Recently there have been a number of reviews where the reviewer never stayed or even entered the park. Today there was a review of a park in Apache Junction where all the reviewer did was have a phone conversation they didn’t like. Didn’t stop them from giving the lowest marks possible on everything. Why the change in policy from requiring a stay to review?
The admins added this feature a while ago to accomidate situations where the reviewer did not stay at the park. there are several scenerios where this can happen: e.g reservation gets lost and park is full, site is too small for the RV, and nothing else available, stopped in at the park, but something made the reviewer drive on. All these interactions with the park can reflect on how well or poorly the employees interact in various situations, and can be good information for future campers.
In my opinion someone who only had a phone call and then gives a park the lowest possible scores for value, service and cleanliness just cheapens the value of this website. They had never laid eyes on the place, yet their venting lowers the park’s scores. But I suppose that is what review sites have become, a place to try and hurt any business the reviewer felt slighted them. And as the review in question clearly shows, lying is fair game in their hunt for retribution.
If you see a review you believe is an issue please hit the report option on the review. While no -stay reviews are allowed, they are also scrutinized for legitimate comments. As noted earlier reservation experiences are of interest to others but also there a numerous parks that you may have visited but not stayed at. As an example; a park that is in your home town. You might visit it as a day recreation but not camp there.
The review I referenced gave the park 1 star for cleanliness. How can a reviewer who admitted they only spoke to the park on the phone ascertain that information? It is obviously an outright lie should have immediately disqualified the entire review from being posted.
I can kinda see newkcmoedoe's point. is there any way an enhancement request be put in to the admins, that if a user selects "did not stay" that all the check boxes for cleanliness, power water, etc.get grayed out, and the only option would be to leave a comment?
That is an interesting suggestion, and I tend to agree that it does not seem fair for a reviewer to give any ratings (high or low) if they did not actually see the park. As you know we used to require that reviewers had to actually stay at least one night at the park in order to submit a review. To give a little background as to why we began allowing no stay reviews, there were two main reasons. 1. Members sometimes reported that when they got to a park, it was so rundown or otherwise unacceptable, they did not stay. They felt their reviews should be allowed in order to inform fellow RVers about the park's condition. Because of this concern we lifted the requirement of staying one night, but we still wanted the reviewer to have at least seen the park in order to comment on its condition. 2. Along with this, members also told us that interaction with the staff before arriving at the park (asking about site availability, pricing, amenities, etc. and making reservations) should be considered as service, and therefore, members should be allowed report what that service was like. Members mentioned that how a perspective customer is treated on the phone is a good indication of how they may be treated at the park. We understood both of these concerns, so we added a check box on the "Submit Review" form so that the reviewer could indicate that he did not stay at the park. Now I understand the concern that if the reviewer does not see the park, it may not be fair for him to indicate and/or rate the park's condition. Perhaps the rating and comments should be limited to the experience with the staff. Again an interesting suggestion.
