OK, What's the trick to reserving on Reserve America?

It's not so much a trick as a problem with the system.

If you try for a specific site or time frame, if ANY ONE of those days is taken or overlaps, you can't make the reservation.

Assume you want two weeks in Yellowstone, and you pick a site and dates. IF someone has a weekend, or even ONE day in your date choice, it rejects it.

The only trick I can see is to look at the sites, find sites that are open first -- say you can get seven days on one site, five on another and two on another. Then you make three reservations -- and decide if moving, and paying three RA fees is worth it.

When we reserve here in Florida state parks, we look at the sites open for the day we want to start, then look at how many days each of those sites is open longest days in a row, then reserve that site for those days ... then find another site that is open on the day after the first reservation, and see which one has the longest time frame open and reserve that one. We usually only have to move once in two weeks (and we are easy to move - a Truck Camper)

The other way to do it is "show up" take one or two days open at a time - usually, unless it's peak season, at least a few sites are open between reservations, but no one asks which ones online (can't ask, actually)

So, it depends on how much time and effort (and reserve fees) you want to spend getting camping days in a specific area.

We've been camping all over the USA for a lot of years, and I can remember only a few times we had no luck with at least one or two nights in any CG. And, then we spend a day or so occasionally in overflow until something opens.

Is it a hassle - NOPE -- we make the effort because we don't want to get stuck with a reservation we can't get to, or when we decide we want to spend more days where we are before leaving ...

Families have different issues, but the same sequence of searching will often get you the days you want, even if it means a move or two - and an extra fee) And, we all are 'fairly mobile' -- that's what RV is all about.

It is in the morning, not midnight.

The trick is to see what is available, look at the pictures and description and decide if it is for you. Have alternatives as well.

Once you put in a site to the reservation spot, that site is assigned to you, giving you time to arrange payment. I think that you have 10, 15, or 20 minutes.

Often, spots get assigned, but then the reservation does not actually get paid for, so they become available after that 10,15, or 20 minutes expires. It's worth trying again if you don't get it right.

mchero wrote:
Reserve America is just about the only was to grab a site these days sort of walking up praying for an available site.

I have herd from more than one person that the trick is to be on te site at EXACTLY 8:00AM & be redy to search & select your site. I hae herd from others that it's midnight!

Whats the real deal on reserving a site on Reserve America?

It really depends on what state or states you are making reservations for. As a for instance, CT, allows you to book no more than 11 months in advance but NYS allows you to book 9 months in advance. I generally book around 2 in the morning on the day the window opens and have no problems since I already did my research and know what my favorite sites are.

reserveamerica also helps the date challenged amongst us by allowing you to put in an earlier than the window date reservation and then telling you it's not opened yet for reservations and what the actual date IS for making one;).

Now the Fed system for booking @ Fire Island's National Seashore is not a part of reserveamerica so I go to that site separately and book at the stroke of midnight. And cross my toes and fingers since the system is slower and not as intuitive as RA's.

HTH!

monkey44 wrote:
It's not so much a trick as a problem with the system.

If you try for a specific site or time frame, if ANY ONE of those days is taken or overlaps, you can't make the reservation.

Assume you want two weeks in Yellowstone, and you pick a site and dates. IF someone has a weekend, or even ONE day in your date choice, it rejects it.

The only trick I can see is to look at the sites, find sites that are open first -- say you can get seven days on one site, five on another and two on another. Then you make three reservations -- and decide if moving, and paying three RA fees is worth it.

When we reserve here in Florida state parks, we look at the sites open for the day we want to start, then look at how many days each of those sites is open longest days in a row, then reserve that site for those days ... then find another site that is open on the day after the first reservation, and see which one has the longest time frame open and reserve that one. We usually only have to move once in two weeks (and we are easy to move - a Truck Camper)

The other way to do it is "show up" take one or two days open at a time - usually, unless it's peak season, at least a few sites are open between reservations, but no one asks which ones online (can't ask, actually)

So, it depends on how much time and effort (and reserve fees) you want to spend getting camping days in a specific area.

We've been camping all over the USA for a lot of years, and I can remember only a few times we had no luck with at least one or two nights in any CG. And, then we spend a day or so occasionally in overflow until something opens.

Is it a hassle - NOPE -- we make the effort because we don't want to get stuck with a reservation we can't get to, or when we decide we want to spend more days where we are before leaving ...

Families have different issues, but the same sequence of searching will often get you the days you want, even if it means a move or two - and an extra fee) And, we all are 'fairly mobile' -- that's what RV is all about.

RA added a "Not Flexible", "Flexible for 2 weeks", and "Flexible for 4 weeks" drop down to their opening page for making reservations a year or so back. Makes life a little easier although I wish they would add an ending date box for reservations instead of simply how many nights you want to stay.

mchero wrote:
Reserve America is just about the only was to grab a site these days sort of walking up praying for an available site.

I have herd from more than one person that the trick is to be on te site at EXACTLY 8:00AM & be redy to search & select your site. I hae herd from others that it's midnight!

Whats the real deal on reserving a site on Reserve America?

It's more like be on the RA site BEFORE 8:00:00am, have your campsite scoped out and be ready to hit "book now" right at the stroke of 8:00:00 a.m.

And then be ready to see "Inventory Not Available" at 08:00:01 as I always do when trying to get that ever-elusive waterfront site at Bahia Honda.

Ahhh.....someday ;)

As a fulltimer, I seldom expect to be able to get a site on RA for any length of time. Seems to me locals go in and reserve up all the weekends for months in advance, so as I ramble around and decide where to go visit there is little available. It sure would be nice if they would reserve some sites as "weekly only," maybe combine that with first come, first serve.

Anyway, the way I have tried to work the site in the past is look at the calendar view. There you can see open days on all the sites and maybe stitch together an extended stay, even though you have to move a time or two. I've made 3 reservations before for a single visit. Of course there was a fee for each online reservation. It would be more cost effective to look online, find the collection of sites and days that would work and then call the park directly to make it as one reservation.

the only trick to Reserve America, is not to rely on it. go for the non-reservable sites. as long as your schedule is flexible and you're willing to show up before the crowds, you'll almost always get a site, except Holiday weekends.

snip

tcas01 wrote:
It sure would be nice if they would reserve some sites as "weekly only," maybe combine that with first come, first serve.

One of my pet peeves as well.

We owned a beachfront motel for ten years. We quickly learned that we could always fill the weekends up at the last minute so we would turn away weekend bookings that called months in advance and wait for the weeklies.

RA (who I detest) gets paid half the first night booking so negative incentive to book less stays.

They make more money booking four weekends than they would one site for two two week reservations.

Kind of irks me as a taxpayer that many parks are half empty during the week.

Artum Snowbird wrote:
It is in the morning, not midnight.

The trick is to see what is available, look at the pictures and description and decide if it is for you. Have alternatives as well.

As others have said it depends on the state. Colorado changes at midnight and if you want a popular site in some state parks you better be ready at midnight, not 12:01am.

RAS43 wrote:

Artum Snowbird wrote:
It is in the morning, not midnight.

The trick is to see what is available, look at the pictures and description and decide if it is for you. Have alternatives as well.

As others have said it depends on the state. Colorado changes at midnight and if you want a popular site in some state parks you better be ready at midnight, not 12:01am.

Can't believe they have us all acting like teenage girls trying to get tickets to a Justin Bieber concert. Something is just not right there. As a result, I just seldom even try to get in state parks.