Community Forums

G Schulz · 07-10-2017, 07:53 AM

How many people belong to membership parks and which ones do you have? Are they generally kept up and how far ahead do you have to book to get a site? We are looking at TT, C2C and RPI. Just looking for some real world feedback.
Thanks

Barbaraok · 07-10-2017, 09:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by G Schulz

How many people belong to membership parks and which ones do you have? Are they generally kept up and how far ahead do you have to book to get a site? We are looking at TT, C2C and RPI. Just looking for some real world feedback.
Thanks

We've have 12 years of experience with them. We save a LOT of money each year and try to stay at least 100 nights in them. We book out for Memorial Day, 4th of July, Labor Day at least 60 days ahead, otherwise, we usually can get in without much difficulty a couple of weeks ahead - EXCEPT for the Seattle area.

You will get lots of people with all sorts of horror stories about how they won't work, you can never get rid of a membership, and on and on. It works for us, but then we spend most of our time on the west coast. I did a blog page on Membership Parks which might help answer some of your questions.

halfwright · 07-10-2017, 10:19 AM

It might be asking for too much information, but can you list the initial cost plus what you have saved? I am 72 and won't be fulltime for many more years and would like to know how long before I could break even.

Oldelevatorman · 07-12-2017, 10:01 PM

We've been Thousand Trails members for over 15 years. We recently upgraded our membership to the Elite which means we can stay 3 weeks at each park and go right to the next park for another 3 weeks and we can make reservations 6 months in advance. We purchased it from Campground Membership Outlet which saved us $1500 or so under Thousand Trails price and they, TT, allowed us to drop our old membership! It's hard to say how long it'll take us to break even but their parks aren't in some of the places we're going so we have to pay daily rates elsewhere. We've been happy with it. When we get back to our home base, in NorCal near family, there are 5 TT parks in that area that we can go to and just pay our monthly dues of 60+- per month while we're their for the winter so no electric bills etc. Some of the parks are nice, some need upgrades, some have sewer and some don't etc. etc. Their parks are primarily on the West and East coasts, Texas and the Upper MidWest and Northeast. If you go on their website you can see for yourself and there are many different levels of membership! There are lots of other campground groups out there as well.
Hope this answered some of your questions. Good luck!

TJFogelberg · 07-13-2017, 03:34 PM

The zone pass is a good way to try TT before spending the big bucks on an Elite upgrade. Once you buy a contract, it bears some similarities to a timeshare. Annual maintenance billing continues indefinitely. We bought a zone pass with 4 year commitment Happy so far but we need to visit the parks on the West coast next year before we'll consider the elite upgrade. We'll also run out our 4 year zone pass before upgrading. They tried to trick us into upgrading now saying how we could get $8,000 in free equity that someone "left on the table". B.S.

Barbaraok · 07-13-2017, 06:58 PM

Your zone pass is different from ours. Never had a number of years commitment, it has always been one year at a time. We got in on a 2 zones for 1 sale when we got it, so we have it for the West Coast (NW & SW) where we spend most of our time. Have the option not to renew each year.

TJFogelberg · 07-14-2017, 04:05 AM

We got a special deal LY at the Hershey RV show. We can
swap out zones on our anniversary dates. We visited 5 TT parks last year. We weren't camping during prime time so our shorter 60 day booking window wasn't an issue

G Schulz · 07-17-2017, 07:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oldelevatorman

We've been Thousand Trails members for over 15 years. We recently upgraded our membership to the Elite which means we can stay 3 weeks at each park and go right to the next park for another 3 weeks and we can make reservations 6 months in advance. We purchased it from Campground Membership Outlet which saved us $1500 or so under Thousand Trails price and they, TT, allowed us to drop our old membership! It's hard to say how long it'll take us to break even but their parks aren't in some of the places we're going so we have to pay daily rates elsewhere. We've been happy with it. When we get back to our home base, in NorCal near family, there are 5 TT parks in that area that we can go to and just pay our monthly dues of 60+- per month while we're their for the winter so no electric bills etc. Some of the parks are nice, some need upgrades, some have sewer and some don't etc. etc. Their parks are primarily on the West and East coasts, Texas and the Upper MidWest and Northeast. If you go on their website you can see for yourself and there are many different levels of membership! There are lots of other campground groups out there as well.
Hope this answered some of your questions. Good luck!

So you have a pass that allows you to book 6 months in advance? The Elite pass that I was offered only allowed 120 days (4 months). Guess I should keep looking. I would think the longer ahead I can book, the better it would be.

Barbaraok · 07-17-2017, 08:51 AM

We do just fine with 60 days out including 4th of July and Labor Day. So 4 months should be more than enough for you.

Barb

TJFogelberg · 07-18-2017, 07:48 PM

I'm encouraged by Barbaraok's comment on 60 day window working well. Wow! (Even on holidays). I've also heard that TT will allow ONP in overflow areas when the park is full.

Barbaraok · 07-18-2017, 10:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TJFogelberg

I'm encouraged by Barbaraok's comment on 60 day window working well. Wow! (Even on holidays). I've also heard that TT will allow ONP in overflow areas when the park is full.

Depends upon the park and where it is located. Some have areas and some don't. But we generally don't have a problem with reservations except that on a zone pass you can only have 1 holiday reservation at a time, which can be a problem for Memorial Day - 4th of July reservations. We usually do Memorial Day at a private (read expensive) park near my sister's place, as she goes on a quilting retreat the day after Memorial Day and we take care of Mom for that week. Then the day we pull into a TT park for our 4th of July reservations (usually the Monday of the week BEFORE 4th of July (+ Canada Day)) we make our Labor Day reservations. Then we fill in TT parks as we move around between 4th of July and Labor Day by making a new reservation when we start an existing one. For example, we moved to Thunderbird yesterday, have our Labor Day reservation Russian River and will make our reservtion for mid September at Wilderness Lakes this week.