Lake Manawa State Park — Attraction in Council Bluffs

Beware: Jetski Day with Group - 3 stars - see notes below.

5 stars for the lake, boat ramps, people and beaches.

I made my first visit here today and it was a good experience. The water was choppy, but the lake was "busy" because it is a Saturday (August 8th, 2020). We were on a wave runner taking turns and the biggest issue was the rocks near the waters edge. This made it especially difficult to swap out riders, etc. I appreciate the fact that those rocks protect against erosion and there are swim beaches, but it was not ideal for our group of 8 with a single jetski.

I also talked to a few people who were pulled over and ticketed on the water (no fire extinguisher after driving to fast near other boats and reckless driving on jetski). I suspect there is more to the reckless story but would suggest good cautious fun in lieu of those details.

I had a brief encounter with on-the-water law enforcement and they were very polite and helpful. I made an honest mistake and was provided clarification so that I could take corrective action.

I had 2 passengers (3 total including me) on the wave runner and 3 passengers in a tube behind the wave runner. Under Iowa law I was over capacity. My limit was three including on the wave runner. I believe my limit was three because I had a three seater. We immediately returned to our group and corrected our error. Problem solved and a great day overall.

No ticket. I think it helped that we were very polite and respectful. He was doing his job to help keep us and everyone on the lake safe. I am grateful!

Overall it was still a wonderful day and I would suggest a giant lily-pad or island float to help overcome the rocks beach issue that gave us issues. Keep in mind we had several kids with us and they all had...

White Trash Jamboree We can honestly say that we have never been in a campground where we did not feel safe at. Well this one you will need to have your guard up at all times. Basically this is a place where adults come to drink, party and turn all their 8 kids loose around the campground and tell them to come back at 10pm and not before that. The DNR actually made an announcement that there will not be any more kids on bikes after there were so many kids running around the place. I completely agree with them shutting down the bikes, someone was going to get hurt by some adult driving to get more beer….. Then there were the campfire competitions. Yes you heard me right campground competitions. The way to win this was to have the biggest fire. We watched a family bring in many 5 foot logs that filled up a truck. They cut the logs and then split them. This is a large amount of firewood, in fact I would say it’s an entire camping season worth of firewood. They used almost all of it over the weekend. However this guy did not win, then guy who won was the guy who kept spraying charcoal lighter fluid on his fire. Need to do some DIY RV repairing?? Bring it to this campground and you can fix it right here while you camp. If you need a part, just ask Jethro next door and he will go find one and bring it back to you. I am not even going to go into detail about the guy leering at a gal for a long time as he was going into the bathroom to take a shower. We spoke to other local people about camping here. They asked if I know how to use a weapon…and if I had one.

If you need to stay in the area, stay here instead. Eugene T....

I have been boating my whole life and have never been so unnecessarily harassed or targeted by the DNR or any other law enforcement agency! It got so bad that the 20 yr old kids they gave a boat and a badge to likely missed out on 30-40 more tickets while watching us with binoculars for over 3 hours while we were docked, and the harassment continued until we got our boat out of the water. We were not drinking excessively or acting foolish or unsafe, we were spending a beautiful day with our children and another family and their children. When they couldn’t get us they subsequently targeted the second boat in our group. I’ll be keeping my money in Nebraska from now on! I have been boating my whole life and have never been so unnecessarily harassed or targeted by the DNR or any other law enforcement agency! It got so bad that the 20 yr old kids they gave a boat and a badge to likely missed out on 30-40 more tickets while watching us with binoculars for over 3 hours while we were docked, and the harassment continued until we got our boat out of the water. We were not drinking excessively or acting foolish or unsafe, we were spending a beautiful day with our children and another family and their children. When they couldn’t get us they subsequently targeted the...