Our problems at American RV Park of Albuquerque

[tcamper]

We stayed at this park from 06/16 through 06/19 (4 nights) on our 2 week summer vacation. And although the facility was very nice as far as landscaping, amenities and the rest rooms, we did have several issues that I thought needed mentioning. Had I known about these peculiarities prior to our booking, I would have chosen elsewhere.

Preface: I am not trying to nitpick, but we were on vacation and were unprepared for these events and issues.....we stayed at several parks during our trip and only had issues at this park.

Pool hours: 10am to 8pm. Considering it is summer time and it doesn't get dark until after 9pm, we found an 8pm pool closing to be quiet early. Especially considering this park boast 24 hour on-site management. Every other park we stayed in for our entire vacation had much later pool hours.

Pool closes at 8pm: but the management runs you out at 10 minutes till. We would spend the day doing stuff in Albuquerque and kill our selves trying to get back in time for the kids to splash in the pool for a few minutes, only to have the staff rudely order everyone out 5 to 10 minutes before 8. This might sound petty but when you didn't get to the pool until 7:30 or 7:45 thinking the younguns had 15 to 30 minutes to swim, closing the pool earlier than the posted time only frustrated the kids more than getting to the pool so late.

The pool closing early happened every night that we were there. On the 19th of June the park manager Garland Wright was the one that ordered the pool closed. While I was at the camper tinkering and preparing for an early departure in the am, the wife was at the pool with our kids. Mr. Wright's comment to my wife when he laid down the order to exit the premises was, and I quote "Are those your kids.....Get them out"�. This was happening at 10 minutes before 8. When the wife returned to the camper I joked about the eviction happening earlier that night than previous nights, and she proceeded to tell me about her conversation with Mr. Wright. I immediately headed to the pool to voice my displeasure and he proceeded to argue with me and in so many words (the "F"� word included) told me that was just too bad. He also slammed the door to the lobby in my face as he locked it. The time now was 7:55pm. The office was supposed to be open until 8:00pm.

Another problem we had was with their un-posted specific rules about beverages by the pool. It seems they only allow collapsible water bottles by the pool. For our entire stay they were constantly hassling people about their beverage containers. My wife had a blizzard beach beverage jug(from WDW), that was plastic, had a sealed lid, and was full of ice water. She was charged by Dave, one of the staff and ordered to remove it from the pool area. I had a big plastic cup and was also rudely approached. One lady had a diet coke; another had a collapsible squeeze bottle with the big straw.....all guilty and ordered to be removed. We stayed at 7 parks during our 2 week vacation and all of the other pools did have rules about food and glass containers, but no one was ever assaulted because they had a can of diet coke or a squeeze bottle full of lemonade or whatever.......

Another item to mention, when we checked in we were told that our kids were not allowed at the playground unless they were accompanied by an adult....even though our site was 3 or 4 down from the playground, our kids were 10 years old and we could see the playground from our site. I found this to be a little upsetting but did notice during our stay that the playground constantly had kids playing with no parents in sight.

We did find several staff members to be very friendly and helpful, but we also found several that made you feel like you were bothering them. On more than one occasion I heard staff arguing with customers. I heard Garland's name mentioned more than once.

I was actually appalled at how Mr. Wright handled customers (namely me) and questioned Legacy's decision to have a person like this in the management role. He did tell me that he must be doing something right because in his one year as manager their occupancy percentage was way up. This certainly sends the message to me that putting people in the sites is far more important to the Legacy corporation than how you treat them.

I seems to me that this is a perfect facility as long as you quietly come and go and only minimally use the amenities. To me an RV campground is a 24/7/365 job. This is not Sears. Closing the office at 8pm....or rather 7:54pm does not mean that the customer goes away. Further I do not think that this staff cares a lot for families. It is my impression that they favor the retired customers over the family customer....even though this customer paid for 4 nights and spent quiet a bit of additional money in the office area on ice, souvenirs, cookies, news paper, soda's and ice cream.

I believe we should have only stayed at this facility for one night. That way the little quirks of this parks management would not have been as noticeable nor had the opportunity to fester. On my next trip to Albuquerque, my RV will definitely be parked at a different camp facility.

Sorry so long.

[tcamper]

We stayed at this park from 06/16 through 06/19 (4 nights) on our 2 week summer vacation. And although the facility was very nice as far as landscaping, amenities and the rest rooms, we did have several issues that I thought needed mentioning. Had I known about these peculiarities prior to our booking, I would have chosen elsewhere.

Preface: I am not trying to nitpick, but we were on vacation and were unprepared for these events and issues.....we stayed at several parks during our trip and only had issues at this park.

