Motorhome Q&A: Are Campsite Check-In Times Fair?

First of all then, in this one, Daryl Carter is in Chichester.

Um, having to be a newbie on motorhoming, I went to Durdle Door this weekend for probably one of my first major trips to a campsite.

Wasn't allowed access till 2:00, although everybody else was kicked off at 11 in the morning.

Tried to work out in my head why this is, because it's not like a hotel where they've gotta make beds or clean a bathroom, and the only thing I could come up with was the fact that arriving at 2:00 means you're not really set up on your pitch till probably after 3:00, and then you can't really do the activity you want to do in that area.

So the next day will be the activity that you planned to do, which then means you have to stay a second night.

You talk about the industry innovating and changing, and I believe that this is, unless you can tell me different, a bit of a scam where people are made to stay two nights rather than one.

But the upshot from my early days would be that I would now find a local car park, pay the day rate, go and do my activity wherever that is, and then toot off to find somewhere to wild camp that night, you know, a lay-by or park up somewhere, or even go for a pub stop and get a nice meal.

So I really think campsites should be looking at whether they change their arrival times.

You know, everybody leaves by 11:00, and you can arrive by 11:30.

Thanks in advance, and I hope you can, uh, shed some light on this.

And again, it's Daryl from Chichester.

Thank you.

you.Cheers, Daryl.

Much, uh, obliged for the questions.

Scam's a bit of a strong word.

I was gonna say, there's a bit of assertive language going on there.

Um, I certainly don't think this is a scam, uh, but I understand your frustration.

I asked two Motorhome Matt approved campsites for their comment.

The first was Jules at Petruth Paddocks in Cheddar who responded by saying...

He absolutely has a point, and this is the practice with most of the more formal sites.

Currently, our departure time for powered pitches is noon, and our arrival time is 2:00 PM.

The reason for this has been the time needed to reset and add credit to each of our 80 hookups.

We are happy for all of our guests to arrive early, park in our visitors' car park, complete their activity, and check in later, and we have deliberately retained our large parking area for this purpose.

However, many sites have turned these into pitches to increase revenue and therefore restrict arrival.

He says, "Hope that helps." And John Marshall at Riverside Caravan Park in High Bentham commented, "We need to time manage mowing the grass and landscaping the pitches, then time to clean the toilet block, give staff a lunch break, and we try to space out the arrival of guests so everything doesn't happen at once.