Winding Down The Holiday Weekend - (Chester, CA)

Several people left the campground today.  Most were scheduled out, but many left early.  For holiday weekends, we have a three-night minimum and it appears some booked the three nights but couldn't actually stay that long.

I started an hour earlier than scheduled to get some pump-outs done.  Randy, once again on his day off, and I did the Honey Wagon for four sites and then three more flagged us down to do theirs.

He then assisted me with bathrooms and we did a trash run.  At 1:00, I went through every vacant site and cleaned them up.  I picked up trash around the site, picked the trash out of the firepits, and made sure the food lockers on tent sites were cleaned out.

That took an hour and a half and I took my lunch around 2:30.  Linda started at 1:15.  She had a pretty light day.  Her challenge for the day was dealing with people that canceled their reservations and didn't think the cancellation policy should apply to their situation.

The cancellation policy is pretty simple.  Cancel within 30 days of scheduled arrival and you lose your deposit.  No exceptions.  It just has to be that way or every cancellation will be for a claimed "emergency".

In our travels, we rarely make reservations so we haven't had to deal with cancellation policies much.  However, one time we paid for four days at an RV park upon arrival and had to leave early due to a death in the family.  We asked about a refund, but they also had a "no exceptions" policy.  We certainly understand that RV park's position much better now.  :)

The cancellation policy here is clearly stated when someone calls to make a reservation and it is re-stated in the confirmation letter that goes out.  We do try to work with the folks to re-book them for another time during the current season so they don't lose their deposit, but they rarely take us up on that offer.

Linda has had to deal with a kiwi farmer whose irrigation system failed right before coming.  Today, she had someone whose trailer "broke" and canceled a day in advance - he's going to "challenge" the deposit charge on his credit card.  He's going to lose, but he's going to challenge it anyway.

Now she also had a woman who drove in today and canceled her reservation for later this week.  It was much, much harder to enforce the policy with her.  You see, just this morning she had backed over her husband with their boat and trailer.  He was in the car with a broken arm and his head completely wrapped in bandages.  She had blood all over her.

As soon as Linda heard the story, Linda kept asking the lady if she was okay.  Her response was "It hasn't hit me yet."  I think that was pretty clear as the last thing I would be worried about is showing up to cancel a reservation.

Wow.  It just takes an instant for something like that to happen.  That's why we've preached safety in dealing with RVs in this Journal.  Similar tragedies have happened with even worse consequences in the RVing world.

I was a half hour into my lunch when I got the walkie-talkie call.  "Howard, can you do a boat rescue?  We've just gotten a report of an overturned boat with two children in the water."

Yikes!  Katrina & I rushed to the boat dock not knowing exactly what had happened.  I frantically prepared one of our motorboats and threw in ropes, life jackets, and large buoys as floats if necessary.  We had a strong south wind almost all day and the water was really choppy.

We were told that 911 had been called.  We could only tell that there was a jet ski floating near the rocks of the causeway and there was someone in the water.

I headed out across the water not really knowing what I was going to do.  Fortunately, the situation wasn't that dire.

The two boys had flipped the jet ski and it wouldn't start.  They had on life jackets and made it to shore safely.  Their dad was in the shallow water towing the jet ski to the sandy part of a cove at the campground.

I was prepared to do a rescue of some type, but I wasn't exactly sure how I was going to get it accomplished with the wind and waves pushing me toward the rocks.  Thank goodness everyone was okay, and I just puttered back to our dock.

From that point on, the rest of the day was a piece of cake.  It was quiet as Linda handled the phone and retail sales while I worked the gate and handled the people that didn't need Linda.

I was supposed to be off at 6:00, but worked until about 7:00 making one last trash run and making sure the bathrooms and porta-potties were fully supplied with toilet paper for the night.

Linda got home a little after 8:00.  We simply admired the moon's reflection on the lake and relaxed.

At 10:00, I did the quiet hours run.  It was wonderfully peaceful.  Shortly after my return, we were asleep.

Whew.  You just never know what you will run into from day to day - even on the calm days.  :)

---

Comments

[Jim]

Howard,

Once we had a campground call us early on our arrival day to tell us they lost power. While I appreciated the phone call, I told them we would not be coming and that I wanted my deposit back. (It was hot and we needed the AC) They said no as it wasn't their fault. I said it certainly wasn't mine either. (Their insurance should cover the loss of revenue) I ended up taking it up with the CC company and won. I used the argument that if you had a hotel reservation and they had no power, would you stay there?

[Richard Mondavi]

I must not have read your post today correctly. You enforced the "no refunds" on a woman bloodied after she runs over her husband and you know the story is true? Surely NOT! There are exceptions to every rule!!!!
The place you two are working at sounds more like a prison than a campground.

[Jerry and Suzy LeRoy]

Life always has something new to offer, and all you can do is what you can do! It's all part of the adventure!