Encore Park Reservations

They are 'upgrading'. I understand that. They started in June, bungled it, which caused unplanned outages. Here we are in August and it still going on and on. The summers here are brutal. My problem is that it is not hot in April and May. Why wait till the summer and during monsoon season to plan upgrades/outages on the electrical? The answer is very few people come here in the summer. Less chance to lose revenue.

I understand why they do not do this in the winter season when the snow birds are here, but most of the crowd is gone by April. It is dry, warm in the days, cool at nights in April and May here. Windows are open, people are outside, things are nice. Then we have the dry fall months, once October is here, it cools off. The snow birds arrive around Thanksgiving, the majority hit in January.

To plan an electrical upgrade in AZ during the summer, is inhumane. We have excessive heat warnings most of the summer. That means the temps are above 105 to 115 degrees. That is our normal summer.

On top of having to worry about the heat/heat exhaustion, my father is on oxygen. We have literally run out of back-up O2 tanks twice and had to order emergency refills. Twice when the electricity was out overnight, security put my dad in one of the motel rooms here. I was very appreciative of that. The third time/night we had an unplanned outage for over 12 hours, security stop answering our phone calls for help. The office is closed.

Now it does cause me to wonder why the money making part of the park (the motel) did not have the same outages? That proves to me that Encore is all about money, not keeping the few hundred of us who stay here all year around safe. I am here to care for my dad. I tell all of my friends who are in the late 50's and early 60's and wanting to RV NOT to come to the Voyager. I have friends who have RV's and were planning to come here this fall. I told them to fly and get a motel room somewhere else. This place was own by a man who cared, that is why my parents bought into this place. Most of my neighbors are in their 80's and are stuck here.

Not once has anyone from Encore/Management asked if they can help....I asked the manager for a room one time before a planned outage at the motel for my dad and his answer was no. He said I can take him to sit in a ball room with other residents. My dad can't sit in regular chairs for more than an hour, plus manage his oxygen. Plus I have to work to pay our lease here, so I can't miss work every time the electricity goes out. If I did, I would be fired by now. I read here where one person here said that the least Encore could do during their upgrades was to offer a break on the lot lease, I agree with that suggestion, but doubt if it happened for them or will happen for us. We get to pay to be neglected. When it comes time to sell this place I will probably have to pay someone to tear it down because who wants to buy into a place where management only cares about money? That is sad.

 

It is not safe to remain here, so dad has agreed to go to an independent/assisted living home. It is a sad to end one's life dream of remaining in his home until the end over something like this.

I do not have any faith in the integrity of the 'upgrades'. I suspect they are doing just what they have to do to get by. It was the County that forced them to do the upgrades. We were happy to hear of the upgrades, but now it is obvious the quality of work is questionable. On top of all of this, they keep raising the lot leases.

We feel helpless with no one to go to for help. I have asked for a number or email to send in our complaints, but the staff appear too scared to do that. After reading what I read in this thread it appears calling Encore would do no good.

Enjoy your summer Mike and thank-you for listening!

 

I stayed at an Encore Park in Yuma, AZ back in May for a week...very nice!

I added three more days as I bought a park model and now live here!

The reason I say I added three days is because in those three days I finalized the paperwork, unloaded my 5'ver (as I didn't come here to buy a house) by removing most of the furniture from it so I had optimal storage space, then left town for seven weeks to finish my already planned road trip!

Been back here for two weeks...

Very hot...just finished unloading the rest of my stuff from my storage unit in Denver out of the 5'ver...parked my 5'ver in the on-site storage lot and can now relax once I finish figuring out where everything goes.

 

We spent the winter at Encore's Voyager resort in Tucson, and is the forth year we have spent some time there. This year our 3 months turned into 4.5 months due to Covid. With everything shutting down and many parks not allowing newcomers, we felt safer staying put instead of hitting the road and taking our chances. We're full-time RVers, so we have to be somewhere, there's no sticks-and-bricks house to go to.

Voyager had to shut down all the activities on order of the state, county, and city, which is understandable. They dropped the monthly space rent to $300 for those of us who stayed past our original time, which is less than 30% of the normal rate in the transient section. They were even able to keep the on-site restaurant open, which was great for those who can't or don't cook their own meals.

Management there is wonderful, we have absolutely no complaints. I'm not aware of any part of the park that doesn't have 50-amp now, so all the electrical work was probably necessary. They are currently upgrading the water system, which is decades old, and as they upgrade a section they are installing gate valves so that future repairs won't require shutting down the entire park. Infrastructure work takes time, AND money, and at this park they seem to be trying to do it right. The water repairs meant a couple days where the water was shut off, but we had plenty of warning and just filled our tanks and used our own system. Might be harder for those in park models, but stuff happens.

Just like in a regular home you have to be prepared for emergencies, so perhaps a generator isn't a bad idea. People have them in places where winter storms might cause a power outage, so why not in desert locations where having to go without electricity could be deadly? There are plenty of brownouts and power outages all over the country in cities where usage overloads the system. Emergency preparedness is for everyone. Period.