Meramec State Park — Attraction in Sullivan

I will say everyone has their own experience with certain places and for my husband and I, it was not good.

We got here on a Thursday night, around 6:30 P.M. and told the attendant we were looking for a basic site, She was very helpful when telling us what to look for when it came to being booked etc. So we leave the check-in station and look around, my first thought was these tent campsites hadn't been maintained (the fire pits were full, turned and pitched funny and the grass was over grown) and my second thought was why put the tent campsites so close to the road? (campers and block the road noise...tents not so much) So we pick the site that we thought looked the most decent and drive back up to the front and reserve it for two nights and ask about buying some firewood, it was about 42 that night, kind of chilly and being tent campers we like our fires. She told us that the store was still on their off-season hours...this was odd because their on season starts 1 April. Okay no biggie, we get to our site and I grab our little cart and start to gather kindling so we would at least have something. We get everything set up and decide we are just going to head to bed.

The next day, Friday, we head to the store get some fire woods, the ladies at the store were very nice and friendly, get back to our camp site and are sitting around the camp fire, because its still chilly through out the day and one of the camp hosts in his truck stops by and tells us that "You aren't allowed to gather fire wood"...he was referring to my cart full of kindling...I have never heard that before and my husband and I have been to many state parks. I tell him that I have never heard that before and he asks me if they gave me a map when we got here I tell him yes and he very rudely says to me "maybe you should read the rules on the back and follow them"...WOW, it is to early in the camping season for rude camp hosts. I grab the map after he leaves and read the rules on the back...after reading them it does not make sense to me...it does say the gathering of firewood is prohibited...so I guess kindling to start your fire is considered firewood. We prefer this method because we don't like to use chemicals like lighter fluid. Like I said we have been to many state parks and have never been told this.

So after this camp host (I wish I would have gotten his name) noticed the cart of kindling he continuously drove by our site to make sure we weren't gathering any more. We ended up throwing water on the fire packing our stuff and leaving. To my husband and I this was very harassing behavior. We were not the only tent campers over there.

This camp ground is more geared towards people with campers and RV's so if you have one this is the perfect camp ground, I would recommend it, but if you are a tent camper and want privacy and quiet I would find somewhere else.

And this camp ground needs to find some camp hosts with some people skills, we...

From a nature standpoint, this park is beautiful, so many beautiful birds, the river is gorgeous, and the surrounding area is immaculate. My 3 stars is only regarding my stay in the campground.

My wife and I stayed in the non electric camping lot, so I don't know if this applies to the other areas. There was one single bathhouse for the entire area. As such, the bathrooms were completely and utterly filthy. My wife refused to go into the women's bathroom after day one, as she stated "the trashcans are overflowing with dirty diapers and used feminine products, and the stalls are covered in [human waste]". The men's was not much better.

The other main issue with the campground was the lack of staff enforcing campground rules. Registration explicitly states a max of two vehicles and six occupancy per site, this was not followed by anybody in our area. Camp sites had 4+cars parked on the grass, even though signs prohibited it. Families with 8+ people were stretching out into other campsites, completely disrespecting other camp goers. When I rent a camp site, I expect to be able to use the area I rented. Im also not sure when the no-noise ordinance was supposed to start, because people screaming profanity wouldn't stop until way past midnight.

My wife and I will not be returning to Meramec State Park to camp. We visited Onondaga for some cave tours and found that camp ground better managed. If your sole reason for camping down here is to ride down the river every day with your family of 12, I guess you're in the right place. But if you're just coming down to get away from it all, you're better off staying at Onondaga, at least they empty their...

First of all I read some of the other reviews and I hope that they were wrong that this would be a nice place to camp. Okay as far as the rest of the park it was wonderful spent two days backpacking on the Long Trail and two nights camping. Lots of beautiful scenery plenty of trees and shade. The visitor center of the people were wonderful the actual Rangers were superb and knowledgeable as well as understanding. Now for the bad... at Fisher cave the campsite there The Host approached me and told me that hammock we're not allowed I had to point out that the state park had nothing on their website going against hammocks. She was a little Huffy with me. A few hours later I got approached by another gentleman turns out it's Dan the superintendent of this campsite telling you the same thing and that I can at least put padding up underneath my straps I understand the padding comment but what I did not understand is why is it he told me that he could show me on the website where there's a rule against it ( Missouri parks and recs) and there was not. Dan came back the next day apologizing saying that there was not a rule against hammocks on the website and handed me a printed e-mail from someone higher up. And in this email it's pointed out that hammocks was allowed and that " a formal policy was never adopted". If you ask me the superintendent as well as the campsite staff needs to be not only be trained in the rules for Missouri State Parks but also trained on how to handle and approach campers in a...