Another tip we have learned over our 13 years of TT membership, is that when you are limited to two active reservations during a peak season, the day you check in to reservation ONE, that night, early the next morning, you can make reservation THREE. We spent a whole fall, winter and spring in Florida moving from park to park with our normal Elite membership.
We love our TT membership, we have the Adventure package with the 90 day booking window and have stayed in the Florida Keys for 9 months for $20/ night. It is an amazing membership and we have nothing but amazing things to say! Yes during the winter months it gets more challenging but totally worth it! Everyone is running from the cold weather LOL great video!
Thank you so much!!! We agree, TT is the best membership we have. We are thinking about upgrading to the adventure package but it will depend on how long we plan to stay in Florida next year. Spending 9 months in the keys would be AMAZING!!! That alone makes that membership worth it 😊
Thank you. Very helpful and concise. I had figured out some of what you said but mostly you gave me a new way of looking at getting the more popular sites.
About the empty sites, it is not just people leaving early it is the parks only using some spots for club members and others for full price day campers. I got a park pass to test it out and checked before paying that several weekends of the rest of the season had sites available at the two parks in my home state. I paid for the membership and found zero sites available for members. I called and asked and was told they have a cap for members but didn't say how many but clearly enough to make a difference. As I only had it one day and never booked a site I canceled my pass I would not be able to use it in the North East till next year. I might try again next year and see but if I can't get any sites with the pass to even see if the campgrounds are decent I cant see shelling out thousands for what amounts to an early booking window.
Truth! It is work to book Florida in the winter and through persistence we got in the keys for 2 weeks. Great tips. Now if TT could just hire one of these fulltime rv IT folks to write a better reservation program. Dreams.
These are great tips Harold. The phone call is the way I got reservations for us to come to the Tampa show and to stay in Florida for an additional month!
Great information. It sucks when people bend the rules for selfish reasons. Taking up a day so they can leave early is wrong. We love our Thousand Trails though.
@@1StrangeAdventure I do that sometimes with paid campgrounds but seems a bit more off for a club. I figure if I'm paying for it that's fine. Also some places that are hard to get if the window is 120 days from your first day or last day of a stay makes a difference. We would book sites for a long weekend as Thursday to Monday instead of Friday to Monday to get to book it 24 hours before everyone else. I however won't waste the day, I'll take off an extra day from work and avoid the traffic too.
That is a lot of good tips just to give you a background I’ve been camping since the late 70s I am 64 now and going to retire soon and back when we started camping you could just pull up to any campgrounds and just pick a site and half the campgrounds were empty in the past four years I have seen a trend with more and more campers and over half of them full timers it’s great that people are getting out camping for us people that don’t have that luxury of just going for weeks or months on end it is getting harder and harder to find campsites when everybody comes up from Florida in the nice weather that we only have a short time up in the northern states I enjoy your channel and get a lot of entertainment and good tips from you you just need to remember when you come up to the northern states the campgrounds are smaller a lot of them do not have 50 A but I do see a trend of Camp Grounds expanding to make more sites with more amenities I hope you in joy your time down there and have safe travels
You might try this.we found out that make our move day on a Tuesday or a Wednesday. You have More camp sites that are open.an we call to Make reservations I have all the dates an We make sure we are checking in on a Tuesday or Wednesday. We never Had a problem. Be safe in your travels.
Thanks for the tip!!! We have noticed that it’s easier to move during the week. Our problem is work 🤦🏻♀️ We work 9-5, M-F so the weekend is usually our only free time to travel.
I liked this video because you revel 2 things: One is strategy for booking hard to book parks like Sunshine Key and Orlando. Two is that the best parks are very difficult to book in the peak season. When people have zone passes with 60 or 30 day windows it maybe difficult to impossible to book the popular parks but I guess you get what you pay for. I wonder how many Adventure passes that TT has sold? I had the zone pass years ago and while it was a good value we found it difficult to book the parks we wanted. The less popular parks can seem a little run down but TT has some good parks. It was a good value none the less.
We still experience times when we aren't able to book sites, so I'm assuming there are a number of Adventure pass holders now. Overall, we are happy with our TT membership. We just have to plan Florida in the winter as far in advance as possible.
