Arizona State Park camping fees

littlemo wrote:
Wow! Doesn't look like I will be able to stay in State Parks in Arizona. At $30-$33 per night with no discounts available, I'll have to look elsewhere.

Guess I'll have to stay in BLM and NF areas!

Still way cheaper than California!

Since the thread seems to have evolved into a discussion of how park concessions and franchises operate, you might be interested in reading about the Xanterra suit against NPS. That suit has now been settled, but the news accounts are interesting reading, as are the actual pleadings (if you can get access to them--it might take a subscription to a legal database). I don't think much of Xanterra as a company (filing for trademarks for prominent American landmarks? really?), but the accounts provide some interesting facts on how the economics of Park Service concessions operate. Here's one link. Google the topic and you can find as much as you want.

http://www.nationalparkstraveler.com/2014/10/xanterra-parks-resorts-sues-national-park-service-over-grand-canyon-contracts25760

Skip

Good point. In Colorado the parks only handle drive up camping needs. All reservations are handled by phone locally with volunteers, which can have long wait times. Or online with RA which is much faster for the $10 fee. The parks each set the rates and keeps the fees as they do not get state funding. Works for us.

Something that is often overlooked is the lack of telecom infrastructure. Sure there are rangers and staff at a campground - but in many state parks there is very little, if any, Internet and/or cell phone coverage.

So those rangers and other employees at the parks can't handle online or phone reservations while doing all their other work.

4x4dodger:: "...maintaining the web site and the servers, paying for CC clearance and on and on. By the time any state got a system up and running it would operate in the RED forever."

I agree with most of what you say sorta -- and believe in full transparancy, which we don't ever get - only the contract info, NOT the extras which always hide in the billings ...

But not this above -- the parks have personnel at the gatehouse, and have the site maps and the CC charging system in place. I just checked in for two days, just like a "today reservation" same amount of work, same rangers, same site map, same CC system. Each park CAN do a park, no one park can do a state. But it's already there, the infrastructure - it might need one more person to man the phone (but most can check in remote online) and for $9 per / and that huge cancel fee, one can easily hire one, or a volunteer to reserve ...

I'd much rather pay, let me say again, much rather pay a park host/reserve guy that fee than allow all that revenue to disappear -- LOCAL employment too, not thousands of miles distant with NO knowledge of sites or exact vacancy, nor can a remote site manipulate you into a couple sites that fill a need, instead of a rejection because you request overlaps site reservations in a PC with no adjustment allowed. That's why we see n-person vacancies when the PC says "Full", or "Can't meet your dates" ...

monkey44 wrote:

Naio wrote:

4X4Dodger wrote:
I think there is a general misunderstanding here. The vendors who run reservation systems like Reserve America have NO authority to raise or lower the cost of any campground or park.

They make their money by charging a reservation fee or in some cases taking a commission agreed upon with the state.

In most states a rise in the park rates would take an act of the legislature.

Contracting with a company to do online/Tel reservations cannot be classified as Privatization of parks.

It'not just reservations.

Aren't some vendors running cg stores, providing hosts, etc.? I have avoided cg's thst sre listed on the forest srvice websites as doing that, because I notice they are always priced higher than neigboring cg's with similar amenities. And because I disagree with the idea and am voting with my dollsrs.

At the biggest national parks, I think the restaurants, bike rentals, bookstores etc., are run privately. I could be wrong.

IF the state parks ran reservations like in the past - one, we'd have better info about sites and true availability. AND, if the PARKS charged the same reservation fee that RA charges ($9.00 or so) it could easily hire a local 'body' to do it, and could save the overhead and costs of maintaining a huge corporation + Profit.

RA often does a horrible job with reservations - so bad, we never use it. Cancellation fee of $17 ??? Transfer date fee of $17, one night reservation fee of $9 -- give me a break.

But what happened? The parks did not reduce overhead, did not lay off rangers (a good thing), did not recoup the reduction in costs and then improve the park. Now, we have the same rangers and volunteers doing the same jobs, but not the reservations ...

So, in fact, just because the park does not raise fees directly, a camper has additional costs to camp regardless of how it circumvents the laws about raising fees. We just call it a reservation fee - and if we don't pay it, we get no site reservation ... so how is that not raising fees? Oh, we call it charging a fee instead.

