Fighting for campsites 6 months in advance!

ohhell10339 wrote:

Durb wrote:
People are gaming the reservation system and are even being coached how to do so on this thread.

If your description of the situation was accurate, then people could easily get campsites simply by showing up at a given time of day and taking one of the site cancellations. That's actually fairly easy to do at some parks, but not at others. On the Oregon coast during the summer, for example, good luck with that.

People's plans change and they may not actually show up when they have a reservation. They consider it worthwhile to make reservations, though, and are willing to pay a cancellation fee if they can't be there. Not everything is a conspiracy, and not everybody is trying to "game the system."

Never said everyone is gaming the system. I make reservations all the time but every time I do I intend to be there and stay the full duration of my reservation. People should ask themselves if they are gaming the system:

- Do you make reservations with little intention of using them?
- Do you make a reservation as a back up?
- Do you consider the cancellation fee to be no big deal?
- Do you have a spreadsheet with your reservations that has a column for the last day to cancel?
- Do you have a reservation and not show up and not cancel and just eat the reservation fee and one night site rental?
- If you have to cancel late and have to eat a site charge do you insist the site remain empty even though a family would like to occupy it?
- Do you make a campsite reservation just for your boat denying the site to someone that wants to take their family camping?
- Do you reserve extra days just so you have a place to stay on your preferred days?

People want to take their kids camping and because of all the planning involved would like to have a reservation. Showing up and hoping is not practical during these times. Not being able to secure a reservation because of the gamers is frustrating.