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Rausch Creek - Echo Valley Campground

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Rausch Creek - Echo Valley Campground

Postby jmylie » Wed Jul 25, 2007 10:52 am

I attended the Coal Mine Cruiser Classic at Rausch Creek recently and while Rausch Creek was great as usual, Echo Valley Campground was not.

Echo Valley Campground agreed to a price similar to Red Ridge Campground (near Paragon) for the CMCC. As soon as we arrived, the owner tried to charge us more than the agreed to price. As I was with the president of Gotham City Land Cruisers, he told Echo Valley, that the price she quoted was not the price agreed to.

We later heard that she attempted this with many other attendees. Even with people renting campers or cabins from Echo Valley, the price she quoted over the phone was not the price she tried to charge.

She refused to refund money to a family that complained that the camper she rented them was so moldy that their asthmatic son could not stay in it.
They left and stayed at a near by hotel

Echo Valley advertises a pool, caf? and amusement room. All were closed.
When asked, she would open but with complaints. This was the only campground I ever stayed at that charged extra for the pool. The pool was dirty.

There were only 2 bathrooms and 2 showers for almost 80 campers. There were no separate mens / womens rooms. There were port-a-potties and GCLC brought an extra one in for women only. There was only 1 sink that worked and it was in one of the shower / toilet areas.

She locked a second building that contained an additional shower / bathroom facility.

The owner was not friendly and her bait and switch price tactics extended to everything.

It is a shame that this is the closest campground to Rausch Creek.

I will never stay at this campground again. If any clubs are thinking about using Echo Valley for an event at Rausch Creek, I would re-think it.
Joe

Toyota Land Cruiser Association
Yankee Toys
Gotham City Land Cruisers
East Coast 4 Wheel Drive Association
National Off-Highway Vehicle Conservation Council
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Postby Scott Hatch » Wed Jul 25, 2007 11:13 am

:shock: Thanks for the heads up Joe
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Postby Treasurer » Wed Jul 25, 2007 12:55 pm

They need to find a campground owner like Blair at Shir-Roy or Gretchen at Field n Forest. They see that we will fill up thier campgrounds.
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Postby Jsands » Thu Jul 26, 2007 4:05 pm

Thanks for the info Joe. I was planning on staying there so I asked about the problems and this is what I got back from Judy.

Hi Jeff,

I'm sorry that you heard bad things about my campground. I try very hard to accommodate everyone that visits here. On the group that was here for the Coal Miner Classic, I would like to address all of the complaints that you refer to.

The price agreed to was $10 per person for cash and $12 per person for charge cards. This price is not the price that we charge here normally, but I can assure you that no one paid more than this. The reason we charge more than other campgrounds is we are giving you more for that money. You not only get a nice place to pitch your tent, you have access to water and electric and your own set of restrooms. The group also gets five pavilions that are used to house the cookouts for the entire group. These pavilions rent for $305 PER day.

We have two showers in the pavilion restroom area and two porta-johns that we clean often. We only had 49 people in the pavilion area that registered and paid to be there. We did have one sink out of operation (unfortunately) and that is now fixed. The shower house on the other side of the road was also available. We did NOT have it locked. Several of the pavilion folks used that facility. I know that these were enough facilities for the number of people that paid to be here. However, we did have several people that came in from local hotels to fix their vehicles and eat here. These people were not registered and were not welcome and should NOT have been using our facilities. A number of these people even took our FREE hayride.

Now, on to the folks that rented the camper that they were not happy with. This is a fairly new camper with two bedrooms, cable tv and is very nice and clean. It rents faster than any other camper here. These folks reserved it for only three days and I turned down others that wanted it for four days. I took them in it before they rented it to make sure they were happy with it. The next day they put several large tires in the yard and took off for Rausch Creek. After tying it up for the whole day, they came in that next night and asked to get all of their money back. I did give them a refund for part of their stay even though our cancelation policy states no refunds for early departure. They also attended the event here on Friday night, AFTER getting their money back.

The swimming pool has been here since 1927. There has always been a separate charge for it because it is too expensive to include in the camp rate. We just renovated it for our campers at a price tag of $45,000. At the little bit we charge for it (half price for campers) we are lucky to get enough to have it tested each week by the testing lab. It still costs us about $10,000 a year to operate. The pool is open EVERY day, it has never been closed since Memorial Weekend.

The game room is always open, but with the small amount of activity there, we turn the circuit breakers off when not being used to conserve electricity. The cafe was open anytime someone asked at the office. There was a sign to that effect. I just recently had an employee quit in that area and I was doing double duty.

One camper that came with that group did not like being in the pavilion area with everyone else. He was moved to a separate, more expensive site without additional charges. He wanted to leave one night early and asked for money back. He was still here for the Saturday night cookout. I declined to give him anything because of the late hour. He was very upset.

I realize that there were some campers in this group that were not satisfied. That is too bad and I wish I could please everyone. However, we do the best we can. We have a beautiful campground here and we certainly offer more in the pavilion area than any other campground that I am aware of. We are only 2.8 miles from Rausch Creek and we try hard to accommodate all of the riders there even though we do get more dirt with you guys than from the general public. We are also constantly trying to improve our facility. We always welcome constructive criticism. Very soon, we will be renovating the entire pavilion shower facility. This should eliminate most of the criticism expressed here. We will be adding the privacy needed and an extra shower. We are gutting the entire building and basically starting over.

You may choose not to try Echo Valley Campgound. That is certainly your decision. Are you willing to pass on a perfectly good campground because of the bitterness and perhaps unrealistic expectations of someone else? I leave you with that thought to consider.

Judy Finch
Echo Valley Campground
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Postby jmylie » Sat Jul 28, 2007 2:50 pm

While I guess we can exchange he said she said, item for item, there really is no point in doing that.

She tried to get Brian and me to pay more, even after we told her we were with Gotham City. The agreed to price was $10 per adult, with children 12 and under free. There was never any mention of the $2 extra per adult per day for credit cards. She then tried to charge Brian for 1 of his 2 children, saying only 1 child per adult. That was not the agreement.

She charged or tried to charge more for the units she rented out. Again changing the price she quoted over the phone. As I wrote on the Rausch Creek forum, Gotham City received more complaints about Echo Valley for this 1 event than all their years at Red Ridge.

Again, I talked with many of the participants at CMCC. I heard more complaints about Echo Valley. People did not like the way they were treated. I did not like the way my son or I were treated. We were upset enough to not only decide to not stay at Echo Valley again but to also write to let others know.

Whether others stay at Echo Valley or not is their decision. Hopefully, Judy will treat them better than she did the participants of CMCC.
Joe

Toyota Land Cruiser Association
Yankee Toys
Gotham City Land Cruisers
East Coast 4 Wheel Drive Association
National Off-Highway Vehicle Conservation Council
Tread Lightly - Tread Trainer
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Postby Treasurer » Sun Jul 29, 2007 9:26 am

It is sad to do this, but maybe a contract in writting next time will help.
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