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Park Wifi listings


GVJeeper

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I continue to wonder why no one has set up a website in a forum format (by state, city, park) where people can log their wifi experience at the park they are staying at (where they parked in the park, bad at night, etc.). Does anyone know of such a site that we can all access to check out what a parks wifi is REALLY like? This kind of publicity might gets some parks to start updating their systems. Any comments?

Full-timer with my 2 cats FlipperDoodle & Buster

Originally from Northern Calif. (native)

2013 - 35 ft. Rockwood TT

GMC 2500HD Crew Cab

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I would like to see a little more specific info like the location in the park can make a big difference: where you close to the office, near an antenna, way out?

Full-timer with my 2 cats FlipperDoodle & Buster

Originally from Northern Calif. (native)

2013 - 35 ft. Rockwood TT

GMC 2500HD Crew Cab

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While we were redesigning the RVParkReviews.com website we discussed this issue. The problem is that most people would have no objective way of measuring wifi performance and it typically varies by time of day and the occupancy percentage of the park and often by site location. Furthermore, how the wifi performs depends on what use you're trying to make of it; are you just reading Facebook posts or are you streaming video? It makes a big difference.

 

The bottom line we could think of no simple way define a box you could check or fill in that would adequately describe how well a park's wifi works (or doesn't). We've left it to reviewers to note that in their reviews.

Sandie & Joel

2000 40' Beaver Patriot Thunder Princeton--425 HP/1550 ft-lbs CAT C-12
2014 Honda CR-V AWD EX-L with ReadyBrute tow bar/brake system
WiFiRanger Ambassador
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Plus, what the WiFi is like today may be totally different next month if the park switches providers or someone moves in and decides to stream 24/7. If it is important to you then set up your own internet connections and don't depend upon the park.

 

Barb

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Plus, what the WiFi is like today may be totally different next month if the park switches providers or someone moves in and decides to stream 24/7. If it is important to you then set up your own internet connections and don't depend upon the park.

 

Barb

 

Barb,

 

The latter is what we've finally done. Our Verizon mifi is tethered to our WFR, with enough GB to do anything we need to do. With the new WFR load balancing we can hook to our mifi and to the park wifi. Where we are right now there is no wifi, except for additional $$$ service, so we're using just our own wifi.

Trish & Raquel

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"Road Runner" -- 2005 Volvo VNL780, 500hp Cummins ISX, Ultra-Shift, ET-Hitch, 198" wb

"Wile E." -- 2013 Heartland Landmark San Antonio

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Rvparkreviews.com is the best site I know for comprehensive reviews ...but I have been banned from a park in Montgomery, Alabama that we stayed in annually for many years because in spite of consistent 8 out of 10 ratings in reviews, I also consistently criticized the non-working wifi. The owner figured out who I was from the visit dates ...some people just can't deal with the truth.

Paul (KE5LXU), former fulltimer, now sometimer...

'03 Winnebago Ultimate Advantage 40E

'05 Honda Odyssey

Escapees, FMCA, WIT, SMART

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I know that the folks at TechnoRV.com were starting to put together a list of parks with great WiFi, but haven't head anything on it in months.

 

We typically leave a comment in our RV park reviews we leave.. it is such a subjective topic however. What works well for e-mail and banking, might not work well for someone working on the road who needs to get an OS update or handle larger files. For us, we just bring our own via AT&T and Verizon cellular anyway.

 

Did notice that Campendium.com (a new RV Park Review site), is tracking cellular signal received at the camp location - which is kinda cool.

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Thanks for the new link, Techno. I know that it's all subjective but I just wish the comments left re: wifi were detailed enough to give more info than a yes or a no. I try to add where I was in the park, if it was better at certain times of day, was the park full or empty, etc.. I call parks that actually get a little pissy when I ask for them to be honest about their wifi....the ones that don't like the "honestly" usually have terrible wifi and don't want to answer that. But I've also had parks say it was great and turned out terrible. I figure the more info on the park's wifi the better. Maybe they will start realizing that they need to keep up with us RVers.

