Big Lagoon State Park

We stayed here for a couple of rainy days on our way west. The park is close enough to Pensacola to visit the Naval Air Musuem, but also has some great walking paths, an observation tower, a playground, and when the weather is good they rent canoes! Would love to come back and explore this park when the weather is more favorable. Sites are pretty sandy and on the smaller side (which in the rain wasn't fun) but we managed to level our trailer just fine.

Our site at Big Lagoon State Park was small but private. There is only one campsite next to site 47 and it's separated by a lot of foliage. I would have preferred site 46, it's bigger, very private, has a nice deck and cement slabs for the tires.

The showers here are great. Hot water, private stalls and good water pressure.

Over the air HDTV has a bunch of channels including the major networks and Verizon with a booster got up to 26Mb/s down.

The nearby beach at Perdido Key - Gulf Islands National Seashore is gorgeous!

Verizon - DOWNLOAD: 2.48Mb/s, UPLOAD: 1.49Mb/s
AT&T - DOWNLOAD: 12.52Mb/s, UPLOAD: 4.95Mb/s

I had understood that this campground was close to the beach (that you could walk to the beach on the ocean from your site), but it is not the case. There are nice trails that lead to a lagoon where you can swim, but it is very shallow. Beautiful beaches are only 10 min drive away (we loved The Gulf Islands National Seashore on Johnson Rd; free with our National Park Pass or $15 for the week) or Perdido Key Beach Access #3 (free). The other downside is that there is not laundry facility in the park and the only laudromat is 20 minutes drive away (not so great with all the sand, 3 kids and a dog!). Some sites are pretty small and/or sandy, whereas others are big and have cement slabs for big rigs (but it's not indicated on Reserve America...). It seems like most of the nicer sites are not reservable (first come, first serve basis).

There is a really nice Pavillion on the main waterfront area with a built-in BBQ area. We brought our charcoal and burgers there one night and watched the sunset. It was beautiful. The shower building are nice and clean (hot water, great pressure).

We enjoyed our stay here. The sites are a tight squeeze, but we had room to take our our slide, so we can't complain too much. There's a boardwalk that takes you to the beach, but it's not a typical Florida ocean beach. Don't plan on doing much swimming here.

The Salt Marsh trail was worth doing. It's mostly on sand dunes and it's a relaxing way to spend an afternoon exploring the lagoon and woods around the park. We saw lots of deer here and luckily, not too many mosquitoes. Definitely walk to the observation tower to watch a sunset.

The cell service was good. We got 11.26 MBPS down/3.55 MBPS up with our Verizon Jetpack, unboosted.

While you're here, take a drive to the Gulf Islands National Seashore. Pensacola is also a great little town to walk around and get dinner.

We stayed here while visiting friends in the area. Enjoyed the hiking trails and views around the lagoon. Like stated before the sites can be fairly tight. The vegetation between sites is great for privacy.

What a wonderful little park on the intercoastal waterway between Period Key and on the outskirts of Pensacola. Unfortunately progress is pushing on the boundaries of the park. You can see some high rises off in the distance and a bit of road noise during rush hour, otherwise it is a very peaceful park. You can hear the birds chirp and the insects sing at night. As other people have mentionned, pick your site carefully because they vary in width and length, as well as slope and material - some have pads and others are sand. There are still large trailers and rvs in here as well as smaller campers. Some are more shaded than others. The bathrooms are centrally located and well cared for. The roads in the park are good for bikes and you really should have one if you want to go to the beach and not take your car. You can rent a kayak or put in with yours at the kayak launch for the lagoon or try the larger body of water and cross over to the national seashore - watch the wind and boat traffic. Check out on the web where to put in at Bayou Grande, which is nearby. There is also the naval museum nearby at the base that people say is wonderful, but we didn't have time to get there. There are two large groceries stores within a few miles. Dinner at Fisherman's Corner rounded out a delightful time here and it is on the list to come back to.

We had no trouble maneuvering in our site, plenty of space. Thankful we had a bit of shade, sites 1 and 2 seemed to have direct sun most of the day, although with electric (and water) hookups, we still ran the AC a couple times.
I say it was "mostly peaceful" because the Blue Angels practice a couple days per week and it is definitely loud. Like, really really loud. The hubby works from the RV and the jets were flying during his morning video meeting so it wasn't necessarily ideal. You can actually watch their practices for free at the Naval Museum on certain days, and I thought that would have been fun if the timing had worked.
Lots of raised boardwalks take you around the park and over the lagoons. Never found the beach access for swimming but didn't try too hard.
We took the dogs over to Pensacola Beach (what a cute town!) -- there is a small area where dogs can be on the sand (on-leash). The sand is gorgeous and super soft, and we caught a phenomenal sunset that night. It costs a $1 toll to enter the peninsula, free parking at the dog beach (and many other beach areas). We originally booked our stay at Fort Pickens but it got cancelled due to storm damage at that campground. That would have been a great location...much much closer to Pensacola and the dog beach. Still had a nice stay at Big Lagoon, would likely camp there again, but would prefer something closer to Pensacola.

10/13/20
We had 5 nights booked but arrived to scattered tents in the park, not an issue but as we were parking the rv there was yelling from an adjacent tent spot, I looked up and there were 2 people just sitting there in a van staring over at us. I decided to request an alternative spot and drove back to the ranger station where I was informed that they are having issues with squatters and they hinted that they may have been disruptive in the park. We don't mess around with safety as we are traveling full-time with 2 young children. Also, as of yesterday the beach was still closed due to hurricane damage. We left.

Beautiful place. We stayed in 001 which is the least private but had great neighbors. Great park rangers who are very helpful. Cell on Verizon was dial up speed at best. AT&T was better.

So for those looking for internet connectivity, we got great results with all three major carriers.