Presqu'ile Provincial Park was beautiful. The tent sites are all fairly private, and the bathrooms,…read moreshowers, and water sources aren't too far away. We were disappointed that the Nature center was "closed for the season." We were also disappointed that beach swimming was closed due to high bacteria levels. We enjoyed getting ice cream cones in the camp store which was run by really helpful park staff. Our kids loved the trail that parallels the water, and it was neat to see a lighthouse up close. I will say that the mosquitoes were terrible, so don't go without an ample supply of bug spray. Also, the raccoons in this park are BOLD and cheeky. Keep your food and trash out of reach of the critters. Overall, though, it was a beautiful park.

I was an indoor kid. You know the type, I know all the sitcom theme songs, I played three…read moreinstruments, I caught Carmen Sandiego many times, etc, etc. However, I'm trying to be a more outdoor parent. 100+ days of quarantine has made me extra grateful for all of the nature at our doorstep in southern Ontario. My wee family has been exploring. I went to Presqu'ile Provincial Park on a day pass and enjoyed a short, family-friendly hike and a swim on the sandy beach. It was a lovely day! The water was warm at the end of June (miracle!) and the park is doing a wonderful job implementing social distancing. I highly recommend the daytrip. So many bonus points for the chip trucks at the entrance. Chip truck poutine is always five stars.

We went camping at Sandbanks Provincial Park in early June. The park itself is well laid out, with…read morecomfort stations easily accessible from our campsite. The comfort stations were clean and well maintained. Our site was ok; it was perched on a hill, with stairs needed to access the site. This made going to the car for supplies a bit inconvenient. Unfortunately, we were unable to use the main beach due to thousands of minnows washed up on shore. Apparently, this is a natural phenomenon occurring from a temperature change in the water. However, we swam at Dunes Beach, which was a lovely experience. The sand was fine like powder, and the water was clean.

Love this place…read more Nice to walk around, close to nature. We visited in late September with my daughter, mom and step dad. We discovered an artwork setup by the park team right by the water and we all enjoyed making paintings. Can get super busy in the summer time, I believe the park will close once it reaches a certain capacity. See you soon, Sandbanks!

I will always compare the Sandbanks to Grand Bend located in Huron County in South Western Ontario…read more Grand Bend is a trendy little beach hot spot where Sandbanks is at a Provincial Park. Overall I am happy a beach is within 40 minutes of Belleville. The Park and beach area expand to the Sandbanks beach, and extend over to a Dune Beach. The negative is a Park pass is under $200 and parking is a challenge all summer. The beaches and amenities are beautiful and should be a go to for locals and tourists.

Love taking the ferry to the Sandbanks with my family on a hot summer day. Usually clear water…read more Depending on the day can be calm or quite wavy which is great. You can bring a cooler packed with snacks and drinks and there are receptacles to dispose of your garbage. Sea Gulls are ballsy...will come right up and eat whatever you have exposed so make sure to keep your food closed and covered. We always bring a little rubber dingy or floating mattresses to lay on.

Our family stayed at the dunes location. A nice quietly place, stayed in a cottager (trailer) close…read moreto the dock and in walking distance to the dunes beach. Great spot for families!

Sandbanks is a good place to go for the day the kids love it certainly no shortage of sand. However…read morecamping isn't the greatest due to staff, the park is way to busy for the amount of staff they have. I'd rather drive a bit further to Presquile in Brighton. Before going we checked the site and nothing was listed about a fire ban, once we got there set up camp and went to make lunch when a person yelled at us from across the river that there is a fire ban. Okay fine but why not list it on your site. Not the mention the entire site is covered with SAND, the last I checked fire doesn't spread fast on sand. Who goes camping without cooking on a fire. We are responsible campers and would never allow the fire to get out of hand not the mention we're on the river. The staff is terrible they could have told us at the gate there was a fire ban, we packed up got refunded and went to presqu'ile ironically they didn't have a fire ban and they are surrounded by bush with very little sand, dry pine needles all over the place but yes you could still have a fire. This year we're camping crown land.

