Ozark Outdoors Resort — Hotel in Sullivan

When we first looked to see about getting a trip together with family and friends we looked for good weather in late June of 2025, and thus we booked a three night trip with a couple of large rafts for getting family and friends together as both a late 16 birthday celebration a get together of friends and family who move far away and a memorial to one in the family that passed, granted I never new them as I was coming solely as a friend of the one who’s birthday we were celebrating, little did we know a few days prior to our trip there was torrential downpour in rivers feeding into the Merrimack River, off of witch this is located, and when we checked in one of the organizers of the event mentioned all the rain, were the front desk mentions that if we wanted to move if the ground was wet we could but assured us that our spot next to the river, granted at the time the river was down at least a 20-25 foot drop off below us, and thus at arriving to our location, granted we were the only ones in the location that weren’t packing up as there was a group who was next to us that then left the day we got there. Instead after painstakingly setting everything up as there were five tents and lots of unpacking as we had a total of 13 people over two spots booked for us. After setting up we had a brief period of time to hang out and set up, as we got there on the later end, around 11:00PM in the night we meet the great man that is safety man Dave, into witch after introducing himself asked if we were informed that we went supposed to be in our spot by the lake that we where in, and we obviously said no as the front desk told us it was fine, safety man Dave informed us that we needed to move further inland as for the flooding and being the great man that he is helped us move all five of our tents luggage that had been unpacked a pavilion thingy, I don’t really know what to call it, and our many boxes of food and coolers to a couple of spots further inland. Where it took our inter group and safety man Dave until around 1:30 AM to get everything settled in to our new spot. However this was the least of our concerns three the night as we owe many thanks to safety man Dave. It still does not improve. After waking up in the morning, we found the river to be vastly flooded, our inter precious campsite would have been overtaken in a flood, thus why we owe so many thanks to safety man Dave. Thus after everyone woke up to find this more disappointing news came in we would no longer be able to do the one thing that we came here for to float down the river swim fish hang out with every etc. would now longer be possible as the river was too dangerous, witch it obviously was, not really any complaints there, instead we tried to make the most of our time, but as the untied Leroy’s we came their for, and having a few kids on the younger side, and with the heat that was supposed to cool down later in the trip, it quickly became miserable. And with the stress of the water still rising and inching ever closer to sweeping are more inland campsite away, and nobody from the company informing anyone of what was going on, instead a couple wen to go back to the front desk to ask about what was going on, and possibly getting our money for not being able to go floating down the river was told that they, in a very rude and disrespectful tone, needed a manager to do anything and there was no manager in at the moment they would call them and see what they could do, thus after coming back and telling us this, we stood it out for a hour or two watching in the heat the river continue to rise ever closer to our campsite and at this point the river was only about 5-10 feet away from our more inland campsite as below us that was supposed to be more campsites became the river. It is important to not that we watch they “rude” lady who told us their was no manager drive whilst ignoring us trying to wave her down and giving us as I would describe it here a dirty look, and continued to drive to check out how much of the campsites were covered but the river. At this point we decided that we could get a better experience at this point in my own back yard, to pack up and leave before we could get trapped buy the roads that were quickly flooding as well as we found out by not the employees but a member of our party that needed to go to the near is Walmart. Thus after yet again taking everything down and packing up and hearing no news about anything besides our fellow campers, started on the road but before leave we stoped by the front office, as we were leaving to not only tell them that we were leaving but also to try and get our rightfully deserved money back as we were only staying one of the three days we paid for and none of the two rafts we paid for and as the total came out to over $300 we wanted our money back, at least the parts we paid for and never used. Talked to a nice young lady at the desk, and upon hearing what we were telling the young lady at the desk the lady that told us there is no manager came up to talk to us as well proceeded to tell us that she was the manager, apparently being promoted over the past hour or two. She then proceeded to tell us she needed to talk to someone else where she proceeded to walk to the other end of the desk were she thought we wouldn’t notice her completely ignore us for the next 30 minutes, were she then proceeded to slowly make her way back and told us in compensation we could be given one day that we could come back and float that we could choose and being that I am leaving in about a month, and three others made the trip from California we couldn’t come back another day, after telling her this she proceeded to tell us that we could wait and see what she could get from her boss but it was more likely that our compensation would only get worse the longer we waited to get our own money back, thus offer realizing that she was a lying redacted we proceeded to leave and decided that we would call them in the morning, I haven’t gotten to tomorrow but we are all still very upset about this as with some of us coming from California the total cost of the trip was over $700 and we couldn’t get a cent of it back, we felt as if we had been robed of our own money by a quote on quote family friendly vacation resort. Granted I would give this zero stars if possible but, I have to give it one star and that stare goes entirely to safety man Dave, he was the best, but otherwise the staff other then Dave and one other were rude and un knowledgeable about the river itself, the electricity didn’t really work, can’t blame it too much as their was a flood, but it still sucked. Could not recommend more to go somewhere else for a vacation or visit...

