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Mayor30's avatar
Mayor30
Explorer
Jan 28, 2022

Reservations at federal parks

While making reservations at Army Corps of Engineer and Forest Service sites,I came across a few things. One is that the COE parks will only take credit cards from now on. Since credit card companies charge for each use, the government is making less money than if they were paid by check or cash.One of the parks I looked at would only take advanced reservations. So if you showed up at the campground and there were open sites,you could not use one. More loss of revenue. Another rule at many of these parks is no early check in. So even if the site is open,you cannot use the site even if you wanted to pay for early arrival.Most commercial parks allow for early arrival or late departure if you pay extra.On our upcoming trip to Texas from Pa, I wanted to make 2 reservations at one federal park in Arkansas. One for an over night going down and one coming back. At that park I could only make 1 reservation per call. So I called back the same day and made the 2nd reservation. Makes no sense but that's the way it is.At that same campground,with the Senior Pass,I pay $7.50 a night with water and electric hookup.That's the cheapest I found anywhere. In Arizona at one Forest Service campground with no hookups,we paid $12 a night and $18 at another with electric only. Not sure how they figure out what to charge. It varies from state to state.