Resort Fees

[ipeltier]

During the past eight years of winter Rving, we have occasionally stayed in RV parks with resort fees--$3.00-$4.00 a day for use of the facilities. We are presently renting in Outdoor Resorts in Cathedral City, paying reasonable resort fees of $4.00 a day. The resort is considering raising the daily fee to $10.00 next season, with the rationale that a survey taken of other similar properties showed resort fees over $10.00 a day. Is this correct? If you have paid resort fees, how much?

[dodge_guy]

Drbolasky wrote:
This was not an issue for us until July of 2011 when we stayed at a Jellystone Park (Caledonia, WI). Family-oriented park and you paid a resort fee of $6 per day per person for the first three days of your stay, whether you used the amenities or not. All campers had to wear a wrist bracelet showing that they were paid guests.

I totally understand the CG's point of view in this case, and that is eliminating the influx of locals who wanted to use the parks facilities for free. What annoyed me then - and still does to this day - was the guest fee. $10. OK, no big deal, right? It just so happened that our "guest" for all of about three hours that day was our daughter, fresh out of Navy boot camp graduation and in her dress whites. Wanting to be above board about everything, I explained this to the desk staff when we brought her in. Nope, no exceptions. You pay full fare. Military discount? No.

I paid the fee, but asked for a manager to stop by our site when one was available. Said manager did come around after about a half an hour. I recounted the whole tale. Long story short - the CG refunded $4 of my $10. Yes, the $6 I did not get back was the resort fee, even though there was no way in Hades that our daughter was going to be using any of the amenities (no, she had no change of clothes). I got in touch with the Jellystone national entity, but my communication went unanswered.

I've no problem paying for something we will use or even if we have access to amenities and choose not to use them. Our campground choices are often based on what amenities are there and understand that if we choose not to use said amenities, well, that cost is rolled in to what the CG is charging us per night. Because of Jellystone/Caledonia's inflexibility, we no longer stay at any Jellystone park and further, are careful to avoid CG's with additional "resort" fees over the nightly rate no matter what the amount.

I no longer go to that campground. they have nickel and dimed themselves out of reality. their resort fee is only covering an old minigolf course and a pool and 2 water slides.

[Lantley]

Understand the charges fees and pricing structure. Decide if you want to stay or not.
By boycotting and entire chain are you penalizing yourself or the CG?

If it is an well manage upscale place $10.00 is not going to ruin the experience one way or the other.
Sometimes we get stuck on principle and can't see the forest through the trees.

[Drbolasky]

This was not an issue for us until July of 2011 when we stayed at a Jellystone Park (Caledonia, WI). Family-oriented park and you paid a resort fee of $6 per day per person for the first three days of your stay, whether you used the amenities or not. All campers had to wear a wrist bracelet showing that they were paid guests.

I totally understand the CG's point of view in this case, and that is eliminating the influx of locals who wanted to use the parks facilities for free. What annoyed me then - and still does to this day - was the guest fee. $10. OK, no big deal, right? It just so happened that our "guest" for all of about three hours that day was our daughter, fresh out of Navy boot camp graduation and in her dress whites. Wanting to be above board about everything, I explained this to the desk staff when we brought her in. Nope, no exceptions. You pay full fare. Military discount? No.

I paid the fee, but asked for a manager to stop by our site when one was available. Said manager did come around after about a half an hour. I recounted the whole tale. Long story short - the CG refunded $4 of my $10. Yes, the $6 I did not get back was the resort fee, even though there was no way in Hades that our daughter was going to be using any of the amenities (no, she had no change of clothes). I got in touch with the Jellystone national entity, but my communication went unanswered.

I've no problem paying for something we will use or even if we have access to amenities and choose not to use them. Our campground choices are often based on what amenities are there and understand that if we choose not to use said amenities, well, that cost is rolled in to what the CG is charging us per night. Because of Jellystone/Caledonia's inflexibility, we no longer stay at any Jellystone park and further, are careful to avoid CG's with additional "resort" fees over the nightly rate no matter what the amount.

[John___Angela]

Bea PA wrote:
We have paid resort fees for short term stays but $10 is way out of line. We have paid 3-4 but at only a few times over the past 20 years. If you are a monthly renter, they shouldn't be charging any fee as that should be reflected in your rent.

I get the frustration but you have to look a little deeper here because of the way the resort is structured. The rental goes to the owner of the lot and his/her agent (if they have one). Remember, there is no camp ground company here. These are all privately owned lots in a strata. It is essentially like renting a condo in a country club...except you bring your own condo. One of the critiques of the rental guests was that they had to pay to golf on the courses and there was also a pet fee. One of the solutions was to do away with the greens fees for the guests and simply add 10 dollars to the rental fee and that 10 dollars would go to the resort maintenance coffers directly. It may not be a perfect solution but it helps cover the extra traffic on the course, gym, etc. I would probably just look at it as a total number and see if it is something that is in the budget. If not then there are of course other options in the area, some of them also very nice. Overall most feel it is a reasonable price for a resort of this caliber if you enjoy par 3 golf. Not for everyone but works for some.

