Island Retreat RV Park

This is a nice quiet park tucked away down a side road, but still very close to all the attractions of Gulf Shores. It doesn't have a lot special to offer -- the spots are average, the park is well cared for but unexceptional. If you want to stop in Gulf Shores for a while, this is a decent choice.

Full sun, no privacy between RVs but a nice spacious layout. Clean park, trash is only at the front of the park. Nice pool but not heated, no beach water to swim but you're 5-7 minutes either direction to the softest white sandy beaches. Laundry room had many machines, bathroom facilities were good. Drive west from the park up the coast towards Fort Morgan for beautiful coastal views or west to Orange, FL for a more populated area to eat/socialize.

As you enter Island Retreat, you notice the palm trees and flowers. It is rather inviting, and the staff is quite busy taking care of sites and landscaping. There is a small, well kept pool. They have a clubhouse with horseshoe pits and corn hole. While we were there, a gentleman would come on Wednesdays selling fruits and vegetables. A variety of sites are available from full on sun to mostly shady. The interior roads are paved and nice and smooth. The sites have a short concrete pad and gravel. We couldn’t fit all our jacks on the concrete. Our site was very long and level and easily fit both the MH and Toad. There is a narrow grassy area (mostly weeds) between sites. It felt a bit crowded when they filled up and there were lots of kids. It was fairly quiet in our site which was towards the back and farther away from the main road. In our site, Directv worked fine as we were in full on sun. Verizon was 4g 4 bars. Utilities worked fine. WII FI did not work most of the time and would kick you off after a few minutes. There is a bike/walking path right at the entrance to the park. It is an easy 2 mile ride to Gulf State park and more trails. Just a few miles from the beach where there is paid public parking and free street parking. There is plenty of shopping and restaurants although most of them were not open due to COVID 19. Biting bugs abound especially at night so the bug spray was kept handy. The biggest complaint is ANTS. There are sugar and fire ants, and it is almost impossible to keep the sugar ants out of the RV. They sprayed for the fire ants but those pesky critters just picked up and moved to another spot. Other than that, we really enjoyed our time here.

There are many things about the park I do recommend and some I do not. The park is clean, quiet, a lot of amenities offered and great location and price. However, I do not recommend the site we stayed at #153. Most every other site except ours had a nice paver pad for the picnic table or additional concrete area for a picnic table and whatever else you like to set up outside of your camper. And the RED ANTS consumed the dirt area around our camper everywhere including under where our picnic table was making it very uncomfortable letting the kids or dogs out. We could not even enjoy any time cooking out or eating outside as we usually do. This site was assigned to us so we had no say in the pick of this site nor where we told our site would be less of an experience that other campers got to experience. Very disappointing when a family is on a 5 day vacation to relax.

Staff was very friendly in check in. Moved out site to a more shaded area. Pool was our favorite, water was warm in August. Centrally located in Gulf Shores with an easy Uber or Lyft to the local attractions.

We stayed for 4 nights in March 2021. This was during Spring Break in the town. But the RV park was quiet. It was easy to get to the main area of town-a quick 5 minute car ride. But quiet in the RV park. Pool was nice, grounds were clean and inviting, other campers were friendly. Location is convenient to the road to Fort Morgan for sightseeing. Park was family friendly and pet friendly. Walking trail/bike path right there as well.
We had good cable TV hookup, good cell coverage (Verizon), and average RV park wi fi.

This campsite is wonderful! The staff is SO friendly and the campground is immaculate. The location is perfect. The small downside is the proximty to neighbors but other than that, it was wonderful. Will definitely be coming back!

We did not have a great experience here. We ended up staying 5 nights (supposed to be 7). The first three days here, the power went out in our section daily. It was very annoying and somewhat disruptive. The pool was a hot tub given the weather, but they don’t take any proactive measures to cool the pool (aerators, misters etc). It is a good location and with some infrastructure upgrades, it has a lot of potential to be a great park. Our teens did enjoy the fact that there were plenty of other teens to hang out with.

Side note: I have no idea why they advertise a policy of no pop up campers and no staking tents etc. There’s no sense in creating policies if you don’t follow them. Several pop up campers while we were there. The pic attached was parked next to us.

This was a great Gulf Shores RV resort for our family. While it was too chilly to enjoy the pool, the restrooms, rv pads, and club house were fantastic. We enjoyed the Thanksgiving potluck and all the employees were really nice. We’d love to come visit Island Retreat RV Park in the future.