Feb 16 – 23, 2015 Fiesta Key Vs Curry Hammock … Commercial Campground vs Florida State Park Campground … Fiesta Key is owned by Encore Enterprises. They are in the business of making money. Any Florida State Park Campground is in the business of attracting tourists and promoting tourism. In a nutshell, both are in the business of bringing people to Florida to spend money.
Camping at Fiesta Key is what I call camping in a sardine can. They pack you in as tight as they can and it stinks (pick the photo). When space is limited businesses look for alternative means to make it attractive, such as view, marina, swimming pool, recreation hall etc. You live in a sardine can, but there’s lots to do outside it. Florida State Parks use nature. A lot less expensive to maintain and much more attractive. My perspective is people respect nature much more than property. Hence you have a more conscientious “neighborhood” in a State Park vs Commercial Property.
Last year when we traded in our RV, we received a one year membership to Encore/Thousand Trails, that offers us discounts at their properties. We were able to get an electric and water site at Fiesta Key for $44 a night (for four nights). Other campers paid any where from $20 to $120 plus a night. Commercial properties can offer all kinds of discounts, promotions and specials. It can get pretty frustrating when your parked next to someone that is paying half of what you are paying or making you feel like you got a real “deal” when the person next to you is paying a lot more than you. This just doesn’t seem right to me, but go figure.
Did we enjoy our stay at Fiesta Key? Yes, we had a very nice time. Are we looking forward to staying at Curry Hammock? Yes, very much! Variety is the spice of life!!
David had gone on line diligently, trying to get us a reservation in a Florida State Park in the Keys, for two nights that we were here where we had no reservation. We were both thrilled when just a couple of days ago, procured a site at Curry Hammock.
When we arrived at Curry Hammock they had no record of our reservation. What a disappointment. The short story, it was a credit card screw up, “fraud alert”, they did not process our payment. The reservation was dropped. The Ranger was awesome and put us in “overflow”, parking lot camping. What could we do? We were happy to get that.
We were frantically trying to figure out an alternative for the next night. Only some Florida State Parks offer overflow camping. Those that do, only permit a camper to stay one night in a 6 month period. A park volunteer comes over and tells us the Ranger would like to see us. We go to the ranger station and she tells us that they had a 14 day reservation cancel. Would we like any or all of that reservation. To make a long story short, we cancelled our reservations at our next Keys campground, another sardine can and are here for nine nights (see Photo). It is so beautiful, we would gladly have stayed the full 14 days, but we have reservations heading north.
We spent most of the day “moving” and didn’t get a chance to explore much more than the beach. Tomorrow morning we are signed up for a Nature Walk with a Ranger. Hopefully the wind will calm in the afternoon and we’ll get in some kayaking.
Another “exciting” day in paradise!
