I've read several reviews lately where the person was upset because they were not escorted to their site. That has never made a difference to us, but I am wondering what the rest of you think. Is this a service that you expect a campground to provide?
I am happy with a map with a line and an X on it. Sometimes we will select a different site and ask via phone if we can take that one. Lots of the people driving the golf cart don't understand our turning radius and our heights. We try to not get too concerned on the little stuff like this as camping is too much fun to let a little thing like an escort to your site bother you. I'd really rather go it alone than have a pushy, know it all type that you sometimes get as an escort.
QUOTE(Texasrvers @ Jul 11 2009, 12:44 PM) [snapback]17503[/snapback] Is this a service that you expect a campground to provide? As far as the escort is concerned I can take it or leave it. What upsets me is when the escort insists upon giving me the directions on how I'm to back into the site. My wife and I have our system which works well.
I agree with Lindsay, map (accurate map) is sufficient. If you ever watched "The Long Trailer" with Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz, there is one escort I would not want. They pulled into a park, and someone at the park drove their car and setup their trailer for them. The problem is the employee was somewhat hefty, and had just been trimming some hedges, without a shirt. He got in their car, still shirtless, and drove it. Yuck.
I have always been curious about an "escort" to a site... we have never had one! Is it more common outside of the Northeast, or have we just not been to campgrounds that have escorts?
QUOTE(AlinerCamper @ Jul 11 2009, 04:58 PM) [snapback]17506[/snapback] As far as the escort is concerned I can take it or leave it. What upsets me is when the escort insists upon giving me the directions on how I'm to back into the site. My wife and I have our system which works well. I agree with this. Sometimes the escort is a pain. Most don't know what it takes to back a long 5er with a long bed truck. I mostly ignore them and do it my way. The ones I appreciate are the ones that show you where the site is and leave.
Now that some others have given their opinion I will comment on my own question: Do you expect a campground to escort you to your site? We think this can be a nice service, but we do not expect it, and I would not lower a rating if a cg did not provide it. We can get along nicely with a map. We think we can position our coach and hook up our utilities better than someone who is unfamiliar with our coach, so if we are escorted we prefer that they just show us the spot and leave. Some escorts have pointed out where the utilities are, and some have offered to help us set up, but fortunately we have never had anyone who was pushy or who gave us bad parking/backing directions. I do remember one time the escort pointed out a slope to the site and made a suggestion how to park. That was helpful. I also remember one time when there were several people checking in at the same time and things got really backed up because of the escorting. I do not think a park should let that happen. Tom, I do not know if escorting is more common in certain areas of the country than others. The majority of parks we've stayed at have not provided an escort. It also does not seem to depend on how expensive or up scale the park is. The most expensive place we ever stayed did not escort, but some much lower priced parks did. QUOTE If they reserve and say I'm "new at this", we will note it and offer help at check in. Gilda, this sounds like a great policy. This way you can help the newbies and let the experienced RVers do their own thing. It just seemed unusual to me that some reviewers expected this service, but now I see that many do not care if it is offered or not. Thanks for your replies. They have been interesting to read.
QUOTE(Texasrvers @ Jul 11 2009, 12:44 PM) [snapback]17503[/snapback] I've read several reviews lately where the person was upset because they were not escorted to their site. That has never made a difference to us, but I am wondering what the rest of you think. Is this a service that you expect a campground to provide? I don't expect it, but I've been to a couple of campgrounds where the campground maps are so poorly drawn out, no road signs and poorly marked site numbers where it made it difficult for us to find our campsite. Maybe that was the case in the reviews and they thought the campground should provide an escort. Mike
QUOTE(mdcamping @ Jul 12 2009, 06:28 PM) [snapback]17520[/snapback] I don't expect it, but I've been to a couple of campgrounds where the campground maps are so poorly drawn out, no road signs and poorly marked site numbers where it made it difficult for us to find our campsite. Maybe that was the case in the reviews and they thought the campground should provide an escort. Mike That could certainly be true and if so they may have had a valid complaint and a reason to lower the rating. Good point.
i have only been to one where i received an escort. he showed me the site and where the hook ups are. he asked if we needed help. i said take my wife for a ride on your golf cart and bring here back in 10 min. just kidding. we said we would be fine and he left. i have also been to one where you needed one. at night, no signs and a lot of turns. my thought is, you should know your own park. if you think someone might need an escort ask if the want one and give the reason. if it is dark and not a very good map and a lot of turns it might be better to give them an escort.
