Well after 5 years of traveling the us with our family in our RV we're going to talk today about
how for the first time ever we were actually turned away from a campground and I am pretty
shocked as to the reasons why that this particular campground refuse to let me make a reservation let
me just tell you that I have easily made hundreds of reservations at RV campgrounds over the last 5
years and I have never had this particular situation happen I do our travel planning
about 6 months or so in advance so right now is the time of year when I've been looking at our
travel plans for the spring and for the summer and there's a campground that we were made aware
of how we found out about this Campground is a super important part of the story and I'm
going to share more on that in just a few minutes because that's just part of what makes this whole
situation even more bizarre anyway this particular Campground is located over in the Tampa Bay area
of Florida and in doing some research I did find out that this Campground is located away just 5
minutes literally from a family member's house in the Tampa area and one thing that we like to do
is visit family during our travels when we can so I had a gap in our travel plans I could fill that
with a visit to this particular area right around the time of our son's upcoming 14th birthday so it
was the perfect opportunity at least I thought to celebrate his birthday with some family spend some
time with them have a little birthday party and so now here is where the story starts to get a little
crazy and that is a crazy lady so we mostly stay at Thousand Trails campgrounds so just keep our
costs down and there are several Thousand Trails campgrounds in the Tampa area that we could choose
from and that we've stayed at in the past but this particular Campground reached out to us via email
and they asked us if we would like to come and stay at one of their campgrounds now they have
two campgrounds one in the Tampa area and one in the Villages of Florida area so when I went online
and I saw this particular Campground was 5 minutes away from one of our family members it actually
seemed like a great opportunity So I responded to their email with dates that we could come stay and
here's the kicker I received back the following email so I'm going to read this just because I
don't want to misread or misquote anything of it the person says hi charity nice to hear from you
your dates for April or May will work for us let me know your preference please provide me with the
year make model and length of your RV also your vehicle information so I can make a reservation
for you I noticed from your photo that you are a family of four do you travel with any pets please
let me know so I can include that information my staff at Campground name Will reserve a site
for you and email a reservation confirmation for your preferred dates is this the best best email
address for you please also provide which address and phone number to use for your reservation so so
far everything is going pretty standard standard response so I replied with the following our RV
is a 2004 Fleetwood Discovery motor home and it's 40 ft long we also have a tow vehicle which is a
Ford Expedition we travel with our dog Alaska who is a Great Pyrenees now I always include
this information cuz some RV campgrounds do have breed or size restrictions so I want to make sure
that they understand what kind of dog Alaska is and our two cats who do not leave the inside of
the RV now here's where I wanted to stop and say something about the cats there's a lot of times
when we camp at campgrounds that I don't really include the cats because they don't leave the RV
like they literally don't leave the inside of the RV it's one of those things that I don't
know you have to tell me if you travel with cats do you include the cats in your pet count do you
not like I'm really including the pets that are going to leave the RV and be using the campground
facilities not anything that stays in the RV so you'll have to let me know your thoughts on that
in the description so I continue and let her know our best email address to send any correspondence
and the campground confirmation our phone number and then ask for the dates in April that I would
prefer to book for now here is where things started to go south and you won't believe the
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sponsoring this video now after I sent that email with the information and details requested by the
campground manager I received the following reply hi charity thank you for the information we do
have a two pet rule at our Resorts unfortunately even though your cats do not leave the RV it is
not fair for me to accommodate your reservation when we have turned others away I hope you
understand I apologize this was not mentioned when we spoke with you regarding visiting our parts
this is where I feel like it gets crazy because I was very specific that our two cats don't even
leave the RV they're not outdoor cats nor do we take our cats out for walks or or anything like
that and so I was just trying to make sure that the campground knows our travel style and if I
didn't even mention that we had the cats they probably would have never never known but I am
assuming this whole time that they watched our Channel because they reached out to us so this
whole situation was just very very mindboggling now I want to remind you we did not set out to
make a reservation at this campground on our own this Campground reached out to us via our website
to invite us to come stay and it's very obvious in all of our videos and our social media posts that
we travel with pets however rules are the rules so I replied with the following hello insert the
name of the campground manager now why we prefer to not leave our cats behind when we are taking a
shorter trip we do have an option to have someone come check on them and hang out with them while
we are away cuz we can leave them at the glamp or Hideway if we absolutely have to when we're
gone for a week or longer the cats usually come with us but we do have that option so at this