Pool hours: 10am to 8pm. Considering it is summer time and it doesn't get dark until after 9pm, we found an 8pm pool closing to be quiet early. Especially considering this park boast 24 hour on-site management. Every other park we stayed in for our entire vacation had much later pool hours.

Pool closes at 8pm: but the management runs you out at 10 minutes till. We would spend the day doing stuff in Albuquerque and kill our selves trying to get back in time for the kids to splash in the pool for a few minutes, only to have the staff rudely order everyone out 5 to 10 minutes before 8. This might sound petty but when you didn't get to the pool until 7:30 or 7:45 thinking the younguns had 15 to 30 minutes to swim, closing the pool earlier than the posted time only frustrated the kids more than getting to the pool so late.

The pool closing early happened every night that we were there. On the 19th of June the park manager Garland Wright was the one that ordered the pool closed. While I was at the camper tinkering and preparing for an early departure in the am, the wife was at the pool with our kids. Mr. Wright's comment to my wife when he laid down the order to exit the premises was, and I quote "Are those your kids.....Get them out"�. This was happening at 10 minutes before 8. When the wife returned to the camper I joked about the eviction happening earlier that night than previous nights, and she proceeded to tell me about her conversation with Mr. Wright. I immediately headed to the pool to voice my displeasure and he proceeded to argue with me and in so many words (the "F"� word included) told me that was just too bad. He also slammed the door to the lobby in my face as he locked it. The time now was 7:55pm. The office was supposed to be open until 8:00pm.

Another problem we had was with their un-posted specific rules about beverages by the pool. It seems they only allow collapsible water bottles by the pool. For our entire stay they were constantly hassling people about their beverage containers. My wife had a blizzard beach beverage jug(from WDW), that was plastic, had a sealed lid, and was full of ice water. She was charged by Dave, one of the staff and ordered to remove it from the pool area. I had a big plastic cup and was also rudely approached. One lady had a diet coke; another had a collapsible squeeze bottle with the big straw.....all guilty and ordered to be removed. We stayed at 7 parks during our 2 week vacation and all of the other pools did have rules about food and glass containers, but no one was ever assaulted because they had a can of diet coke or a squeeze bottle full of lemonade or whatever.......

Another item to mention, when we checked in we were told that our kids were not allowed at the playground unless they were accompanied by an adult....even though our site was 3 or 4 down from the playground, our kids were 10 years old and we could see the playground from our site. I found this to be a little upsetting but did notice during our stay that the playground constantly had kids playing with no parents in sight.

We did find several staff members to be very friendly and helpful, but we also found several that made you feel like you were bothering them. On more than one occasion I heard staff arguing with customers. I heard Garland's name mentioned more than once.

I was actually appalled at how Mr. Wright handled customers (namely me) and questioned Legacy's decision to have a person like this in the management role. He did tell me that he must be doing something right because in his one year as manager their occupancy percentage was way up. This certainly sends the message to me that putting people in the sites is far more important to the Legacy corporation than how you treat them.

I seems to me that this is a perfect facility as long as you quietly come and go and only minimally use the amenities. To me an RV campground is a 24/7/365 job. This is not Sears. Closing the office at 8pm....or rather 7:54pm does not mean that the customer goes away. Further I do not think that this staff cares a lot for families. It is my impression that they favor the retired customers over the family customer....even though this customer paid for 4 nights and spent quiet a bit of additional money in the office area on ice, souvenirs, cookies, news paper, soda's and ice cream.

I believe we should have only stayed at this facility for one night. That way the little quirks of this parks management would not have been as noticeable nor had the opportunity to fester. On my next trip to Albuquerque, my RV will definitely be parked at a different camp facility.

Sorry so long.

[Vette Racer]

tcamper

We too used to stay at this park until we were treated rudely two years ago. Its a great park except for the management and employee's. Our problems started because we had additional person's with us (our son and his wife). Their employee that guided us to the site wanted him to park across the lot in a extra parking area to unload their stuff. I told him that when they were unloaded we would move it and he became agitated and demanded that we move it right then. I basically told him he could go away and not come back and we went ahead and did our unloading. He was also mad that our rig was overhanging the street somewhat so I told him if they had long enough spots that wouldn't be a problem since I had told the office the size of our rig. Bottom line, I will not go back there again after that.

[Brigadoon]

Hey, thanks for the tip. We are in the Albuquerque are frequently, but have not stayed at American RV Park. Now we will make sure we don't.

[Beabop]

If you haven't already, PLEASE place a review on campgroundreviews.com Thx

[ISLAPP]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by Beabop:
If you haven't already, PLEASE place a review on campgroundreviews.com Thx </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

We also have a park review section here at irv2.
Please use that section as well.
Mike

[tcamper]

thanks, I have also added to the review section.

