Resorts of Distinction - Problems getting sites?

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MikeyInNY

MikeyInNY

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Joined
May 13, 2010
Posts
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Location
Colonie, NY (Near Albany)
I have a membership that offers a Resorts of Distinction membership as well for $200 a year.  It was one of the main reasons we bought our membership, I'm retiring next year and thought it would help while traveling.  I heard mention that many of the ROD campgrounds have many blackout dates that ROD is almost worthless.  So before I pay an additional $200 for ROD, is it worth it? Is there anyone who has a membership with ROD?  What have you experienced?
 
All the exchange clubs have this problem to some degree.  The participating private resorts may or may not have any sites open, especially at peak times.  They aren't campground chains - it's merely a cooperative arrangement among independent membership resorts.  It's a benefit for their owners, not a profit making venture for the resort.  I haven't heard that ROD was any worse than C2C or RPI, but they are smaller so fewer choices.  Yes, they limit sites on popular weeks & weekends. Their members are usually in residence then anyway, but if they did have an opening it would probably go to a friend or family member of an owner rather than a visiting stranger.

Maybe the complaints you heard were from people who were misled by a sales person or just assumed they could travel anywhere at anytime and get a site.  Maybe they thought it was more like Thousand Trails where you are a member of every resort in the chain, but that's not how ROD works.
 
Been a long time since I used ROD or CC2C.. (Two very much alike programs) I found not all parks follow the rules.

Since I'm 62 or older (There are other ways to qualify as well) I have the federal "Geezers" pass for national parks and Federal campgrounds...  Winters I use my Thousand Trails membership for 2 weeks in and one out. On my week out I stay at a county park (15/night) or a Core of Engineers (13)  as I recall ROD is 13 unless the price has gone up since I last used them (likely)

Odds of finding a parking spot I like.. Well I"ve had like one weekend in the last several years (Easter)
 
Maybe some explanation is in order. ROD is a small group of independent ownership resorts (you buy a campsite in the resort). If a site owner in one of the ROD member resorts isn't going to use his site for a week or so, he can put it into that resort's available site pool.  These sites are available to other ROD members for a modest rental fee.  To join ROD, you must be a site owner in a resort that participates in ROD and pay the  annual ROD fee for access to sites at other ROD resorts.  There is no guarantee there will ever be any sites at any other resort - it's strictly "as available".  This means it's not a reliable site source for weekends and vacations.  Sometimes a newer camping resort has a lot of unsold sites and the developer puts them in the ROD pool; as the sites get sold there are fewer and fewer available for ROD reservations.


We had a ROD membership for a year and stayed at a couple ROD parks. Only ran into an availability problem once, when we wanted to stay two weeks but only one was available. Not real surprising - it was summer in the northern US and prime camping season.
 
We have been ROD members for 4 years now. As a matter of fact, our home park is in Lockport.
We have used our membership at many parks, no problem.
As ROD members we can reserve spots at other parks up to 6 weeks in advance. Never that I can remember have we had a problem getting a site.
As Gary indicated, site you get may not be premium site but it is alright.

At our home park, there are reservations required for both American and Canadian long weekends and the Halloween weekend

There aren?t an abundance of ROD parks in eastern US but more in western.

If you?re looking for more information, pm me and I will tell you as much as I can.

Hope this helps
 
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