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Mid-day today, I got the same email response that Kyle got from "Ontario Parks - Reservations (MECP) <op-reservations@onatioparks.com>" ...
Hello Barry,
Thanks so much for your feedback and information!
Hearing from those who use the new reservation service will help us make improvements. We have flagged these details you note below to our reservation service team to look into further.
Thanks again and happy camping!
Ontario Parks
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Ok I piled on too.
Good news! Response I got says they will be adding the feature back in. 
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Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!!! Such a helpful feature.
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Be careful...saying 'we are working to have the feature added' doesn't necessarily mean it will be added. Safe assumption, but not exactly a guarantee of delivery. Stay hopeful, though!
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PaPaddler wrote:
Be careful...saying 'we are working to have the feature added' doesn't necessarily mean it will be added. Safe assumption, but not exactly a guarantee of delivery. Stay hopeful, though!
I think you're underestimating the persuasiveness of my email PA. I mean I'm surprised the feature isn't already back .. lol
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Well, Shawn, you're obviously a very persuasive guy. I just got an email from Ontario Parks saying the new system is now live. A very quick test shows the availability maps just as they were before. Overall it looks good and seems easy to use. Hopefully that feeling will persist as the season moves on.
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... Well, Shawn, you're obviously a very persuasive guy. I just got an email from Ontario Parks saying the new system is now live. A very quick test shows the availability maps just as they were before. Overall it looks good and seems easy to use. Hopefully that feeling will persist as the season moves on....
Are you able to see lake occupancy? I'm not seeing it if it's there, but it's believable that I'm just not finding it. I also agree that occupancy is very useful information.
... I did notice that it's lacking the ability to check how many sites are available/occupied for each lake like the old system had. I, along with I'm sure many of you, often use this to determine how "crowded" certain lakes will be and plan our trip accordingly...
Really? That was a super useful tool that for seeing how busy parts of the park are and how crowded a lake will be. Without that feature you would just be guessing. You wouldn't even be able to tell if 2 spots were open on the same lake in case a larger group was traveling together.
I just wanted to point out that this is very much not what occupancy information should be used for. When you book one campsite, you get one campsite only. If you're a group of 9 and you only booked one site, you all have to cram onto one site, even if there are 2 sites available on the lake. This is important for lots of reasons, but most obviously: what if someone didn't reserve ahead of time (before whenever you last looked at the website to check 'occupancy') but instead they just showed up at the office and booked their stay right before heading out. In that case they (and the park office) would assume there are 2 sites available on that lake. One, occupied by your group of 9 (as you reserved), and one free for this person who showed up at the office, and might not arrive at the lake till evening. Then this person gets to the lake and finds your group of 9 spread over 2 sites? Not cool. If you're a big group, just book 2 sites and use 1 or 2 depending on what you find and like on any given lake. The cost is exactly the same since you pay per person, except for one single additional $10 booking fee.
I see all kinds of bad campsite occupancy practices mentioned on the internet- people adjusting their itinerary at their whim (I totally understand weather concerns, that's different), taking 2 sites when booking 1, deciding to stay on a nicer lake 'cus the one they booked 'sucks' etc. All of these choices can impact other campers who are following their itinerary, which is both rude and could even be dangerous for those travellers. Please be respectful of other park users and their plans.
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"I just received the notice from Ontario Parks.com as well and replied accordingly (below). Hopefully they will receive enough notices from many of us to add this feature to their reservation system. Fingers crossed.
~~~~~
"Thank you for your update on your new reservation system! My brother and I have been visiting Algonquin Provincial Park interior now for over a decade every year now and plan on coming up to this great provincial park for many years to come. I like the ergonomics of your new reservation system but am unable to find any feature that would tell me how many sites have been reserved on a particular lake along with how many more were open. This was an essential feature for us as we planned our trips. Can you let me know how I can find this out or has this feature been removed? If so, I truly believe it is a major step backword in the reservations features.Thanks for your response and advise on how I can find out how filled up a lake is in regards to reservations. Sincerely. Andy W
"I'll include another post if I hear back from them. Hopefully enough of comments about this feature will have a positive impact on them adding this feature back into their reservation system
Last edited by Andy W (12/07/2019 11:27 am)
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Hey nvm
I think the situation that was being referenced was if you were a large group of over 9 and need to book 2 sites you can’t see if a given lake has 2 sites available right now. That is a problem.
I do agree with the sentiment of your other concerns though.
Don’t occupy more sites than you have booked. Don’t occupy a different lake then the one you have booked if you can help it or are positive you won’t be interfering with other people’s bookings.
