Rating Parks When Not Staying

QUOTE(Lindsay Richards @ Jul 26 2011, 07:58 PM) [snapback]26927[/snapback]

When safety is involved and you decide to leave for that reason, you have a responsibility to pass along your comment in a review with good explanations. I think most of us have the ability to weed out the oddball review by somebody that had a problem. I rarely write a "scathing" review. I do only when it is needed. Usually when I feel like I have been taken advantage of by a campground owner or deliberately lied to. On our last trip, we had 2 different campgrounds tell us over the phone that they had WiFi. Neither one was workable. I talked to the owners on both. One guy was just uninformed on WiFi and didn't have a clue. I gave them a fair review and highlighted the WiFi. The second guy basically lied to us and said we could get it in all sites. He was a techie and was just advertising falsely. I gave him a low score and a bad review stating why. We have also given a review because of inability to get into a campground due to overhanging trees. I felt like this was important for others to see. As far a people making an investment in a business, I have seen many that were just running out the string on somebody elses investment.


Lidsay, I agree with you 100 %, a review should present facts, in your case it was about WiFi or trees too low and an other campers can decide whether these items are important to him/her or not.
It is very difficult to write a non-opinionated report and in my case, before deciding for a specific campsite, first I try to find a review and then I am asking in this forum if anyone was there and if I find some one who's been there before, I will discuss with him/her the status, this will give me an idea of what it's there also you get the feeling of the accuracy of the person that you are corresponding.
Don’t take me wrong, there are too many crappy campgrounds that deserve to be shunned but on the same token, there are too many campers that inconsistently use attributes, positive or negative to indicate a specific place which have no basis except a personal friendship or vendetta and this is not a help

 

And then there are the reviews from the campground itself or a competitor to that campground. No system can be perfect and I think it behooves us all as users of this site to understand the potential problems and work through them.

 

QUOTE(Lindsay Richards @ Jul 27 2011, 03:37 PM) [snapback]26937[/snapback]

And then there are the reviews from the campground itself or a competitor to that campground. No system can be perfect and I think it behooves us all as users of this site to understand the potential problems and work through them.


Well I think it is time for me to put in my two cents here. I agree with Lindsay, not only because he correctly used "behooves" in a sentence but also for the underlying principle. When I am looking for a campground to stay at with my wife and daughters, safety is a primary concern. If a campground is in an unsavory neighborhood then I want to know about it and I don't think someone else should be forced to stay someplace they are not comfortable so that information can be passed on.

One caveat, I would expect that any review for which the reviewer did not actually stay there would contain that information, clearly stated.

One other thing, I view all reviews here as opinion, not fact. To use an example already related, the low hanging branches that caused potential damage could have been trimmed the next day/week. Things change, some for the better and some for the worse.

 

I absolutely agree with the last post. I am a mom with two young daughters and we go out on our own in the TT and leave dad at home a lot. I absolutely want to know about run down and unsafe campgrounds. Also, I will say that I benefited from such a post last summer in St. Louis. We drove thru the CG in question, thinking to save some money, but had to agree with the reviewer who said, "we drove in and drove out" as we did exactly the same. Now, we did take the time to check it out on our own, as we had the time to do so, but when I can't, those types of reviews about rundown CG's are super appreciated by this mom.

 

QUOTE(Meyer Camping @ Jul 27 2011, 09:04 PM) [snapback]26946[/snapback]

Well I think it is time for me to put in my two cents here. I agree with Lindsay, not only because he correctly used "behooves" in a sentence but also for the underlying principle. When I am looking for a campground to stay at with my wife and daughters, safety is a primary concern. If a campground is in an unsavory neighborhood then I want to know about it and I don't think someone else should be forced to stay someplace they are not comfortable so that information can be passed on.

One caveat, I would expect that any review for which the reviewer did not actually stay there would contain that information, clearly stated.

One other thing, I view all reviews here as opinion, not fact. To use an example already related, the low hanging branches that caused potential damage could have been trimmed the next day/week. Things change, some for the better and some for the worse.


*****If a campground is in an unsavory neighborhood then = Interesting but, if you have never bee there, how do you know it is located in unsavory neighbprhood ?****
I like your suggestion but I don't see how you can decide before arriving there.

 

QUOTE
I don't see how you can decide before arriving there.



Listen for banjo music.

 

Keep in mind that any review written and submitted to this website is the OPINION of the submitter. This is exactly as it should be. If I had a bad experience with management, or if I found the campground to be in deplorable condition, that is what I will write. I personally could care less what others think about the campground, what the owner thinks, or what others think about my review. This website would be totally useless if people were restricted from writing reviews that may be negative against an RV Park. Who knows what happened to the park in the days, or weeks, after my experience? Maybe there was a complete management change, and a complete refurbishment of the parking sites, etc. If there was, that is for the NEXT reviewer to comment on.
All of us have driven miles out of our way to go to a RV Park that we thought was going to be enjoyable. If I arrive, speak with the management, and drive through the park without staying, for my own personal reasons, I think it is appropriate that I warn/tell others of my experience, in whatever descriptive words fits the situation IN MY OPINION. If the next person wants to check it out for themselves, then they can write their own review, using whatever words match their experience.
For this website to be of any help, we each need to give an honest review of each park, based on our own experiences, period. Anything less than that is a waste of time. I just ask that a review that is negative spell out the exact reason why. If it was because the pool had alligators in it, and I didn't plan on using the pool, then I could ignore that portion of the review and focus on the things that may affect my stay.

 

QUOTE(Galli @ Aug 26 2011, 12:30 AM) [snapback]27307[/snapback]

*****If a campground is in an unsavory neighborhood then = Interesting but, if you have never bee there, how do you know it is located in unsavory neighbprhood ?****
I like your suggestion but I don't see how you can decide before arriving there.


Galli, I am not sure how anyone could rate a campground badly because of the location without having ever been there. I never intended to infer that anyone would do so and I would have a hard time believing that happens. Perhaps this is just because of my rose colored glasses.