Online Booking System - choice of pitches
Comments
-
You would not have thought early September would be that bad, but a few years ago in Wales, one site we were on made MH's stop on a loop of road, as they sank up to their axels on the grass. On another we arrived unusually late to take the last HS. There was one arrival after us and the warden had flagged a route across the grass, which was slightly harder, and indicated a place where they could pitch without sinking, much.
0 -
It's a bit different getting it off though ET, with the van I have the choice of power mover and my grip mats, or a 4WD vehicle. Two wheels of which may well be on the road, for towing off.
I did see a 4WD motorhome at Baltic Wharf recently, but I think the majority are 2WD and don't extricate themselves from mud easily.
2 -
I'm past caring if I damage a grass pitch. If it's in use and I have to use it when conditions aren't suitable then it's going to get damaged. What else can you do?
Well actually what I do is not use CC sites when grass is in use except for the £14.50 ones. I won't pay £30+ to end up on grass that's for sure.
3 -
And in reality it cant be that expensive to scoop up a patch of earth with a JCB shovel and then drop a couple of JCB bucket fulls of gravel in its place and then run a compacter over it.
Thats more or less all I did to make a hardstanding in my garden for our van....
The Club needs to stop making such a meal of things and get on with it, how hard and expensive can it be........
About the cost of a rebrand probably....
3 -
We prefer hard standing but grass pitches do not worry us so just book and hope for the best. In practice from reports on here it does seem that if pitches are so wet as to risk damage wardens cancel bookings to deal with it. Only once have we been on a pitch so wet it was a problem and we just used the motor mover to get us on tp dry land though this may not always be possible.
I have also come across instances where wardens have reserved hard standings for large motorhomes when they have been worried about possible damage to grass pitches.
I am not sure why the trial was not followed up with a full scale introduction but it is clear that for whatever reason the club did not think the trial was successful.
It will make no difference to us but I can see it would help some people.
0 -
Perhaps there would be less reluctance to use grass if the pitches had reinforced mesh grass. As one who dislikes parking in a quarry, it seems an obvious solution.
3 -
Even when I was a caravanner I wanted a hardstanding pitch and its even more important now I have a motorhome. Plastic reinforced pitches are not the answer for two reason, one they are a trip hazard for anyone with mobility problems and secondly motorhomes, mainly being front wheel drive, will slip in wet conditions, I have seen this happen, if trying to get up on ramps. Perhaps next year when the Club are considering pitch prices they they don't increase prices across the board but add a premium to hardstanding pitches. My suggestion would be £2 a night for a hardstanding full awning pitch, £1 a night for hardstanding non-awning pitch but leave grass pitches with no increase and if finances allowed perhaps a £1 night reduction. For one year only the per person prices would remain as the year before to lessen the impact.
David
0 -
The Club seems to be doing its best to accommodate more sites with HS, The new AS at Shrewsbury has a lot of what folks seem to prefer, HS, serviced pitches. This seems to be the easiest and quickest method for the Club to give members what they are asking for, without digging up older sites. The new Club owned sites at Barnard Castle and Bridlington are predominantly HS I think?
Some of us are pleased that there are grass pitches still available, and have even managed to use them in quite poor weather.
1 -
The problem for some (myself included) is that I don't travel just short distances between sites so arriving at 12 noon for the best pitch is not going to happen and why should I have to arrive at that time.
We can travel 400 miles in a day when heading for the ports or returning from them, the last thing I want is to arrive on site at say 4pm to find all I have the choice of is grass/mud pitch, especially when I have booked the pitch some months in advance.
I don't want to have to deviate miles from my route to find a site that will give a guarantee of hardstanding, why should I when the club that I am a member of has a perfectly good site on route. It really is beyond time that the club realises that hardstandings are the way that the majority of people are going. Now they claim to be a motorhome club as well, lets see if they take on board the differences.
2 -
The thing about ASs is that many of them are listed on BoB with a similar discount.
If the club is going to become effectively a brochure of vetted site providers there's little point paying £49 per year.
