PLEASE NOTE…Since this happened to us in December and we released the corresponding video, we have been alerted and have confirmed that the front page of Margaritaville RV Resort at Lake Lanier’s website now states, “Please note, at this time; we do not accept pop-ups or truck-campers.” We appreciate this clarity and hope that more RV Resorts that do not allow certain camper types will follow suit and clearly communicate these stipulations on their websites and their booking engines. Thank you Margaritaville RV Resort at Lake Lanier for clarifying. We only hope that we had a hand in this change but even if we didn’t we’re glad that it is more visible on their website now.
When you hear Jimmy Buffett, what do you think about? Hmmmm, let ‘s see…
- The Keys? Definitely
- Margaritas? yes
- Flip Flops? yep
- Hippies? Sure
- Pirates? Yep
- Sharks? Maybe
- Parrotheads? Of course
- Weed? Well that goes without saying
The list goes on and on but we’re not really here to talk about Jimmy Buffett, well maybe we are. What do you think about when you hear the word Truck Camper?
- The Keys?
- Freedom?
- Hippies?
- Freedom to camp anywhere?
- Margaritas?
- Pirates? Okay maybe not pirates, but you get the drift
And in some ways people who own truck campers could be considered pirates of sorts. There are some similarities and with Jimmy’s values from all of his years as a starving musician, a salty sailor and a pirate, you could probably imagine him in a truck camper, right? Okay, well here’s where this is going….. last July we bought our first truck camper and sold our Bigfoot travel trailer. After looking at tons of Truck Camper Magazine articles, websites and YouTube channels about Truck Camper owners and all of the information out there, visions of the freedom of the open road with our boat or 4-wheeler
danced through our heads. We were excited to hit the road on our free weekends in our Northern Lite Truck camper, thinking that it would allow so much more freedom than a travel trailer…….. WRONG, during our annual Christmas Camping trip, which would have been the 2nd trip in our Truck camper, those visions were abruptly screeched to a grinding halt as we pulled into Margaritaville RV Resort at Lake Lanier Islands.
We were going to arrive late that day and we let the campground know, they kindly acknowledged it would be fine, to just come to the office when we arrived. As we pulled up around 5:30pm, just before dark on Friday, December 6th, I went to check in and when I did, a lady (I know her name now but won’t say it here) pulled up on a golf cart, ran in the office and proceeded to tell me that, “TRUCK CAMPERS ARE NOT ALLOWED HERE.” You can only imagine how I felt at that very moment and it was not a good feeling. Not one time during the registration process prior to arriving do I recall anywhere the website said, “Truck Campers were not allowed there.” But, we weren’t allowed or even welcome there at all, the lady frantically started writing some stuff on a scratch piece of paper and mumbling about a super nice campground not far way that would allow us to stay there and we could even have a “premium waterfront site” for a discount since this happened, she just needed to make one quick phone call. It just so happened the premium waterfront site was at Shoal Creek Campground and while we only have great things to say about Shoal Creek campground, that isn’t what this is about.
Back to our story, disappointedly I turned and started to walk out of the office, then I suddenly remembered earlier in the year seeing an Earthroamer there, I even took a photo. I know, I know, a Northern Lite is not an Earthroamer but it is a pretty darn expensive camper and when you look at them side by side they look very similar. To think we weren’t allowed just pushed me over the edge. And as a last ditch effort, I turned around and said in my best pissed off voice, “this summer I saw an Earthroamer truck camper here and you guys allowed them to camp.” The lady in the office said, “you can’t take an Earthroamer off of the truck.” Well, I couldn’t argue with that but we were not given the option not to take our Northern Lite off of the truck. I stormed out and slammed the door, pissed and upset about the whole experience. After we arrived at the campground (after dark and we all know how fun setting up in the dark is) we found a site, got set up and settled in for the night. I had internet and against my better judgement I started to take to social media. The next morning I went back and decided to delete what little bit I had shared about the experience online because I really wanted to be the better person and give them a chance to redeem themselves, or whatever.
Here’s a link to the letter I wrote to Margaritaville RV Resort and Safe Harbor development: https://therunawayroses.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/12-2019-Safe-Harbor-Dev-Letter-about-Margaritaville_Redacted.pdf
Here’s the email response from Safe Harbor Development: https://therunawayroses.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Gmail-Response-from-Safe-Harbor-to-letter-to-Margaritaville-RV-Resort_Redacted1.pdf
I first wrote to the resort and when I didn’t get a response, I wrote to Safe Harbor Development. Safe Harbor manages and oversees the operations at the resort. To my surprise, Safe Harbor did respond in an email, it wasn’t the COO that I sent the letter to that responded but the Director of Business Development responded.
Their response sounded reasonable to us. After Todd and I worked the conference call into our schedules mainly busy because of work stuff, we were finally able to schedule a mutually convenient time for us and them. And, bonus, he was even going to get the COO on the phone to join us. Two days before we were going to have the call, he sent me an email that his the COO couldn’t be on the call but that he’d still be on. Just when we thought that we were going to get to get some answers about what happened to us at the resort, wahhhh, wahhh, wahhh, he cancels the call just 2 hours before we were supposed to talk with an email that he’d be glad to offer us something (like a boat rental) in return for our troubles, oh you mean rudely being turned away when we arrived at the campground to check in after a miscommunication that was clearly their fault, not ours? What if we had driven 500 miles only to find we weren’t allowed in.
While it was kind of him to offer the boat rental, we weren’t looking for monetary gain, we just wanted answers. I wanted to know that if someone else gets on their website to book a site that has a truck camper or one that isn’t allowed, they are very well aware that the camper they have will NOT be allowed to camp there. Well I won’t tell you what I think about them cancelling the call because it isn’t very nice.
From what I understand Jimmy Buffett is an investor for Margaritaville RV Resort at Lake Lanier Islands and managed by Safe Harbor Development. So, we contacted Jimmy Buffett and asked him, What would Jimmy Buffett do?……..nah just kidding…., but I would like to chat with him about this, I could tell him a thing or two about what I think about their guidelines. I’m sure he’s not even involved in managing it anyway, gone are those days where he would be directly involved in something like this.
As some of you may have seen, we posted a poll on Facebook to find out how many people have experienced being turned away because of your camper, year model, type or age. We found that only 16% of the 212 that participated said they had experienced being turned away. While this doesn’t seem like a ton, in my opinion, it’s shocking to find it happens at all.
So many people have pointed out that liability reasons could be the reasoning behind why we were not allowed to camp at Margaritaville RV Resort. That if someone took the truck camper off of the truck and left it raised up, it could topple over on someone, or much worse, a child. We totally agree that this could be dangerous but here’s the thing, why were we allowed to camp at Shoal Creek Campground (which is part of Margaritaville RV Resort at Lake Lanier) if it is a liability. Things that make you go hmmmm.
While these are things that should have been pointed out in our video, during recording we forgot to mention them, so we’re pointing them out here. Please make sure your camper, whatever camper you’ll be taking camping with you, is going to be allowed at the campground or RV Resort you’re going to. Call them and directly ask them if the type or year model will be allowed.
And, another thing, if you think this practice is wrong, even if you don’t have a truck camper, a pop-up camper or an camper older than 10 years old, if you can help it do not patronize the private campgrounds that do not allow campers based on type or age.
Again, we ask what would Jimmy Buffett do? Well, while we’re still not entirely sure about that but his camper would probably not be allowed there either based on their guidelines. I’m sure they’d make an exception.
If you’re interested and have not seen it yet, you can watch the video and our discussion about this topic using the YouTube link at the bottom of this blog post.
