We recently joined a membership campground. Emerald Cove RV Resort, part of the Colorado River Adventures system, is technically in California but it is right across the Colorado River from Parker, Arizona, and everything here runs on Arizona time. But, it apparently runs on California logic.
As members of this park we can come for two weeks for free. Then we need to leave for a week before we can come back for two more weeks for free. OR. We can buy our week out for $95. That means for $95 we can camp for five weeks.
So we came for our two free weeks and were assigned a pull-through site with 50 amp power and a view of the river.
The views to left and right are not wonderful but acceptable. Keep in mind that the RV on the right is actually two spaces away–normally there is another one between us and it.
The two weeks went well, the weather is excellent, and the shopping is acceptable. We were comfortable where we were. Moving is more work than I wanted to do for reasons I will give in a different post. So we decided to stay, paying for what should have been our week out. Thus Dave went off to make arrangement.
When he came back he said we could stay. Sort of. The site we were in was not available to people paying for their week out so we would have to move to a different site.
So we packed up and moved. To a back-in site with 30 amp electricity and this view.
So the best sites are free and the lesser sites cost $13.50 a night. Hmmm.
This membership park camping is going to be challenging. There are eight parks in our “system” that we can use under the same pricing method. But we also now have memberships in two other systems. One of them the price varies by the type of park we go to and the other one uses a points system to determine where you can stay. I wonder if we will ever figure out all this?
All of this is because we finally slowed down, staying longer in each place so we thought we’d save money by joining a park system. I wonder if we will?
TTYL,
Linda
I’ll be real curious to see how you feel about this membership camping in a year from now.
The same thing happened to us last year, so this year when we came we went into a 30 amp site so we would not have to move. They didn’t tell us when we made the original reservations.
Some membership parks assign you spaces and others allow you to choose your own. We hate to be assigned spaces when much better sites go empty. Every membership park is so different. We’ve had an opportunity to check many of them out using the RPI and ROD programs. Some membership parks we like and others ……….. not so much. We were wondering how you’d like the CRA system. I guess only time will tell.
We also bought into CRA. We bought last year at Havasu Springs Resort. We really like the park. CRA does have their quirks. We were given 30 days free when we joined. I called to use the free 30 days(basically just a free buy week) and they told me I could not use it if there was a holiday during the 30 days. Funny how they said they get busy during holidays so I could not use the free 30 days, but they are not to busy to let me buy a week during the same period. I was also told that I could store my boat and motorhome at any CRA park for $40 a month, even got it in writing. Now they are telling my I am to long and need two storage spaces. I am still fighting that one. We will be at Havasu springs from 4/29/11 until 6/5/11. We live in Bakersfield and will just go for a week in may and 1 week in June and some weekends.
Check out Havasu Springs Resort when you get a chance. We also stayed at a cabin in KQ Ranch in Julian. It was an ok park, kinda old and ran down, but had some nice RV spots. If Mexico ever gets safer, we would like to go to El Golfo in Mexico. Good Luck, Scott