Fontainebleau State Park Campground

From the beach on Lake Pontchartrain, a three minute bike ride or ten minute walk from the campground, you can see the massive bridge as it makes its way to New Orleans some 45 minutes away.

But one not need venture all the way to the beach, if you opt for one of their Premium sites (water/electric only), you can have the swamp right out your door! That was the case with both Site #4, which we originally were given, and also #18, which we moved to because it at least had a little bit of dry land for us to call home for a few days. It's hard to complain though, this is the LA swamplands so it's all part of the package.

Beautiful trees, particularly the loblolly pines who's fallen needles are better fire starter than anything they sell in a store. The kids loved the playground, Internet was fast (not the park's internet, which they do provide, but rather AT&T and Verizon connections are great here). There's a small town nearby with most of what you'll ever need, and the waterfront area of Mandeville has some cool bars, restaurants or just neighborhoods to check out.

This park is a bit run down, as Louisiana apparently doesn't have money to spread around to the parks, but it's still quite nice. Four of the spots have full hookups, too, #75 and 74 were two that I saw, not sure where the others were.

I didn't use their showers, but my family mentioned they were kind of weak. The "push a button for a minute or two" type and apparently the hot water only lasts for two or three pushes. I found the rest of the bathrooms to be quite pleasant, indeed. I could see this place being a bumpin' hangout for local Louisianans in the summer.

First time being back here in almost five years. Had fond memories of the trees and walking trails here as well as access to the Tammany Trace bike trail right from the entrance to the park. http://www.tammanytrace.org/ The trees are still fantastic and the trace is still there of course. The walking trails along with the rest of the park are sadly in disrepair. The story we heard was that funding for the state parks was pulled just before a hurricane hit and then there were no funds to clean up the destruction. There used to be a sweet boardwalk out in to the marsh that is now just gone.

Still, this is a nice quiet place to camp, occasional road noise. There is plenty of room to walk around, deer all over the place and New Orleans is accessible if not as close as you get from Bayou Segnette.

We elected to stay at this park this pass through the NOLA area, having stayed at the FQ RV and Bayou Segnette in the past.

Overall, for a park - we enjoyed Bayou Segnette better for immediate surroundings, and FQ RV for proximity to the French Quarter. However, Fontainebleau offers its own unique charm, and we really enjoyed the town of Mandeville, the water front and access to the biking trail through town (we did 22 miles of it!).

While you can hop on 'The Causeway' to get across the lake and into the Big Easy, it is a bit of a jaunt at 24 miles each way. But depending on what you enjoy about NOLA, you can find some of it right in Mandeville, including Cafe Du Monde's now located even in malls, and a drive-thru daiquiri bar not more than 2 miles from the park entrance.

The park itself offers a variety of sites - back in water/electric are all pretty much the same with decent spacing (not nearly as nice as Bayou Segnette). However, the pull thru spots were quite nice offering lots of privacy. If we knew we'd be passing through during temperate weather, we'd probably opt for one of the primitive sites instead - however all the trees would likely impact our solar collection some.

All and all.. it's a nice park, and we'd return. Easy access off I-12. However if we were wanting a French Quarter experience, we'd opt for something closer to town.

Overall this was a nice campground. We stayed in one of the premium sites (pull through with water and electric). It seemed to be well attended by the host (dumpster taken care of, host visible). We did not enter the bathouses or restrooms however. Good dump station, lots of trees and picnic tables and firepits at each site. Our site was paved and a bit bumpy but nothing to complain about-we worked around it. Water quality was clear from our spot.

However, they had had heavy rain an hour before we arrived and torrential downpours that night. We awoke to deep standing water around our site on both sides. I mean the woods beside us were like a waterway and the table and fire ring were unusuable. My electric cord near the box was in standing water (yikes). Luckily the pad where the camper sat was the "high spot". I'd just say plan accordingly-a rainy day or recently rainy day could make for a soggy stay. I saw many sites with standing water while driving through the loops even 2 days after the downpour.

Adorable old town area 5 minutes away. Neat places to grab a drink on the lale there. Plenty of shopping and restaraunts about 15 minutes away. The French Quarter was about 45 minutes via the 23 mile (!) causeway. If you want to be in striking distance to downtown but not deal with traffic and tight roads with your RV than this is a good spot to drop your trailer or rig if you don't mind the drive over to NOLA. Wi-Fi was typical campground Wi-Fi. Not bad really, could browse the internet with a few delays with the campground about half full of potential users.

For those of you with kids, I kept mine not too deep in the woods (before they turned into a lake) and warned about the wild hogs. Also gave a talking to about water snakes. There is actually a little splash park at the other side of the park on Lake Ponchartrain, some cool mill ruins to explore, an awesome paved bike path and small pier (?) out into the Lake. Paved loop provides nice scooter or bike riding opportunity. Felt safe as well.

