Community Forums

M Glanton · 10-10-2022, 09:18 AM

Is there some magic involved in booking a site at the national parks?
I was trying to book an available site at Zion watchman at 10:00 eastern this morning, I had it all setup and exactly at the stroke of 10 I hit check out and it was gone. .???

Is there a sniping program available or some booking agency?

AZstavman · 10-10-2022, 10:41 AM

Peak season....good luck

twogypsies · 10-10-2022, 03:13 PM

Was your intended reservation for now or for in the future? Perhaps the sites aren't open in the reservation window yet to reserve.

ArtJoyce · 10-10-2022, 03:54 PM

There are robots that are making reservations.

traveldawg · 10-10-2022, 07:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ArtJoyce

There are robots that are making reservations.

What do these robots do with the reservations once they have them?

And how do the work such that they get all the reservations and normal folks like us can't?

M Glanton · 10-11-2022, 08:51 AM

I was able to book this morning on a premium site at Zion. I think it’s just a matter of timing, who has the faster finger.

Also researched bots and I couldn’t find any. There is one bot but it only searches for cancellations and will notify you by email of availability

Donskiman · 10-11-2022, 10:04 AM

It's doubtful bots are scooping up all the sites as soon as they become available. Reservations require deposits and unless a bot service has all the payment info from a client, they almost certainly are not going to be forking over their own money. There is no hard evidence that sites are being resold either and neither recreation.gov or recreation.com allow sites to be transferred.

Sites are allowed to be booked forward for anywhere from a week to several weeks. That means not all sites are available for reserving on any given day when reservations open. Some people only want to use the last few days of a 14 day reservation and simply don't show up for the first week or so. These reservations should be canceled when not showing up within 24 hours of the first night, but that falls upon camp hosts or other park staff to input that information into the system, and that doesn't seem to always be happening.

The reality is that popular parks may have tens of thousands all waiting for the opening and the system gets overwhelmed immediately. The result is just luck of the draw and it sucks. I've seen this happen when trying to get into a Tiffin rally as well.

There are several bots that people can use to check for cancelations. These check the systems for the specified request multiple times a day and notify the client if/when there is an opening. However, the client must still go online and complete the reservation and if several people have the same search it's whoever gets it done first.

For this reason we've just about given up on staying in public campgrounds and stay near the parks in private campgrounds.

jacwjames · 10-11-2022, 10:25 AM

Here's an article I read that explains how some of the BOTS work.
https://thebolditalic.com/how-tech-i...ng-7481c587d94

It appears that it is possible to get websites that use BOTS to search for and hold a site, they notify you, and I guess you complete the reservation.

So if you want a site bad enough just hook up with one of the sites, pay the fee, and let them do the work.

I have a friend that has gone to AK several times specifically to hard to get destination. He's too cheap to pay someone or a website to get his reservations. Actually goes to the nearest university where the internet speed is super fast and him and his wife sit there and try and get the reservations. Seems like it's hit or miss, getting the desired reservation about 50% of the time. He also checks on cancelations to try and fill out the trip and if can't make it work he just cancels any reservations he's made.

I quit playing that game long ago. If I get a reservation good, if not I move on to my next stop on my wish list.

Tomahawk · 10-11-2022, 08:45 PM

I am not sure I believe the bots thing. I haven't look into at all. I have friends who have been able to get sites at Yosemite in peak season, they have ten people lined up and ready to go. If they are lucky, they get 3 sites. It is timing and it is difficult to get the premium sites.

I have had a lot of success getting sites at places a little not quite as popular, like in Yosemite but not in the Valley, or getting sites mid week.

My approach is generally to look at a few week window and try to be flexible. You can look for cancellations throughout the year as well.

RickNC · 10-21-2022, 11:37 AM

Generally we have had good luck booking short notice at most national parks. But it takes some flexibility and having a small 23’ motorhome of course helps a lot. For example last time at Yellowstone, By looking for one night stays during the week we able to string 3 nights on 3 different campsites in August of 2021. A little bit of hassle to move everyday but since we don’t have a towed. It was less than 10 minutes out of our day to pack up and return to a different site each day.

ArtJoyce · 10-21-2022, 09:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by traveldawg

What do these robots do with the reservations once they have them?

And how do the work such that they get all the reservations and normal folks like us can't?

Im not sure what they do with the reservations. Do they use them for travel packages. Resell them??

The trick is to enter the reservation a fraction of a second after the window opens. That's what the robots do well.

Rexlion · 10-22-2022, 10:39 PM

Yeah, I don't see what some big outfit would gain by using robots to buy up national park CG reservations. How can they resell them and recoup their expense? Call me a doubter on this one, until someone can show me the logic behind spending big bucks to buy up a whole CG full of campsites, night after night after night.

Donskiman · 10-23-2022, 10:42 AM

The only way I can see that would make sense is if there was an automated service people subscribe to where they put in their request and payment info, then the instant reservations open the bot completes the reservation faster than humanly possible.

I'm not aware of any such service and this service would need to be commonly available for so many places to be sold out so quickly.

It appears what's really occurring is there are so many people trying to reserve all at the same time that those with the fastest connection speeds and fastest typists get the spots. Plus, some spots are unavailable due to booking forward. When I looked into booking forward and then canceling the early days, I discovered it's not allowed. Canceling the early days terminates the entire reservation and it goes back into the system. The original person is locked out of rebooking for a period of time. I think some may get around this by having one person cancel and a different person make the reservation with the now available sites. However, the system may not immediately put the sites back into the system so even people trying to do this have no guarantee they can "cheat" the system.

Reservations are supposed to be canceled as well if people don't show up within 24 hours. However, that would require management by either campground hosts or park staff and judging by the comments from people saying how many empty but reserved sites there are, this doesn't appear to be happening in many places.

So maybe some people do effectively cheat the system by booking forward then showing up on the second week because they gamble that their reservations don't get canceled as they should be.

twogypsies · 10-23-2022, 01:22 PM

Booking forward is a terrible practice - definitely cheating & not allowing others to enjoy the park. Very selfish! Everyone should be able to book equally.