We Got Kicked Out of a Campground!

Oh my gosh, we got kicked out of a campground. I want to tell you what happened. We started our trek on a long journey from West Virginia up to Ohio to see some family. Now luckily we drove a little further the first day and we had a little bit shorter drive the second day. So we arrived at a KOA at 1:20 in the afternoon when I went in to check in. After we stretched our legs a bit and got out of the coach, I checked in and the lady said, oh, our check in time is at 3 o'. Clock, it's only 1:20. So we've got a little chart over here. We have an early check in fee and that's going to be $35 if you're here between 12:30 and 3:00 clock or I'm sorry, between 1:00 clock and 3:00', clock, $35. And I said, wow, first 3:00 clock's a pretty late check in. Secondly, there's nobody in the site. There's nothing going on here. I'm not really inconveniencing anybody. And I said, geez, that's a bit steep. And she said, well, do you want to wait? And I said, well, I could block up your whole entrance here because I got about 70ft of coach and tow vehicle going on. I don't really want to do that. I've already driven several hours this morning. I prefer to go ahead and get set up. I've got family I'm supposed to be going to see. So I said, I'll pay it, but this will be the last time I stay here. So she rang it up as we were checking in and I got a notification on my watch of $45 instead of 35. So when I said, what's 45? She said, oh, I looked at the wrong chart so she needed to refund it. So she called a manager in the back room who came out. She actually happened to be the owner and she came out and she said, oh, there's some people waiting in line behind me. She said, why don't you just go check in, stop back when you're all checked in and we'll get this all squared away for you. They also didn't have my payoa rewards points on that as an adjustment. So she was going to check that out. So I said, no problem. So we proceeded to go check in and get back into our site, get everything set up, get the dogs out, get the water and sewer and everything hooked up, prepared to stay for, I think it was five days there. And so after we were set up. I ran back up to the office, this was about 2 o', clock, and saw that the owner was there. She showed me the rewards points thing. We got that all squared away. And she went to go do the refund of the excess $10. And I said, you know, that early check in fee is kind of dumb. I said, we're really not inconveniencing anybody and if anything, we're helping get your 3 o' clock rush out of the way. You're ready for us, there's nobody waiting on us. She said, well, that's our policy. We sent it to you in an email. And I said, oh, okay. I said, I didn't see the email. It probably went to my husband's account. And probably, you know, we get a ton of email, especially when you're on a drip. So we didn't really see it. And she said, well, if I take it off for you, I have to take it off for everybody else here. And I said, okay. I said, I get that, I understand your policy, but just know I'll just have to list that in my review. I wasn't saying that in a bad way. I review every campground that we go to for myself, my own purposes of history, and for everybody else, that's just the camping way. Well, she said, I will not be threatened. You could pack up your things and leave. Holy cow. I didn't mean to go that far here. I was just telling you what I thought of your policy. I wasn't saying it in a mean way or a threatening way. And I told her, I apologized. I wasn't threatening, I was just stating a fact and talking to you about it. And she said, no, you can go pack up your things and leave. And I said, well, I don't really have any other place to go. Her response was, that's not my problem. Pack up your things and stop by the office on your way out and I'll get this all refunded to you. I was shocked. On my way out, I said, and what was your name again? She said, you don't need to know my name. My name is. It doesn't matter. And I said, I apologize if this did not sound like it went the way you wanted it to. And she said, I won't have anyone disrespecting me. You go now and pack up your things. Okay. So I head back to the rv. I tell my husband, and my mom was actually traveling with us. I said, wow, we have a problem. They want us to leave. We were shocked. So I scrambled around and our next stop was a little further away. So we hadn't planned to stay there while we were visiting family, but they were open and available so we went there instead. So thank you to Heartside Grove in Lake Erie, Ohio, a beautiful place in Geneva on the lake and I highly recommend them because this was a fabulous end to a horror story basically. Let's break down though, what happened in that park and where things could go wrong and how this affects you early check in fees. I know there's a lot of controversy about them. I know you hate for people to show up at 9am 10am in the morning and expect to get to their site when people are still exiting your park. I get that completely. However, we are all traveling to get to you. We've all had long travels typically to get there. No one is trying to arrive early just to disappoint you and get on your nerves. Traffic sometimes moves and sometimes doesn't. A lot of people have cutoff times in the evening of when we have to arrive before. So travelers, we have to leave some extra time to be able to get there. So this isn't hopping in your car for a 30 minute drive with Waze and deciding you're going to get there. When you're traveling four and a half, five, six, seven hours to get someplace. Your arrival time isn't always as predictable as you might think. I urge campground owners to look at your policy on the early check ins. I agree there is a problem of people arriving before people are checking out. You may have an entryway that really will only accommodate one big setup at a time and you can't have people passing both directions. I get it completely. But this situation could have been completely avoided by just some better customer service. Ultimately. Ultimately this was a personality problem of an owner and I came to find out after that I was not the only one who's had this situation. There are plenty of reviews about these particular owners where there have been a lot of problems with rudeness, curtness and people being asked to leave for not quite the reasons you might think would be a reason to ask someone to leave. I will preface this by saying I enjoy staying in a lot of KOAs. I am at a KOA right now in Louisville, Kentucky and it is fine. It's nice. The people here are pleasant and nice. I think this is an isolated case. KOA does not corporately own the park that I stayed at. It was owned by two husband and wife couple. We all know some businesses you can put up with things and some you Can't. This was not one that I would ever choose to visit again and I would highly recommend steering clear of. But I do not fault KOA for this problem. I will however let KOA know. I think they need to know what's going on in their franchise because these people are representing their brand. I don't hold any grudge against KOA for this. There are plenty of nice koas and I'm by no means saying that all koas are bad, just this one in particular. And I don't think KOA had anything to do with the problem. So let's go back to the check in fees, early check in fees. Please use some discretion here. Secondly, the other problem I see in this park is their check in time of 3pm that's rather late, you'll agree, for most campgrounds and there was no particular reason. And this situation, I completely understand that early check in also means people using excess utilities. However, this was a KOA that had a lot of amenities, a lot of extra charges. Pedal carts, kayak rentals, all kinds of things you could do that were add on charges. They could set their early policy a little bit earlier or their check in policy a little earlier because a lot of people will spend more money with them that are things that aren't subject to their franchise fee. They could offset those fees so easily by selling extra add ons. So if somebody arrives early, perhaps you ask would you like to try out one of our credit cards? Or after you get set up, come on back. We've got a lot of activities going on that we'd love to have you experience. Take a look at your early check in policy. By no means am I saying you shouldn't have any fees, but take a look at the reasonableness. If you were in my seat as a traveler, what would you like? What would make you happy? What would make you not start off in the bad mode of having just arrived at a beautiful park and not being happy because you were charged an extra fee puts a damper on everything. Secondly, late checkouts again I completely get you want to get people in and out because of the flows of traffic and your team has to switch duties. No problem, I got that. But offer late checkouts if you can. People will pay you extra to go out later or get a later start or spend a few extra hours or even have a half day rate where they can do that. If your park is not fully occupied at the time, perhaps offer to let them stay an extra day. There are lots of opportunities here to make this a win win for both you as the owner and the customer side. Watch out. This is of 192 parks that I've stayed in to date, this is the first one I've ever been kicked out of. So I'm cautious here. But take a look at your policies. I know you guys are much smarter and take better care of your guests than this particular instance did, but I hope to hear back from you. I hope you take a look at your early check in policies and your late checkout policies and make sure that you have a little flexibility built in there and that you are not starting off on the wrong foot with your guests.