This was a great find. It is essentially a trailer park that rents out the cottages. It was very…read moreeasy to book. I was only looking for a small cottage for my boyfriend and I, but you can also rent larger ones for a family or a group of friends. When we arrived, the managerial staff were friendly and informative. One of the main reasons why we choose this spot was b/c they allow dogs. We booked cottage #1 that was private and right on the water. The only "complaint" (which is not really a complaint) is that it gets a lot of sun, so if you want to sit outside, you may want to bring an umbrella. There are communal areas that include a firepit, pool and playground. There is also a dock where you can bring your own boat (I think) or rent one. A lot of people go fishing. My boyfriend and I had booked a wine tour, and there was no problem with being picked up or dropped off from this location. It's a little bit far from the town of Picton. It's about a 30-40 min walk, which can be deadly in the heat. It's a very quick drive, but not easy to walk around. The studio cottage was spacious, and had everything you needed. There was a BBQ and we cooked most of our meals there. They have cable TV, which I was surprised about. It was fairly clean, and the air conditioner worked well, which was nice on the hot days. You have to bring your own bed sheets, beach towels and toiletries, but they have everything else.

From the owner: Waterfront cottages, boat rentals, Pontoon Rentals, Fishing Charters, pet friendly. Get one night…read morefree when booking for 7 nights.

Decided to go to PEC for the day to avoid the Caribana madness in our 'hood and thought, hey, maybe…read morewe could grab a campsite. WRONG. Everything was booked, except.... I called Smugglers at 8am on Friday, got a call back that afternoon. They had one site left. Waterfront to boot. I snagged it. My bf and I took our time driving up to PEC, stopped for a few wine tastings on our way to Smugglers. I was advised to follow the directions on their website because Google Maps or GPS will most likely steer you wrong and you won't find it. That was a very true statement. We followed the directions, and pulled up to the campground. We checked in, and found out the whole camps electricity was out. Something happened near by and the whole area was out, then got fixed, but poor Smugglers was the only one still out. The ladies at the office were still in good spirits though. They called Hydro One and seemed to be on top of it. We had site 27, right across from the water and horseshoe pits. BEAUTIFUL. We were in between two permanently parked trailers. There was a fire ban because it was so dry and hot out, so no fire for us. Didn't matter, it was too bloody hot anyway. The water is awesome... WEAR WATER SHOES or flip flops. There are small rocks and it's just way more manageable if you wear something into the water. Water was cool, perfect after our smoldering drive and tent set up. We brought a few bevvies to the water and just sat and enjoyed. This is a family campground and there were lots of kids, dogs and parents loving the water and little beach area. Just a really nice place for the family. Power came back on late at night. In the meantime, the showers and toilets didn't work. Bummer, but they had water jugs to flush the toilet after pee. Number 2? Eeek, that would suck if you had to. We watched the most beautiful sunset from our site. It was perfect and what a great way to end the one night we stayed. The park is clean, beautiful and I would absolutely recommend this spot if you have a trailer or tent and want to get away. Thanks Smugglers!

