Florida State Park booking

I can't speak specifically to Florida, but I can tell you one game people play here in PA, and since FL and PA use the same reservation systemI have a feeling it's the same. Most state parks have a 14 day max consecutive stay and you can book that 11 months out. So what people do is book a full 14 days even though they only care about days 7-14. You then go on looking for that day 7-14 (whatever the dates may be) and it's full. So they essentially got to book a full week in advance. They hold it for a few months and then cancel the first 7 days typically with a minimal penalty of something like $20. Total BS IMO. There are a handful of sites in some of my favorite PA parks that I have never been able to spend a single night in because of these games. I have even seen them left empty but I cant use it because someone reserved it and just left it sit for a few days prior to their arrival. There has to be a better way, but that is what I found.

We spend the winter in Florida and southern Georgia staying at state and national parks for varying amounts of time. Out of curiosity this winter, I've been checking the license plates in each park, and in every case the predominate plate has been from Florida. The one exception is the Georgia state park just over the Florida line we're in right now where there's currently a fairly quick site turnover as snowbirds head north. But even then, it's a toss up between Florida and Georgia plates at the longer stay sites.

If Florida didn't want to us to move from state park to state park, I'd think they would institute a minimum "time out" between booking into any state park, rather than just re-booking into the same park.

Ralph Cramden wrote:

Guy Roan wrote:
You get a whole bunch of friends that work together - you have a screen on that has the official US time - You have a bunch of windows all on at the same time with two or three different browsers.
We used to be able to get the whole winter booked for two weeks at a time in the SP's in the Florida Keys.
Thank goodness four years ago we bought our own site in a Key Largo RV park, (welcome to paradise!) and no longer have to suffer with that game.
Friends that we used to work it with still are doing it and said for some reason it seemed to be a little easier getting them for next year

Guy

Game indeed.


So when the 11 month reservation window opened up the prior year, you got the group of friends rounded up and fired up the browsers every two weeks, and did all that while at the state park? Quite a feat, and a good example of one of the reasons why it's so hard to book a site for people like the OP.

Thinking out loud, I could be wrong but I don't think Florida's intent was/is to provide a spot for Snowbirds for 3 or 4 months straight at state parks, but perhaps it is. Wonder why they have the 14 day max stay limitation to begin with?

You got it !
- And you'll find that about 90 percent of the people at the good south Florida state parks during the winter have been doing it for years.
Prior to that, many years ago it was called "the slide method" which I won't go into because they changed the booking method which put an end to it.
There is nothing stopping the OP or any one else from doing it.

Guy

Guy Roan wrote:
You get a whole bunch of friends that work together - you have a screen on that has the official US time - You have a bunch of windows all on at the same time with two or three different browsers.
We used to be able to get the whole winter booked for two weeks at a time in the SP's in the Florida Keys.
Thank goodness four years ago we bought our own site in a Key Largo RV park, (welcome to paradise!) and no longer have to suffer with that game.
Friends that we used to work it with still are doing it and said for some reason it seemed to be a little easier getting them for next year

Guy

Game indeed.


So when the 11 month reservation window opened up the prior year, you got the group of friends rounded up and fired up the browsers every two weeks, and did all that while at the state park? Quite a feat, and a good example of one of the reasons why it's so hard to book a site for people like the OP.

Thinking out loud, I could be wrong but I don't think Florida's intent was/is to provide a spot for Snowbirds for 3 or 4 months straight at state parks, but perhaps it is. Wonder why they have the 14 day max stay limitation to begin with?

I’m throwing in the towel. This is ********.

You get a whole bunch of friends that work together - you have a screen on that has the official US time - You have a bunch of windows all on at the same time with two or three different browsers.
We used to be able to get the whole winter booked for two weeks at a time in the SP's in the Florida Keys.
Thank goodness four years ago we bought our own site in a Key Largo RV park, (welcome to paradise!) and no longer have to suffer with that game.
Friends that we used to work it with still are doing it and said for some reason it seemed to be a little easier getting them for next year

Guy

Topsail was putting in some new sites when we were there this winter and Grayton was reworking some sites and had that section shutdown as you drove in the park.

Also having trouble booking for next year! Called Topsail Hill Preserve this am and was told that they are getting money for upgrading sites. The "R" and "A" icons for Reserved and Available have been replaced with a "0"...never saw this before, hence the call to Reserve America & Topsail!!!

Apparently, quite a few of the Florida State Parks are closing sites for upgrades!

Just thought I would pass on the info!

My wife seems to always find cancelations even a month out in the winter. They aren't always for the duration we want and sometimes we have to change spots but, she still finds something.

The best I can give you is "Keep trying!" Also, always check back about 15 minutes later. Many people use multiple computers or windows, or even multiple family members, that all try to grab a site at the reservation window opening time. If they hit on more than one, the system holds all of them for 15 minutes while they complete the registration on the one they want. The others are then released back into the available pool when the hold expires. We've gotten in several popular Florida and other state parks on the "rebound" over the years. We've also found over the years, that we really like some of the smaller lesser known Florida state parks that are usually easier to get in to.