Campground Ratings -

Charolaisbreeders wrote:

Good Sam Network wrote:

Charolaisbreeders wrote:
We find the ratings from Good Sam Club to be getting more and more useless. While we understand you are trying to get a system that has no "personal preference" by your reviewers we are seeing a real bias towards Class A and Large Gooseneck units. The ratings really do not apply to the travel trailers. As an example we just returned from 3 nights in a park with 8/10/10 rating. The lot we were parked on was so off level I had to use a set of stackers to drive on to raise on side of the camper to get level enough so my stabilizers could handle the rest of leveling. The only concreted, level lots were the row reserved for the Class A units!! In addition this park was located with lots starting about 20 feet from a major 4 lane road and the traffic noise on Fri and Sat nights till after 3 am was unreal. I have stayed in lower rated parks on the side of the interstate quieter then this park.

When you shop at Camping world online you have reviews by previous purchasers - some reviews you can tell are sour grapes but MOST give honest feedback that help with the purchase. Why is there not a system for Good Sam Members to leave reviews for other members to help with the ratings by the paid reviewers that now appear to have a rating system biased to Class A units.

One of the main purposes of being a member of a group like Good Sams is to be able to SHARE information - why can we not share our opinions of the campgrounds we stay at on the Good Sam Website?????

Wilford

Hello Charolaisbreeders,

Thank you for writing about your concerns regarding the Good Sam rating system. Our Good Sam Consultant teams (RV’ers like you) inspect and rate each privately owned park in the directory. When inspecting a park, they use the Good Sam approved Rating Form. (This form can be found in the 2015 Good Sam RV Travel Guide & Campground Directory, on pages 185-187.)

There are three main categories that we rated. In each main category there are 10 subcategories. The highest rating a park can receive in a subcategory is a 1. For example: if a park is next to a noisy highway the most we can deduct is 1 point and if this is the only deduction for the "Visual Appearance" category, the park can still receive a 9 rating.

1. Campground & RV Parks - Completeness of facilities: Interior Roads, Registration, Sites, Hookups, Recreation, Swimming, Security, Laundry, Services, and Internet Access.

2. Restrooms & Showers - Cleanliness and physical characteristics of restrooms and showers (if a park achieves a full point in each of the above, it receives a star, indicating exceptionally clean restrooms): Toilets, Showers, Floors, Walls, Sinks/Counters/Mirrors/Hardware, Interior Construction, Supplies/Odor Free, Amount of Facilities, Exterior Appearance, and Interior Appearance.

3. Visual Appearance/Enviromental Quality - Visual Appeal and Environmental Quality: Entrance Signage, Appearance of Entrance Area, Appearance of Park Grounds, Appearance of Sites, Litter and Debris, Overall Exterior Building Maintenance, Trash Disposal, Noise, Park Setting, and Site Layout

We strive to be the best in our industry and appreciate the feedback we receive which is why we are working on a customer review section for our website. This new feature will give those who visit a park a chance to review it. It is still in the works and I don’t know when this feature will be released, but I know it will be a great resource once it becomes available.

Again, thank you for sharing your feedback with us.

This answer in my opinion verifies what I pointed out in my initial post - the rating system is biased. When you are restricted to deducting only one point for a noise based problem due to a park being within FEET of a four lane highway then you have taken all common sense away from your reviewers and they are not allowed to use good judgement, just the biased form they are given. Your form and system are NOT WORKING!! This last visit was just the straw that broke the back and caused me to go public. We have been seeing this for years and it has gotten much worse since the combining of Woodalls and Good Sams rating books. I know there have been meetings with selected Park Representatives by Good Sams for input on the ratings - when are you going to ask your full membership for input??? The fox is running the chicken house when you let the parks set up the rating system and leave your general membership that has to use the ratings out of the loop!

As to a review system coming, this was promised when Good Sam book and Woodalls combined in 2012/2013 - this has gone on long enough, time to give it a priority and implement it!! Not just keep promising it is coming.

It is time for Marcus to get personally involved if he cares about Good Sams as much as he claims! I will repeat that you can review anything purchased from Camping World but cannot review a campground you pay to stay at - the system is biased to the parks and the way they want the reviews done to make their parks look much better in most cases then the users would rate them in my opinion. We as the users of the parks need a way to share our opinions of campgrounds immediately, not get a vague promise that there is a systems coming when we have had that promise for several years!

I support and echo for the most part the comments by the OP. I would point out that adding a new section to the forum is a one or two day effort that should not take months or even weeks.

I am however just as skeptical of so called "User Reviews" as I am of the biased, or more properly termed, faulty criteria for rating parks. User reviews it must be acknowledged can be driven by many motives not all pure.

I would also point out that while GSE owns Camping World it does not own the RV parks that carry the Good Sam Logo thereby possibly complicating business relationships if such a section were added.

Having said that I do think an added section would be, overall, beneficial.

Again I think that if there is a bias it exists in the criteria the reviewers are forced to use thus putting a certain type of Park at a higher rating than others that may actually deserve a better one.

Like so many things about GSE. this is one of those areas that falls far short of it's true potential. It is a shame to see a company with such great potential to accomplish so much, waste so much in mismanagement, duplication, and ineffectual responses to what are real issues.