Right now if it’s late in the day and I am contemplating staying at a different lake than the one I have booked I use my inReach to find out the current booking situation on the lake. That way I’m sure I’m not messing with anyone else.
Last edited by ShawnD (12/07/2019 11:43 am)
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Have to admit my first look at it was pretty quick and dirty. Yes the map is there but not having that crucial info about how many sites are available on a lake is a major flaw. Also the list view of availability is a real pain to use - it should be one long scrollable list and/or have some sort of search button to allow you to go directly to the info for a particular lake. More emails to Ontario Parks are clearly in order.
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...Right now if it’s late in the day and I am contemplating staying at a different lake than the one I have booked I use my inReach to find out the current booking situation on the lake. That way I’m sure I’m not messing with anyone else.
One thing to add to this, if you're camping off-permit, even if you know it's not leaving someone else stranded, it's usually best to take one of the less desired sites. Of course no one is entitled to any one specific site, but just as a courtesy if you're already camping off permit it doesn't seem fair to also occupy the best site on the lake when someone who actually has a permit for the lake could be camping there. Not directed at you Shawn just a general though for anyone reading lol
Have to admit my first look at it was pretty quick and dirty. Yes the map is there but not having that crucial info about how many sites are available on a lake is a major flaw. Also the list view of availability is a real pain to use - it should be one long scrollable list and/or have some sort of search button to allow you to go directly to the info for a particular lake. More emails to Ontario Parks are clearly in order.
It's almost as if they should have gotten input from the Algonquin community before making all the changes 
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One thing to add to this, if you're camping off-permit, even if you know it's not leaving someone else stranded, it's usually best to take one of the less desired sites. Of course no one is entitled to any one specific site, but just as a courtesy if you're already camping off permit it doesn't seem fair to also occupy the best site on the lake when someone who actually has a permit for the lake could be camping there. Not directed at you Shawn just a general though for anyone reading lol[
Absolutely. For example If you are on Rence and it is 6pm and you know there is 1 booking on the lake, take the eastern site in case the group with the booking for that lake still shows up. Just don’t assume oh it’s late no one will show up now. I’ll take the nice western point site.
The biggest violation of this is a windbound group or a group that has found themselves a day behind because of weather and proceed to take really nice sites on every off permit lake they camp on. Not nice.
That said I have been on a lake more then a days travel from any access point and checked late afternoon. There were zero bookings on the lake. I didn’t worry about which site I took. Zero chance a new booking could be made and anyone could paddle that far.
Last edited by ShawnD (12/08/2019 9:49 am)
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...That said I have been on a lake more then a days travel from any access point and checked late afternoon. There were zero bookings on the lake. I didn’t worry about which site I took. Zero chance a new booking could be made and anyone could paddle that far.
Yeah there are definitely exceptions. This past September I was off permit on McIntosh which is normally 2 days travel (or 1 long day) and there was 0/17 sites booked, so I didn’t feel the need to restrict my choice. I didn’t take the popular southeast campsite anyways though lol. But it was pretty cool being the only person on the whole lake.
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Hey nvm
I think the situation that was being referenced was if you were a large group of over 9 and need to book 2 sites you can’t see if a given lake has 2 sites available right now. That is a problem.
I hope that you're right, and that was the meaning behind the original post. Indeed, presently it is impossible to see if you can make 2 identical trip bookings on the website. They only let you make a reservation for up to 9 people- ie 1 reservation for 1 site/night. So the only way you could find out if you can book 2 identical trips is to book one, and then hope you can book a second matching trip. That's ridiculous. In fact, presently the website doesn't even show you how many sites there ARE on a given lake. It might be a lake with 1 site, or 20, no way of knowing.
It's irritating how often website/software/operating system 'upgrades' end up resulting in a diminished user experience. This is no exception. We need to barrage Ontario Parks with messages saying as much- I just sent mine this morning. They won't change it if they don't get complaints.
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All I can imagine is that they eliminated the campsite availability information as a way to encourage people to always make a reservation. I know that I would not bother making a reservation if there appeared to be a lot of campsites available on the lake(s) we planned to visit and I am sure many other people were also doing that.
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Ontario Parks wrote back today, with the same promising sounding message. Fingers crossed!
“Thanks so much for your feedback and information!
Hearing from those who use the new reservation service will help us make improvements. We have flagged these details you note below to our reservation service team and can confirm that we are actively looking into including this detail.”
Seems everyone is getting the same response template. I hope if enough people raise it as an issue they will make the change.
