Introduction:
This county owned park offers a mix of sites, some better than others. While our site wasn't great, the park was nice enough that we'd stay here again.
Click here to read about our criteria for campground reviews.
The Basics:
Overall Rating: 3.9/5
Price per night / Discounts: $35 / No discounts available. Rates are: $18 primitive/tent site, $30 electric, $35 full hook-up.
Campground website: Marquette Tourist Park
Our Site #: 51 - FHU
Privacy Rating (how spacious and private do the sites feel):
3/5: Our site felt pretty close to our neighbors, especially on our driver's side, but other sites felt more spacious. It certainly wasn't the worst we've seen, but it wasn't great either. You can book your own sites online and I would pay careful attention to the campground map. The map offers a pretty accurate depiction of the site spacing. Also note, our site was in the full hook up section. Most of the sites in the partial hook up section were more spacious.
Location Rating (accessibility to points of interest or to major highways):
4.5/5: This campground is located on the edge of town, right next to Northern Michigan University. There's a bike trail that runs right next to the campground that will take visitors to the lake or, in the opposite direction, into the downtown area. Jump in your car and you'll be downtown in about 10 minutes, For a city campground, the location was excellent.
Site Quality and Big Rig Accessibility Rating (utilities and accessibility of campground hook ups):
2/5: We were really unimpressed with our site's utilities. For starters, water poles in all sites are shared by neighboring units. This means that every other camper has to run their water hose under their rig to get to the water spigot inconveniently located on their patio side. Fortunately, we have a second water hose we can use for these purposes and with all 75 feet of our hose, we were able to reach the spigot. Unfortunately, our black tank rinse hose is not 75 feet long, so we couldn't rinse our tanks from our site. We ended up moving into another vacant site the morning we left in order to rinse our black tank out. Additionally, located smack dab in the middle of our patio was a gigantic fire hydrant. In addition to being an eyesore, our poor dog ended up wrapping his leash around it about 2,000 times. Finally, while most other sites were packed dirt or grass, ours was messy sand. Bottom line: avoid site 51 like the plague, and try to get a site where the water spigot is on the correct side of your rig.
Technology and Customer Service Rating (online resources, reservations, campground wifi, and staff):
5/5: I was able to book our site online and customer service was friendly and efficient.
Overall Value Rating (the overall value of the campground; was it overpriced for what it was?):
5/5: For a full hook up campground located right on the edge of a decent sized city, with easy access to the lake as well as a bike path right downtown, the price was more than reasonable.
Summary:
Overall, while we were pretty unhappy with our site, we thought the larger park was nice and we would stay here again. There are plenty of trees throughout the campground, there are large fields, playgrounds, and walking trails through the woods. The park also offers easy access to the bike trail and the lake. We thought the $35 per night cost was reasonable for full hook ups in that environment.
