Greenwood Acres Family Campground — Hotel in Leoni Township

Please read my experience. I have camped with family at this campground a few times last year and for Memorial weekend this year and had a really great time. However this year over the 4th I could not even fathom my experience. My son was playing basketball and another kid tripped over his leg and jumped up to strike my son , my son dunked and the kid latched around my son attempting to wrestle him to the ground. My husband and the boy's brother separated the 2 and call it good (boys will be boys you know). Well the boy was pacing and I heard one of the other boys say "hey dude that's the second time today, you need to just chill out". Well that didn't sit lightly with me so I went and asked the boy to take me to his parents as I was not very comfortable with the fact this boy had already been in 2 altercations in one day. The boy refused to take me then his supposed 18 yr old brother stood up and said he didn't have to and would get security. "I said please do." They started to walk away and security showed up. We told security the situation and they said that it wasn't necessary to talk to the parents. I said that this needs to be dealt with. He asked where my son was and I got him and he wanted to speak with both the boys. The other boy stood behind some other kids and refused to talk to security, the guard said either you talk to me know or we will go see your parents, the kid came forward. So he took the boys to his golf cart and they discussed the situation and said He wasn't going to make a report if they could promise to behave. The security guard proceeded to tell us the family were seasonal and they had nearly gotten kicked out last year but they allowed them to return. So I was not thrilled with the fact that they didn't do more with the situation if they had already been in trouble. Later that evening the mother approached me and basically blew the situation off and admitted her son has a fighting problem. When they let off the fireworks that night, my husband and brother-in-law, went to the bathroom right by the basketball court and when they came out the same boy was in another altercation with a different boy. My husband alerted security. We decided that we wanted to talk to the security guard before we left for the night as we live fairly close. We told the security that we believe this child is a major issue and we are not happy with the minor attention to the issue. I informed them that if the boy touched my child again I would be calling the police and my husband said that he would get his attorney involved if needed. The security guard seemed totally fine with it. The next day, we get a call from our family that was still there that my husband was not allowed on the property because we threatened them with our lawyer. Then the security guard came to there site looking for my husband and my brother in law said he wasn't there and wanted to know what was going on. The security guard told my brother in law and sister in law to "SHUT UP". They were not there and didn't know what happened. They went up and talked to the manager and the security guard was there and started yelling at them again about them not knowing what happened. My sister in law, who is very quiet told them she really don't appreciate the way that he was speaking to her. The manager barely apologized and said that my husband wasn't allowed back for the remainder of the weekend. (mind you I had more to say to them then my husband did) I went and picked up my children at the gate. I will not take my children to a place where I have to be worried about there safety because they are going to protect there seasonal residents. In addition to all of this, there water is literally brown coming out of there spigots, iron may not dangerous to your health but it is very disgusting. The kids there run rapid and the golf carts are flying everywhere and don't obey the stop signs, they also are drinking and driving. The staff is very rude and have no customer service skills at all. I will not return...

I would like to start this off by saying that I am pretty skeptical of all the reviews on here that are complaining about the amount of "rules" this place has, and perhaps you should take what has been said, with a few grains of salt. I would never consider myself some "by the book" rule follower, but if you're going to safely run a place where thousands of people congregate at one time, there has to be some sort of structure with rules that apply to that structure. This isn't some lawless adult playground where anything goes, so if that's something you're looking for, you certainly won't find that here.

There are absolutely rules, and 99.9% of them are completely reasonable in my opinion.

Okay now let's get back on track here, this campground is located on the site of the Goose Lake International Music Festival (if that doesn't ring a bell, google it because it's a very impressive thing that happened back in the 70s). This is by far the largest campground that I have ever been to, and I've done my fair share of camping over the years. I typically don't breakdown things into lists for reviews, but putting together a pros and cons list for this particular place may be helpful for all of you, so here we go...

PROS - Family friendly, safe, secure, clean, planned activities, community events, live music on weekends/holidays, lake access, fishing, pool, multiple play areas for kids, arcade/snack bar, mini golf, tennis courts, basketball court, golf, large pavilion, on-site laundry, on-site general store, electric/sewer hook up, public bathrooms, food trucks on site on weekends, on-site trash disposal area, located near freeway and in close proximity to restaurants/grocery stores, golf cart friendly (golf cart rental if you don't have one), on-site propane purchase/refill, free/paid Wi-Fi access, pet friendly, on-site maintenance should something go wrong with your site, spacious campsites, etc.

CONS - Crumbling non-maintained roads, some poorly maintained grassy areas including the golf course, can feel very congested on busy holiday weekends, some employees can be quite confrontational at times, have to buy and use on-site firewood for campfires, pool is frequently down for maintenance or closed, Wi-Fi is very spotty (even when paying for it) when it's busy, very spotty cell service (carrier dependent), on-site water quality is not great, having guests can be quite inconvenient due to their visitor policy, etc.

As you can see, the general benefits far outweigh the flaws you might find here, and that is honestly why my family and I choose to continually stay here. If you're looking to rustic camp, regular camp, or even glamp, you can do all of that here and then some. I may have forgotten a few things that should land on these lists, but you get the gist of it.

When all is said and done, no place is perfect, and every campground has it's benefits and it's flaws, and at the end of the day you're going to have to take the bad with the good and call it a day. I think for the average person looking to get away while camping in a community setting, this place is perfect. If you're looking to get away and be left alone, perhaps this particular place won't be your cup of tea.

The only way to find out if this place is for you, is to visit and check it out for...

What seems like a beautiful campground turned into a horror week. Tons of rules not on their website or posted you couldn’t even imagine. Old people patrolling yelling at you. We found out they are under new management and it is a complete nightmare. Staff yelling at you following you into bathrooms standing outside of stalls. We have electric bikes and turned them off (battery dead) and still yelled at telling us to remove the batteries. Yelling at kids in pool screaming over our special needs children. Yelling at people for every little tiny thing. If someone is checking in you have to Wait for however long it takes to enter and they will yell at you if you go around. Driveway full of pot holes. Everything is closed all week for the kids except the pool and beach. Can’t drop off kayaks anywhere to get to lake you have to pull them hundreds of feet across the sand even though there is a road that goes around to the side of the beach, with no posted signs you will get yelled at for driving on. It’s like walking on egg shells you don’t know what you’re going to do wrong next. No one had their animals on a leash just running through our campsite all week but not allowed to put up a gate or playpen. We were looking no for a new campground to bring our children to yearly but this will never ever happen again for us to come back here. 80% of the workers are completely rude and will drive up and down the roads looking for things to yell at you for. We literally have been hiding inside of our camper for the last part of our stay in fear to do something else wrong. We are all about following rules but they are not even posted. We had to Request a printed copy and were blown away by two pages of fine print rules that go on and on and on. I highly do not recommend coming here if you are an outgoing person you will most likely get screamed at. They don’t even give you a chance and explain things they just scream at you and start radioing for backup. Not much shade on sites. Fleas on floor of bathroom at pool bath house, smelled of urine and did not appear cleaned daily, and very hot. Not sure why but every time you leave they check your tag in the dash. Don’t bring a golf cart if you’re under 25 it’s another rule that makes no sense. Kids can’t have hover boards or scooters. The staff threatens campers to “throw the out” if they don’t do exactly what they say, we heard it all week and were told this also. We will NEVER be back and we camp all over the...