Jellystone Park™ Barton Lake — Hotel in Angola

The ranger station is horrible for guests to check in. As soon as you walk in there isn’t room to stand without not knowing who is in line or where the line starts. Very hectic and not a good layout. There was one particular staff member at the front check in station named Becky that was extremely rude. She was rolling her eyes at guest and talking with a condescending voice and not apologetic or sympathetic to the customer concerns. She looked burnt out and like she hated her job and was not pleasant to work with.

Most of the bathrooms are very outdated. When you walk in you don’t feel clean. They feel like they need to be sanitized all over. Some fans are plugged in right by a sink and the floors are wet making it very dangerous for campers.

We got food at the ranger station and it was very slow. You can tell the staff are trying hard but are very understaffed. They had only 2-3 working and for the amount of customers wanting food it’s way to much pressure to get it done in a timely manner all while checking customers out too. The food was very good! We had chicken and fries, came out hot and crispy. The gift shop is very overpriced. We’ve been to other Yogi Bears and prices were a lot lower. Sad for kids wanting something and a lot of parents can’t afford it.

It’s very hard to be a first timer and have no idea where the Activity Schedule is located. They print off the Activity Schedule and post it in the restaurant/gift shop on a bulletin board. When you have so many campers wanting to know what’s going on for the day and you expect them to notice the small pieces of paper on the board it’s very upsetting. We had numerous campers stop us while we were doing crafts at the craft shed asking when they will reopen again because they didn’t know what times they’re open because it’s not posted all over the park or online. You would think they would want to get the word out as much as they could so others know and kids don’t miss out. When you go for pictures in the morning you have no idea what Bear will be there. So don’t go with your hopes up that it’s the bear you want to see. They don’t post what bear will be there for pictures in the morning… so you wake your kids up to possibly see a bear they don’t want to see…

They have campers so smashed in that we were asked to move our vehicles by a camper otherwise he couldn’t get out because there is no room even though he was also in a pull through. Long tree branches that need cut for pulling campers, our campers air conditioner hit the tree branches hanging down they’re so long. Our campsite was a pull through but right by a tree so in order to even pull in we had to go on top of the cement slab to get in so we didn’t hit the tree. When they say pull through it they shouldn’t have a tree in the way blocking it.

The Internet was very hit or miss. We have Verizon and even a Verizon WiFi box in our camper. We couldn’t be on any of our apps most of time. They have WiFi here but even when we clicked on it the WiFi it wouldn’t work on our phones.

The staff are all great! I can tell they are all trying their best but are very understaffed for how busy they are. It’s hard to see a place that is so expensive not update their campground or make sure they have enough staff for how large the crowds are. Seems like they’re trying to get more money out of everyone but not put in the money for much needed things. The staff member that was running the activities, bingo, the characters, etc was amazing. You could tell she was trying her best and very apologetic when they were taking longer than expected. She could have used some more help.

We signed up for the late night “Party wagon ride”. It was advertised as a fun time with the family and party music and lights and thought it’d be fun for the kids. It was a wooden wagon pulled with one rope light and one speaker with odd music and nobody on the wagon was familiar with the music.

We have been to many yogi campgrounds and this was the most expensive and we left...

