Garrisons River Resort — Hotel in Sullivan

Decided to change my 5 year old review of five stars to as low as possible. I have stayed at Garrisons for many years. I drove 5 hours from Kansas City on 6/21 to meet my cousin and his young son. For what I thought was going to be a nice week of floating and swimming and just relaxing. After relaxing for a few hours and cooling off from the hot ride down. My cousin and I decided to grab a look at the property and see all the upgrades people have been “raving” about. Mind you this was well before quiet time. We decided to go back to the furthest spot in the campground to see if any upgrades or changes had been made as this is actually the best spot there back and away from everything and everyone. As usual on a Friday night Karaoke was going full tilt as we drove by. Everyone at the Karaoke pavilion was giving a thumbs up to my old truck as it is very unique and everywhere I take it people love it. We went back on the road to the spot we were wanting to see if it had been upgraded or changed. We literally just looked as we were turning around to head back up front for better WIFI service. Mind you park guest tag taped in the windshield following all park rules staying on the road and below 10mph. As we came back by the karaoke pavilion that was still in full swing. Two of the park “security” persons started yelling and cussing using the F word multiple times. Telling us this vehicle cant be driven here and and to go park the F’n thing. I was sitting on the passenger side talking to fellow park patrons about my truck they all loved it. While this is going on “security” is berating my cousin in profanities while his young son was next to him. I laughed at them as it was literally that insane but was very upset they would use such language around a child over something that was not a thing as zero park rules were being broken. Many other patrons at the karaoke pavilion were shocked as well as they were like whats their problem? Nobody had a clue why we were being yelled at in several levels of profanity to park the truck? We proceeded up to the office lot to get better WIFI. Where “security” came flying up on their UTV. Screaming more profanities to park the truck. We told them we came up here to get WIFI and will park the truck when we were done. We were told “you will park it right the F now”. At this point its beyond surreal as my truck is legally licensed and insured to be driven anywhere in the state of Missouri. And given reciprocal laws anywhere in the United States.We parked the truck back at the site. My cousin went over to the karaoke pavilion to find out what in the heck was going on? We were befuddled as we had not broken any rules of the park. This is where he met the owner and the owner tried to intimidate him for some reason getting into his face. He returned to camp and told me what transpired. By this time needless to say we are very upset as this is all absolutely unnecessary and inappropriate. “Security” decided to drive by our camp to I assume make sure we followed the profane orders given. I flagged “security” the male of this team yelled “NO we are done with this”. I said no were not. At this time the male gets on his radio and says “Bill they are at it again up here”.Here comes some guy on a UTV. Jumps out wearing only shorts and cowboy boots and his arms out chest all puffed. Moves fast and aggressively in this posture getting immediately in my face obviously drunk “whats the F’n problem here”. I asked and who are you just amazed at the circus “I am the owner” I asked does the owner have a name “He said Bill” whats your last name Bill of which he refused to give. Mind you this whole time he is in my face puffed up in an effort to menace. So I asked him is this how you treat customers? Verbally abuse and then physically menace them? He threatened to call the sheriff multiple times. I told him please do so each time. STAY AWAY FROM THESE PEOPLE! Untrained, unprofessional, instigative security and drunk menacing owner. They are going to pull this on the wrong person and someone...

I have been camping and floating at garissons for over 25 years. I used to love this place. The staff knew my group by name as we were always friendly and social with Jerry (one of the older employees who was amazing). Camping this past weekend was the worst experience I have ever had at a campground and we have been to several the past few years. We were cursed at by employees after driving our truck down by the karaoke pavilion and told we were not allowed to drive anywhere in the licensed vehicle we drove to the campground in. We were abiding by all policies, driving under the speed limit before quiet hours. With there being no cell phone service we then drove the truck closer to the road where there is better coverage and we were cursed at again and told to park the truck or be thrown out by police.

After asking what we did wrong we were only told the owner wanted us to park the truck without any further explanation. We then parked the truck and I walked to the karaoke pavilion to see if the very rude staff members who cursed me out would give me a valid explanation on why we were not allowed to drive to the main building for better cell service. After being cursed out again, another employee stepped forward and in a very rude manner introduced himself as the owner. He introduction was more of an intimidation tactic than anything as he was in my face giving his best shot at intimidating someone. It was a good attempt but I was just looking for an answer and the only answer he could give was "because I'm the owner". After a few minutes of getting yelled at I decided to walk away as I knew I was not going to get any type of intelligent answer. By this time it was close to midnight and karaoke was still going well past quiet hours. Instead of acting like a business owner by de-escalating a tense situation cause by staff members this employee tried intimidation tactics and made the situation worse.

A few minutes after I walked back to camp they drove by on their atvs. As they were driving by my cousin walked out to talk to them. He was immediately met by the older woman employee who started cursing at him. The employee who introduced himself as the owner pulled up only to escalate the situation further by removing his shirt as he approached my cousin. Yet another intimidation tactic. Absolutely terrible move if he truly is an employee or the owner. Several minutes went by of this guy informing my cousin that was was going to call the police. The same sentence over and over. All we wanted was an explanation of what the issue was. Why are we not allowed to drive to get better cell phone service???

Over all of the years I have been here I have never seen the bathrooms as dirty as this time. Spider webs, bugs, dirt everywhere in the bathrooms and showers.

The following day on the river the individual who introduced himself as the owner was buzzing up and down the river in his jet boat. What used to be a nice relaxing float was interrupted by the noise and wake of a jet boat.

Needless to say after all the years of camping and never having an issue we had a big one here. I will never be back. There are tons of amazing campgrounds in the area that I will be going to instead of this...

We reserved 2 full hook up sites and made raft floating reservations months in advance. We were very disappointed in what this park could NOT provide but promises! The security was terrible, we had a group of people with a reservation for another area invading on our spot, (using our power hook up and took our fire pit) when we said something to the front office they said "some people just don't like to follow the rules..." (HELLO! We paid $300 + for this, I think it should be dealt with, Not BLOWN OFF!) Then, the people were up LOUD and ignorant all night! The next morning, all the ladies TOILETS were clogged and the fan broken, so it smelled and was disgusting, so where do we go?? The office.....they did NOTHING. Showers-$.50 for about 5 min, and scalding HOT!! Really....after paying $300 for this!! WOOD- not allowed to bring in outside wood, we respected this rule, but others did NOT.... and they charge for that too! RAFT FLOAT- We were told that we could not fill rafts to capacity, due to water regulations, so for our group of 6 we could get an 8 man or two 4 man rafts (not a 6 man because can't fill to capacity....RIGHT?), for money sake we took the two 4 mans. We get there....we get a raft with no seats so we have to use our coolers to sit on, and then happen to notice other rafts filled to capacity!! What happened to REGULATIONS! We also were told we could not go on the float we wanted because the water was flowing too fast...LIE, the waters were calm. This is getting old! We arrive back to camp after floating, and find our camp has been invaded with more pests (MORE PEOPLE) once more! We say something, and this very rude woman tells us she is related to the owner so she can stay where she wants. They set their tents up ON OUR SITE!!! AGAIN nothing from office! This crowd was HUGE, 15 tents&2 RV's!! They were RUDE, blocked the road, and set up tents in front of our camper over night, so when we were tearing down the next morning, we had to get help to manually turn our camper towards the other road in order to hook it up to our truck. Our friends had a lovely gift of VOMIT all over the back of their camper from this sweet group of people. PLEASE DO YOURSELF A FAVOR.... DO NOT STAY HERE!! I will be demanding our money back, so Garrison's River Resort, I HOPE YOU ARE...