by 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