Although the Club is boosting my knowledge of management speak and teaching me how to use words without saying anything so possibly worth it for that alone
4 -
White Water park at Middlesbourgh has been made over to almost all hardstandings, they have retained some grass ones for the diehards
the site is greatly improved no longer do folk have to pay £4 a day extra to book a service pitch just to get a H/S. Which leaves the service pitches for those who really want one.2 -
Knowing my luck TG I'd rock up to find all the die hards on HS and I'd have to make do with a poxy grass pitch for the same price.
If they apologised profusely that only grass was left and discounted it heavily then it would soften the blow but we've paid well over £30 in the past to pitch in a vile, soggy mess of a pitch - Malvern - and had to lose the next day's fee as we moved on to a better option. Shame we had to pay before choosing the pitch or we'd probably have turned round and headed next door
2 -
I can understand why some people prefer hard standings, especially motor homers, but my preference is grass. I wouldn’t mind siting the caravan on some form of hard standing but I would want an awning to be on, or the ground directly outside the door if I wasn’t using an awning, to be grass. There’s nothing worse than walking on the gravel and treading stone chippings into the caravan or car. If there are pitches that have particularly bad drainage, then okay convert them to HS, but for the rest just improve the drainage.
As previously said the last thing I want to do when away is park in a quarry.
1 -
There’s nothing worse than walking on the gravel and treading stone chippings into the caravan or car.
Have you tried walking wormcasts, mud, grass cuttings and rabbit droppings into the caravan instead? Strikes me as a worse prospect but perhaps you have brown carpeting?
2 -
Well I hate grass and I'm very happy to park on gravel Whittakerr so we're at opposite ends of the spectrum.
If there wasn't a clearly expressed desire from an awful lot of members to be able to book HS then the trial wouldn't have taken place.
Seeing as the club claims to want to modernise then they could demonstrate that very easily by meeting this member demand.
3 -
As it happens i do have a brown carpet.
but in the 7 years ive had a caravan I can honestly say i've never had a problem with grass cutting or worm casts etc.1 -
As you say the club has run a trial for pitch type bookings and decided in their wisdom not to continue with it. I don’t think the reasons for abandoning it were ever made clear but at least they give it a go and didn’t just carry on ignoring the calls of some members to have pitch type booking.
I know I’m in the minority on CT in preferring grass to gravel but I suspect the number of people who post on here are a minute proportion of the club membership and we will never know the views of the majority of club members so we’ll have to take the clubs word that the trial wasn’t a success.
0 -
To be honest Whittaker I don't think they did give it a fair trial.
I do know that during it we tried out a site that I wouldn't normally have booked but did because I could book a H/S. The fact that they claim people was' confused' not only says a lot about some members but a heck of a lot more about how the club promoted the trial, or not as the case seems.
I like to park on H/S and have grass to sit on but I don't like awnings being allowed to be put up on them as they can ruin the grass for others. Maybe the compromise is a half and half pitch but I can't see the club going to that expense can you.
1 -
Well by all means take the clubs word. However my own personal observation on sites in good weather that where the grass and hardstandings are equally well placed the grass pitches have been avoided my the majority in preference to hard standing and that has been marked.
My cynical view is that permitting booking of hard stands would not be good for income on sites that are 30% or more grass pitches. Rather than giving a true reason for not providing the option to book hard standings they looked for an excuse not too instead ... and a weak one at that.
3 -
Alan
The only way it can be done is something along the lines I have suggested. OK the price gaps could be negotiable but we already have the system in place as we charge an additional fee for serviced pitches so it's just an extension of that system. At a C&CC site you pay £1 for a hardstanding and they are nowhere near as spacious as the Caravan and Motorhome Club ones. I suppose it's a matter of judgement of the worth of the differential.
David
0 -
The C&CC have got it right. This club lags so far behind in many respects that it will struggle to catch up
I haven't noticed the other clubs HS being smaller but even if they are they are bookable and the C&CC gets the booking.
Looking at the four new buzz words I can't see which one suits this request. Perhaps if they'd chosen responsive, dynamic, efficient and positive I would feel happier giving this club my future business
2 -
JayEss Said : I haven't noticed the other clubs HS being smaller but even if they are they are bookable and the C&CC gets the booking.
I believe that Standard Caravan Club HS are 6x6 meters, Standard Camping Club HS are only 5m wide by 6m deep.. This only applies to ( most ) club run sites not AS or affiliated sites
0
