I had a PPA membership for about three years and seemed to find that most sites were far from the main thoroughfare so had to drive from 3 to 10 miles to stay with them. And also found a lot of them did not welcome PPA on weekends back than. Also found a lot of the sites to be dumps. Many say now days that they are a lot better. And I have stayed at three or four PPA sites in the past three years but as a normal paying customer and still got a good discount with them even though I was not PPA but because I asked them about a discount since I was in other clubs like good sams, smart, fmca, and AAA. But another interesting note I recently joined CampCLub USA which is in most the same parks as PPA and found that a lot of them do not let PPA or CCU get discounts during peak seasons. May to Aug or Sep. Seems strange to be locked out of both during the most used times of the year.
PPA has about 1500 campgrounds where Camp Club America has about 800. I see no reason not to belong to both of them. My experience is that the quality of the discount campgrounds is about equal to the quality of campgrounds in general. You will find all types of campgrounds in both clubs as well in the general population of campgrounds. An owner would be a very poor business person if they allowed the discounts on popular weekends or peak seasons where they would be full anyway. The purpose of the restrictions is to try and fill sites that would otherwise be empty and this allows us to get half price (Good Sam and the others are 10% off). Without the restrictions, there would be no discount clubs. They are a necessary part of the program and we have to understand this. They make it a win win situation for the owners and for the campers. Almost all of the discount club campgrounds can be checked out on Woodalls ratings, so you should have a good idea before you get there. The campground owners do not get anything from the clubs and pay to be in their book. Restrictions are known in advance and can be easily dealt with.
First, I apologize for hitting the wrong key at the wrong time last night with the Posting that I did not mean to do. Second, Lindsay your Post of today was a perfect description and explanation of Clubs/Parks/RV'rs interaction. We have belonged to PPA since 2000 and use the member parks for both overnight and in some instances long term stays. I don't believe Woodall's rating system for parks is always much better than PPA's. Bottom line, these Parks are businesses and cash flow keeps them in business, therefore their terms and conditions as members of PPA are critical to their survival.
We have been fulltiming since Nov 2009 and use our PPA membership as often as possible and have saved a ton of money. We've used it from TX, through the southeast up to PA, and over to MI. Since we are not locked in to a schedule or itinerary, we can usually work around the weekend restrictions. Ohio state parks even honor the PPA discount! Only one campground was disappointing enough for us to never return. But we had a similar bad experience at an Escapees campground. We use the reviews here to help pick our campgrounds and greatly appreciate all the folks who share their experiences with us. Judy and John 2008 DRV Select Suites
