Paid for but vacant sites

powderman426 wrote:
I can't speak for any one else but if I rent a site and dont sure up there its a darn good reason as I have limited funds and can't afford to not use it.I would therefore expect my site to be there when I arrive

DITTO !!!!

karead7 wrote:
Interesting discussion. Our campground has been "sold out" several times this season, but there are always five or six empty sites. And when there are, do I hear about it! Always from someone who would have showed up a day or two earlier had they known. I think two policies should be instituted. One, weekend camping should be booked for a minimum of both Friday and Saturday nights. That alleviated the problem of there only being several one night sites left empty. And two, if you don't show up for your first reserved night, and we can't get hold of you, your campsite is considered abandoned, whether you paid for it or not.

Not everyone's job situation allows them to arrive on Friday night. Maybe they can't arrive until Saturday, but knowing that they ARE going to arrive on Saturday, they reserve both nights. Believe it or not -- we have camped in places that there is no way to get in touch with the actual person on-site. All contact was made via a 3rd party that is not actually at the campground.

I can't speak for any one else but if I rent a site and dont sure up there its a darn good reason as I have limited funds and can't afford to not use it.I would therefore expect my site to be there when I arrive

Many state parks in WI are VERY popular and nealy all electric sites are reserved 11 months in advance. A few years ago WI DNR changed the rules to be similar to that of FL, if you don't occupy by the checkout of the next day, you lose the site. The reason for this is that people were reserving 21 days worth of a site only to use it on the last weekend. Yes, they would actually pay that much money for a few days use.

Being that it is so very hard to get into some of these parks, when people do this its simply not fair to others, especially to those whose taxes also pay for services in those parks.

BTW, I don't have a fundamental problem with someone leaving a unit on the site for a few days and fully occupying later. At least it shows "good faith". But reserving a site at a publicly owned property and not occupying for days or even a week just comes off as selfish.

State Parks ran by state government have their own rules and regulations about how they run their campgrounds. The laws that the states pass that apply to private campgrounds do not apply to their own state operated campgrounds. And the states who contract with Reserve America get other restrictions because of the contracts with Reserve America. What you are asking for isn't going to happen unless you happen to be a state elected official!

I know people who pay for two adjacent sites at some RV parks, especially some places where pads are so close together, one might end up bumping slide-outs with a neighbor. To keep people from complaining about vacant spaces, he parks his fiver in one, the truck in another.

To RK911. If a person puts their RV on a campsite, paying for the site for every day the rig is there, why is it unfair that they are not staying in it until the weekend? They made "special arrangements" to be able to bring their rig in early - as you said you sometimes made 'special arrangements' to get off early to get a site you wanted. The site isn't EMPTY - it has a rig on it. Don't really understand your complaint. DH and I have reserved and paid for a campsite, taken the RV there on a Sunday afternoon, knowing we will not be able to get off work until at least Thursday. The CG has a site paid for and we're actually paying way more than we ever should for a weekend camping trip. It's called "first come, first served". We were willing to spend the $ to be first.

For Alberta Provincial Parks (from the website):

Late Arrivals/No Shows
You must notify the Contact Centre at 1-877-537-2757 of a late arrival. A late arrival is a planned arrival after 2 PM of the day following your scheduled arrival date (i.e. arriving after 2 PM on Saturday, July 9 for an original arrival date of Friday, July 8).

If notice is not provided, the reservation is considered a 'no-show' and will be cancelled. The campsite will be released for resale.

Up to four nights camping fees will be forfeited, depending on the length of your stay. Any remaining camping fees will be refunded to the credit card used for the original transaction. The reservation fee is non-refundable.

broark01 wrote:
Let's think this through, if all the campground sites are reserved/paid for then the campground should not book anyone else or should they intentionally overbook, like the airlines, assuming there will be some % of "no shows"?

Why wouldn't the campground contact the reservation holder after 24 hours of "no show" to see if they could re-reserve the campsite?

If the campsite is paid for by a "no show" and then re-reserved to another camper, does the original reservee get their money back or does the campground keep the profit for the double booked campsite?

Seems like a slippery slope to me.

I agree it's not an ideal situation but it wouldn't be an issue if people didn't take advantage of the reservation system in the first place or if they actually contacted the campground beforehand to let them know when they'd actually be on site if they get delayed for whatever reason.

Let's think this through, if all the campground sites are reserved/paid for then the campground should not book anyone else or should they intentionally overbook, like the airlines, assuming there will be some % of "no shows"?

Why wouldn't the campground contact the reservation holder after 24 hours of "no show" to see if they could re-reserve the campsite?

If the campsite is paid for by a "no show" and then re-reserved to another camper, does the original reservee get their money back or does the campground keep the profit for the double booked campsite?

Seems like a slippery slope to me.