Campsite reservation system bogged down with bookings

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 12/04/2021 (1660 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Manitoba campers rose before dawn on Monday — and it is still weeks before they’ll even pitch a tent.

Thousands of Manitobans were busy online trying to corner a campsite in a provincial park during the final round of online booking for summer camping reservations.

Loren Remillard, president and CEO of the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce, was able to snag campsites for his family and two other families to join them — but he still wasn’t a happy camper.

“I truly despise Manitoba Parks reservation system,” said Remillard on social media at about 8 a.m.

A few hours later, Remillard still wasn’t happy.

“We were up at 6 a.m., getting five computers ready and coordinating with two cell phones,” he said. “The amount of work we have to do ahead of time with friends to plan, where to go, what weekend, is amazing — we have a binder now.”

When one computer did finally connect to the provincial website, they were somewhere between 3,000 to 3,100 back in line.

“I recognize no system is perfect,” he said. “I’m sure every jurisdiction probably has complaints. But even before COVID there have been complaints for many years.

“I’ve heard people say I had to take half a day off work to reserve a campsite. That is problematic … the government should take the concerns and say the experience is not a good experience so our system needs changing.”

Eric Reder, of the Wilderness Committee, said Manitobans should send complaints to the provincial government.

“It’s not just the reservations,” said Reder. “We need more staff. We need more parks.”

Reder said while Manitoba’s population has grown, successive provincial governments have cut park budgets.

“We saw how busy it was last summer,” he said. “We knew back in October this would happen again.”

A provincial government spokesman said the problem with the reservation system continues to be the sheer volume of digital devices trying to log in at the same time.

“This is the final group of campgrounds that have opened for booking and once again we are seeing a large volume of people logging in and trying to book,” said the spokesman, noting that on the first two opening days this year more than 135,000 ‘nights’ were booked.

By 12:30 p.m on Monday, five and a half hours after the reservation site opened, 16,569 people had reserved campsites, up from 12,749 during the same time period last year.

Last week, people took to social media complaining when reservations opened for campsites in the Whiteshell Provincial Park, as well as Winnipeg Beach and Birds Hill provincial parks and people faced long lines and experienced reservation system technical problems.

Manitoba has 4,051 campsites available for reservations across 46 campgrounds as well as additional sites that can be booked in person at campgrounds that aren’t part of the Parks Reservation System. As well, Manitoba Parks has 75 yurts in 10 campgrounds, 34 cabins in two campgrounds, and 91 group-use sites.

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca