Unfair Reservation System?

doxiemom11 wrote:
Big Katuna , we have been noticing the same problem with the Corp of Engineer parks. The locals book the weekends from spring until it's too cold (depends where it is) and if you would like a week or two, there are no sites that can be booked! This is thru reservations.gov. Used to be reserveamerica, then they took over their own bookings and it's still happening ! Hate it and they need to do something about it. Sites are sitting empty M-F as people have found somewhere else for their week or two which includes weekends that they wanted.

The problem I encountered a few years ago with COE campgrounds here in North Texas was with the hosts themselves. What they were doing is reserving spots for a bunch of other snowbirders/retirees weeks or months in advance. They had (and may still have) an underground organization of hosts that worked together on this scheme for most of the COE campgrounds here so that their snowbirding/retire friends had reservations at all the parks and could move from one to another when they'd used up their stay limit at each park. It make it almost impossible for anyone not in this consortium to make a reservation. I just stopped staying at COE campgrounds.

Some, maybe all, of the National Parks have Reseravable and non-Reseravable spots. I know Big Bend does. The Reseravable spots are available on Recreation.gov (or ReserveAmerica, forget which), and the non-Reseravable are for people who just show up. It sort of works and I've never had a problem finding a spot for the past 15 years when I just show up. The only downside is that the Reseravable spots MUST be reserved on-line and even the Ranger or Host can't provide you with one if it's open and you just show up.