Lake Waveland — Hotel in Wallace

This place is shaping up after a few years of poor management. We've been camping here for at least 10 years. We've seen the best of times and the worst of times.The last managers seemed to try to get every last dime from you as the facilities turned into sub human nightmares. With the new management recently, things getting are much better. There are two shower facilities that have been kept clean in all but the busiest of times. The water quality is nice too. It is well water, but it is treated. In other words, you don't have to take a rotten egg shower. The biggest appeal to this campground is the open primitive layout. With hundreds of acres from which to choose, it is about as old school as it gets. With exception to the really crowded holiday weekends, you can have as large or as small of a site (within reason) as you want. There are many wooded, open, and secluded areas. Half the fun is picking out your site. It is first come first serve, so if you have a favorite area, come early and keep your fingers crossed that it will still be available. I guess that will be the downside for some as there are no established or reserve-able areas for primitive camping. There are electric/water sites for the RV'rs, but they are the typical RV park type that remind me of sardines. That being said, they are nice when compared to other campgrounds in the area. There is also a dump station that is free to all campers. As of now, travel trailers and the alike are permitted to "boondock" in the primitive areas. As long as discretion is used, generator use is usually not a problem. DO NOT expect to run a generator all day/night without irking more than a few people. DO NOT expect to use a contractor type generator without upsetting more than few either. Use an inverter type gen-set that can idle down based on electrical demand and one should have no problems. Unfortunately, big brother is sticking his nose in and changing what this campground's biggest appeal is\was. They have mandated that water is accessible to every camping area. This means until the campground invests time, money and resources all over what is currently very lightly disturbed land, some of the best areas are closed off. The cost associated with this will most likely be passed on to the camper. Thanks again big brother for telling me what's good for me. On holiday weekends, it can get a little rowdy. If your trip is expected to be family oriented, take extra care in selecting your camp site. There is a quiet time. In my experience, it has been enforced when it is needed. In other words, if you are in a relatively remote area and you are not disturbing other campers, you get left alone. If you are in the middle of a tent city, expect to be visited. I have seen the rowdiest of campers forced to pack up and leave at 2 a.m. because they couldn't understand quiet time (and not to binge drink) until the Sheriff showed up. There is ice, firewood and a bait shop onsite. The prices are reasonable. DO NOT bring firewood that is not local. If you don't like the firewood that is available for sale at the campground, there are many local places that sell that will likely give a price break based on volume purchased. Smuggled out of town firewood can result in the campground establishing the old policy of no firewood brought in PERIOD!!!! Management has no choice. They can get fined big money for not catching and dealing with blatant abusers. The USDA doesn't mess around when it comes to that. We've had to camp here a few years where you weren't allow to bring any firewood in. It, was not ideal as you were charged captive audience firewood prices. Since then, it has gotten much better. So far the new management seem to be down to earth people. There were a few instances where the stress was showing on one attendant's attitude, but she quickly rebounded and was very helpful (aren't we all allowed to have a bad day?). As long as the big brother rules do not policy this place to death, I have high hopes that this campground will continue on its...

During my very short stay at this campground I was very displeased. Despite the nice lake and wide open spaces that make this place beautiful, sadly it was my least enjyable camping experience yet. Its location is conveneintly very close to turkey run and shades national parks but that is probly the only thing this place has going for them besides the fishing. In the 1 day i stayed here, i'll state what all i have seen and expienced. First off, they scam you. I came only wanting to stay for 3 nights and was told that i could only stay either 1 night or 5. So i overpayed for what i wanted. Granted the fact that i came 2 days before labor day weekend I'm sure had something to do with that but whatever. The primitave came site were not very good. They were in close proximity and were not very private. Secondly, the staff was very rude and nosey. Dont get me wrong, i appreciate it when the staff is observant for people who are being roudy, loud, or breaking the rules, but this was rediculous. My wife and i stayed alone in our own campsite that we thought was away from everyone so we could enjoy some peace and quiet, however i'm pretty sure this is a foreign concept to the majority of the staff. In a 2 hour stretch, my wife and i were visited at our campsite on 3 different occasions by the staff for an "inspection." When we first got to our campsite, it had 2 picnic tables which the staff implied we took from other campsites and hauled 1 away. I didnt care that they needed it or whatever, but the manner in which it was taken away, i did not appreciate. On another occasion i was informed that the only wood that is allowed to be burned at the campsite is the wood purchased here. I personally feel thaf is a little strict, buts that just my opinion and thats not what bothered me. Apparently having a pile of sticks on the ground that i found laying around the campsite to get the fire started warrented a rude reminder from the staff about burning anything besides thier firewood would merit a $150 fine. Bull crap. And on the 3rd and final occasion, i was visited by another staff member accusing me of speeding through the premises in my car stating that i could also be fined for that. So dont drive 10mph over the speed limit here or people get snotty. I'm not exaggerating.

So long story short, if you are looking for a quiet, private camp setting, dont come here. If however you are looking to go to a campground surrounded by rude, invading, and nosey staff, this couldnt be a better place for you. Honestly i didnt even want to see what this place was gonna be like during labor day weekend, so i got the heck out of there. Granted, i admit my stay here was short, so my experience was limited. However in that small amount of time, I learned that I would never recommend that place to a complete stranger. That is why i am writing this review so that maybe you will make the decision not to come here and actually enjoy...

I've been coming here since I was a small child and have always enjoyed the park and lake for camping with friends and family. However, the last couple of years the lady that runs the park has not been kind to me or my family. For Memorial day last year we reserved 3 camping spaces for our large group and after we had set up our camps we were told we were taking up 7 camping spaces. All 3 spaces we were occupying only had 1 firepit with 1 fire ring and 1 bench per space and she forced us to occupy only 2 camping spaces after we spent a lot of money for the 3rd space. She also yelled at us several times for having vehicles in the grass, even though she told us we could use the vehicles to load and unload and then park our vehicles in the parking lot, which we complied with those rules. This past weekend my family camped out again and had a good time, aside for her coming down to our camp to tell us to be quiet and they received a noise complaint on us for being loud even though we were being quiet and just talking around our fire. Yes, it was 2 am but we were not yelling and playing loud music and partying like a group was across the field had been. Also, we were having one last swim for the weekend and instead of walking down to the beach we decided to drive down because we had floats and it's a good walk down to the beach. All weekend there had been around 15 cars parked down in the grass at a time but when we did it once when not many people were down at the beach we were informed we needed to park the car in the lot unless we're loading and unloading. Trivial, I know, but it was acceptable for everyone else to do it all weekend but not for us on a day the beach was practically empty. It is becoming less and less enjoyable to camp at Waveland because she's always coming down to harass my group for one reason or another and she's not very kind about it either. I think next time we camp we will find another place to be so we don't have to deal with...