Radium Hot Springs, BC Canada Mountain Shadows RV Resort does not offer site rental. I feel it does not belong in the listings. Its a waste of time to even contact them.
QUOTE(Tireman9 @ Sep 10 2014, 04:42 PM) [snapback]38276[/snapback] Radium Hot Springs, BC Canada Mountain Shadows RV Resort does not offer site rental. I feel it does not belong in the listings. Its a waste of time to even contact them. It appears as this RV park is an "ownership" park and does not cater to RVers who want to stay there for a short visit. So, unless you plan on purchasing a site, the above poster is correct when he says it's a waste of time. Which brings back the question being asked in another thread..... Should places like Walmart be considered as an RV park and included in the reviews? I realize that this park is not the same as a Walmart parking lot but perhaps the principle is the same. I would agree that since you cannot stay there unless you purchase a site, it does not belong in the listings. Is there a set of criteria that has to be met before a park is included in the listings? If so, where would I find that information? If not, perhaps there should be.
QUOTE(RTA @ Sep 10 2014, 08:10 PM) [snapback]38278[/snapback] Is there a set of criteria that has to be met before a park is included in the listings? If so, where would I find that information? If not, perhaps there should be. There is currently no written criteria that must be met, but these posts have certainly caused us to think about it. What criteria do you think should be met in order for a park to be listed?
QUOTE(Texasrvers @ Sep 10 2014, 09:19 PM) [snapback]38279[/snapback] There is currently no written criteria that must be met, but these posts have certainly caused us to think about it. What criteria do you think should be met in order for a park to be listed? I think that if a location does not offer sites for overnight stay in an RV (TT or motorhome) it does not meet what I think is the basic requirement for a place to be called am "RV Park" so does not belong on this site. Having said that, I know that other locations such as Walmart, Cracker Barrel and Camping World are really not "RV Campgrounds" but if a specific location such as these allow RVs to park overnight,I think they need to be able to be listed. Maybe under the banner of "Quick Stop" or some such. The review might include an estimate of the number of RVs that could park and if the Management was Very open or was hesitant to allow overnight parking. I once stopped at a Cabelas that was suppose to allow overnight parking but the people didn't seem to know the policy and the parking lot was posted with signs "no overnight parking" There is another camping list web site "RVParky" that is basically just a list of locations with a very small number having very short reviews. No where as useful as RV Park Reviews but they do offer listings of "alternate" locations for overnight stop.
QUOTE(pianotuna @ Sep 10 2014, 10:15 PM) [snapback]38284[/snapback] Hi, I've always been against listing member ship only parks. The problem with not listing membership only parks is that many of them do allow non members to stay there with certain provisions and restrictions. Availability of sites being the main provision. In some of these membership parks, certain sections of the campground are set aside for members only while other areas are open to the public providing, of course, they pay the full rate and are willing to accept and abide by other regulations. There are a considerable number of RVers who have purchased one or more memberships and by not allowing their parks to be listed, you would be doing them a disservice by not having these parks included in the listing. As mentioned earlier, non-members can and do use these parks, which, if not listed, would not only be punishing the park but also its potential customers.
I don't have a problem with including membership parks that permit non-members to stay overnight or on a space-available basis. In the case cited in the OP the park is an ownership one that doesn't rent sites to non-owners. I can't see any point to including it on RVPR if there is no way a user of this site can rent a spot there. In the more general case of membership parks, all or almost all of them rent sites to non-members (I'm pretty sure that TT and RPI do). I think the only real odd-balls we have are the military base family camping locations which don't permit "civilians" to use them. All I would like to see done with these is have a radio button so I can de-select them during my searches since I have no need to see them in my list of possible parks.
Hi RTA, Membership only implied that only members can stay. For example there is a Park in Regina that is for the RCMP. I can't stay there for love nor money, so should it be reviewed here?
By looking at the website that is almost always included in the RV Parks Review "review" page, a person can usually tell whether or not the park is a membership-type campground or a military or some other US or Canadian government RV park. So we don't have to go too far to find out this information - just click on the included website and that should tell you what kind of park it is. As far as criteria for inclusion in the listing is concerned, I think it would be far easier to indicate what the exclusions are. For example, instead of saying "Before a park can be included in the listings, it must meet the following criteria...." you could say that "Parks will be not be included in the listings if............". Which brings me back to the Walmart issue and other similar "parking lot type campgrounds". When making up the excluded criteria, you could say as one of the exclusions, that "Walmart and other similar mall and/or parking lot type stopovers will not be included". (The wording is awkward but I threw it out there as an example). Another exclusion would be the recent example of the "ownership" RV park -- that would be another example. Military campgrounds usually do have restrictions in that you have to be in the military in some way in order to stay there and I think all of these types should be included since there are a large number of both active and retired folks in the military who would use the reviews. Again, the website of that park would indicate that you have to be a member to get in.
I suggest we handle these by marking them as membership parks. Then we can have another flag that says "Offers Overnight Camping". We could exclude the ones who do not offer overnight camping from the default search but people could request to view them if they want. This way someone could also look for parts that do not offer overnight parking if they are intentionally trying to find a park that has less transient visitors.
I honestly think that if we offer too many options we run the risk of having a "garbage in/garbage out" situation. An example of this would be an "offers overnight sites" box. Parks in snowbird areas often don't have many (or any) overnight sites during the peak season but may have plenty of them during the shoulder and off-peak times. What's the proper way to check the box? If you want to have a box like this I think it would be better reserved for "ownership" parks that may or may not have any short-term sites. Even at these, however, the situation usually varies depending on the season. Our experience has been that most reviewers answer questions relative to their own personal perspective. So if you include a box for "allows overnight stays" and someone is there at a time of year when this happens not to be true they will answer this with a "no" even if it is true for most other times of the year. Then we will have a additional box that flip-flops every time someone changes it.
