Reservation at Grand Haven State Park MI
Anyone have any tricks to getting a reservation here on the water? Obviously they are in high demand, and I keep trying to get on right before the deadline to reserve a site, but I either am told syst...
Forum Discussion
drsteve,
I stand by my comment that Grand Haven State Park is the most popular of the 102 Michigan State Parks is people going into the park annually and backed up by the Michigan DNR who is the controller of all Michigan State Parks. They do not count the estimated 1.6 million visitors who enter or go thru the GHSP on the boardwalk or off location parking and walk in. There's also a beach shuttle bus running daily from a big parking lot about 1-1/2 miles away on US-31. It was monitored an counted for the state by Grand Valley State University thru a grant 2 years ago. The long boardwalk go right thru GHSP to get to the very popular 1/4 mile long south pier and the beach without going thru any entrance gates. Foot traffic, bicycles, skateboards, etc as when the parking lots are full in the park as happens by about noon daily, they park closer to downtown and use the very busy boardwalk along the river to get to the beach!
The roughly 2 million is ONLY how many went thru the park entrance gates and there's no gates on the very popular boardwalk as it goes from the end of the south pier to downtown GH .7 miles distance and then continues miles further all the way along the Grand River across 2 bridges and into downtown Spring Lake. Yes, it's very tough to reserve an RV site at GHSP because it's always booked full all summer long and into the fall. That is what the OP is talking about! You or some other's may not like camping on concrete surrounded by gorgeous sand and water but GHSP has no problem booking full for the year on January 1st yearly!
2 million + 1.6 million is 3.6 million and doesn't include the gobs that come by boat either!!! I'm sure the thread OP has seen it personally when he was there!
As for Belle Isle State Park? The DNR nor the people of Michigan do not own Belle Isle, it's been leased for 30 years time period in 2014. Belle Isle is owned by the city of Detroit and was is a bad state of repair and crime ridden and scheduled to be closed down. Why, the City of Detroit had filed bankruptcy and had no money nor intent to either run or fix up the park as they were bankrupt so the DNR offered to lease the island for a 30 year period and initially spent 32 million dollars of state park money to repair the park island which didn't sit well the the most residents of the state. Meaning the other state park's needed maintenance was put on hold. Belle Isle is NOT an RV camping park etc either, just a day use park.
It was virtually giving the City of Detroit the initial 32 million dollars as the lease ends and the island reverts back to the City of Detroit. The 32 million dollars is GONE! The state nor it's residents will own NOTHING then. Many millions more has been spent on Belle Isle since then too. A very touchy subject! In other words, at best Belle Isle is only a temporary bailout for a state park not like the rest of the people owned state park system.
I stand by my comment that Grand Haven State Park is the most popular of the 102 Michigan State Parks is people going into the park annually and backed up by the Michigan DNR who is the controller of all Michigan State Parks. They do not count the estimated 1.6 million visitors who enter or go thru the GHSP on the boardwalk or off location parking and walk in. There's also a beach shuttle bus running daily from a big parking lot about 1-1/2 miles away on US-31. It was monitored an counted for the state by Grand Valley State University thru a grant 2 years ago. The long boardwalk go right thru GHSP to get to the very popular 1/4 mile long south pier and the beach without going thru any entrance gates. Foot traffic, bicycles, skateboards, etc as when the parking lots are full in the park as happens by about noon daily, they park closer to downtown and use the very busy boardwalk along the river to get to the beach!
The roughly 2 million is ONLY how many went thru the park entrance gates and there's no gates on the very popular boardwalk as it goes from the end of the south pier to downtown GH .7 miles distance and then continues miles further all the way along the Grand River across 2 bridges and into downtown Spring Lake. Yes, it's very tough to reserve an RV site at GHSP because it's always booked full all summer long and into the fall. That is what the OP is talking about! You or some other's may not like camping on concrete surrounded by gorgeous sand and water but GHSP has no problem booking full for the year on January 1st yearly!
2 million + 1.6 million is 3.6 million and doesn't include the gobs that come by boat either!!! I'm sure the thread OP has seen it personally when he was there!
As for Belle Isle State Park? The DNR nor the people of Michigan do not own Belle Isle, it's been leased for 30 years time period in 2014. Belle Isle is owned by the city of Detroit and was is a bad state of repair and crime ridden and scheduled to be closed down. Why, the City of Detroit had filed bankruptcy and had no money nor intent to either run or fix up the park as they were bankrupt so the DNR offered to lease the island for a 30 year period and initially spent 32 million dollars of state park money to repair the park island which didn't sit well the the most residents of the state. Meaning the other state park's needed maintenance was put on hold. Belle Isle is NOT an RV camping park etc either, just a day use park.
It was virtually giving the City of Detroit the initial 32 million dollars as the lease ends and the island reverts back to the City of Detroit. The 32 million dollars is GONE! The state nor it's residents will own NOTHING then. Many millions more has been spent on Belle Isle since then too. A very touchy subject! In other words, at best Belle Isle is only a temporary bailout for a state park not like the rest of the people owned state park system.
