Ten stars! Twenty stars! All the stars for this Jellystone Park. I'm not even exaggerating -- this…read moreplace is great. First of all, you have to understand one thing about me: I hate camping. Like, seriously, camping just sucks. But here, at Yogi Bear's Jellystone Park Lake Monroe, I actually kind of enjoy camping a tiny bit, because of these reasons:
1. They offer cabins! And they're super clean! And they come with full refrigerators, and TVs with cable, and full bathrooms with showers inside. And screened porches where you can relax on a summer's evening without having to worry about swatting away mosquitos.
2. They offer a full day's worth of activities for the whole family. When you check in, they give you a long paper that they've printed that lists all the fun they've planned for the time period that you're staying, broken down by the hour. So you can choose to participate in any number of family-friendly activities, like water balloon races, or bubble activities, or crafts, or water gun things. Every morning, you can meet up with Cindy Bear and do some stretches and say the pledge of allegiance. Kids love this stuff! This campground really caters to kids and families. Also, there are dozens of high school- and college-aged kids who work there who are constantly supervising and will start up random games of Simon Says or Red Light, Green Light with kids.
3. Besides the planned activities, this place has an amazing splashground and two pools. The splashground is like a splash pad and water park rolled into one: there are slides, bubblers, sprinklers and the like, with beach chairs around the water area. Next to the splashground is the playground and sandbox, which is where my kids spent a lot of time playing.
4. There's lots of other stuff to do, like hiking (we found lots of geodes!), or you can rent a go cart or golf cart and drive around, or play volleyball or basketball, or jump on the Jump Pillow, or mine for fossils, or play a board game in the recreation room, or get a scoop of ice cream at the Ranger Center. There is seriously so much to do here.
I should also note that the people who work here are so friendly and will bend over backward to accommodate you. They are also super chill and totally used to kids being kids, so we felt completely comfortable during our whole stay.
I can't say enough positive things about Jellystone Park. We had such a great experience, especially my kids, which is why I suffer through things like camping in the first place. We will definitely be back!