Thread: So mad about losing our Halloween campsite

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I don't know how safe it will be for me to comment on this, but here goes. I assume this is an Ohio State Park. I have been the president of a "Friends" group, volunteer group for sixteen years now. Halloween is why and how i got involved at my park. I n sixteem years we have gone from a membership og 16 npeople to a 501c3 charity group with more than 250 members. We have the same issues with Halloween every year since the reservation system has started. I fact other than our 30 Walk in Sit4es we are totly full for our Halloween Weekend. It is true that you can make a reservation no sooner than six months preior to the date you wish to arrive. I ma willing to bet the person who got your favortie site simply got a reservation for more days, allowing him to get on and make a reservation sooner. Example: you wish to reserver a site for the Friday of the Halloween Weekend, you cannot make a reservation until six months prior to that Friday. he other person is willing to come or pay for a reservation on the Tuesday of the week before Halloween weekend. They an make a reservation three days before you, although they do have to pay for those additional nights. Please don't take this that I like the system, but it is what iot is. At our park before the reservATION SYSTEM YPOU WOULD HAVE TO COMEIN AND PAY FOR 7-10 DAYS BEFORE THE EVENT TO GET A SITE. Could you please Ter Ran and let me know which park it is? I am also a trustee on the state group the FPOSP (Friends for the Preservation of Ohio State Parks) I also am looking for more volunteers for our Halloween weekend and of course my two haunted trails.

Exactly what I was saying. They book for more days and do it that many days ahead of the event. Sometimes they eat the extra cost and don't even show up until the few days before and the site just sits there.
Primo sites are like gold and people will do anything for them!

Someone didn't like the type of Halloween display you were doing? Bloody? Gore? (If that was what it was?)
Just a random thought on my part.
It's tough when we feel we have been treated as lesser citizens for some unknown or arbitrary reason.
Remember the line from the Beatles song:"I know what it's like to be black?"
We were refused admission to a movie because our two little boys, aged 3 and 4 didnot have any shirts, as if they had big, bushy offensive chest hair to offend anyone!?
"What the $*%^???"
Their shirts were soaked from swimming and were in the trunk.
I think if you had called and another person had answered the phone, everything would have been business as usual. Good help is hard to find. "Helpless Help" is too common.

If she's had a great space because of the size, I assume that someone else who likes to camp at halloween time also liked the space of the site and was determined this year to try to get it. Not necessarily anything nefarious behind it. The other person if they go ever year has probably been fuming that someone has always had that spot each year and they haven't been able to reserve it. It is a park open to all and not someone's personal property. Course there's always the chance that someone simply was vacationing earlier and because of how the reservation system works, just got that spot first.

I really do feel for you however losing your spot. I would be upset at how it all went down too. And I can see from what others have posted about the system how one could get that spot by booking earlier. Personally I think all reservations should be paid for in advance at time of reservation and be non-refundable. But that still wouldn't mean it wouldn't happen again all the same.

If I enjoyed making this a yearly thing, I would be fuming and would probably look for somewhere else to enjoy the holiday. But that's just me. Maybe Shiloh341 has some other good suggestions for you. Otherwise maybe by having to reconfigure things you'll be forced to switch things out and people will enjoy the new changes.

Really sorry this happened to you.

My main issue is that I was told that I could not book the 22nd until the 22nd arrived. I asked about booking more days so I could take the weekend and was told it wasnt going to happen because i couldn't book the 22nd before the exact day. That is what has me fuming. Yes I am totally upset about losing the only reservable site that our set up will fit it, but losing it over a lie it what hurts. We go above and beyond to help out at the lake, we clean up other peoples crap, donate to everything and still get shafted. The fact that they hold 3 sites for that weekend for someone that used to have a big set up (that doesn't even come anymore) and cant do it for us it bothersome as well. We are asked all year long if we are planning something bigger by the staff and regular campers.

We are going to go look at sites again tomorrow. There is just no way to use out cemetery in any of the sites so I suppose we are just going to find the flatest largest site there is. The only other fairly useable size wise is directly across from the site we lost...and I know I cannot use that site. I will be fuming all weekend!!

Also we are pretty sure we know who took the site. They booked three and last year they came and booked the three beside us. We were very kind to them and helped them do things. It was their first year there. They also knew we always booked that site, they asked if we did. I really hope they do not expect hospitality from me this year because as much as I like to say I will get over it I know I won't. Don't judge me from be stubborn please.

I am trying to wrap my mind around it all still. Either we put out nothing but one single jack in the middle of our site as a sign of a big middle finger or we try to come up with the money to go in a totally new direction and do our hansel & gretel build that we have talked about. I know it could be done on a smaller scale. Errrr....I won't let this happen again. Next year I am booking the entire week Starting the Saturday before. I won't lose it again!!

We got an email from our park director today and the woman that screwed up the info came over to talk to us. I of course had nothing nice to say to her. She tried to let on like it was our own fault and we have been camping long enough that we should know the reservation system blah blah. We have never once used the online system to make a reservation. We always just walked in the office and made them. She did nothing more that make me even more upset than I already was. Sending her over to talk to me was a mistake on their part.

The director said she is going to try to work something out for us to get a larger site but we'll see if that happens.

We had to reserve another spot because at least half of the sites are now taken. And guess what? The site is directly across from the site we lost!! I am thinking now of just totally blowing them out of the water. We are talking building "Beloved" and other large pieces or something else that has that wow factor.

I have decided that I won't let it just go. We actually ran into someone else out there that had the exact same thing happen to him. He was told to wait until the exact day and his site was already booked.

I wanted to add that even though she told us exact day it apparently only refers to the exact day of the first day of your reservation. So technically I could have booked on the 8th of this month and went right through the weekend of the 22nd. I know this now and trust me I will be booking on the first day that puts me within the 14 day stay limit.