How many of us are asked "Do you have an awning" and then go on to pay for it for the number of nights we are booked in.
How many of us leave the awning up until the morning of departure, not many.
The next time you book in and you have to pay for the awning, knock a night off for the awning and see the look on the face of the receptionist.
Why should you pay for the awning if it's not up.?
In addition, if you have the 'feet' to attach the awning to the van rather than the ground, I wouldn't pay for the awning in the first place. It's not on their land.
Just saying.
Post last edited on 10/08/2016 22:33:49
------------- How come when some people visit the fountain of knowledge, they only gargle!!!
Quote: Originally posted by emmitdb on 10/8/2016
Hi All,
How many of us are asked "Do you have an awning" and then go on to pay for it for the number of nights we are booked in.
How many of us leave the awning up until the morning of departure, not many.
The next time you book in and you have to pay for the awning, knock a night off for the awning and see the look on the face of the receptionist.
Why should you pay for the awning if it's not up.?
In addition, if you have the 'feet' to attach the awning to the van rather than the ground, I wouldn't pay for the awning in the first place. It's not on their land.
Just saying.
Post last edited on 10/08/2016 22:33:49
That's a valid point actually regarding how many nights the awning is erected and seriously worth considering as to how many nights it is actually erected. For us, if it's been a lengthy journey to the destination we usually put the awning up the following day so that's 2 nights in total we shouldn't have to pay for.
I think the CCC charges are the correct way to go, you pay per person, the pitch comes as standard, and providing you stay within the designated area you can erect most awnings, gazebos,within reason. Dogs are not charged for and families can take advantage of special rates to allow for children.
When booking you are asked if you will have a awning purely so the pitch offered will be big enough.
If of course you need electric/hardstand that will be rightly extra to pay.
As members of the C&CC I think that their charging policy is the best we are likely to get. There is probably no perfect system that will suit everyone, although I personally still prefer the old way where you just paid for the pitch and electricity was metered.
Those who use a lot of mains electricity would probably not agree with that, but for those of us who use it just to charge our batteries, run the fridge and power a couple of lights occasionally, I feel we are paying through the nose. I also think that charging per person hits families particularly hard, although this doesn't affect us personally now, as we are just a couple of pensioners and a small dog.
Quote: Originally posted by Colin21 on 11/8/2016
As members of the C&CC I think that their charging policy is the best we are likely to get. There is probably no perfect system that will suit everyone, although I personally still prefer the old way where you just paid for the pitch and electricity was metered.
Those who use a lot of mains electricity would probably not agree with that, but for those of us who use it just to charge our batteries, run the fridge and power a couple of lights occasionally, I feel we are paying through the nose. I also think that charging per person hits families particularly hard, although this doesn't affect us personally now, as we are just a couple of pensioners and a small dog.
I have been a member of the CC for many years Colin but for some reason never looked at C&CC.
I will certainly give it a look.
Like you ,this year I have retired and living off my pension and I am now obviously looking to keep costs down.
I also find it sad that young families who are trying to get their kids out and about are paying a fortune to camp ,especially at this time of year.
Regards,
Greg
It is like paying extra to choose your seat on a budget airline. If sites can get away with charging extras they will, it might mean that the basic fee is lower. When we go to a restaurant we are not really paying for just the food but the building, the décor, the heating, the staff, the cleaning, the waste management but we don't pay rental for sitting at a table not eating, so they charge for what they can. Sites can't charge directly for things that do cost them (each toilet use) so they offset it elsewhere. Vote with your feet if enough people do then they will stop charging.
A lot of truth in what you say there, tiger17bear.
However, the site owners/operators know that there are sufficient people prepared to pay that it will always be worth them charging what they can. Its very much a case of "if you won't pay, someone else will". They make most of their money in the summer season, and when was the last time you saw an empty campsite in the middle of summer.
Like I said, there are limits on how much a site can charge for re-selling electricity, hence I haven't seen an electricity meter on a site for years. So they get round the legislation by making their electricity "free", but charging for providing the "facility".
Like Colin above, whilst it ain't perfect, the C&CC system seems to be about as good as we're likely to get in terms of fairness. Remember, they do a good family membership (though if my experience is anything to go by, they don't count single parents with one child as a family which, at the time, having been just widowed, was very upsetting to both of us - still hotels and b&bs wouldn't give reduced rates either, so you have to bite the bullet.)
------------- " When I die I don`t want my life to flash before me in an instant, I want it to be a 3 hour epic !"
Quote: Originally posted by Joe67 on 12/8/2016
I have moved from a trailer tent to a motorhome so we can wildcamp rather than pay the charges on some camp sites..
Sorry, Joe, but you go "informal" or "free" camping in a motor home. In Scotland, if you're in a motorised vehicle or vehicle that requires towing, you do not wild camp and certain laws apply. Wild camping as a term only applies to tents. This is not being pedantic (or nasty as I'm a tenter) and I only know this because it was raised at a meeting I was at three months ago and it came as shock. I don't know if this applies elsewhere in the UK, though.
------------- " When I die I don`t want my life to flash before me in an instant, I want it to be a 3 hour epic !"
Quote: Originally posted by Colin21 on 06/8/2016
I can remember a time when sites just charged for a pitch, and what you put on it was up to you, within reason. The number of people or pets was irrelevant too.
They still exist, there's one for example in Gower where we're off next weekend. Two adults & a dog in a caravan with hookup, 2 adult teenagers in a pop up tent, 15yr old in his own pop up tent, 2 oaps in a teeny campervan, all for £20 a night.
Mind you, the pitches are 1/2 acre each :D
------------- Doing whatever the rice krispies tell me to.
That's excellent Nellie72. However, human nature probably means that there is no perfect system. People have changed over the past 40 years in my experience, and unfortunately not always for the better.
If we went back to the way things once were, with just a standard charge for a pitch, whatever you put on it, you would get people in a small tent complaining that they were being charged the same as the people with a huge caravan on the next pitch, even though the pitches were the same size. Its just the way some people are these days. We just have to be thankful that not everyone is like that, I know I'm not.