Juniper Springs — Local services in Belleview

Maybe the swimming area or picnic area is nice but the Juniper Creek run is awful. There is NO TIME to enjoy the scenery because you are just trying to SURVIVE. First, the water is so low when you first start that you end up dragging your canoe and stuff behind you as you walk crouching over, trying to avoid the palm branches and vines and tics and ants and spiders in them. Then, when you get to the point that the water is deeper, the foliage and scratchy branches and tangled mess of trees is so low that you CANNOT avoid them all by laying down as far as possible. You have to stop and move around them like a snail... and you will get scratched... and it takes FOREVER and isn’t enjoyable because you can’t look around and observe the nature while you’re fighting it so much. Expect to capsize if you have a canoe. We did several times. Don’t expect to go fast. If you do, you will probably capsize even more. Don’t expect to get out of there under six or so hours... if you do, you will be starving and thirsty because you didn’t bring enough food and water. Tie down everything on a rope including water containers and wear sunglass holders, otherwise you will lose all your stuff. Don’t bring toddlers. You might lose them to a gator who has lost all fear of man. A gator came straight towards me as I was crouching on the paddle board. I stood up at my dad’s direction and it stopped as it saw how big I was... I’m in my thirties and 5’6” so I guess I appeared to be a small easy meal since my paddle board was easily accessible with no sides to it. It is so scary that this gator was allowed to roam free. Once gators lose their fear of man, there is a death waiting to happen. I would not be surprised in the least to hear a news report about someone getting killed by this gator. Someone is not paying attention to how grave this is. In summary, don’t go unless you like scratches, bug bites, a life and death situation with a gator and lots of inconvenient and physically exhausting and unrelaxing maneuvering...

Used to go here camping as a kid. I went today with my boyfriend and I as well as our dog. We knew the boardwalks were closed per the website. I had tried reserving a campsite through the website but do to malfunctions with the website I could not reserve over my phone. I tried on my laptop and it would allow me to, but there was an $8 reservation fee and we knew the campsite we wanted was open so I decided to save the money and just purchase the campsite on arrival. However, upon arrival, they told me I can only purchase online through the reservation site. Luckily, it worked on my phone this time, but I was pretty put off that I could not just purchase a campsite in person. So, this means the campsites are not $36/night. They are $36/night plus an $8 reservation fee no matter what and I like the idea of arriving at a campground and just handing someone my money not having to pull off and reserve a site online when I am literally at the campground. We arrived at our site and the ticks were so bad that we were covered within 20 minutes. This isn't on them, but we didn't think it through having our dog. It just wasn't a good idea so we packed up and left after an hour and 45 minutes. Upon leaving I asked for a refund. I told them I would pay the day use fee and just accept the difference ($20 or so) and the girl told me she would check us out on the website and it would tell her if she could give us a refund. She told me no, the website would not allow her to even though we were there for less than 2 hours.

I might consider going here with friends and family camping too but I don't like the idea of a website controlling how a campground treats their customers. Leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Also, the ledge where we used to jump off as kids now has a fence preventing people from jumping...

My mother, my 12 year old, and myself just went to this spring today. It was cheap to get in and they took Visa. It wasn’t busy when we got there around 1:30 but got busier over the next 3 hours (but never crowded). The water seems so cold at first, but all the springs are basically the same temperature...so once you are in, it’s quite refreshing. This place is picturesque and has a nice picnic area that surrounds it. We packed a cooler (which they check upon entering) and a couple beach chairs, and some snacks. There are brick grills for grilling but the grates were rusted when I checked it out so if this your plan bring tin foil? You definitely want to pack goggles to see the spring. A picture that I saw before we went shows a platform for jumping, but we were dissapointed to see that it’s now gated off. We had everything we needed, but there was a small store at the entrance and bathrooms. It’s not a far walk. You do not need a beach umbrella. There is plenty of shade and some sunny parts to lay out on the lawn. The spring has an concrete underwater ledge that is approx 2 ft wide that surrounds almost the entire pool. This ledge is very slippery but you can walk on it. Past the ledge it just drops off. There is a sandy bottom, but I couldn’t touch. It is deceivingly much deeper than it looks. Even if you are a good swimmer, It was helpful to have a noodle to look around underwater, rather than just tread water. There was not much in the way of fish or underwater wildlife. Just eelgrass and cool caverns. It was a great relaxing place. You can check out the inside of the mill and there is a trail to see...