Empire, Michigan: Indigo Bluffs RV Park and Resort

June 2020, weekend-weekdays, 6-nights (campground site 432 and resort site 7)

Our Michigan camping vacation to the upper peninsula in May/June canceled due to COVID-19, so we chose this campground as an alternate when they opened a few weeks later.

Sunset view from campground site 432 at Indigo Bluffs

Arrival and check-in

We arrived less than half an hour after check-in time, and there were several campers in the parking area in front of the office. It only took us a couple of minutes at the office because they had everyone's arrival papers labeled and ready. Someone handed me our packet, and told us we were all set. The drive into the campground is a sharp right turn from the office directly after the pool. This was not explained to us, and we ended up driving through the resort side of the property before we entered the campground side. 😆 After you park in the pull-through spots in front of the office, you are facing the resort side when you pull ahead, and the resort gates were open when we arrived.

Fire on campsite 432; 431 & 433 labeled behind

Campsites 314, 315, 431, 432, 433

This was our first stay at this resort, and there are not individual site photos online. We were assigned site 432, which is a back-in site in front of sites 431 and 433. This site is full hookup with 50 amp power. 

Indigo Bluffs campsite 432

We thought this was a great site when we first arrived, and most of the other campsites were empty. After we got settled, we noticed that the front sites are wide because the area on both sides of our site are driveways to the back sites. A group of campers arrived late Friday and surrounded us for two nights. Campsite 432 was still fairly nice, although I did not understand why they chose to assign us a site amongst a group camping together when there were open sites farther down. The group gathered on site 431, which was quite secluded for them, as their camper and vehicles were parked between us with the woods behind them.

Indigo Bluffs campground pull-through sites west of restroom

All of the sites in this area of the campground are nice, although some are a bit nicer than the others. If we camp in this area again, I think I would choose one of the pull-though sites across the road from where we camped. Most of those sites have privacy between them. The labeled photo above shows the pull-through sites across from site 432. The pull-through and back-in campsites behind us, are a bit more expensive than the type of campsite we had. Price ranges are listed on the website, and before our stay, I did not completely understand how this works.

Sunset from resort site 7

Resort campsite 7

After we arrived at this campground, our next two campgrounds called to cancel our stay due to the COVID-19 stay home order being extended. After the cancellations, we decided to stay at this campground three more nights, moving over to the resort side. 

Photo taken from the roadway by the pond

The resort side is a bit more expensive and much nicer. There is a locked gate at the entrance, and we needed to get a remote to open the gate before changing sites. Each site has a paved stone patio, moveable fire ring, furniture, and the sites are much larger. They are full hookup with 50 amp power. Some of the sites have a shed, cooking grill, and extra furniture, as well. There is also a price range for the sites on this side, and the sites with extras are more expensive. 

View from resort site 7 at Indigo Bluffs

We had walked around to see the sites before calling to extend our stay. Site 7 was one of our first choices, and it was available. I am including a few more photos below of our campsite.

Labeled view from site 7 above
Side view of site 6 from site 7 below

  

Wifi, restrooms, pool, misc.

I was surprised that reception was not very strong at this resort. Wifi is included; however, it only worked the first day when we were on the campground side. After that, pages would not load properly, or it said no internet connection. When this did not improve after the weekend when many campers left, I inquired about it. I was told it was down. The next day, I was told that it was working again; however, it never worked again before our departure. I reset all of our devices, and then resorted to use my phone, which also did not have the best reception. We have a powerful antenna on our RV, which usually picks up many channels, and we did not get many TV channels at Indigo Bluffs. We picked up four channels on the campground side, and no channels came in after we moved to the resort side.

The restrooms were open during our stay with social distancing guidelines. The restrooms on the resort side are inside a community building with a keypad entrance. Extra hand sanitizing stations had been installed throughout the park. The pool was not open during our stay, although I read that it opened a couple of weeks later. There is a dump station in the park. I am not sure how much this gets used, as I think most of the sites are full hookup. There is full-service trash pickup; just leave bagged trash at the front of your site by the road before 10:00 AM, and someone from the park picks it up. When we extended our stay, the man I talked with told me he would waive the $3 reservation fee, since we had already paid that; however, we were charged the fee after I spoke with the female about changing that 2-night extension to three nights. I did not know this, until I received the confirmation email, and I decided to just let it go.

Patio seating by pond

There is an outside patio with furniture on the other side of the pond behind resort sites 5-7. You can visualize this better by comparing the photo above to the first labeled resort photo.

Area information and overall

This resort is well maintained and beautiful. It is located on M-72 within driving distance of the lakeshore and more. One reason we never chose this resort before, is that we like to be able to do things on foot or by bicycle from camp, and that is not possible from this location. We did transport our bicycles to the bike trail and more, and you can find that information here.   

Let me know if you have any questions, and feel free to share this post!