Camp Vent - Enforce your own rules!

[kristilew]

Every year when I drop DD off at camp, the bunks are already assigned by the counselors. Even down to which end the girls can put their heads at! Then, each weekend, they are moved around. (4 weeks of camp). It would never occur to DD to get to choose her bunk. I didn't realize so many camps allowed it until reading this thread!

OP . There's always some little thing that sticks in my mind to worry about after drop off. I think that's just how our parent brains work. I hope your little guy has a great week, regardless!

 

[RachelEllen]

Well, if anyone's interested, I did talk to the camp manager, as we wanted to give feedback about the situation. He was so nice and said this is a situation they've been dealing with for years and they find it extremely frustrating as well.

He told me no matter what they do, people will start "tailgating" (his words) by 9am in hopes of being first to check in. People will even go to the town on the other side of the lake, rent a boat, and get in via dock to skip the car line.

They do open the front gate, as camp behicles have to get in and out and they cannot have the long line on the highway. They have even (and I don't like this part, but what can I do) started processing cars (forms signed, temps checked, etc) before 2pm outside the gates to get things moving along) However, he said no car is allowed in the inner gate until 2pm. Kids do get out of the cars, and wait by the cabin, but he said the cabins remain locked until 2pm. He said that we likely arrived about 10 minutes after the inner gates opened, all the waiting, processed cars had pulled forward, and we were just waiting behind the dozen or so cars that still needed to be processed. By the time we got to the cabin 15 mintutes later, the kids had all rushed in.

They have tried different systems. Yes, I think that assigning bunks would be best. The manager said they had many parent complaints with that system (can't be on top bunk, has to be beside friend, etc), so they went back to the first come first pick.

What he said he would consider doing was being more explicit in the information packet about the "tradition" of arriving hours early. Ie state that bunks are assigned first come first serve and that anyone arriving hours early will have to wait and will not be assured their first choice bunk. And that the camp recommends that campers would do not care about their choice of bunk arrive 30 minutes to an hour after the start of check-in time.

Honestly, given this choice, there is no way we would have sat outside for 4 hours (with a toddler in the car as well!). But, I do like his thought about at least making the real situation more clear.

 

[NHdisneylover]

Well, if anyone's interested, I did talk to the camp manager, as we wanted to give feedback about the situation. He was so nice and said this is a situation they've been dealing with for years and they find it extremely frustrating as well.

He told me no matter what they do, people will start "tailgating" (his words) by 9am in hopes of being first to check in. People will even go to the town on the other side of the lake, rent a boat, and get in via dock to skip the car line.

They do open the front gate, as camp behicles have to get in and out and they cannot have the long line on the highway. They have even (and I don't like this part, but what can I do) started processing cars (forms signed, temps checked, etc) before 2pm outside the gates to get things moving along) However, he said no car is allowed in the inner gate until 2pm. Kids do get out of the cars, and wait by the cabin, but he said the cabins remain locked until 2pm. He said that we likely arrived about 10 minutes after the inner gates opened, all the waiting, processed cars had pulled forward, and we were just waiting behind the dozen or so cars that still needed to be processed. By the time we got to the cabin 15 mintutes later, the kids had all rushed in.

They have tried different systems. Yes, I think that assigning bunks would be best. The manager said they had many parent complaints with that system (can't be on top bunk, has to be beside friend, etc), so they went back to the first come first pick.

What he said he would consider doing was being more explicit in the information packet about the "tradition" of arriving hours early. Ie state that bunks are assigned first come first serve and that anyone arriving hours early will have to wait and will not be assured their first choice bunk. And that the camp recommends that campers would do not care about their choice of bunk arrive 30 minutes to an hour after the start of check-in time.

Honestly, given this choice, there is no way we would have sat outside for 4 hours (with a toddler in the car as well!). But, I do like his thought about at least making the real situation more clear.

Well, if he is looking for suggestions one in this thread was to allow kids to pick bunks based on when their registration was received from camp.

At the girl scout camp I worked at no one picked bunks until after dinner on the first night (when all the parents were long gone). All parents could do was help them drop their stuff of on the porch of the cabin. After dinner they all got a number in the cabin and numbers were drawn to decide who pciekd when and then they all set up and decorated. It was done mostly to encourage the GIRLS to make their beds, but their belonginsg away, etc (otherwise the moms always seemed to do this) but I think it would work in your situation as well.

 

[allison443]

Well, if anyone's interested, I did talk to the camp manager, as we wanted to give feedback about the situation. He was so nice and said this is a situation they've been dealing with for years and they find it extremely frustrating as well.

He told me no matter what they do, people will start "tailgating" (his words) by 9am in hopes of being first to check in. People will even go to the town on the other side of the lake, rent a boat, and get in via dock to skip the car line.

