Sapphire Island RV Park & Campground

We paid $450 for a 30 day stay, a significant discount over their nightly rate. Booking online is nice.

The camp hosts are wonderful people, and the guy is a highly certified RV tech who helped us with our hot water heater. More than fair price.

The showers are very nice, and the gravel sites well taken care of. Our site was a little less level than we'd prefer front to back, but not bad.

The only thing that we were frustrated by as full-timers was the lack of laundry facilities, but overall for the price, cleanliness, and location, we felt like we scored.

Highway traffic noise is pretty bad if you're bothered by that. We weren't.

If you like snorkeling or scuba, be sure to check out Vortex Springs nearby. Great place for kids too. Another site that's prettier above water (but is also good for snorkeling) and is free is Ponce de Leon Springs. We went to both in late Oct/early Nov with 4mm wetsuits and were warm enough to explore for a while. We nearly had both places to ourselves this late in the season. :)

We booked this park to be close to the beaches and our RV dealer where we had our yearly service and inspection scheduled. Upon arrival we pulled in to the site we reserved and within a few minutes the park hostess was greeting us. All gravel sites and roads. Most have full hookups, ours did not. It was tricky to get to the dump station because of several trees, but we managed. Some road noise. Probably not going back unless we just do a over night going closer to beaches.

PROS:

+ Cleanest bathrooms that I've ever seen at a campground.
+ The hosts allowed us to change our site at arrival when the first site wasn't what we wanted (we unintentionally reserved a site in full sun and we moved to a spot that had some shade).
+ We were given complimentary fire wood our first night. The following day (for $5) an additional load of firewood was conveniently delivered by ATV to our site when we requested more.
+ Nice (newer) swing set for kids.
+ Fenced-in dog area.
+ Nice volley ball area (we didn't use it but looks like a nice set up).
+ 4 Lawn chairs provided in the field for sunbathing and stargazing.
+ The campground is clean and well maintained.
+ Nice fire pit at each site.
+ 3 out of 4 sides of the property are woodsy-looking.
+ Dog-friendly
+ Kid-friendly

CONS:
- 1 out of 4 sides of the property faces a very busy highway (that is also under construction). You can hear the highway day and night. You can see the highway from anywhere in the campground. That was a major disappointment for us and took away from the 'camping' experience we were looking for. This campground is located RIGHT OFF THE SIDE OF A HIGHWAY and you should know this before making your reservation.
- The campsites are VERY close together with zero buffer zone between sites. There are no trees/space between sites. This means no privacy. This means you see and hear everything everyone else is doing and saying your whole visit. Other campgrounds I have stayed at space the sites out more generously and have trees etc between sites to provide privacy.
- No trees between sites means nowhere to hang a temporary clothesline to dry your gear, swim towels etc.
- Nearly every camper had a dog (most had more than 1) so be forewarned that there are MANY dogs here (and they bark sometimes as dogs will do). This point is a pro for some and a con for others so I thought I'd point it out.
- There were many kids. The sound and sight of children playing was everywhere (and continued past dark our first night). This point is a pro for some and a con for others so I thought I'd point it out.
- ALL SITES are near the gravel road that goes through the campground. The sites are not set back from the road. So if you make the mistake that we made, and camp here using a tent, you will hear/see vehicles driving only a few feet from your tent throughout your stay.

This place is more 'RV park' than campground. I would NOT recommend Sapphire Island for anyone seeking a peaceful, scenic, 'back-to-nature' camping experience. We regretted our choice. We visited 2 nearby state parks (Falling Waters & Florida Caverns) during our stay and both offer Ah-mazing camping experiences... we really regretted not having made our reservations at the state parks instead. If you are traveling in an RV and need a spot to spend a night or two this RV park would be more than adequate. This is not the place to come on your camping weekend.