We try to escort everyone to their sites for a couple of reasons. One is it gives us the opportunity to show the guests where the utilities are. Another reason is to protect those utilities. We don't direct the backing process unless the driver is having problems. But I like someone to stay with them until they are parked to make sure they do not take out a water hydrant, do not park over the grass, and do not park so their slides come out over the neighbors grass area. I can't think of much worse than someone coming back to the office to say they ran over the water hydrant. Not only does it become a very costly situation, but it becomes a big hassle for everyone when a whole line of sites loses their water for a few hours. I guided one gentleman to his site and stayed until he was parked. I showed him the utilities and left. About 10 minutes later he came in to the office and said he had hit a tree. He had decided he wanted to be 6" closer to the patio, so he backed up 15' onto my lawn and knocked over a tree. Did he offer to make restitution? Of course not. It cost me $150 to rent him a site for $30. I know accidents do happen, but I feel we minimize them by escorting folks to their site.
I can relate to the pros and cons of "escorts" to your campsite. If we are in a Cg for the first time, one we want to see the site first, two, we request an escort but only if they refuse to show us the site. Have seen Cgs with poor/confusing/missing signage where a camper has proceeded the wrong direction, signage on the other end of the row, and can not find his site. Nothing worse than driving to your assigned site and find someone already set up there. An escort would certainly correct both of these situations, but to each his own........
This is an interesting question. My husband and I went on our first camping trip in our new pop up about two weeks ago. The campgound we stayed at escorted us to our site and helped my husband back up the pop up. We thought that this was a GREAT service! The second campground we stayed at did not escort us or offer to escort us to our site. I gave this campground a rating of 9 instead of 10 because of this. Their map was so microscopic and confusing that it took us two sweeps of the area where we thought our site was located. This particular campground really needs to at least offer the service or invest in better maps. I am glad this topic was introduced because my husband and I thought that every campground did this and now I know better. I guess once we camp more often we will get better at finding our site and backing into it. I think it's a good suggestion to put down whether or not you would like this service when booking. I know I will probably put it down for the next few times, I certainly would NOT want to be one of those campers that takes out the water or electrical system and as a newbie this is definitely a possiblity.
Depends on the park and how big or how small. We can park and hook up just fine without help. But when pulling into a RV park with 250 + sites with a poorly written map, can be difficult. In that instance an escort would be nice.
I don't mind an escort when I get one and even appreciate a staff member telling me when I have gotten my rig into proper position. Not a big deal for me as I always consider myself a guest at their park. I also really like the RV parks that transported me around in their golf cart to pick out my site BEFORE we finished the check-in. I only had this happen at one park but it was really appreciated. I have had parks tell me to pick out any site that I wanted as long as there was not a reserved sign on it. Not bad but it can cause problems with rigs driving all around the park, especially when others are trying to check in.
Having an escort to your site is a personal thing. Some people feel more comfortable being shown where their site is and some really appreciate help in siting their RV. Other people don't. Some Campgrounds really believe they are providing their guests a service with the escort. If you tell the escort you really don't need help siting your RV they are usually more than happy to return to the office.
The last park I stayed at provided an escort. I didn't need one, since the site was visible from the office and to get to it all I needed to do was enter the gate, turn right, turn right again, and drive straight onto the concrete pad. My wife who was driving the rental car right behind me, however, needed the escort. She got stuck at the gate for a few minutes before she realized how to use the magnetic card to activate it. Then she drove deep into the park and looped around it several times. I had to phone her after I'd already hooked up the water, sewer, cable, and electric. All while keeping my three year old from running all over the park in her delight to get out of the child safety seat. So, I guess getting an escort is really a personal thing. I personally don't mind them, even when it's obvious on how to get from point A to point B. In retrospect, I should have asked for the guy in the golf cart to lead my wife to the site instead of me. J
Let's see, you set up camp and kept your 3 year old entertained all while your wife was lost driving around the campground? Sounds like a pretty smart woman to me. :lol:
