Corp of Engineers Parks

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an RV or an interest in RVing!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
See posts with no answers
G

grampav

Member
Joined
Oct 1, 2014
Posts
13
Location
Zephyrhills, Fl
As full-time rv,ers, we enjoy staying at the Corp of Engineers parks if in the area of them. However, lately, I it has become difficult to impossible to find openings. All sights are reserved, or you can only stay one or two nights and leave.What happened to the. "first come, first serve" method. We who travel have no, in some cases, have no clear-cut plans for staying, but enjoy the parks the Corp has to offer. Anybody else have that problem?
 
I only have encountered full COE parks in Florida during the winter.  The rest of the year I have had no problems.  What part of the country are you accessing these and when? 
 
I have the opposite problem in my area as the COE park we like has mostly all walkup sites with electric and don't like to go only to find them already taken.
 
Park policies vary, so there is no single answer. Weekenders request reserveable sites at popular parks, whereas regular travelers prefer First come, First served. The individual park management tries to serve both sets of customers.

You just have to deal with it. Reserve where that is needful, and fly loose otherwise.
 
During the past year, we have come across more and more parks that are transitioning from first come to reservations.  Not sure why but suspect it is part of the Fed's desire to sub-contract the management of some of their parks and standardize their rules generally.  We recently spent a few nights at a TVA park near the Smokey Mountains.  This is the last year it will be first come first serve.  Next year it will be reservable.  The park is managed by Recreation Resources Management (RRM), a government entity that manages national parks.  Last year we stayed at a National Forest campground in South Dakota that was managed by an independent contractor.  Don't recall the name but different than the one we encounter in So Cal several months ago.  One of the things that is disturbing is the lack of understand of the Governments intent with respect to the Golden Age cards discount.  Actually its only my believe the intent of the Gov is to continue offering the discounts to seniors.  The So Dakota park said the discount did not apply initially and then gave us the 50% discount.  The park in So Cal, said they didn't know anything about a discount. 
 
garyb1st said:
The park is managed by Recreation Resources Management (RRM), a government entity that manages national parks. 
Click to expand...

No, Recreation Resources Management is NOT a government entity.  It is a private company that manages public campgrounds, both for the federal government and states.  http://camprrm.com/
 
As stated above, RRM is a private company that contracts to provide management and services at numerous federal parks and recreation areas.

Contractors may or may not honor the Senior and other federal park passes. It's complicated, depending on their specific contract. Some "concessionaires" are not required to honor discount passes, but most park management or operation contractors are. It's is part of the concession contract language.
 
garyb1st said:
I questioned that when the manager told me they worked for the government.
Click to expand...

They work under contract for the government.  There's a big difference between that and them being federal employees.
 
Last week we stayed at an Army Corp of Engineers campground along the Mississippi River in Illinois.  There were 37 sites and we were the only people in the campground besides the camp hostess.  I have an Access Pass (disability) and received a 50% discount. 

The campground we stayed at is a "Corp-operated" campground but they have a camp hostess who is not a Corp. employee.  She has been the hostess at that campground for the last 10 years.  The hostess said that they consider the campground busy if it is 50% full.  She also said she is surprised that more people don't know about the Access and Senior Passes.

If people are interested in a Corp. campground they might want to call the ACOE office in the area where they plan to camp so that the Corp staff can explain the difference in policies from one campground to the next. It seems to me that we received a brochure with information about all the Corp campgrounds in Illinois.
 
We received a free cd of Corps parks when we stayed at a campground on the Columbia River between Washington and Oregon last year.  The disc provides information on more than 420 lakes and river projects in 44 states.  Each state that is covered shows a map of the approximate location and the facilities provided at those locations.  It also states whether the site is Corps Operated, Non-Corps operated or both.  At first I thought it covered all Corps locations, but it does not.  Some of the data provided includes boat ramps, a brief description of the campsite e.g., electric hookups, pull through, tent, etc., and a paragraph describing the states projects.  I don't know if the  disc is available at all locations but would certainly ask for one when at a park.   
 
Hi all,

We boondock about 90% of the time. Almost all of our camping is on government land that use 3d party reservation systems. You can only reserve 6 months in advance so I get online to reserve the first day reservations can be made. On two of the reservations I got online around 10 AM and the campsites were all reserved already. I live in CO so if you are coming to visit the mountains don't depend on First Come First Serve unless you plan on staying at a private RV park. There's not a lot of private RV parks either.
 
You can use Recreation.Gov to reserve COE campsites also. They do not charge a fee for reservations. 
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Members online

Total: 590 (members: 6, guests: 584)

Forum statistics

Threads
131,923
Posts
1,387,496
Members
137,673
Latest member
7199michael
Back
Top Bottom