This is a big park on Ponchatrain Lake that looks like it would be very busy in summer. We were here in February for Mardi Gras. There was a lot of standing water around the sites. Very swampy.

The sites are paved but uneven and the overall campground seems dated. It was clean but needed some maintenance and updating.

Electric and water sites only. Dump on site. I didn’t use the showers because they weren’t very appealing.

We stayed in Fontainebleau for 10 days in January 2018. It was great, just be aware if you are a naive tourist (like me) that Lake Pontchartrain is BIG. It will take you about 45 minutes to get to New Orleans and 30 minutes of that is just crossing the bridge. I had no idea, so hopefully you do or you will now.
Pros:
- There are 4 full hookup sites in the park and we managed to get a reservation in one of them.
- The park itself is HUGE and beautiful and well maintained. There are 2 separate areas for camping, a bike/running path at the entrance that goes for more miles than I could ever bike for and you can walk down to Lake Pontchartrain.

Cons:
- It rained... a lot. And the campground turned into a lake with small RV pad islands. If we had a canoe we could have easily paddled around in places. Just be aware if rain is in your forecast as after the water disperses the lake becomes a mud pit. Bring rubber boots.

Side note:
There were A LOT of deer. And there are some people there that sing and feed the deer. Yes, they were singing to them and then feeding them. Not sure what that was all about but it was definitely odd.

All in all we will definitely stay here again when we are in the area! You will also be close to some pretty stellar bayou swamp tours so you should definitely check that out.

Would give 4.5 if you could. Sites are nice and level. Pier is nice and the park is quiet and well maintained. We had a pull-thru site and it was very easy to park and hookup.

This is a very pretty park with great access to the beach and a pier. The park is mostly 'big-rig' friendly, but there are couple trees that require some maneuvering, and while the trees are beautiful, it makes accessing some sites challenging. Our site was W/E for $20 a night (week days) and $28 (weekends), and the dump station was easy to access on the way out. Some sites were more level than others, and ours was a bit of mess, covered in large chunk gravel to cover up black-top denting and cracking.
Particularly when the park is quieter (week days), there is a lot of wild life... some welcome (deer), some not so much (lots of wild pigs and racoons), and the wild pigs are worth a mention. They were quite a problem for the park in general during our stay- they rip up the grass and take every opportunity to get into trash left around.
I don't have a thorough explanation, but this park had the most chaotic feel of anywhere we've stayed. Car traffic was easily the most constant, not even that people drove too quickly, but there was no stroll or dog walk without many cars around. Our neighbors weren't terribly loud, but there was just a ton of people around all the time (not 2 at a site, but 15). I guess this is just a huge LA vacation spot and who can blame them.
This park was located well for us, but we had only intended and took one day to go into NOLA, which a short (45 min) trip across the causeway. Otherwise, it's close to grocery stores, gas, and local restaurants.

We stopped here on our way to the Gulf Coast planning to stay just one night. Loved it so much we ended up staying three additional nights. I was concerned that the weekend would be louder but while there were more people but Friday night it was still a peaceful & quiet experience. We loved the visitor center so many interesting exhibits, and the hiking trails were awesome to explore. We also like riding our bikes all over the park and you can access the Tammany Trace from the state park. Beach area is nice but too cold for us to swim this time of year but we enjoyed exploring and watching the bald eagle catch fish! Deer wander through the campground eating acorns. We had two bathhouses in our area and both were really clean.

We stayed here a little over two weeks in mid-February 2019. We really enjoyed this park. It does get very busy on the weekend, but the area we were in was still quiet and peaceful. We were in an area that is deemed long-term and some people around us were staying several months. There is only water and electricity hookups, but there are two dump stations throughout the park. We used our tote to dump grey water while there. We were on spot #138 and were close to the dump and the camp host. Very convenient for using the tote. This is a bit older park, but we liked it. There are a few walking trails and you can walk along the road as well. There is a long bike trail that takes you into town, but we didn’t do that. There is a cute little beach and pier at Lake Pontchartrain. Would have loved to have a beach day, but the weather did not cooperate. We walked around the park most days and enjoyed the birds and the wonderful trees with Spanish moss. As with most things in Louisiana, the park is low-lying so with rain there are puddles and mud. The campground did not get bad even though it rained several times while we were there. Internet access was good. Strong signal with AT&T and Verizon. The park is close to Mandeville and Covington if you need any essentials. Access to New Orleans is about an hour. We went twice while there. This was our second time staying here and we enjoyed it more this time because we had extra time to explore the park. We saw numerous deer and several wild boars which was fun. We were there during the off-season, so rates were $20/night on the weeknights and $28/night on weekends. We will definitely be back when in the area again.