Full-timer with my 2 cats FlipperDoodle & Buster

Originally from Northern Calif. (native)

2013 - 35 ft. Rockwood TT

GMC 2500HD Crew Cab

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We pretty consistently stay at the same parks when we head south from upstate NY in January. Most have a pretty decent WiFi signal at that time, but the parks are pretty much deserted until we reach at least SC. On our other stays in the spring and summer, the same parks are much more fully populated and the WiFi is usually pretty poor, at least in the prime time hours. I'm not sure how a consistent rating system could be accomplished, when the service at each park is rarely consistent over time.

Dutch
2001 GBM Landau 34' Class A
F-53 Chassis, Triton V10, TST TPMS
2011 Toyota RAV4 4WD/Remco pump
ReadyBrute Elite tow bar/brake system

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Rvparkreviews.com is the best site I know for comprehensive reviews ...but I have been banned from a park in Montgomery, Alabama that we stayed in annually for many years because in spite of consistent 8 out of 10 ratings in reviews, I also consistently criticized the non-working wifi. The owner figured out who I was from the visit dates ...some people just can't deal with the truth.

Rvparkreviews should take notice of this. Honest reviews are important to RVers and I, at least, would like to know if an RV park has taken revenge on an RVer for a review they disagreed with. I'd cheerfully pass that RV park by with a wave of the fin.... er, hand.

 

WDR

1993 Foretravel U225 with Pacbrake and 5.9 Cummins with Banks

1999 Jeep Wrangler, 4" lift and 33" tires

Raspberry Pi Coach Computer

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There is no real useful way for this to be done. As discussed above.

 

About the best you could do would be to specify the backhaul speed, the number of APs in the park, and the number of sites. Then people could make a judgement of sorts.

 

For example - for the park we are in for the summer (I installed and run the network): 100mbps fiber backhaul. 135 sites. 7 Access Points. Video streaming is blocked, although I've permitted YouTube through.

 

Make your own judgements about how good the wifi is there. And I'd bet you would be wrong - at some point.

Jack & Danielle Mayer #60376 Lifetime Member
Living on the road since 2000

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Rvparkreviews should take notice of this. Honest reviews are important to RVers and I, at least, would like to know if an RV park has taken revenge on an RVer for a review they disagreed with. I'd cheerfully pass that RV park by with a wave of the fin.... er, hand.

 

WDR

 

RVParkReviews doesn't have a mechanism for "taking notice of this" unless a person submits a review that states something to the effect that "I wasn't permitted to stay in this park because I had written negative reviews of it." It's not as if RVPR is a "police force" that provides its own reports on RV parks. There's no way we're going to change a park's reviews because we hear second hand that someone says he had something like this happen.

Sandie & Joel

2000 40' Beaver Patriot Thunder Princeton--425 HP/1550 ft-lbs CAT C-12
2014 Honda CR-V AWD EX-L with ReadyBrute tow bar/brake system
WiFiRanger Ambassador
Follow our adventures on Facebook at Weiss Travels

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Changing the park reviews isn't the issue I see here, providing the campground owner with enough information to identify the person doing the review is something that is worrying.

First rule of computer consulting:

Sell a customer a Linux computer and you'll eat for a day.

Sell a customer a Windows computer and you'll eat for a lifetime.

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Changing the park reviews isn't the issue I see here, providing the campground owner with enough information to identify the person doing the review is something that is worrying.

Since RVP Park Reviews now requires a screen name, it may be really easy if someone uses their real name. Even if not and they use the same screen name in numerous places searching may reveal links to blogs, web pages, email address or other information that will provide enough information to reveal a persons identity.

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Since RVP Park Reviews now requires a screen name, it may be really easy if someone uses their real name. Even if not and they use the same screen name in numerous places searching may reveal links to blogs, web pages, email address or other information that will provide enough information to reveal a persons identity.

 

 

RV Park Reviews does permit users to have anonymous accounts on request. The accounts will have names such as AnonymousXX where XX is an arbitrary number. But IMHO there's no real difference between an account called AnonymousXX and the username "made up name for RV Park Reviews". Unless you are absolutely wedded to having the same username on all your social media sites, there's really nothing that would cause your identity to be disclosed.

Sandie & Joel

2000 40' Beaver Patriot Thunder Princeton--425 HP/1550 ft-lbs CAT C-12
2014 Honda CR-V AWD EX-L with ReadyBrute tow bar/brake system
WiFiRanger Ambassador
Follow our adventures on Facebook at Weiss Travels

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RVParkReviews doesn't have a mechanism for "taking notice of this" unless a person submits a review that states something to the effect that "I wasn't permitted to stay in this park because I had written negative reviews of it." It's not as if RVPR is a "police force" that provides its own reports on RV parks. There's no way we're going to change a park's reviews because we hear second hand that someone says he had something like this happen.

