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Foist
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PostSun Jul 07, 2019 9:08 pm 
Searching for campsite availability for specific dates seems to no longer work. This has been going on for at least a few months, maybe more. When you run the search, it simply lists every campground in the state, whether there are any available campsites or not, and you have to click "view details" and then another link to see if there are actually any available. There used to be a box to check "Available to book online" but it seems to have disappeared. Obviously I do not have the time to manually click through every effing campground in Washington to see if there are any available sites. Am I missing something? Have they hidden a feature somewhere?

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iron
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PostSun Jul 07, 2019 10:31 pm 
i used the site a week ago for the first time ever and had no problem reserving a site. using chrome on my laptop.

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Foist
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PostMon Jul 08, 2019 6:43 am 
It's not reserving that's the problem, it's searching. Were you able to narrow your search to campgrounds with availability on your dates? Or did you already know which campground you wanted?

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graffiti
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PostMon Jul 08, 2019 8:03 am 
Seems to be working fine for me. I would clear all of my browser info, restart the browser then try again.

And the meek shall inherit the Earth...um...if that's ok with you.
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Foist
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PostMon Jul 08, 2019 8:11 am 
But how do you narrow a search to only sites available to book? It's not a bug, the feature is just not there. Did you find it somewhere I'm not seeing it? If so, where?

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graffiti
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PostMon Jul 08, 2019 8:15 am 
I'm in a slow area for internet right now so going by memory but I went to the site, chose the dates I wanted, up popped campsites in my area that had spaces available, when I chose the site I wanted, the sites were shown. I imagine that if you choose a date that has nothing available, then nothing will show. I chose something mid-week.
Quote:
Another useless response
Great way to get people helping.

And the meek shall inherit the Earth...um...if that's ok with you.
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Foist
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PostMon Jul 08, 2019 8:18 am 
"Sort by availability" does not work, seemingly because it includes campgrounds with walkup sites as available.

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graffiti
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PostMon Jul 08, 2019 8:21 am 
I checked 4 random listings and yes, they all had spots available. But I searched for mid-week so I suppose it could be that almost all sites had something available.

And the meek shall inherit the Earth...um...if that's ok with you.
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schifferj
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PostMon Jul 08, 2019 9:11 am 
I just did a search for campgrounds washington state. When I did so a map of the entire state opened up on the right side and a list of campgrounds on the left side. I picked one at random for this post which happened to be Money Creek Campground which was close to where I wanted to be. I then clicked on "View Details" and voila - up popped "view by availability." When I opened that I found that all the reservable spots are booked up but there are a lot of walk ups available. That is pretty typical of everywhere in Washington State now. Everything is always booked. I didn't find the process to onerous. Hope this helps. JJS

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Puddles333
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PostMon Jul 08, 2019 9:22 am 
Thank you for bringing up this topic as I was beginning to think it was only me that was having this problem. Been using that site for nearly a decade to search and book sites, then suddenly this year I’m encountering this problem. It seems others above don’t understand the problem you’re describing. Yes, it shows campgrounds that are “available” and you can then click into each one. BUT, what it no longer does is allow you to search the area for ANY campground that has actual spots available for specific dates that can be booked online (like, when you just want to go somewhere, rather than a specific place). You still have to go into each campground secondary page to check true availability. The new system seems to recognize walk-up and ADA restricted sites as bookable online, rendering the online booking search features useless! BUT, even the walk up issue aside, I still get campgrounds listed in search results for dates that I check ‘bookable online’ and then sort by availability and I still get campgrounds returned in the results that don’t actuality have any sites available for the dates I picked!! So, don’t have any solution or work around for this, but I can confirm this is an issue with the new site, it’s not just you. And it’s extremely frustrating!!

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Foist
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PostMon Jul 08, 2019 9:34 am 
Thanks! Seems like people are starting to understand the problem. I wish they also had a solution but I'll take it! I've written to the website and they just gave a useless, boilerplate response: "If you have trouble making a reservation online, call us." I also researched and this new POS website is the product of a new, 10-contract with a new provider. So I guess we should get used to it! The new website is so terrible and useless, the government should be entitled to cancel the contract, but of course they won't because they don't care.

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Foist
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PostMon Jul 08, 2019 9:59 am 
Yeah exactly. But what makes this bizarre is that the website used to have that exact filter. In transferring it over to the new owner/provider, they eliminated it. So they went out of their way to make the website way less useful. So obnoxious and infuriating.

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Foist
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PostMon Jul 08, 2019 10:10 am 
And I have confirmed that the "Sort by Availability" feature does not work because it treats Walk-ups and Availables as both equally "available" for purposes of the sort. I did a search mid-week and some turned up toward the top of the results with none actually available, and others below that that were available. And after much clicking around, I DID find a needle in the haystack -- a campground with several sites available for the weekend I was searching for.

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kiliki
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PostMon Jul 08, 2019 11:46 am 
Foist wrote:
the government should be entitled to cancel the contract, but of course they won't because they don't care.
As someone that has worked in government for one of these big land management agencies for quite a while now I can assure you that government workers do know and do care, and that we are constantly plagued by contractors doing sh**ty work for way too much money, usually way more than you'd pay a government employee. But the forces of small government are too big and Congress loves using contractors (especially those that donate to their campaigns) instead of having government employees. I wish I had a suggestion for who might be a point person for recreation.gov but I don't.

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Foist
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PostMon Jul 08, 2019 12:07 pm 
Doppelganger wrote:
I think the 'reservable' variable might be the one we're looking for, adding &reservable=true to the end of the search results URL might act as the filter but I haven't looked through the A/W calendars closely enough to be sure. Messing around with https://ridb.recreation.gov/docs#/Attributes/getCampsiteAttributes
Hmm, didn't work for me. It just turned up the same list as before.

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