We went to Yogi Bear with our large family for the weekend. It was my part of the families first time here whereas my other part had been coming for 20+ years. The price was quite high, but we figured all of the amenities and pools were worth it. We got the cabana for a day- which was nice to have with a 5 month old baby but again the price was a little out there and a lot of the cabanas were not rented out, probably because of the price point. Mid stay we had to go to the front desk for something and the lady was a different one than helped me check in- she was a bit rude but at the time we just said “well she should not be working in customer service” laughed and moved on. And then all around things were a bit outdated- they could’ve used a fresh coat of paint for the season and things like that. Like I said considering the price point I figured this would be a reasonable thing for them to do. Regardless our trip STARTED out amazing.. we were having a great time with the family. We wished we would’ve stayed an extra day… it all went wrong when we wanted to extend our stay with a late check out. One of the members of our group called the front desk in the morning, and they said we could stay until 4 for a $25 fee. They gave us no more information so we went about our day under the impression that we had extended our stay and all of the things that went along with that- considering the “extras” we purchased, were supposed to be for the duration of our stay. We drove our golfcarts from our site at the back of the campground to the pool to enjoy the time we had left. Once it was time to head back (around 1) so we could finish packing up for our campsites our golf carts were gone! We had our things on there and were just confused. So we called the front desk where we were told they tried to reach out to us and we were supposed to return the golf carts at 12 so they came and got them. We went by our phone because we were swimming so we didn’t get the calls. We were just really surprised because we thought when we extended our stay we extended everything-because we were not told different. If we would’ve been- it wouldn’t have been an issue we would’ve just taken a vehicle to the pool-no biggie. But obviously there was a lack of communication which we were upset about but we understand everyone is human and just asked if they could at least send someone to collect a person from our group to be taken back so they could go back and get a vehicle for us. They refused and basically said sorry nothing we can do! There staff is expansive and we understand that in normal circumstances that isn’t something they would do- but since there was clearly a lack of communication on their end that resulted in us being stranded a 15 walk to our campsite with 5 month old baby, we figured the least the would do was give a ride to help make up for not telling us that the golf carts were not included in our extension. They have staff driving around like crazy- collecting trash, cleaning cabins, and just standing around chatting (which no judgement they are people too) but the fact that they could let someone hitch a ride because of their mistake was wild. They then tried to tell us no one even called in for a late check out even tho 10 of us were present for the phone call. So we don’t even know if they were just telling us that golf carts weren’t included in the late check out of if someone messed up and they were just saying that to cover up their mistakes? It was just so stressful and we just wanted to have a nice relaxing stress free weekend outside and in nature. It’s also a bummer because part of the family’s childhood was spent coming to yogi and now we will never return. It’s just not worth more things like this possibly happening and ruining our stay when we spent like $2000 for one weekend to come here. If you do stay- I hope you read this and learn from our mistakes because their communication is clearly lacking and something like this may end up...

We have been camping at this park for over 12 years now and have always loved it. The old owners were amazing people. This is the first year since the new owners took over and we had some disappointments. The big draw for us has been the water park. This time it was in a state of disrepair. Most of the water features are not functional like the water cannons, ground fountains, and many of the spray toys you should be able to activate through a rope or valve don't work. One of the slides was coming up from the ground and presented a hazard that someone could easily cut their foot on. The pools were very dirty with debris from the near by trees and no one seemed to be in charge of cleaning that up. Another pool was missing the rails on the steps leaving holes in the pool and the pool deck that a smaller child could get their foot stuck and hurt. At one point during our stay the power went out due to a storm and this caused the water at the whole property to stop functioning. This meant that there was no water for drinking or flushing of toilets. This is due to the fact that they have no backup power for the wells or anything else. The heat index for this time was above 105 and no one had power for their air conditioning, there was no access to water to try to stay hydrated and the store wouldn't sell any items like bottled beverages or any bags of ice. The power was restored a few hours later but it was concerning that this issue hadn't been accounted for. It was a terrible experience. The water park was also closed down because of the power outage. It came on for 30 min. and then they closed it 3 hours early for maintenance. It was still closed the next day. So the main attraction we came for and paid for was closed half the time we were there. Total disappointment. Like I said we have been coming here for over 12 years and have never had issues with anything, it was always a great run place with friendly staff. This is not the case anymore. The arcade is run by an outside vendor now and any issues you have need to be resolved by calling a support line and waiting on hold. I had an issue where the air hockey table was missing it's puck and I didn't find out until I had paid my 4 credits to play. So I had to call leave a message and wait a few hours to get credited back my money. All games are also at least 3 credits and you can't combine cards to pay so once you get down to 2 credits on a card they are worthless unless you buy more credits for the card. I left with two credits on two different cards. Lastly our site was a former seasonal site and was in need of serious leveling. My trailer was scraping the ground to get into and out of the site as there was a large hill in the way. There were also lines for supporting the power pole in the site that were in the way and made it difficult to position the camper. To me it feels like the new corporate owners don't really care about the campground and aren't interested in maintaining it the way that they should. A lot of the staff are also unfriendly. So disappointed in the new ownership. They will run this campground...