They do open the front gate, as camp behicles have to get in and out and they cannot have the long line on the highway. They have even (and I don't like this part, but what can I do) started processing cars (forms signed, temps checked, etc) before 2pm outside the gates to get things moving along) However, he said no car is allowed in the inner gate until 2pm. Kids do get out of the cars, and wait by the cabin, but he said the cabins remain locked until 2pm. He said that we likely arrived about 10 minutes after the inner gates opened, all the waiting, processed cars had pulled forward, and we were just waiting behind the dozen or so cars that still needed to be processed. By the time we got to the cabin 15 mintutes later, the kids had all rushed in.

They have tried different systems. Yes, I think that assigning bunks would be best. The manager said they had many parent complaints with that system (can't be on top bunk, has to be beside friend, etc), so they went back to the first come first pick.

What he said he would consider doing was being more explicit in the information packet about the "tradition" of arriving hours early. Ie state that bunks are assigned first come first serve and that anyone arriving hours early will have to wait and will not be assured their first choice bunk. And that the camp recommends that campers would do not care about their choice of bunk arrive 30 minutes to an hour after the start of check-in time.

Honestly, given this choice, there is no way we would have sat outside for 4 hours (with a toddler in the car as well!). But, I do like his thought about at least making the real situation more clear.

Actually by processing people while they waited outside the gates it saved you a lot of time. If they waited until 2 pm to start processing all those people who arrived early, you would have had to wait a lot longer than 20-30 minutes and you child would have gotten the same bunk.
The camp director probably gets complaints no matter how he decides to do this.

 

[RachelEllen]

Absolutely.

However, by letting kids get out of the cars and processing people early they are also making it easier to arrive 6 hrs early. If people had to sit in their cars with their kids for 6 hrs and then wait another 1-2 to get processed, I bet a lot fewer people would think it was a good idea!

It didn't get this way all at once according to the counselor we asked. When he was a camper 8 years ago, people arrived an hour or two early. Every year since, they have started to line up earlier and earlier.

According to the manager, they can get everyone through the line in about 2 hrs, working at full staff and having the cars pull through the process line and up to the cabins when they are done. If they would just remove the incentive to get there early, everyone wouldn't show up at once and it wouldn't be that long a wait at all.

 

[kristilew]

Do they not have to take temperatures on these kids? It seems like sitting in the car for hours in the summer would raise those temps over the allowed limit. Unless they're idiling with a/c for hours?

 

[MrsPete]

At the camps my kids have attended, they've prevented this problem: You don't take your own luggage to the cabins. When you pull into the camp, your first stop is a little shed, where they have pull-carts labeled with the camp names. You load your child's gear onto that cart, and after EVERYONE has arrived, the camp ranger hooks up cart #1 to the truck and pulls the luggage to the center of unit #1 (so the last unit probably doesn't get "stuff" 'til after dinner). He dumps everything off in the center of the unit, and the kids drag it into the cabins. This is a good system for several reasons:

- It means that parents aren't driving around on narrow camp roads (right by the lake). If they want to see their camper's unit, they can walk to it, but there's no need to drive since they don't have to transport stuff.
- It means that no one has a "jump" on the best beds.
- It creates more of a "let's set up our cabin" mentality rather than a "this is my bunk, and you can just go over there" atttiude.
- It means that kids have to set up their own bunks, and don't we send them to camp to learn to be more independant?

Finally, if the camp really wanted to stop this practice, they could do so: They could withhold the camper's cabin numbers until check-in. They could also make a rule that anyone who arrives ahead of time will be given last choice of bunk.

One more thing: I am suspicious that some of the kids may've been multiple-week campers. They may've left their beds made, their mess kits and flash lights stayed in their trunks, and they've just brought their dirty clothes home. My daughter's a CIT, so she's at camp multiple weeks, and she tells me that this is very common these days: several of her last-week campers are back with her this week, and others are returning later in the summer. So many parents work, so they patch together day care using camps: Scout camp for two weeks, then a week with the grandparents, then church camp, then family vacation for two weeks, another week with the grandparents . . . if the kids were there last week and were returning to the same cabin, I wouldn't have as much problem with them grabbing the prime beds.

 

[MrsPete]

Do they not have to take temperatures on these kids? It seems like sitting in the car for hours in the summer would raise those temps over the allowed limit. Unless they're idiling with a/c for hours?

Actually, this happened to one of our campers a couple weeks ago. We didn't arrive early-early, but the check-in line was long, and by the time we'd gone through the camp store area, the weigh-in and lice area, the tee-shirt area . . . we were all hot and sweaty. One of our girls had a temp above 100, but her dad sat her down in the shade and put an icy water bottle on the back of her neck, and her temp came down. She was perfectly fine.