[Bea_PA]

We have paid resort fees for short term stays but $10 is way out of line. We have paid 3-4 but at only a few times over the past 20 years. If you are a monthly renter, they shouldn't be charging any fee as that should be reflected in your rent.

[cruiserjs]

So far - Cal-am resorts in AZ have not instigated resort fees ( just saw the 2016-17 fee schedule for our park)

[cruiserjs]

So far - Call-am resorts in AZ have not instigated resort fees ( just saw the 2016-17 fee schedule!

[spoon059]

John & Angela wrote:
I don't believe it was 10 dollars per persons but rather 10 dollars per rig. As stated, the proposal was to allow guests free access to the golf course so they wouldn't have to pay 20 dollars per person. By the way, the original idea for this came from the guests. Difficult to compare a KOA to a Resort with 27 holes of golf, 14 tennis courts, 8 pools, 12 hot tubs, two club houses etc etc. It is a different way of RV vacationing. Not better or worse, just different.

$10 for all that... doesn't sound unreasonable to me. I would prefer that the price reflect the actual cost though.

[Opie431]

I would call some resorts and ask what their fees are. Are there many that are upping their costs that much? You may not have any choice depending on what you like to do.

[mikhen]

Encore Resorts around here charge $4-$5 resort fee. That would be fine, but over the past 3 years, their rates have gone up considerably. Last year we had a buy one night get one night free coupon at Encore. Our site still cost us $63, and that campground is not what I would call a resort, by any means. And just checking their website, I see this year they are $61 plus $4 resort fee, and Holidays are $66 plus $4. That's ridiculous. We just got back from a true resort campground in Cape May, NJ and only paid $40 a night.

[John___Angela]

spoon059 wrote:
$10 per person? That is excessive. I've stayed at a KOA that has a resort fee, but it's $2-3 a person. That covers "free" pancake breakfasts, kids activities, hayrides, etc.

For $2-3 I think I get my value (especially with little kids) but we tend to limit staying at places like that. $10 a person is an extra $40 per night for my family. I can't imagine what it would take to make it worthwhile to pay an extra $40 a night on top of regular camping fee's. As a matter of fact, I usually try to stay at campgrounds that are less than $40 for EVERYTHING.

I don't believe it was 10 dollars per persons but rather 10 dollars per rig. As stated, the proposal was to allow guests free access to the golf course so they wouldn't have to pay 20 dollars per person. By the way, the original idea for this came from the guests. Difficult to compare a KOA to a Resort with 27 holes of golf, 14 tennis courts, 8 pools, 12 hot tubs, two club houses etc etc. It is a different way of RV vacationing. Not better or worse, just different.

[spoon059]

$10 per person? That is excessive. I've stayed at a KOA that has a resort fee, but it's $2-3 a person. That covers "free" pancake breakfasts, kids activities, hayrides, etc.

For $2-3 I think I get my value (especially with little kids) but we tend to limit staying at places like that. $10 a person is an extra $40 per night for my family. I can't imagine what it would take to make it worthwhile to pay an extra $40 a night on top of regular camping fee's. As a matter of fact, I usually try to stay at campgrounds that are less than $40 for EVERYTHING.

[John___Angela]

Although this is late to the game just wanted to put out there that part of the proposal to raise the resort fee to 10 dollars was to also allow guests to golf for free. Currently this costs guests 20 dollars for 18 holes. (For owners golf is free)

I don't believe there has been a decision yet. I'll check though.

We are owners there.

[Rice]

mileshuff wrote:
State parks in AZ often do have a fee as you say but its included in the camp fee for those staying the night. The fee is only paid for day users to the park which makes sense.

Well, tell that to Texas, where the per-person per-day fee is in addition to the camping fee.

W4RLR wrote:

magnusfide wrote:
Hmmmm: resort fees.
Nope, never paid any and won't pay any. Another reason we like state parks. :w

Then don't go to an Alabama State Park. They just recently started charging "resort fees" for many of their campgrounds, especially those in places that are heavily used and popular with RVers. Here is an example Three percent daily resort fee and $4 per site fee at Lake Guntersville State Park. It's a backdoor way of raising revenue that I think will soon be the norm nationwide as states cut funding for parks and campgrounds.

The resort fee being a percentage of the site fee means that monthly campers will pay less for resort "privileges" per day than daily campers, and weekly campers will pay less per day than daily campers. And people in full hookup sites will pay more for the resort fee than people in electric-and-water sites, even though presumably the people in full hookup sites will not be using the bathroom facilities as much.

Are they prohibited from just raising the price? Because on a $25 site, the 3% is 75 cents. They could raise the site fee to $26, making an extra 25 cents per night over the "resort fee" AND people would think, "Gosh, that's nice--they raised the site fee by only $1 instead of jumping from $25 to $30." Instead, they're giving people something to complain about.

But look what you get at this campground/resort--the big, private sites that are so prevalent in state parks: