Trip Advisor Campground Reviews

[rbtglove]

For what its worth info - you might not know trip advisors has reviews of campgrounds. In my opinion they are best place to find the most reviews of campgrounds. Rv park reviews is good but I find better at trip advisor.

[JoeH]

docj wrote:

JoeH wrote:


The issue I have with RV Parkreviews, is that they pre-review posts and censor ones that they feel like so you get the website administrators opinion, not the public's complete opinion. .

As one of the administrators of RVParkReviews I can say without hesitation that reviews are ONLY edited to make them more readable or to remove profane or other offensive content. I strongly disagree with your statement that "you get the website administrators opinion". One of the fundamental rules for admins is that they never should change the meaning of a review.

I encourage you to provide evidence, if you have it, of a review that was substantially altered and/or whose meaning was substantially changed by an administrator.

I'll see if I can find it in my archives, but last summer, we called an RV park to see if they accommodated big rigs... they said yes, we got there and they put us in a spot would have been impossible to exit from , but told us that they would not rent the space out in front of us, thus allowing an easy exit. The park was about 30% occupied. About an hour later, they put a camper in the spot that they said they would leave empty. I went to the office and asked what was going on... the staff person that had made the prior promise to keep the site empty for our egress said she changed her mind. When I said we planned to leave about 6 a.m. she said we would just have to wait until the people on the other site left. I talked to the people on the other site, and they decided that they would move.
I wrote this up in a review, I also stated that the power and water pressure were good, the bathrooms very clean, grounds maintained, but I received a message back saying the review was not being posted because the rude and inept management issues were not pertinent.
If you do a search on these forums, you will find many others that have had similar censorship of their posts.

[SDcampowneroper]

There are 3 levels of reviews. You choose which you believe.
1- No moderation, any and all anonymous posters. No accountability on the part of the reviewer, no moderation, management response allowed. But who believes that response?
This is how I see tripadvisor.coms approach. Thus they avoid libel by disassociation.
2- moderation with some identification and accountability, entrusting through a multiple review rule to selectively identify abusers, pro or con .In some instances this approach may appear to be overzealous, but is in the interest of accuracy, preserving personal opinions while protecting your right to privacy, accuracy for the camp.
This is how I see rvparkreviews.com
3- Fully disclosed user identification reviews . self explanatory, go to
www.guestrated.com .

[docj]

joe b. wrote:

I submitted a review of the park, in a few days got an email back approving it, it showed up on the RVparkreviews site for three days and was then removed, for what reason, I don't know other than the owner had enough influence to have it removed. Someone mentioned that RVParkReview is owned by a campground owners association or something close to that. Perhaps DocJ can talk about who actually owns and controls the content of RVParkreviews. Someone had to appoint him to his position with RVPARKREVIEWS.

This is totally erroneous information. RVParkReviews has NEVER been owned by an organization of any sort nor are its owners affiliated in any way with any RV parks or campgrounds. It had been owned by an individual and had a totally volunteer staff. It recently was purchased by Social Knowledge, the parent company for IRV2.com and numerous other social media websites.

The site has always worked hard to avoid and/or remove reviews that appear to be from individuals who own or work at the parks being reviewed. Possibly your review was judged to have been submitted by someone associated by the park you were reviewing. That is the only circumstance I know of under which a review might be removed after being posted.

If you would like me to research the claim you have made about reviews that have been removed after being posted you are welcome to PM me the particulars including the user name under which it was submitted, the park name, the approximate date and any other particulars you think would help us identify it.

Joel Weiss

[eubank]

RVParkReviews.com is owned not by some campground association, but rather by Social Knowledge LLC.

http://www.networksolutions.com/whois/results.jsp?domain=rvparkreviews.com

This company runs several RV-related forums, including IRV2 and AirForums (for Airstream owners).

http://www.socialknowledge.com/rv-traveltrailer/

Social Knowledge also runs sites for non-RVing folks:

http://www.socialknowledge.com/our-communities/

🙂
Lynn

[joe_b_]

I am going to agree with JoeH more than docj on their above comments. Two summers back I sent in a review to RVParkreviews on a campground in New Mexico where we had stayed in the past. It had become run down, grass not mowed, dead trees all through the park, picnic tables in disrepair, buildings needing paint, and the one man operation was parking everyone next to each other, when there were at least 75 empty sites in the park.

I submitted a review of the park, in a few days got an email back approving it, it showed up on the RVparkreviews site for three days and was then removed, for what reason, I don't know other than the owner had enough influence to have it removed. Someone mentioned that RVParkReview is owned by a campground owners association or something close to that. Perhaps DocJ can talk about who actually owns and controls the content of RVParkreviews. Someone had to appoint him to his position with RVPARKREVIEWS.

This reminds me of the big announcement from KOA sometime back, that they were going to allow reviews, good or bad, that would show up on their web site. After a few weeks, the idea seems to go to a "campground option" as to whether or not their reviews were posted or not. A few seem to have posted the reviews but most don't seem to do so.

Reviews of any kind sound good, until someone gets a bad one. Not too much different that getting a job evaluation. As long as it is all good and glowing, people love them. But a bad job evaluation is wrong, not fair, etc.

[Dog_Folks]

The problem I have with RV park reviews is that often the reviews are two or three years old, and as such, are not pertinent. A lot of things can change in a campground in three years, both good and bad.

I am not blaming the site, as it is driven by campers reviews.

Just an observation.

[tsetsaf]

I cant more strongly disagree. I know first hand of 3 campground related businesses that make up their own reviews. Also had a family member get libelled by a disgruntled employee in a clearly bogus review... all on TA. At least with rvpreviews you know that each review was manually okayed by a human.

Personally I use the new site campgroundviews.com. They have a detailed directory,some reviews, and videos.

[docj]

JoeH wrote:


The issue I have with RV Parkreviews, is that they pre-review posts and censor ones that they feel like so you get the website administrators opinion, not the public's complete opinion. .

As one of the administrators of RVParkReviews I can say without hesitation that reviews are ONLY edited to make them more readable or to remove profane or other offensive content. I strongly disagree with your statement that "you get the website administrators opinion". One of the fundamental rules for admins is that they never should change the meaning of a review.

I encourage you to provide evidence, if you have it, of a review that was substantially altered and/or whose meaning was substantially changed by an administrator.

[luvglass]

"I prefer trip adviser, but understand that the volume of RV park reviews is not great, at least at this point. Maybe this thread will get more people using it.
The issue I have with RV Parkreviews, is that they pre-review posts and censor ones that they feel like so you get the website administrators opinion, not the public's complete opinion. "

I don't understand this comment. I"ve used RV Park Reviews for years, I have over 300 reviews and never has ONE of them been modified or edited.

[JoeH]

docj wrote:

rbtglove wrote:
For what its worth info - you might not know trip advisors has reviews of campgrounds. In my opinion they are best place to find the most reviews of campgrounds. Rv park reviews is good but I find better at trip advisor.

We use TripAdvisor in planning things to see and hotels (when we need them), but I think it's accurate to say that the number of campground reviews in TripAdvisor is very small compared to the more than 200,000 in RVParkReviews. I don't think the quality of reviews is much different one place or the other, but if I want lots of reviews about lots of campgrounds I use RVParkReviews.

I prefer trip adviser, but understand that the volume of RV park reviews is not great, at least at this point. Maybe this thread will get more people using it.
The issue I have with RV Parkreviews, is that they pre-review posts and censor ones that they feel like so you get the website administrators opinion, not the public's complete opinion. .

[Beer_Belly]

I use it, but don't take it as gospel.....better off posting for actual reviews from your camping websites like RV.Net.....when I do this, I always see what they are camping in and take those who also camp in the same type of unit (Pop Up) more seriously.

[michigansandzil]

I do both. I like the campground link at the top of the page here. I also use the search function on this forum, and I use trip advisor.

To be honest, the "ratings" feature doesn't really do much for me on woodalls from the top of the forum. I couldn't care less about a facilities bathrooms, we never use it. But, if several people on trip advisor mention that there is a flight path over head or the campground is mainly run down local seasonals, (or other such info that doesn't get into the rating system), it will change my opinion. Also, maybe it's just me, but I find rvparkreviews not very user friendly.

So yep, I use trip advisor a lot. If it is one or two posts, I take it with a grain of salt. It seems someone is always complaining about the weather on that page, which is a riot. Not exactly the campgrounds fault. But, if every other poster is mentioning the plane noise, etc then it typically is legit.

[4runnerguy]

Limit4 wrote:
I always start right here, I have found that this is the best place to get reviews and if you need more info the private message feature is great.

+1

[kmbernstein]

I use both sites. Like the previous posters have stated, I take the reviews with a grain of salt. I tend to sort the reviews, and see what the MAJORITY of the reviews reveal. One of our favorite campgrounds had bad reviews because, after a week of constant rain, there was mud at the campground....well, duh. Just do lots of research and enjoy the journey!!

[Limit4]

I always start right here, I have found that this is the best place to get reviews and if you need more info the private message feature is great.