[ncason]

Thanks for the information, we will be in that area next winter and will avoid this park.
Nancy

[Texas Bubba]

I will say that I could never defend any of their employee's being rude. With that said, I don't understand why the two of you have a problem with this park enforcing their published rules? On the one hand, they publish their office and pool hours and then when they are enforced, you are upset. The other case of overhanging your site and not parking your vehicles where required are not allowed in any park I've ever been in. At the park I'm working in this summer, we publish both office and pool closing hours and enforce them strictly. We give a five minute warning at five minutes before closing and do not allow any late departures. Exactly how would you want them to run the park. Ask each guest when it would be convienient to close the office and pool? I don't understand?
With the pool being open 10 hours a day and this being an important issue for your kids, why would you wait until 30 minutes before closing time to bring your kids back to play in the pool? If it was a big deal for your kids vacation plans, I would think you would ensure they got time to play! Sounds more like a parent problem than a park problem??

[American RV Park of Albuquerque]

We were recently made aware of Mr. Coffman's issues with his stay at American RV Park of Albuquerque. While we endeavor to provide the best experience possible during stays at our park, we sometimes fail. We have reviewed our staffing and our guest needs and have decided to keep the pool open later than the posted 8 pm closing time.

We do have the rules for the pool posted on our gate entering the pool area. One of the posted rules states "No Food or Drink in the Pool Area"�. This rule was implemented due to many problems encountered with food particles finding their way into the pool and clogging the filters during our last season. We are currently reviewing the rules to see what can be changed to make a visit to the pool a more pleasant experience.

The last point I would like to address is the issue of children alone in the playground. I must take total responsibility for this decision. Since we have a very transient population in our park, I am deeply concerned about the safety of the children visiting with us. It doesn't take many viewings of the news to realize that there are a lot of people out there who are looking for unsupervised children. Because of this, I instructed the staff to ask our guests not to let the children go to the playground without an adult. I still believe that this is a good rule for all concerned.

We are sorry to lose Mr. Coffman as a guest at American RV Park of Albuquerque. We will continue to strive to serve our guests and meet their needs. Thank you for the opportunity to address these issues.

Pamela Wright, Manager
American RV Park of Albuquerque

[Kazoo Tom]

There are always two sides to every story, and I am glad to see that the park has chosen to respond to this post. I personaly have no problem with rules being set by park management and properly enforced. The chief complaint I see, however, is the manner in which the rules were enforced. The pool closing hours are apparently posted. If those hours are inconvenient, then rearrange plans to accomodate them.

I am most appalled that there are two seperate posters complaining about rude treatment by park staff. To me that is inexcusable. Like it or not, the park is in the service industry. I too am in the service industry, of sorts, and regardless of the attitude of the "customer" I must maintain my cool. (I am a police officer). I note that this "rude" behavior was not addressed in the response from the park. Hopefully the park management has taken not of the postings here (obviously they have) and are working on the problem.

[American RV Park of Albuquerque]

I did not specifically address the issue of "rudeness" for a couple of reasons. We do not approve of or encourage rudeness in our employees. In fact, one of the reasons for a change in management was in dealing with a person who had a very rigid approach to guest problems. Secondly, there is a point where just about anyone can be accused of being rude as you can see from the posting from VetteRacer. We try very hard to train our employees on how to handle guests who have problems, and for the large majority of guests we are quite successful;however, there is a small number of people that will consider you rude no matter how you try to address the problem. Please let me repeat that we do not tolerate rudeness toward our guests and do counsel our workampers when the situation arises. Thank you for allowing me to respond to the issues raised here. We have always and will continue to consider our guests our number 1 priority.

Pamela Wright, Manager
American RV Park of Albuquerque

[samson]

Unfortunately, the problems at American RV Park are not really the problems of the direct managers that live at the park. The problems are with the General Manager who was hired by the owner to oversee and hire the on site managers. Way back when this owner had only a few parks, he handled things himself and hired upstanding hard working managers. Then this hatchet man took over and the parks (Legacy Resorts) has been going down hill since. Granted, the owner has been able to purchase a lot of parks, but the quality of his managers is just not there. The main reason for this is what they pay the managers. Hence, the language issues, etc. Too bad. These parks have good potential, but not with this fella in charge. The owner should re-think this situation and get someone in there who is not about only himself and not the parks in general.

[Phred]

New here. I know this Resort very well. The sites are more than adequate for a 5tyh wheel. That fella should have backed the rig in further. And parking at that site to unload... maybe they were busy with heavy traffic. The pool area is very nice and all the staff were friendly the two times we stayed there. Just they seemed to change managers beween the times we stayed. We have a 42 footer now, and I am sure it will fit.