is this common practice?

schlep1967 wrote:

westernrvparkowner wrote:
I Believe the Disney parks advertise themselves as a family adventure and they charge per person. Same with restaurants that serve food "family Style". There is no way a park or any other business could separate out who is family and who is not, with friends, neighbors, etc. And what if Great grandma and grandpa brought his 3 kids and spouses who each brought their 3 kids and spouses who each brought their 3 kids, that would be 53 people, all constituting a "family unit" by your definition. And continuing with your political correctness, should the park ask to see marriage certificates, birth certificates, civil union documents and the like at check in?
At least at my parks you won't run into that problem. No where on our websites or advertising do we ever use the phrase "family campground" so I assume at my parks our $5.00 per person fee for over two people is fine with everyone. Apparently it is all in the wording.

I can see your point. And I feel it would be reasonable to put a cap on the "included" in the price of the site. But charging per head for more than 2 people is just not going to assure future users of your campgrounds. Make it anything over four, that seems reasonable, and a family of 5 is not slammed with $15 a night extra charge. So more families can afford to camp and more children get introduced to camping. And there you build the future customer base.

In Fort Wilderness you pay for the site up to six people no xtra charge. Campgrounds are not an amusement park, and I will not stay in a campground that charges extra for children.

Ken

Once again, the KOA haters crawl out from under a rock. We have a state park near me. They have FHU, Elec. only and dry camping sites. They also have group camping sites and a group camping site with a corral for horses. They even allow visitors for a couple of hours once they check in at the office. All of these campers use different amounts of the amenities and pay different prices.
They did this because some folks would rent one FHU site for the weekend and invite 20 of their closest friends over for a 48 hour weekend party. They also had to pay people to man the entry gate 24/7 because, surprisingly, some people lie.
I'm a solo RVer, but I often stay at KOAs because they're a known quantity. I don't use the restrooms, showers, playground, swings or swimming pool but I find that many offer paved sites with picnic tables, a daily newspaper delivered each morning, free coffee in the office, often a gated entry, a propane filling station, laundry facilities and recommendations and directions for shopping and sightseeing.
So, even though I help to subsidize my state parks through my taxes whether or not I use them, the KOA haters out there aren't subsidizing my CG choices. I'm glad you don't choose KOAs so I don't have to listen to you whine.

Must be a eastern thing. I have not experienced anything like that in the west. All day I could understand, but an hour or two?

Must be a eastern thing. I have not experienced anything like that in the west. All day I could understand, but an hour or two?

Many of the campgrounds I stay at have a fee like that. as it happens five bucks is quite common.

And they try to tell you that you can't get blood from a turnip.

Just let one of these "free" guests trip over a sewer cap or get hit by a falling tree limb and see how quickly the campground gets sued. God forbid an accidental drowning in the pool. In today's litigiousness society the campground must protect itself in any way it can.

It is becoming common practice to charge for extra people/visitors. I travel once or twice a year to a privately owned campground in Michigan to visit my single son. The CG has a $5/day charge for visitors. When I go there for a two or three week visit, I am usually alone in a Class C with no toad. I talk to the CG owners and explain that my son only comes to pick me up and sometimes stays a couple of hours for a meal. Neither of us use the pool or any of the other facilities. Some days my son is in/out of the CG two or three times since he lives only 8 miles away. I would be more than willing to pay $5/day for my son to visit, but the CG owners have always waived the fee and have even let my son have a pass card for the driveway gate with only a security fee which we have always gotten back. I am so grateful to such friendly, people oriented CG owners!!

I would love to pick on KOA (Keep On Adding), but unfortunately this is common. they do have insurance and facilities to pay for and the more people there the more use the facilities get (even water and sewer) and there is a higher percentage of an accident with more people there.

I agree $5 a person is cheap!

yup thats common here in Pa, and thats cheap.