California State Parks dropping ReserveAmerica

Has anyone tried the new system today? I went on it to create an account and then see how it works. It doesn't bring up a list of parks; you have to put in your date and length of stay. In my case, it then just brought up 5 places that are relatively close to my home. I am trying to get it to show me all available parks, regardless of distance from my home. It won't let you just put in california as a destination, but you can put in a city or park name. I sent them an e mail for help. If anyone is on the site and has figured this out, please let me know. Thanx! Not urgent, just trying to figure it out before I need to make reservations in the future; realize there probably are some bugs as this is the first day.

Folks, just so there is no confusion, The California State Parks system is dumping ReserveAmerica. They will have no affiliation with ReserveAmerica. They are launching a totally new platform on 8/1/17 so we'll see what happens, it might have some bugs!

Ron3rd wrote:
For those of us that camp in California and reserve through ReserveAmerica, you will receive an email (if you have not already) that California campgrounds will now be booked through a new site, ReserveCalifornia effective 8/1/2017. You will not be able to book California sites on ReserveAmerica after 7/26/2017 as the state has dropped them as a vendor.

Any current reservations you have will be carried over to the new site, BUT, you will have to set up a new account on ReserveCalifornia.

FAQ info here:

ReserveCalifornia

Good news! You just cheered my day! Thanks for the info!

monkey44 wrote:
I believe RA priced itself out of the contract. Was once $3, now about $8 ... and that counts for short or long reservations. So, it adds $8 onto even a one or two day site. And, I never had a good experience with RA, and find them sometimes courteous and sometimes rude, and often knew little about the site.

California, and probably these other states, decided the $$$ it was losing for the reservation was a nice bundle - and personally, I've always been of a mind that RA was doomed as soon as states figured out a way to charge a camper for the reservation.

Again, personally. I'd rather employ a local group to earn the $$$, and at least anything left over goes into the park system (well, we hope that anyway) instead of some foreign entity...

I think every state will eventually set up its own system, and generate the revenue for itself.

Double ditto. RA is riddled with problems. I'm glad to see one state getting rid of them.

monkey44 wrote:
I believe RA priced itself out of the contract. Was once $3, now about $8 ... and that counts for short or long reservations. So, it adds $8 onto even a one or two day site. And, I never had a good experience with RA, and find them sometimes courteous and sometimes rude, and often knew little about the site.

California, and probably these other states, decided the $$$ it was losing for the reservation was a nice bundle - and personally, I've always been of a mind that RA was doomed as soon as states figured out a way to charge a camper for the reservation.

Again, personally. I'd rather employ a local group to earn the $$$, and at least anything left over goes into the park system (well, we hope that anyway) instead of some foreign entity...

I think every state will eventually set up its own system, and generate the revenue for itself.

Watch what you wish for. When the bureaucratic establishment takes on something they have little experience with, (RE; specific software for a certain task such as a reservation system) you can almost never expect a better and cheaper solution. Its not in the cards and could very well cost a lot more in fees you can see, as well as fees you dont see as in taxes.The end user is going to pay for it no matter who operates it and the private sector is simply more efficient. The only thing bureaucrats are good at is taking from A and giving to B, where B usually deserves nothing. The undesirable issues can only be compounded in a lib bastion such as CA.

Reserve America has at least three other campground reservation systems that I know of. Reserve America is owned by a company called Active Network LLC.

They have a system which doesn't allow reservations of individual campsites, just a type of site, which is cheaper for a state to use. The state of Texas is one state which uses that software.

Reserve America operates the Recreation.gov federal government camping reservations portal. (Except that the USFS operates a different system of the Land Between the Lakes area.)

They have a campground management program which is focused solely on commercial RV parks.

They even are in the business of church reservations management software.

A few years ago, they had some success with allowing a state park system to convert away from the RA portal to what looked like a local state operated system, which was really a RA back-end.

I'll be interested in watching what happens, but so far, I've seen nothing from the FAQ which leads me to believe that RA and CA are actually ending their business relationship.

I seriously doubt that the state of California is developing their own software for reservations. That is a tens of millions of dollars project.

They are likely buying a software solution from someone, and very likely RA. The inventory availability on a daily basis vice a monthly basis is something RA already offers to their customers.

