there is no duplicate key and had to have the van towed back to McCarran airport! Teresa was kind enough to offer to drive my husband and I to Henderson (NV) when she got off work at 5:30 so we could get our key. Thankfully we were able to enjoy the Pontoon and not worry about how we would get home.

After about 1.5 hrs, we saw a storm approaching and received a radio warning that a potential hail storm with high winds was approaching and we had to return to the harbor. 😧 We went back, unloaded the boat and went to the rental office. We paid in advance for a full day and asked if they would consider giving us a partial refund. Amber asked her Manager if they could do that. She spoke with the manager and was told to just charge us for a half day and refund the other half.

Once Teresa was off work, she and her husband drove us to our home in Henderson an hour away to get our key and we drove back to Willow Beach to pick up our precious family members by 7:00 pm. We are forever grateful to Teresa and her husband Ronnie.

Willow Beach is a lovely place and all of the staff are very helpful and kind to people that come there. We are so grateful for all their help in making an awful start to our day, a very enjoyable, pleasant, relaxing day with our family. Thank you to all of you!!

Kathy and Mike Dragisic...

Willow Beach was a very nice Beach. The scenery was great. The mountains were tall and big, as they should be. The mountains were so huge, it made you feel like you were in the middle of the lake when you were really by the shore. The water was very cold. The Colorado River is passing through all the ice and snow from the previous winter. The kids loved the scenery. We fed the Ducks. we were able to jump off cliffs and they have a whole second part of the beach on the other side where the palm trees were. Talk about a whole different type of scenery! We were able to put up a tent, even though it was very windy that day. Luckily, we use the boulders as anchors. We decided to go to Willow Beach that morning. We got on the road from North Las Vegas at 11:38am to Willow Beach Arizona in one hour. We made sandwiches and had our music playing. Please download your playlist to your phone before you go out there because their is no reception out there. There were a lot of other families out there as well. Everyone was either kayaking or canoeing. People had their dogs there enjoying the sun and cool water. It is very popular for canoeing and kayaking and boating. From my understanding, there is a hidden cave an hour away on the Willow Beach. So, if you take your boat there, you can get great picture. We got to Willow Beach at 12 p.m. and we left at 5 p.m. It was very hot; 114 degrees, but the water was 50 degrees! Very cold. Have a good time. Also, when driving there, please look out for your turn into the Mariner. If you miss your turn, its 30 miles to the next...