You just read a post about it. I would have considered that "taking notice". Apparently not you.

 

Oh... I had to edit this and add another comment. EVERYTHING about a review is "subjective" and you seem to have no issues with putting down "second hand" comments about everything else. The action by an RV park taking revenge on a reviewer seems to me to be an attack against your website as much as against that reviewer. If a park that is in a position to be the only RV park in an area that is popular then they have a great deal of influence on RVers who feel that they must stay there regardless of conditions or attitude and then YOU get inaccurate reviews.

 

Second edit: How difficult would it be to add an editorial comment to a park's listing: "Reports of reviewers being banned or otherwise intimidated after a review have been received by us." That might make park (or, more likely, managers) think twice.

 

WDR

1993 Foretravel U225 with Pacbrake and 5.9 Cummins with Banks

1999 Jeep Wrangler, 4" lift and 33" tires

Raspberry Pi Coach Computer

Ham Radio

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You just read a post about it. I would have considered that "taking notice". Apparently not you.

 

Oh... I had to edit this and add another comment. EVERYTHING about a review is "subjective" and you seem to have no issues with putting down "second hand" comments about everything else. The action by an RV park taking revenge on a reviewer seems to me to be an attack against your website as much as against that reviewer. If a park that is in a position to be the only RV park in an area that is popular then they have a great deal of influence on RVers who feel that they must stay there regardless of conditions or attitude and then YOU get inaccurate reviews.

 

Second edit: How difficult would it be to add an editorial comment to a park's listing: "Reports of reviewers being banned or otherwise intimidated after a review have been received by us." That might make park (or, more likely, managers) think twice.

 

WDR

 

RVParkReviews relies on members to submit information which is subsequently posted to the site. Site administrators do not have the authority to edit submitted reviews other than to correct grammatical and spelling errors. It would be totally against policy for admins to insert negative information about a park that we happened to see on another site written by someone whose real identity we don't even know. What about all the "favorable" information that we might fail to see?

 

Not only would it violate RVPR policy, it would also expose the site to potential libel issues. Legal precedent as applied to social media posts is that the entity posting a person's comments (Escapees in the case of this forum) cannot be sued for libel if all it does is post statements written by others without editorial change. If a site begins to edit those posts and, in fact, becomes the originator of opinions it loses that protection.

Sandie & Joel

2000 40' Beaver Patriot Thunder Princeton--425 HP/1550 ft-lbs CAT C-12
2014 Honda CR-V AWD EX-L with ReadyBrute tow bar/brake system
WiFiRanger Ambassador
Follow our adventures on Facebook at Weiss Travels

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Yes, I realize that you cannot edit reviews. And also that nothing will stop litigation; just the threat of litigation is often enough. Yelp has had lawsuits over hiding bad reviews and lawsuits over publishing bad reviews. Yelp reviewers have been sued for giving a bad review. Yelp has been sued for hiding reviewer's identities. The entire process is fraught with danger by attorneys activally soliciting business for a "bad review" via Google ads. "Defamed by a Review? - Investigation and Attorney Teams"

 

All of this is an active attempt to stifle the reviewing process.

 

But if you read a report by someone who says they were banned for posting their honest review then I would expect you to at least contact that person and investigate it. If you ignore it completely - and tell me you ignore it completely - then I'm less motivated to give any review at all or water down bad reviews. And it - at least for me - lowers the credibility of all reviews.

 

As far as the WiFi issue is concerned, why not two boxes... one for + and one for - ... for the attributes. If the power is bad, the sewer connection overflows, the WiFi doesn't work, etc.

 

WDR

1993 Foretravel U225 with Pacbrake and 5.9 Cummins with Banks

1999 Jeep Wrangler, 4" lift and 33" tires

Raspberry Pi Coach Computer

Ham Radio

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I'm guessing that there might have been more information included in the review that identified the reviewer to the park than just knowing the month and year that the reviewer stayed there. Unless it's a park with very little turnover...

