HOT! NPS Reservations May Be A Problem

[ChiefJohn]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">NPS Campground Reservation System Crashes
RV Business
Friday, May 25, 2007

On the eve of the Memorial Day weekend "” the unofficial beginning of the summer vacation season "” advanced campground reservations to National Park Service (NPS) areas made through the National Recreation Reservation System website or telephone call center are not available.

As reported today (May 25) in the Ashville Citizen-Times, the system is encountering technical difficulties "” and officials do not know when it will be repaired.

Reservations already made will be valid, noted Dale Ditmanson, superintendent of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, but future reservations must be made in person until the glitch in the reservation system is rectified. For example, at this time, all of the Smokie's 10 developed campgrounds will offer sites on a first-come, first-served walk-in basis.

"Unfortunately, we do not have the capability to override the system and create a better way to deal with reservations at park sites,"� Ditmanson said. "We know that this will cause an inconvenience to some of our visitors, and hope that the deficiencies in the National Recreation Reservation System will be corrected quickly."�

When contacted by RVBusiness, Lynne Beeson, program manager for the NPS, said that the glitch is a software problem that its contractor, ReserveAmerica, was working diligently to resolve.

"We hope to have the problem corrected in the next two to three days,"� Beeson said.

The snafu is apparently limited to the NPS; reservations made through the national system for camping facilities overseen by such federal agencies as the USDA Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and the Army Corps of Engineers are unaffected.

"The NPS is one of five federal agencies with reservable sites in the [reservation] service,"� she noted. "There are more than 85,000 sites in the service, and of those, only the 6,000 NPS campsites are affected."�

Beeson pointed out that all NPS campgrounds have been taken off-line "as a precautionary measure,"� but not all of them have been affected by the problem.

Beeson believes the impact to reservations will be minimal. "This is the Memorial Day weekend, and all high-demand sites have been [booked] for some time now,"� she stated. She noted, too, that the problem was limited to advance reservations; campers can continue to use the system to check on or cancel existing reservations. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>

[ChiefJohn]

Quote:

NPS Campground Reservation System Crashes RV Business Friday, May 25, 2007 On the eve of the Memorial Day weekend "” the unofficial beginning of the summer vacation season "” advanced campground reservations to National Park Service (NPS) areas made through the National Recreation Reservation System website or telephone call center are not available. As reported today (May 25) in the Ashville Citizen-Times, the system is encountering technical difficulties "” and officials do not know when it will be repaired. Reservations already made will be valid, noted Dale Ditmanson, superintendent of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, but future reservations must be made in person until the glitch in the reservation system is rectified. For example, at this time, all of the Smokie's 10 developed campgrounds will offer sites on a first-come, first-served walk-in basis. "Unfortunately, we do not have the capability to override the system and create a better way to deal with reservations at park sites,"� Ditmanson said. "We know that this will cause an inconvenience to some of our visitors, and hope that the deficiencies in the National Recreation Reservation System will be corrected quickly."� When contacted by RVBusiness, Lynne Beeson, program manager for the NPS, said that the glitch is a software problem that its contractor, ReserveAmerica, was working diligently to resolve. "We hope to have the problem corrected in the next two to three days,"� Beeson said. The snafu is apparently limited to the NPS; reservations made through the national system for camping facilities overseen by such federal agencies as the USDA Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management and the Army Corps of Engineers are unaffected. "The NPS is one of five federal agencies with reservable sites in the [reservation] service,"� she noted. "There are more than 85,000 sites in the service, and of those, only the 6,000 NPS campsites are affected."� Beeson pointed out that all NPS campgrounds have been taken off-line "as a precautionary measure,"� but not all of them have been affected by the problem. Beeson believes the impact to reservations will be minimal. "This is the Memorial Day weekend, and all high-demand sites have been [booked] for some time now,"� she stated. She noted, too, that the problem was limited to advance reservations; campers can continue to use the system to check on or cancel existing reservations.

[Jimmy Jam]

Well, we tooled through Cades Cove whilst we were camping actually in another CG near Gatlinburg ( Crazy Horse/Adventure Bound) and they were full this weekend.

For the first time in my life, I saw absolutely ZERO deer ( it was early evening too) on the Cades Cove loop road. Saw a bear and just missed another...