Michigan State Parks Fee Nightmare

[wfred]

I haven't even been to the UP of Michigan yet and I know that I will never camp in a Michigan State Park ever again. Let this be a lesson to anybody planning on staying and reserving a spot in a Michigan State Park - DON'T DO IT. Here is the synopsis:

I booked 2 sites at Tahquamenon Falls State Park in July - one for my dad and one for me. I was charged an 8 dollar reservation fee per site which is expected. My dad had emergency back surgery last week so he wont be able to make it on our trip. Yesterday I called to cancel one of the reservations. At the robo-call center, I was informed that we would lose the $8 fee plus a $10 penalty for cancelling.

Additionally, I wanted to change my trip plans and come into the park a day early and leave a day early. I was told I couldn't change both dates at once, I could add a day to the reservation and then call tomorrow to cancel the last day for a $10 fee.

Today I called back to cancel the last day and was informed that I would have a $10 fee PLUS the $8 reservation fee withheld from my refund even though I am still keeping 2 nights. My only hope is to do an early departure and beg for a refund from the campground itself.

I am going to have a minimum of $36 in fees for adjusting reservations due to my dad's surgery. I haven't even arrived in the park to get the privilege of paying the inflated vehicle user fee yet.

I understand Michigan is broke but you aren't going to make up for decades of fiscal mis-management and corruption by screwing people trying to visit your state.

[travelnutz]

bimbert84,

We have thousands of pics of our camping adventures and so many have our kids (now 49-1/2 and 51) or the grandkids (8 of them) or even the great grandkids (6) of them) or any combination there of. It's fun to leave one of the pics out in plain sight at family get togethers which is quit often. As soon as one see the pic it jogs their memory and they verbally re-live the experience for as much as an hour sometimes which get the younger one asking: When are you going to take me or us there? Mom or Dad went and I/we want to go too!

Yup, we are very close knit!

[drsteve]

I've never had a problem with them.

[MichDoc]

I live in Michigan, and I quit going to our state parks just because of their reservation company.

[bimbert84]

These are great stories of memories with the grandkids. I look forward to that someday, although it's still a while off for us. I camped a lot as a kid, and have a lot of great memories as a result. For whatever reason, though, my wife and I didn't get into it as adults until my oldest son was a teenager. He never did take a liking to it. No TV, no video games, I'm sure you know the drill. He's 26 now, but would still never choose to be outdoors when he can be indoors.

My daughter, however, was only 5 when we started camping. I wouldn't go so far as to call her an outdoorsman, but she enjoys camping a lot more than my son ever did. All she's talked about for the last couple months is our upcoming trip to Ludington SP. As a teenager, she still gets bored easily, but with so much to do both inside and outside the park, it's been her favorite since we first discovered it.

-- Rob

[travelnutz]

Yes, it is the simple things that our kids and our grandkids remember so well and keep bringing up. Now even our great grandkids (all 6 and 2 more are in the hopper, oldest is 12 already) are doing the same thing. We love it! We try to make every day they're with us fun, interesting, and educational as we have already been around the horn and their parents are very good but they have busy lives working and so close to them but us being well retired, we have lots of patience and can bridge many of their gaps they do not realize. Our Grandkids and great grandkids just love being with us old farts. They say we're exciting but we sure can't see that by looking in the mirror.

[winnietrey]

What I think is interesting, Travelnutz as you eluded to, Is this, we just got back from the Oregon coast. We did dune buggy rides, rode the jet boat up the rouge, did the Sea Lion caves etc, and much more


But she is 7, we also, jumped the waves, founds signs of mermaids on the beach, built sand castles etc.

Walking with me (her papa) alone on the beach. I wonder which she will remember more. Just like
your oldest grandson my bet is on the simple stuff.

Lord, I wish I could remember that, to much talk about a dollar this way or that
no talk about these times that will not come again

[travelnutz]

Yes, it can be a little tougher today with the grandkids than with the kids of 30-40 years ago. We take grandkids sometimes and if they are "bored or act bored" we make it interesting for them by pointing out some of what they are seeing going by and ask them questions about the things they see and why it's like it is. Makes them think and connect! It works for us and they have often shared or made a topic of what they had seen by describing it in details in their classrooms.

Our next to the oldest grand daughter (now 25) wrote a middle school paper on her sightings while traveling with us and what some of the things she'd seen now have meanings and explanations. She got an "A" and when we'd seen her teacher in the grocery store, she stopped us thanked us for opening our grand daughter's eyes to the world around her. She told us that she even pays a lot more attention to details in the classroom now. You can bet we were thrilled!