Dutch
2001 GBM Landau 34' Class A
F-53 Chassis, Triton V10, TST TPMS
2011 Toyota RAV4 4WD/Remco pump
ReadyBrute Elite tow bar/brake system

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I am glad to know that RVParkReviews is making so much money that it can have a large staff to investigate every issue that comes in. Oh, it is not making that kind of money and has a small staff? Never mind.

2004 40' Newmar Dutch Star DP towing an AWD 2020 Ford Escape Hybrid, Fulltimer July 2003 to October 2018, Parttimer now.
Travels through much of 2013 - http://www.sacnoth.com - Bill, Diane and Evita (the cat)
 

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I am glad to know that RVParkReviews is making so much money that it can have a large staff to investigate every issue that comes in. Oh, it is not making that kind of money and has a small staff? Never mind.

 

Yes, of course. Responding to this post (below) in this thread by PM would be way too much work and would require an entire staff of people. Far better to just ignore it.

 

Rvparkreviews.com is the best site I know for comprehensive reviews ...but I have been banned from a park in Montgomery, Alabama that we stayed in annually for many years because in spite of consistent 8 out of 10 ratings in reviews, I also consistently criticized the non-working wifi. The owner figured out who I was from the visit dates ...some people just can't deal with the truth.

 

WDR

1993 Foretravel U225 with Pacbrake and 5.9 Cummins with Banks

1999 Jeep Wrangler, 4" lift and 33" tires

Raspberry Pi Coach Computer

Ham Radio

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I am glad to know that RVParkReviews is making so much money that it can have a large staff to investigate every issue that comes in. Oh, it is not making that kind of money and has a small staff? Never mind.

It took me (and my staff... but the cat refused to help much... or get out of my lap) about 5 minutes to discover the review that might be the one that got AFChap banned from the unnamed (but which bears an incorrectly spelled name) park in Montgomery, AL. AFChap is a prolific reviewer and even though he clearly calls 'em as he sees 'em he's not a jerk about it.

 

"Above rate reflects one month at monthly rate of $410, and 2 weeks at weekly rate of $130. We have stayed here many times. Clean, neat, level gravel sites. Wi-Fi is poor/rarely works for long, very picky about car parking and direction of travel on the very wide streets. Getting more picky about pets, I would to walk my dog through the park while I get some exercise: not allowed. Our Surge Guard trips power occasionally due to transient over/under voltage most likely due to a bad common on their electrical system but they blame the power company. Good place to stay If you use a GOOD SURGE GUARD and a GOOD WATER PRESSURE REGULATOR."

 

Seems to me to be a pretty decent review. The good and the bad. Information that I'd want (especially if I did not have an EMS or a surge guard or a good water pressure regulator). Far better than, "Nice park. No noise" that we see pretty often. And I'd certainly want to know that, despite the "pets allowed" check mark, the park doesn't allow me to walk one in the park.

 

This was December or 2010 and no further reviews from AFChap of this RV park were posted which makes me suspect that this review (or the cumulative annoyance to the owner/manager of the park by this and other reviews) precipitated the ban.

 

I don't know... maybe I'm the only one who is chafed at the idea that AFChap is doing what RV Park Reviews presumably wants (e.g.: posting honest but not whiney or downright nasty reviews) and is being retaliated against by a park that would rather not have his business than fix the issues he speaks to; and no one really seems to care. It's not like he gives them a bad rating (always between 8 and 9). Pretty despicable, in my opinion.

 

At any rate, I now know the park that did it and it will be cold day in hell when I pull in there. Even if they change the name so it's spelled correctly.

 

WDR

 

PS: From recent reviews, it looks like they fixed the WiFi and water issues. But still have a lot of rules.

1993 Foretravel U225 with Pacbrake and 5.9 Cummins with Banks

1999 Jeep Wrangler, 4" lift and 33" tires

Raspberry Pi Coach Computer

Ham Radio

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But how do you KNOW that it was specifically the review that may have led to the alleged banishment? Not casting aspersion here, but hypothetically how do we know that he didn't pick up after his dog and that was why he was banned and not the review? Do you really think the Park is going to say, "yes, we banished him just because he posted a review we didn't like"? And how would RVPR ever get to to the true truth in a "he said, she said" where the various truths are in the eyes of the beholders? Maybe you will sign on as a volunteer for them to ferret out these contested injustices?

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