point I let them know that that was an option we can leave the cats behind so I replied letting
them know we could do that so that we can stay within the rules of their guidelines with the
pets so now at this point I'm fully expecting our reply back letting me know okay now we've
complied with their requests regarding the pets and we can move forward with solidifying these
plans and making the travel reservations but no no no no no no there's much much more to come so
after this particular correspondence this is now their reply that I get hi charity I am embarrassed
that puts the name of the person that originally emailed me did not mention our Park policies when
she contacted you about visiting the resorts she may not be aware that we also have a 15-year age
restriction for RVs at insert the name of the campground now let me just pause here and say
we have never ever not been allowed to stay at a campground due to our RV age now we've been
requested to send a photo we've been requested to verify that our RV is wellmaintained things like
that at some campgrounds that have had an RV age restriction but seriously this is the first time
that we have ever been turned away flat out turned away due to our RV being nearly 20 years old now
I have some more thoughts on this in just a few minutes but the email goes on to say this because
the resort is in a flood a zone for Hurricane evacuation this rule was established because the
first time we had to evacuate there were several older RVs that were unable to move to minimize
liability the age restriction was established at Campground name location in The Villages and
our other Resort is a 55 plus Community which more on that in a minute I sincerely apologize
for the miscommunication your family looks lovely and I'm certain your RV is well maintained it is
difficult for me to make exceptions and maintain Park policies wishing you and your family happy
holidays now here's where I find this situation completely absurd if their reasoning is RVs need
to be able to move in the event of evacuation pretty sure that the RV that I drove in four
days earlier should be able to drive out just fine also why not say this in the original email reply
about the number of pets I mean I provided our RV like year but why the back and forth it was
like this RV park was looking for reasons not to let us stay there and that is after they reached
out and invited us we didn't go like looking to make a reservation there on our own like
I didn't even know that they existed till they reached out and invited us to come check out one
of their campgrounds which this is why it's also laughable because let me tell you what the actual
original email invite actually said it said hi I am first name a marketing representative
for RV Park in a new 55 plus older community in Summerfield Florida I'm reaching out because we
would love to collaborate with you we're looking for talented creators like you both to help us
gain more visitors we would would love to be included in your YouTube content and return for
a stay at one of our parks and they go on to name the actual Parks now here is where I just laughing
and when I got this email in I I told Ben and it was just absolutely hilarious because here's the
deal if they're looking for talented creators like ourselves I assume that they had visited
our page they had watched our Channel and right on the homepage of our Channel shows Ben myself
our two kids our RV the whole nine yards so if you have a 55 plus Park do you want to invite a family
a four to come stay and then make a video about it I'm just you know help me out here somebody leave
a comment tell me why that this even happened really because I'm still completely boggled at
this point so now here is where I feel like this whole other thing of the RV age rule thing is just
slightly discriminatory and you're going to have to let me know in the comments if you agree or
disagree but here's my take on it number one a brand new RV depending upon the RV type but if
you're a travel family and you need a larger RV to accommodate your family brand new that RV is
probably going to cost anywhere from $80,000 maybe on the cheaper side up to a million dollar for a
new class A Diesel Pusher so after spending thousands of dollars we're expected to rinse
and repeat this process every 10 to 15 years and you have to remember that at this point after 10
years the average RV has depreciated 50 to 60% do you see where I'm going here those that can
afford to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars per year can stay at these age restricted RV
campgrounds but those of us that are fairly normal middle class American or those of us
who want to maybe be more financially wise to have margin to invest to prioritize experiences
over things are discriminated against I mean just am I the only one that's seeing this now
I get the flip side I really do just like this person mentioned in her email about RVs being
being able to move in the event of a disaster I will say and you can leave some comments below
if you want to let me know that you've seen some of this at campgrounds you've stayed at but some
RV parks definitely have RVs there that probably haven't moved in decades but that would be just a
different situation Al together a whole different video so at what point do campgrounds have so much
business that they turn people away who don't fit in their neat little box of one pet brand
new RV no kids evidently the time is now so it'll be interesting to see how in the coming years with
more Campground options becoming available and the rise of boondocking which we're loving at
what point will some of these campgrounds maybe be a little bit more flexible with the rules and
consider things on an actual Case by case basis versus just a hard fast set of rules when it
comes to RV age or other factors just to let me know your thoughts in the comments below now this
whole situation reminds me very much of another time when we encountered a campground who did not
look at things on a case-by-case basis either and I'm going to leave a video all about that right up
here if we don't see you out on the road or around the campground we'll catch you in the next video