Thousand Trails

[msmith1199]

Been RVing for a long time but coming up on retirement (I'm already retired, but wife will retire at the end of the year) and looking to get out in the motorhome a lot more. Probably won't full time, but we'll go out for a few months at a time. So I started looking at Thousand Trails. I did a search and there are a few posts on here but not a lot. I read a really good article written by a couple on a RV blog that explained a lot. So I started looking for memberships on the resale market and prices are all over the place. I do have some specific questions.

Different memberships have all kinds of different benefit levels. I'd like to get one with the 21 day stay and no break in between. How important is the "reservation window" option? I see it appears to vary from 90 days out to 210 days out. I know the zone pass they sell is limited to 60 days out so all the real membership owners can beat out the zone holders, but is there any real issue in getting reservations? I haven't seen any on line complaints about making reservations at the parks. Obviously I'd like to have the 210 day option, but I don't know if that would be a deal breaker or not over a 120 option. And isn't there a limit to the number of reservations you can make? For example, say I wanted to spend an entire winter in Florida, could I make five 21 day reservations at five different parks all 120 days or 210 days out?

I think I saw where you may be limited to only two reservations at a time. So you could reserve two three week stays, but couldn't go loner until you are done with the first stay?? Is that correct?

Let me see the response I get to this and I may have more questions.

[samsontdog]

We have been members for 36 years I believe. I know you would have problems getting into Pacific City , South Jetty or La Conner and many others WITHOUT res.You can make res on line and no charge to make them. We have the Gold Card Membership which allows us to make res 90 days out go to any TT Parks with no time out between trips. We can go from one Park to another after 14 days. We don't have all the bells and whistles but for $175 a year and no other charges it is hard to beat. We have been to most of TT Parks and we like Calif, Oregon, Wash, Canada best of all of them. At the present time I have South Jetty, Pacific City, Mount Vernon and La Conner reserved.
If I was you I would sign up for the Zone Park plan. You get two zones for the price of one. You could try it out for one year and walk away after the year with no other charges if you did not like it. There are a lot of memberships for sale in all the Parks in AZ {Not TT} I would not buy thru TT as you can get much better deal from private party, sometimes FREE but you have to pay TT the transfer fee of $750 or more

[path1]

msmith1199 wrote:
So you don't get reservations, but you don't have much trouble finding spaces? That's a good sign. I probably won't do a lot of 21 day stays either, but I like the option. For example they have a park in Palm Springs and I can see spending some 21 day stays there in the winter.

Palms Springs is pretty hard one to get into I think, when you just drive up. Most of southern cal is hard to get into during summer months. The one north of LA is another hard one on most all weekends.

Have you done a search on the search page? One of the pull down menus is over posts over a year old. That search would give you more info.

We have not had any problems during off season or during the week during summer months in Pac west coast. Wife usually likes to call if we are within 24 hours. There have been times when a loop is closed or water system down. There have been a few times we stay'd at "resort" type for couple of days until a spot could be had at thousand trails. Between ELKS, Eagles and thousand trails is 75 percent of our stays. Other 25 percent of time is where ever we find something.

[msmith1199]

So you don't get reservations, but you don't have much trouble finding spaces? That's a good sign. I probably won't do a lot of 21 day stays either, but I like the option. For example they have a park in Palm Springs and I can see spending some 21 day stays there in the winter.

[path1]

Smart idea your are asking on here for current info and "ins and outs" of membership. Over the years they have changed some of their rules. Like full time renters, which equals less spots available for traveling RV'ers. So some blogs are out of date IMO.

We've had membership over 20 years. We never stay'd 21 days. Several times during summer rush, when no spots were available most of the time they had "overflow" to park until spot becomes available. All except places near big cities. Which we don't usually stop anyways.

Sorry, We don't travel by reservations, so not up on those rules. But make sure you know all about your membership before you sign.