At least if the park got the reservation fees, anything remaining after paying that cost, would stay in the park. There are tech systems available that link sites to reservations, so a park with few has less to do, and sites with more have greater revenue, so can afford the employee to give correct site info AND not over/under book.

No one will ever convince me the parks and the campers save money and hassle with a private reservation company.

Well let me address the contractors like Xanterra at the natl parks first. Those are, I beleive contracts that are bid out for a set fe plus a commission of overall sales going back to the park. However I am not 100% sure that is the case in all cases.

I myself have many questions about how those contracts are structured and if they are open to public scrutiny. Which they should be.

BUT this is a completely different operation than reservations which I was referring to.

As for State parks doing their own reservations systems at the same or lower cost than RA. This is just not possible. RA can do this so much cheaper than the individual state park systems because they are doing so many other states, they dont have to pay government level salaries and benefits and they bear the cost of the capital expenditures for the buildings and computer systems, maintaining the web site and the servers, paying for CC clearance and on and on. By the time any state got a system up and running it would operate in the RED forever.

I believe that the reservation systems came about because the parks were becoming so popular, spaces were being saved, people not occupying or ghost occupants of sites and many folks who didnt game the system couldnt get into their parks.

As for the cancellation fees. Last Spring I had to cancel a couple of stays at parks. Recreation.gov (Reserve America) refunded ALL my money except ten dollars...a fair deal by any commercial standards.

To me the best system is one where a park has a certain percentage of sites reservable and the remainder first come first served.

Dave's Wife wrote:
LittleMo,

Just an idea, have you thought about monthly at a park central to the location you are wanting to explore? We will be in AZ and staying at a full hookup park with lots of amenities for about $17 pr night including electricity if you divide the monthly fee by 30 days. It will be our first time in the area. Or...Corps of Engineer parks especially if you are 62 or older. I agree that NM parks are more reasonable and some even have wifi now.

Sheila aka...

Thanks Sheila,
Really not sure where we are gonna be when but this is great information and a good thought. Yeah and the COE parks are half price so have to remember this.

Sharon

LittleMo,

Just an idea, have you thought about monthly at a park central to the location you are wanting to explore? We will be in AZ and staying at a full hookup park with lots of amenities for about $17 pr night including electricity if you divide the monthly fee by 30 days. It will be our first time in the area. Or...Corps of Engineer parks especially if you are 62 or older. I agree that NM parks are more reasonable and some even have wifi now.

Sheila aka...

Naio wrote:

4X4Dodger wrote:
I think there is a general misunderstanding here. The vendors who run reservation systems like Reserve America have NO authority to raise or lower the cost of any campground or park.

They make their money by charging a reservation fee or in some cases taking a commission agreed upon with the state.

In most states a rise in the park rates would take an act of the legislature.

Contracting with a company to do online/Tel reservations cannot be classified as Privatization of parks.

It'not just reservations.

Aren't some vendors running cg stores, providing hosts, etc.? I have avoided cg's thst sre listed on the forest srvice websites as doing that, because I notice they are always priced higher than neigboring cg's with similar amenities. And because I disagree with the idea and am voting with my dollsrs.

At the biggest national parks, I think the restaurants, bike rentals, bookstores etc., are run privately. I could be wrong.

IF the state parks ran reservations like in the past - one, we'd have better info about sites and true availability. AND, if the PARKS charged the same reservation fee that RA charges ($9.00 or so) it could easily hire a local 'body' to do it, and could save the overhead and costs of maintaining a huge corporation + Profit.

RA often does a horrible job with reservations - so bad, we never use it. Cancellation fee of $17 ??? Transfer date fee of $17, one night reservation fee of $9 -- give me a break.

But what happened? The parks did not reduce overhead, did not lay off rangers (a good thing), did not recoup the reduction in costs and then improve the park. Now, we have the same rangers and volunteers doing the same jobs, but not the reservations ...

So, in fact, just because the park does not raise fees directly, a camper has additional costs to camp regardless of how it circumvents the laws about raising fees. We just call it a reservation fee - and if we don't pay it, we get no site reservation ... so how is that not raising fees? Oh, we call it charging a fee instead.

At least if the park got the reservation fees, anything remaining after paying that cost, would stay in the park. There are tech systems available that link sites to reservations, so a park with few has less to do, and sites with more have greater revenue, so can afford the employee to give correct site info AND not over/under book.

No one will ever convince me the parks and the campers save money and hassle with a private reservation company.