holstein13 wrote: To the OP, I feel your pain. I only have two children, but I remember vividly the first time we had to buy them seats on an airplane and how it doubled our cost of flying.
Well this added nothing to the conversation. It's not funny and the comparison is way off.
My point is that families are getting squeezed harder and harder these days and I sympathize with the OP. Both my mother and father had 10 other siblings during a time when children were an economic benefit. Today, they are an economic burden on parents. The reality is that we need productive children to pay for our retirements.
Maybe the airline example isn't the best one, but can you honestly say that all 10 pages of comments added to the discussion? I'm not sure what your comment added to the conversation. It wasn't funny either.
dtzackus wrote: The fairest thing to do I think is to charge by the length of the camper....
Only if you are charging more for smaller rigs. The biggest consumer of services, by far, are popup campers. People often heat and air condition them and since they are fabric sided with screens for windows, they are not insulated at all. They also do not have showers and restrooms, so the park's facilities are used including soap, paper towels, toilet paper etc. which are items self contained big rigs provide themselves. Again, it is not all about costs. If the only thing I could charge was what it cost me in expenses, I wouldn't be in business. Businesses price to make money. Go to a restaurant and you will pay a premium over the cost of the food. Even if you order the most expensive item on the menu, they will still charge you more for the Iced tea than it cost. What you charge for a base rate on the site has nothing to do with how much you can/should/will charge for anything else.
I always saw these policies as a bit of common sense.
The owner, who has every right to, has decided that to prevent some guests from attempting to overload a site, they have set a maximum number of guests that are included in the base rate. The rates create the position that at a given number of guests, it is no longer cheaper to have one really full site instead of two.
This is really not much different than a restaurant stating that they will automatically add the gratuity for parties over 6 or 8 guests. You could argue that there is not much difference between serving two tables of 4 and one table of eight. In the owner's eyes there is a greater cost or risk for that larger party.
Me, DW, Five Crazy Felines, One RB Angel
2011 Ford F350 SD, PSD 6.7, SRW, CC
2011 Komfort 3230FRK
holstein13 wrote: To the OP, I feel your pain. I only have two children, but I remember vividly the first time we had to buy them seats on an airplane and how it doubled our cost of flying.
Well this added nothing to the conversation. It's not funny and the comparison is way off.
My point is that families are getting squeezed harder and harder these days and I sympathize with the OP. Both my mother and father had 10 other siblings during a time when children were an economic benefit. Today, they are an economic burden on parents. The reality is that we need productive children to pay for our retirements.
Maybe the airline example isn't the best one, but can you honestly say that all 10 pages of comments added to the discussion? I'm not sure what your comment added to the conversation. It wasn't funny either.
What changes have been made in the income tax code between the generations in question for that amt of dependents? Or are you referring to the cost of living which still hasn't changed that much when you factor in the real cost of dollars over the span of say 20-50 years?
holstein13 wrote: To the OP, I feel your pain. I only have two children, but I remember vividly the first time we had to buy them seats on an airplane and how it doubled our cost of flying.
Well this added nothing to the conversation. It's not funny and the comparison is way off.
I disagree...it did add something! It added HIS OPINION and it is just as valad as yours or mine
holstein13 wrote: To the OP, I feel your pain. I only have two children, but I remember vividly the first time we had to buy them seats on an airplane and how it doubled our cost of flying.
Well this added nothing to the conversation. It's not funny and the comparison is way off.
My point is that families are getting squeezed harder and harder these days and I sympathize with the OP. Both my mother and father had 10 other siblings during a time when children were an economic benefit. Today, they are an economic burden on parents. The reality is that we need productive children to pay for our retirements.
Maybe the airline example isn't the best one, but can you honestly say that all 10 pages of comments added to the discussion? I'm not sure what your comment added to the conversation. It wasn't funny either.
What changes have been made in the income tax code between the generations in question for that amt of dependents? Or are you referring to the cost of living which still hasn't changed that much when you factor in the real cost of dollars over the span of say 20-50 years?
It's not the income tax code or cost of living. In the old days children were helpers and the more the better. Not so today.
Economically speaking, kids used to be assets now they are liabilities.
jeffcarp wrote: That airline analogy would make sense if there were only 5 entities that controlled all of the campgrounds in the US, like there are only 5 legacy mainline air carriers. EVEN with 5 legacy mainline carriers you still have one, Southwest, who has bucked the fee trend as a competitive strategy.
There are somewhere around 7000+ private campgrounds in the US. Even if thousands of them decided to collude and create identical pricing structures, how many of the remaining thousands are going to do something counter to that as a competitive strategy?
Then of course you have the many thousand public campgrounds that could be utilized if people wanted to avoid the private campgrounds all together in protest.
The free market will sort this out.
Agreed. I have a family of 6 and most of the private campgrounds around me are based on a family of 4 with additional charges for each person over the age of three. I don't like paying those extra fees, which can almost double the price, so we don't do business with them. The free market (capitalism) is the fairest way. We vote with our dollars. If enough people think a business' practices are unfair, that business is forced to change its practices or suffer the consequences (hopefully without a government / taxpayer bailout).
I always asked this question myself--especially at the campground that "cater to kids" Who do they think is pumping all the dollars into their game room games, and eating all the ice cream and candybars in the campground store?
IMHO, tnhey should give you a DISCOUNT for bringing extra kids!
Now how's that for the view from the other side?
Alaska is next! Still trying to fit the pontoons to the RV so We can get to Hawaii!
WyoTraveler wrote: We have a dog and I don't mind paying more at an RV park for the dog. In many motels I pay more for the dog also.
I don't mind paying the extra because I have been and still am in a business of my own. People that buy from you or people that rent from you don't realize all the expenses. They just see the product sitting there and wonder why you charge so much. People come out and buy hay from me and they don't realize that the $100,000 tractor has to be amortized into every bale of hay, and the fuel that goes into all that equipment also gets amortized, also the fertilizer that goes on the crop. If you can't make a profit you can't stay in business. I also realize you have to be competitive with others that are in the same business.
Do you charge folks with kids or dogs more for the bale of hay.
IMO the CG's are just taking an opportunity to wwring more out of a person. This business of I pay more at a hotel or motel doesn't wash....because at a CG I ambringing my own room.
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