Great tips! We have been full-time in Florida since April 1 of last year - only in the central Florida area, because of work - and found it fairly easy to book until we hit December reservations. Fortunately, we knew most of these tricks! I have been told that Thousand Trails goes by central time - so I stay up until 1 AM (EST) to make my online reservations. One question - are you actually able to get workable Internet at TTO? It’s the only place that we have routinely had problems. Doesn’t seem to matter what time of year, either. We have MiFi units with all of the major providers, and an Insty Connect antenna. When we were there a couple of weeks ago, they put us in what we have been told was the best area for Internet, gave us a site close to one of the Jabba antennas, and we even paid for one day of Jabba. I need Zoom to be able to teach, so must have at least three up and three down. We didn’t even get that with Jabba.
The first time we went to TTO, we were able to get the AT&T internet to work but we were on the first road by the gate. Since then, nothing worked. We heard that only T-Mobile works so we went with the plan through FMCA and got the T-Mobile box for $50/month. It was enough for both of us to work off of. I hear Starlink is doing great in TTO (For now).
@@1StrangeAdventure - we’re actually back at TTO now! Arrived last Friday, and have a spot in the new section. T-Mobile 5G Home Internet has been amazing, and Starlink is also good.
Your secrets are why I just cancelled my TT membership after 8 years. I am just tired of their whole mess. Luckily, I am not full time and can afford normally priced RV resorts and can just skip TT and Encore. My DP is 45' and can't get into most Encore resorts.
for the 60 day reservation limitation... lets say 60 days out for the first night you want is on june 1st. so, you reserve june 1st to june 14th which is 2 weeks stay. can you then cancel the june 1st to june 7th and keep the june8th to june 14th? thus, extending the 60 day reservation limitation by a week? not sure if this makes sense. following that logic, then extend the june 8th to june 14th stay to 2 weeks? so now you have june 8th to june 14th plus june 15 to june 21nd reserved. kind of like leap frogging your own reservation i hear so much good and bad about thousand trails. just wondering how easy it is to game the system. thanks for your vids!
You can leap frog the reservations but you have to wait till the 60 day window is available to your next “first” day. Example would be, If I booked today, I could book July 21st - Aug. 3rd. If I really wanted July 31st - Aug. 13th, I would keep moving the reservation back a day at a time until I got the days I am really looking for.
Great video! My husband is retiring in December, and we are going to buy a TT membership. Question: we are going to change our mailing address to our daughter's house and I am wondering if she would be able to send us our important mail to the TT we are staying at, at the time? I know not all campground's and rv parks will accept mail for you.
Most Campgrounds will not allow regular mail but will allow packages. If she sends it with UPS, it should be fine. (We haven’t had any issues) We have been to two locations that wouldn’t allow Mail at all so if I know I need something sent, I call them and ask if it’s allowed. If not, I’ll get it sent to a different location. Hope this helps and Thanks for watching!
What are the chances to find camping in Florida around October? I might buy a camping pass and do the upgrade for the Trails collection if I can find camping during October since I will be driving from California. Thanks for the video.
We can usually find a place but you may have to call the campground and see if they can work you in. Sometimes that means moving sites if they let people hold specific sites. With thousand trails, you just have to keep trying. People change their reservations daily.
Hi. Could you tell me what is the difference between membership and a year long pass? If I upgrade to the thing that offers family campgrounds, does that make it a membership? If I bring my kids (which I will) do we have to stay at one of those that’s on the list as being family /destination? Or can we also stay at a regular one? Sorry so many questions. I’ve tried finding the answers but no luck. Thanks!
Great questions! If you have the camping pass, that only covers the campground in one of the zones. The membership covers the rest of the campgrounds across the country. Our sales specialist Sarah would happy to answer any questions you have. They offer a few different memberships and have different options. If you would like to chat with Sarah, fill out this form so she knows the best way to contact you 😊 forms.gle/5mitFnW7u5VEykqP8
Sorry to say we do with outdoor adventures in Michigan. We add an extra day so we can leave in the afternoon on Sunday instead of noon. Makes it so much more convenient. People also book days prior to a holiday for the Michigan state parks so they are guaranteed that spot for the holidays because you can book 6 months in advance. And then they cancel the days they don’t want. The DNR has caught on to this and now they charge for each canceled day but people do not seem to mind this as long as they get their campsite for the holidays
I don't think you actually have a Thousandtrails membership. All Thousandtrails members are 80+ years old, except me of course, but I'm the one exception.
Need to start enforcing speeding of golf Carts and E-BIKES!!! Also go after SEASONAL S with UNSIGHTLY SITES and NO FULL TIME SEASONAL RESIDENCE, before it becomes the HOOD.
