Disgruntled, Just move!

We have moved on to Daytona Beach for an as yet to be determined amount of time. We had debated staying at the Mayport Naval Station campground longer, as it is a great location on the river and Atlantic. In the end, we decided that we would move on as we were not very happy with the way the campground was operated. We have had issues with this on past visits and have read other folks concerns as well, including the write up on a military campground site.

As background, these campgrounds are funded under a morale and welfare program to support active and retired military for recreation purposes. We have visited many such campgrounds all across the country and this is certainly one of the great locations, but one of the worst managed. This campground appears to be managed not for the use of the designed clientele, but rather for the benefit of the staff which includes somewhere around 12 plus “workcampers” which can stay for up to six months or more. That represents over 20 percent of the sites that are supposed to be available for the intended users.

While we had little problems ourselves, there are many customers who seem to be really afraid of the staff, who patrol the grounds enforcing rules that do not apply to them. In that regard, they are a bit like members of Congress. In short, we decided to leave. It is always a pity when those who present themselves as part of a service organization, are really only supporting themselves instead of the customers. Finally, I should note that this is not unique to the military system, as we belong to a national membership park organization and here again many of the parks are consumed with serving those who work in the parks over the customers. This membership organization is hanging on by its fingernails, at least in part, because of the lack of support for their actions by the paying customers.

We are now located in a commercial park, International RV park, which is very nice and happy to accommodate the needs of its customers. Ironically, with passport America is only 18 dollars a night for the length of our stay.

Since I had no pictures to go with this entry, I have decided to include some pictures I have been looking at from some family sailing vacations in Greece in the late 1990’s, while stationed overseas.