Provincial Park campground booking in Canada

[Ladywendolyn]

In Manitoba Canada where I live, they have an online booking service for the Provincial parks which opens at 7:30 a.m. the first Monday in April to book for the summer, as most of our campgrounds are only open through October. Booking sites on this system is the equivalent of participating in a candy scramble at a carnival.
Well today was that day and after a very stressful hour of working to try and book campsites on the "state of the art" reservation system, we finally have a spot for the summer. The system has a 15 minute timeout feature, which seems to exactly match the amount of time that the overwhelmed system takes to process your order. Then just when you are about to pay, a message comes up that says "times up, start over"... a recipe for madness!

[kiwaon]

The Ontario system is similar, but at least it provides you with a countdown clock so you know when to start to panic if you've been successful in locking on to the site you were after. :hihi: There usually is ample time to do your booking. If you are a newbie I would suggest practicing a few times .

[David472]

Another difference with the Ontario system is, the reservations become available in a rolling 5 month window. Instead of having the whole summer available at once, each day advances the available time by one day. This does have a drawback though, where a person books one day ahead of you for a time period which overlaps your desired time. The provincial parks do keep a few sites for those who just show up, but in peak times it's a long shot.
Glad you did get your site booked. Enjoy!

[Phar0e]

Still have to wait for April 10th to book for nearby National park. Which provincial park are you booking at Lady W.?

[Ladywendolyn]

Manitoba.. Winnipeg Beach Campground.. we are docking our boat there for the summer, and so wanted to book some long stretches of time. If you don't get a site on opening day, it is hard to get one due to people booking weekends here and there so I had to be very quick to do this

[Phar0e]

Originally Posted by Ladywendolyn

Manitoba.. Winnipeg Beach Campground.. we are docking our boat there for the summer, and so wanted to book some long stretches of time. If you don't get a site on opening day, it is hard to get one due to people booking weekends here and there so I had to be very quick to do this

Glad you got one. We have been to Grand beach which has a great sand beach, only camped there once though

[Westerncanuck]

Originally Posted by Ladywendolyn

In Manitoba Canada where I live, they have an online booking service for the Provincial parks which opens at 7:30 a.m. the first Monday in April to book for the summer, as most of our campgrounds are only open through October. Booking sites on this system is the equivalent of participating in a candy scramble at a carnival.
Well today was that day and after a very stressful hour of working to try and book campsites on the "state of the art" reservation system, we finally have a spot for the summer. The system has a 15 minute timeout feature, which seems to exactly match the amount of time that the overwhelmed system takes to process your order. Then just when you are about to pay, a message comes up that says "times up, start over"... a recipe for madness!

I feel your pain.....we have a similar system here in BC, we are ll owed to book 3 sites and I got my first site and when I tried to add another site, my computer froze forcing me to log out and then losing the first site hat I held. My sister managed to hold 7 sites that we needed, so all was not lost.

[RVmom jaycox213]

Originally Posted by Ladywendolyn

In Manitoba Canada where I live, they have an online booking service for the Provincial parks which opens at 7:30 a.m. the first Monday in April to book for the summer, as most of our campgrounds are only open through October. Booking sites on this system is the equivalent of participating in a candy scramble at a carnival.
Well today was that day and after a very stressful hour of working to try and book campsites on the "state of the art" reservation system, we finally have a spot for the summer. The system has a 15 minute timeout feature, which seems to exactly match the amount of time that the overwhelmed system takes to process your order. Then just when you are about to pay, a message comes up that says "times up, start over"... a recipe for madness!

I hear ya it sucks. We book at Birds Hill and it is tough all the weekends are booked up in 1 day. They need to add good spots to the campgrounds.

[sunstarsmoon]

Oh the stress of the Provincial Park reservation system. I am very picky and I will watch the site I want and boom someone takes it for 23 days just the day before I am ready to book it. Its very frustrating and getting a waterfront site in Ontario is very hard. Especially if you are limited to a certain time frame. My hubby laughs when I wake up early get everything set and sit and watch the timer then at 7 press reserve.

[Seann45]

This is taken from RV Travel newsletter.. a FREE E-zine
"It's no gold rush, but there's a rush on at Manitoba Provincial Parks this year. The province's reservation service opened its phone lines on April 2 and by mid-day booked 12,570 spaces, up from 11,929 for the same time in 2011."

http://www.rvtravel.com/issue528.shtml

[Daxton]

Alberta here. We have a 90 day window that works pretty good. For the most part, we don't have issues getting serviced sites at our favorites. There is no sliding window enforcement on the Alberta site meaning folks book a week or so in advance of the actual arrival and them they cancel the first x days for a fee of $5. Some of the private cg sites eliminate this by charging 50% of the value of nights cancelled.