Southwick Beach State Park — Attraction in Town of Ellisburg

This campground/beach was better than expected. Only draw backs were that our site was sort of exposed (but there were other options we noted for return. But really hoping for the beach loop.) And the water in the toilets /faucets were a light rusty brown... Otherwise we loved it. The beach was close to the campground, easy access and was beautiful. Parking was great. Everything was well maintained, grass, the beach, the bathrooms. Other campers, and beach goers seemed super respectful. We were there 2.5 days and one day the lake was a little angry and the sand bars made it easier to have an adventurous time in with our paddle board. The next day the lake was like glass. So beautiful, clear and smooth.

The bath house/ snack bar/laundry room were all new and looked beautiful. It had a hampton like feel. I liked it better than the Hamptons. So affordable,fresh water, no jelly fish, or deadly sea creatures and the water was swimmable with no undertow.

There were a bunch of people there but because the beach is so expansive it never felt crowded. The sand was a little dirt sand mixture which isn't my fave but i realized it makes it easier to pull a wagon over it. The snack bar was a plus, was good and affordable. Made us consider hardly packing food for the convenience next time we come. One of the people was super nice/friendly and remembered my fiancee the next day. One evening they ran out of some of the food. Food choices were a little different than what's typical. Tacos and brats...with fries and salt potatoes. Some of it was downright delicious. It really was an amazing time. We will be back. Only gone for a weekend but felt like a week...

I was rating this park as one of the best that we’d ever been to and then we ran out of water in our holding tank. We had an electric site with no water on site. There were several water spigots around our loop. We weren’t worried; we’ve camped this way at many campgrounds all over the country in the last twenty years. My husband left to go fill our water bladder to refill our holding tank. He couldn’t connect to the nearest water refill spigot. Or the next. Or even the next. One of the campers saw him looking for a water hookup and told him that he wouldn’t be able to hook to any of the available water hookups around the park without a special fitting. The special fitting was at the check-in office. The check-in office was closed because it was after hours. This left us with no water overnight. We couldn’t flush our toilets, or take a shower, or use water to boil noodles for supper, or make coffee in the morning. This is the most ludicrous situation I’ve ever seen. What does the park think? That someone is going to come steal their water? Ridiculous! This park went from being one of the best we’d ever been at to the worst. Even as stupid as this is, if we’d have been told at check-in, we would have been prepared. We were not informed of this unheard of and ridiculous policy so we were caught unaware. We will not be back and will let everyone that we talk to that they should pick a different park to camp at or to rent one of the coveted few campsites with water hookups on site. Stupid policy....

Southwick State Park is beautiful and has recently had some major upgrades. However Camping at the park can be a challenge particularly around check in time. Most parks require that you be off your site by 11 am and are relaxed with their check in times which are usually 1 or 2 pm. Southwick is the only park that I know of that has a 3 pm check in time which they actively enforce. In addition if you want to camp on the beach loop you can only book Saturday through Saturday which forces you to arrive on one of the busiest times of the week.If you are coming from another state park as we were and arrive early you are required to wait in the day use parking lot till check-in time. We arrived early and one staff member was very rude to us actually telling us not to try sneaking down to our site! I felt like a scolded child after the experience. I understand that staff need some time to clear a site but I don't think it should take 4 hours. To be fair after pleading my case to a more pleasant person in the office we were allowed to go to our site after about an hour wait. In summary park is beautiful and well maintained but they need to rethink some of the rules and some of the gate staff need to be a little more...