I've yet to see a single complaint about the CA state parks reservations which is a Reserve America issue. RA offers their customers many options, and those options are what people complain about.

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Some further research shows that this is part of the 2015 California State Parks Transformation Team Project.

I've yet to find the RFP for the contract bid which says CA is moving away from RA. I did find an old RFP which indicated that the expiration of the CA's SP reservations system contract would be in 2017.

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The Yosemite debacle over trademarks/ copyrights has focused many states on bringing ownership of trademarks, web domain names, etc - under direct state ownership.

I believe RA priced itself out of the contract. Was once $3, now about $8 ... and that counts for short or long reservations. So, it adds $8 onto even a one or two day site. And, I never had a good experience with RA, and find them sometimes courteous and sometimes rude, and often knew little about the site.

California, and probably these other states, decided the $$$ it was losing for the reservation was a nice bundle - and personally, I've always been of a mind that RA was doomed as soon as states figured out a way to charge a camper for the reservation.

Again, personally. I'd rather employ a local group to earn the $$$, and at least anything left over goes into the park system (well, we hope that anyway) instead of some foreign entity...

I think every state will eventually set up its own system, and generate the revenue for itself.

Padlin wrote:
I find it hard to believe a site called ReserveCalifornia isn't in some way related to ReserveAmerica.

The ReserveCalifornia.com domain name is registered to:

Registrant Name: DPR Parks
Registrant Organization: California State Parks
Registrant Street: 1416 9th Street, Suite 1015
Registrant City: Sacramento
Registrant State/Province: CA
Registrant Postal Code: 95814
Registrant Country: US

I find it hard to believe a site called ReserveCalifornia isn't in some way related to ReserveAmerica.

At least it has different rules, hopefully it'll help.

Stayed at Deep Ravine next to Stinson Beach back in 2000, it was booked solid and I had to reserve from 12 months out to get a site during the week for 2 nights. The nights we were there, only 2 sites were occupied although it still showed full. Cost was either $2 or $4 a night, no big lose for no shows, what a shame.

In talking to a State Ranger, NJ will be dropping ReserveAmerica this coming October as well.

clubhouse wrote:

toedtoes wrote:

clubhouse wrote:
With a major change that reservations are not being released a month at a time, but rather each day the corresponding day 6 months out will become reservable as an arrival date.

My gut says weekend reservations will become non-existent come Aug 1. I am guessing everyone who wants to make a weekend trip will start reserving Wed/Thursday - Sunday and just eating the cost for the extra nights just to ensure they get the weekend they are after.

Doesn't matter the system, CA needs more campsites developed along the coast and popular mountain locations.

Typing this from Seacliff SB, where we tried for months before getting a spot.

Currently, if you do not show by noon the 2nd day of you reservation, they will cancel your reservation and open the site to walk-ins.

So, if you reserve Wednesday thru Sunday and don't show up by noon on Thursday, you lose your reservation for the weekend.

I don't believe that policy will change with the new system.

USFS in California operate this way and it hasn't been a problem. Seems Californians don't tend towards gaming the system like other regions.

Unless you call the park and let them know you have been delayed, with that call they will hold your reservation till you get there.

What's worse, is there is no connection between that call to the local facility and the current reservation system so nobody is tracking how often it happens.

How many times have you been to a popular CG, that's sold out, yet there are open sites. How do you think that happens? It's worth $28-$60, depending on the CG, for many to secure their reservation.

If you think the USFS CG in California try to make a weekend reservation at Bass Lake, 4 USFS CG, that are sold out all summer long. Yet on recreation.gov Thursday and Sunday nights are rarely available for reservation, but the sites sit empty.

Not sure where you are camping, but this is a real problem along the central coast and central Sierra.

If a reservation gets cancelled for a no-show, it is too late to put it as available online (there's a 2 day lag time). So instead it becomes a walk-in site. Those empty sites when you arrive are available.

I like to check out the different sites in a campground and when I'm out walking, I always look at the reservation tags. I have yet to see a campsite sit empty past the arrival date on the tag. And I have not been to a campground that showed as fully booked online that was obviously not full.