Very disappointed with the new owners. This was our 20th year bringing a group to OO, plus we would make 1-2 additional trips ourselves. No longer. There are lots of other places that would like to have my 20 people bring them money.

Failing to honor our frequent floater and camping cards. You buy the business, you buy the liabilities. We lost $400 in what was essentially a gift card at that point. You want to stop the program, you stop issuing new punch cards. In two or three years they will all have been redeemed and gone. Infuriating for them to be so disloyal to customers. Lack of staff. And before you say it's hard for everyone to get help, know that we have already been to another large resort twice this year that is in the same region, and they had enough folks. Only had two people working the registers when I came in, and my group reported it never got much better. No one was doing traffic control at the entrance in the afternoon/evening when it gets busy. No security enforcing quiet hours, at least not in our area. No people on ATVs guiding those RVs to their site like they used to have, so we watched several poor folks circling the campground. Overall they appeared to have far fewer folks on the payroll. But this is what I experienced, and you obviously aren't going to have the same sample each visit. Dirty bathrooms/showers. When you host more than a thousand+ intoxicated people, you have to clean the bathrooms and showers AT LEAST once per day. Twice a day or more on busy weekends if that's what it takes. NOT once every few days. Gross. This was not a problem in previous years. Very expensive. They raised the rates again this year. Based on all the open tent and RV sites in what is usually the busiest time of year, maybe you've exceeded what the market will bear folks. Especially when you've decreased the quality of the experience. Hidden fees. They tacked on an additional $3 per person 'fuel surcharge'. During this time of year they put most everyone on the river about 10 minutes drive upstream. Diesel here is just over $5 a gallon, gasoline about $4.20, and they likely pay less because of bulk purchases. School buses get about 9 mpg. So an extra $150 per bus in fuel fees for a trip that costs them under $20 in fuel. They warn you to read and follow their policies in multiple ways on the website, signs, etc. Except they aren't following their own policies. For example, their policy remains that you have to be off the water by dark. But you get there and find out they have moved that time up. On weekends it's now by 8, on weekdays it's 6:00 i believe. And earlier this year they made us get off the water by 4:00 in the afternoon. So they're cutting off hours of the entertainment that people are coming there for, but you don't find out until you arrive. Poor customer service and being sneaky. One example: Not all of our group was sure they would be able to camp, as the trip is planned several months in advance. But when we'd call to pay more and add to our float package OO employees would try to get us to pay ahead for camping for the whole group, claiming it would add an hour to our check in if we didn't pay for everyone's camping up front. Except being frequent customers we knew that isn't true, since the check in process is the same whether you have paid ahead or not. You still have to stand in line in the office, sign a waiver, get the custom hang tag they print for your vehicle, etc. They don't give refunds if something happens and you can't spend the night, so there seems to be a perverse incentive. Closing the office early. You have guests that need things and will give you money for them. Closing the office before dinner just seems silly. The labor savings of closing the office two hours earlier is not worth the...

I'm impressed by the wooded campsites, which are far more wooded than other commercial parks I've been to, though the lack of riparian corridor is disturbing. The upper Meremac is not nearly as wild and scenic as some other rivers in the Ozarks, and they aren't doing a lot to make it better.

The prices at this place are astronomically high. Kayak rental fees are nearly double other Ozark rivers I've been on over the past 15 years. A friend of mine had a kayak of his own that he wanted transported for him and they actually charged him MORE to haul his kayak with our group than they charged us to rent kayaks from them, a fee with included kayak rental and hauling! The campsite policies are asinine and don't make any since and, again, fees are high. The check in policy is convoluted and the process is daunting. The lines are long and it seemingly takes forever just to go get your site when you've already registered and paid in advance! There are pieces of paper for everything you do at this place; from getting wood and ice to driving your car to getting on the bus for a float...all this paper works really well in an environment based around water activities.

Campsites are not well marked. But if you love being on the beach you'll love the campsites because for some inexplicable reason the campground is covered in sand. I guess it could have been deposited by the river, but I've never seen an ozark stream with this much sand around it so it seems almost like it was brought in. But sand will get in everything!

They also have a ropes course that looks like fun. Everyone in our group, 14 people, talked about doing it...until we found out it is $40 a person! Indeed, all the other visitors think the same thing because we didn't see one person on it the entire time we were there, which was a very busy summer weekend.

The facilities are newish and fairly well kept, which you'd expect for the gouging you get stepping foot onto their property. Bring quarters if you want to take a shower! But the high prices, hugely massive size of the operation, cattle-like treatment you get from staff, and the incredibly disorganized chaos that they've tried to rectify by making guests jump through a bunch of hoops for everything (which hasn't worked, dealing with the bureaucracy they've created sucks) all combines to leave a bad taste in our mouths. We will more than likely not be back. A few weekends prior I was at a state campground where I simply put my fee in an envelope and put it in a box at the gate. Much...