Coconut Cove RV Resort by Rjourney

Coconut Grove is probably okay for long-time seasonal campers but not great for a short pass-through visit. PROS: Cole (manager) is very friendly and helpful. There's a restaurant with decent, mostly bar food. It's very walkable - one loop around is nearly a mile. The lake looks great and we saw many kids swimming and having a good time. The upper section is nicely paved and in good repair. Our site (on the lowest road) was level enough and the hookups worked as advertised. CONS: on the west side of the park there is a bad hump in the pavement going up the hill; you're probably going to scrape and gouge the road with your overhang. It's better to travel on the east side if you can. Two train tracks are about 50' away from the lower row of sites. To Coconut's credit, the campground map does show a bit of the track down in the corner, but it's easy to miss (I sure did). The trains are frequent and loud, with horns blaring. The campground's entire lower section is a dirt/gravel road and it was VERY dusty. Not many (if any) cars and golf carts drove slowly enough to keep the dust down. Even more of a con than the trains and the dust: the golf carts. We own a golf cart so have nothing against them. But they were everywhere, some full of kids, some full of adults, a large percentage of both groups driving erraticallly and much too fast for a busy campground with pedestrians and traffic. We had to practice defensive walking to avoid them. They were still zinging around, even down into the gravel section, well after dark, making sitting by the campfire in the dust not a great experience. My final con is that, although advertised as being right on the Mississippi, you cannot see a bit of it from that lowest row of sites. All in all, I wouldn't recommend this campground for pass-through visitors.

We were seasonal campers here for two years, and left after the 2024 season due to the horrific (mis)management of the campground. The cost to camp here is astronomical, and it is like camping in a parking lot with fancy pools (no trees, no wildlife, no camping activities, etc.). The campground is run by a manager who has zero experience or customer service background; but an ego that could fill up the entire park. The cost to camp is about double what you would pay elsewhere for similar amenities. ($150+/night, or $5500+/season). But it doesn't end there; the cost of the food and bar at the restaurant (that is RARELY every open) is sky high as well ($5 for a kids slushie, $16 for a burger, $20 for a pizza, etc.), and if you are a seasonal good luck with the 'extras' you have to pay for (golf cart fee, 'miscellaneous fee' (what a joke!), electrical fees of 4x what we pay at home and can't see you own meter, etc.). Wood is another funny thing here: you buy it for $40/load (can't bring any in), and what you don't use they pick back up on Sundays and resell back to the campers - and if you try to pick up other firewood that was left by weekenders he threatens to call the sheriff and charge you with theft. It is also severely understaffed - mostly due to the horrific management. In 2024 they had many staff walk of job or start crying mid-shift because of how they were treated; bartenders, cooks, and maintenance all report into the manager and he treats them all like dirt. This is also what led to the restaurant, and tiki bars never being open (they are not open Mon-Thurs, and very limited hours on the weekends). The most frustrating thing about all of this is that you can't go to "management" to discuss anything. it is owned by an out-of-state company called RJourney who is never onsite, doesn't care about how it is ran, and allows the unqualified manager to run the show without oversight. I tried several times to reach out to RJourney to get answers, and they never respond. I asked the manager for contact information at RJourney and he refuses to provide. On a positive note, the views of the Mississippi River are awesome - if you camp up on the top by the entrance (down below by the tracks you can't see the river and get awaken every night by the dozens of trains that come through). Until this place gets out from under RJourney and the horrible manager, I would avoid this place at all costs - plenty of other options to view the river and spend your camping dollars. Update: since we left, we still get updates apparently. Going from “free winter storage” to “$6 for maintenance” is literally the definition of nickel and diming. They do this all the time, and add tiny little fees here and there with the dumbest reasons to make any little profit they can. All this to, what, make $40 from the campers that chose to leave their rigs this winter. Sad. ***Update to the response from management below: we informed “management” (I.e. the only person onsite who you can talk to) that we would not be returning in 2025. Like a child, instead of asking what could be done to have us stay, he became even more immature and petty and told us we had 5 days to get off “his” property.