This place was a TOTAL nightmare. Families BEWARE. We plan an annual family camping trip each year…read moreto see different parts of Ontario with my 6 yr old son. This year we had chosen Sandbanks Beach. In early Spring 2013, since we could not book in the Provincial Park, we took a chance on this private campsite that promised to be a quiet, family oriented park with a list of zero tolerance policies. We arrived Friday August 22nd to set-up our tent trailer and enjoyed a fantastic day in a very clean, scenic park. Beside us were a young, seemingly quiet couple enjoying some tenting. (so it seemed) Around 10 PM that first night a group of approx. 8 other twenty something couples with tents joined the group next to us. As they unpacked i noticed 2 large bottles of liquor. i have no issue with people having a few drinks while they enjoying camping if they abide by park rules and respect others around them. So from about 10 PM until 2-3 AM in the morning we were subjected to loud laughing, talking, clinking of glasses, car doors slamming continuously, and banging from them splitting wood. Two people from our group, at separate times in the middle of the night got up and went over to ask the campers to keep the noise down because it was making it impossible for us to sleep. This just resulted in more noise and more car door slamming. Since the parks quiet time rules were 10PM to 8AM, we reported the incident to the "NEW HOSTS" and asked them to speak to the group about the noise so we didn't have another sleepless night on Saturday. The male host returned to us after speaking with the group and told us he had asked them to leave and would refund our first night for the inconvenience. It was not our intention for him to evict them just to make sure they understood the park rules. We got about 4 hours of broken sleep after a long day of travelling to this campground the 1st night. After this discussion between the host and the campers, they began taunting us. About 1 hour later the female host drove up to our site and told me she was very sorry for the trouble the night before. I asked her if the group would be leaving because at this point we were afraid to leave our stuff to start touring around Picton. She said they were expected to leave within 10 minutes and she was going to get the male host to ensure they were gone. We decided to go ahead with our plans while they sorted it out. We returned later that day, around 4:30 to find that they group was still there and now there was an additional 30 + people with them. We were surrounded by these people taunting and tormenting us, setting off there car alarms and making comments about how they were going to party all night. Two females from the group walked by our camp, double fisted with drinks and looked right at me and made reference to how they were "going to party". I was passed the point of annoyed at this point and said it's clear where your kids got there respect for others. At this point we had given up any hope that the "HOSTS" were actually planning to do anything about it. We decided to tough it out so we could go to Sandbanks the next day, then leave a day early. Since this campsite is wide open with no privacy. I moved my vehicle to provide some shelter and my mother put up towels along the back of our dining tent to shield us from the tormenters. Shortly after this altercation between myself and the older female in this group, the "hosts" arrived at our site and said they wanted to speak to the females in our group because she received a complaint that we were being abusive. We tried to explain what had been going on with the taunting, the car horns, etc. then all of a sudden the male host exploded and began screaming in our face for us and the tenters beside us to pack our stuff and get out in 15 minutes or he was calling the police??? This man terrified my son, who jumped in my car in tears. He also stated he would give us a full refund. At this point we did not care to fight back with someone who was obviously not reasonable and had lied to us all day which contributed to this nightmare. We were a powerless group of 5 against 40+, mostly intoxicated, disrespectful people whose only purpose that day was making our lives miserable for complaining about the noise the night before. Our only crime was asking the "New Hosts" to enforce their quiet policy so we could get some sleep that night. Needless to say, we packed our tent trailer, dining tent, and were forced to drive for 4 hours in the late evening back home after failing to find anywhere to stay enroute. As we left, I took my 6 year old son to the toilet. As we were heading back to my car the male host gave us the middle finger which he later denied. Sadly, this will be the last time we ever stay in a private campground. It's just too risky. We have never had an issues when staying at a Provincial campground. So if you like to party this appears to be the spot regardless that there are rules!

We originally booked in advance for August 31st. However, upon checking the weather forecast prior…read moreto the 72-hour cancellation policy, it was calling for soaking rain. We decided to cancel our reservation & was easily able to do so online. We were automatically refunded what we paid. The forecast changed again & now it was saying rain ending in the morning. We decided to drive up to PEC, have lunch & play in by ear. After we finished lunch, we looked at the forecast & it said no rain for the rest of the day, so we booked it online again and then headed over. We checked in 10 minutes prior to our reservation & the three young guys there found our reservation quickly then got us on our way. They were super helpful and friendly. We had a great time on the water! Started out grey, cool & and windy, but the weather god heard our prayers, and it turned out to be a beautiful day with sunshine :) I would definitely recommend Westlake Watersports for a pontoon rental.

They've got rentals for all sorts of water sports. Get there early so that you may find a parking…read morespot. There is a floating dock where the pontoons are. They give a safety briefing and instructions upon checking in. I'd probably give more stars if I hadn't rented a pontoon elsewhere a few weeks prior to this one because the 2 stars are based on the cleanliness of the boat. The other rental cleaned their boats thoroughly to the point that there weren't any spiders nor spider webs. This boat was covered in them unfortunately.