Hey, I have to add another experience with our oldest grandson when he was eleven and was going into the 6th grade. Was while traveling and it's still brings laughs today. We were on the road with our TC heading to Tahquamenon Falls in the U.P. and passed a home in the country about 15 miles north of St. Ignace near Moran, MI and they had a big backhoe with the bucket down deep and the front yard all torn up with piles of dirt scattered all over.

Our grandson asked "why are they messing up their yard like that, are they diggin for oil?" I said, naa they were probably putting in a new septic tank and drainfield. He asked, "why don't they just hookup the the sewer pipe like my dad did?" I told him that there's not many sewer pipes to hook to outside of a town. Then he asked, "how does a septic tank work anyway". Well, the next hour plus was explaining the intricate fine details of a septic system and he was all ears. Later, he met some kids his age in the CG and we overheard him telling them all about septic tank systems and laughed our behinds off over it. He still jokes today that he may not know much but at least he does know how a septic system works!

[winnietrey]

I guess what I do not understand, when people complain about, reservations fees, cancellation fees, or changing dates is this.

When you reserve a site, be it state or private, you have entered into a contract. The CG's part of the contract is that, the site is yours, on the dates you specified.

No where in that contract does it say, you can cancel those dates, move them, or that there is any reason, they, have to accomadate any special things that may come up in your life, and do it for free. Why should they? It takes staff time to make these changes, should you not compensate them, for that time?.

We may all feel they overcharge us for those changes, perhaps they do, I have no knowledge of the R/A profit margin.



But I think it is wrong to enter into a contract, and then call foul, when you change it not them. No one held a gun to your head, for anyone of us to make these reservations.

[winnietrey]

I agree Travelnutz, that is exactly how the DW and I travel. Every thing you said rings true with us. However with the kids and now the grand daughter. Are we there yet? how much longer? what do they have at the CG, and on and on. It seems so much easier to have reservations. Rather than oops that one is full, well try the next one up the road 50 miles. Which for a kid is a very long way. Which is why I do make reservations when we take the GD. And I am more than willing to pay any associated costs and fees to avoid driving for hours longer with a bouncing off the walls kid to find a campsite.

Including fees, resevation costs. change of plan costs etc, in my opinion, camping at a state park is a screaming deal. For what it gets you. But then again that is becuase we like what state parks have to offer, over a private CG.

Others of course feel exactly the opposite. Which is why I am glad we do have both state and private CG's. So we all have a choice

[travelnutz]

Personally, we've never had any problems finding a Michigan State Park CG that had at least one site open in our 50 years this year of RVing. If the park we wanted to stay at was full, we'd just keep on driving and sometimes we'd be in the U.P. before we found a site open in a state park. No problem! For us anyway but it's not for everyone as some people are not flexible. Adventure was and is fun! We simply didn't and don't care that much because there are so many very nice state parks here to choose from in our state and we knew that even if we didn't find one while looking, we could always go to a state forest or national forest CG as there are a couple hundred of them in Michigan and are all over the state basically. Then there's the county park CG's and the private CG's. Nope! We don't include Walmarts etc as that's not camping. Just places to get some ZZZ's.

Never once have we NOT found a CG or place to stay and it also caused us to try so many other places too. We have never based our camping on having any hookups as our RV's were always self-contained and we liked to move around every couple days anyway to explore new areas. The refrigerator, cook stove, furnace, hot water heater all run great on propane and the batteries run the lights and water pump and the TV if used. Later, the inverter and the generator with an adequate battery pack even gives us all the AC we need so even electric is not anything special the last about 25 years. The water tank is always filled at home before we leave and the holding tanks are empty. Got a nice shower and a toilet that works excellent, a propane grill, a nice awning, even our own folding table for outside, very comfortable folding chairs and little plastic stools that serve as foot stools or snack tables for food and drinks. Nothing's missing! Those are all reasons why we have an RV to travel/camp with in the first place! Hookups are merely a plus but far from ever required.

To us, it was boring to just be in the very same site in a park for a full week and still is for a week or two trip/vacation. Only 2 times so far in all those years have we had reservations and that was because there were several in the traveling group that needed electric hookups due to medical issues and we wanted to be all together in the same CG section next to one another.

[drsteve]

winnietrey wrote:
Anyone remember the days before reservations?

Or the days when individual parks handled their own reservations over the phone? You never knew how that would turn out.

[winnietrey]

Anyone remember the days before reservations? Remember how much fun it was to have three kids bouncing off the walls, ready to go camping. Only to arrive and find the place was full. Now that was fun!!

To be able to make reservations from your home, look at maps pick out a campsite, that is something I am glad to pay for. As opposed to the old days

[answerswillvary]

Let's stick to the Topic, folks.

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Sandi (Moderator)

[drsteve]

Political discussions are off limits. Stop trolling.