So....this was the weirdest camping experience I think I've ever had. 1. We were in a pull through that, on the map, appears to be b/t lake and Mississippi River. The lake is down a steep hill (but you can see it) and the river I couldn't see from our site. Perhaps that is because of the... 2. TWO rail ways, one going each direction, about 40 or 50 feet from where our RV was parked. The trains were so loud and close they shook our entire camper and it actually felt like we were in a weird vortex of some sort. They had loud horns, especially going 1 direction - 3x right where we are - and they came by no less than 1x/hour...ALL NIGHT and all day. Our dogs were terrified. 3. The adults that we saw were all partying, drunk, listening to a VERY loud band singing VERY off key, whooping it up with pineapples displayed which is just gross. In the meantime there were kids zipping around in the golf carts and on electric scooter/bikes; at times the kids would be holding baby carriers on their laps - in the golf cart - while zipping around the site. No parents anywhere - they were too drunk I guess. We know this because at around 930pm, THEY started zipping around the campground, carts side by side so they could hold hands...again - just weird - while shouting about doing shots. 4. There are little gnats or something EVERYWHERE -- I had bug spray on but it didn't do anything for these things - I have bug bites all over my legs. And the flies were awful as well. Maybe it's a location thing? We've never camped in that part of the state before. But they were terrible and our dogs were miserable with them. 5. There's a sign posted outside the office re: the trains to let people know that money won't be refunded to people for leaving early because of the trains. So clearly this is a HUGE issue. And yet when booking, the only reviews I saw on the site were 4 and 5 star. There should be major warning about those things when you reserve a site. People shouldn't have to look for information like that. It's camping for God's sake. Why would we ever think about 2 railways that close to our RV with loud horns coming that often - why would you ever put a campground there?? So dumb! Even on the map - no mention of these things - at the VERY least put the dang things on your map! Don't falsely advertise that we'll be beautifully nestled b/t a lake and the river... 6. The driveways for the RV are pretty flat/level and pull through where we were, although they are so narrow it was actually difficult to stay on the drive and be close to the hookups without running into the metal power box on the side with the slide or the stone septic thing on the other side. We were the only site that had this issue and there were easily 10 other sites on that side of the lake. Again - why not warn people? Why not just make that a grass area and call it a day? Or maybe a tent area...But when you know a big 30+ foot RV is coming, why would that site even be an option? Other than that lol....the staff seemed friendly and we made the best of it anyway. For instance, we sang with the band, but I can sing in tune...so that was fun... I was able to add a couple pineapple pics, but the videos that is says I can add won't add...but they're VERY telling. I have great video of the train during the day and at 1am, the party goers as they passed our site yelling "shots shots shots" and the super loud band across the lake whose music in our site was louder than what I would play on our radio Needless to say - we won't be returning. It's disappointing because we've been to the other RV Resort locations in WI and they were ok. Yes there were party people, but it still felt like camping. This was just weird, loud, obnoxious and way too expensive for all of this crap.

All in all a great place, food and drinks were really good. It's been updated and relatively clean except public restrooms near the pool. Then there are the trains... If you like trains all day and night blowing the horn and shaking your RV pick the spots on the outside edge of the lake. We were able to move our RV to other side which was better but could occasionally hear the rain horn at night. Despite this we enjoyed the campground and the staff was great too. Don't forget to have a "train shot"!

While this park is well maintained with plenty for the entire family to do, you can’t go wrong with the exceptional customer service from the general manager Kolby. Yes the park has trains that come by regularly but if you know that ahead of time, it’s actually fun to watch them and you just use white noise machine or ear plugs if you’re a light sleeper. The view is awesome to see the trains, the park and the Mississippi River (you can even see tugs and barges coming in and out of the Lock and Dam #11)! Convenient to the adorable town of Dubuque and just about everything you could possibly need. The park was safe and even had a restaurant and live music on the summer weekends. Sites are level, no Wi-Fi at the park but the ATT signal was strong. We don’t recommend the laundry facilities here though… we opted for the nice clean laundromats in town instead. The incredible customer support we received from Kolby though makes us recommend this spot to anyone looking for a great and comfortable place to stay.