Online Booking System Notice and FAQs
Club website
The Club would like to take this opportunity to apologise to our members about issues they may be finding when trying to book online and to explain what we are working hard on to improve the situation.
We will be keeping this page up to date and as a point of reference to keep members informed of any actions, fixes and developments as they happen.
The change of our system goes beyond what is displayed on the website; it includes the entire booking engine that is used behind the scenes by the Contact Centre for UK and Carefree as well as on the Sites themselves. Making such a change was inevitably going to have teething issues but the new system will provide much greater functionality and flexibility for members in years to come.
We do understand the frustrations that some of our members have been having while trying to search for sites and make a booking. We have been working tirelessly to identify and address problem and are now feeling that we are better placed to offer information that will be beneficial.
When we first went live with the new booking system in November, there were a number of issues that presented themselves immediately. Users found it very difficult to return any pitch availability, both via the website and the contact centre. We soon realised that this was mainly due the new way the booking system was allocating pitches based on the new way of setting up by the Club. We worked quickly to re-define the classifications of all the campsite pitches which is now resolved.
There have been other issues that have caused members difficulties. We have compiled a number of FAQ’s in an effort to share more information with members and answer the main queries asked at this stage.
Feedback Form:
Your feedback is very valuable to us to help us to deliver the booking system you would like. While we acknowledge the fact we’ve not been able to respond as fully or as quickly as we’d like to complaints or enquiries made to us about it, it’s vital that we continue to receive your feedback. We want you to tell us how you find using the booking pages and what you think we should know to improve it.
Therefore we would like all feedback regarding the online booking system to be directed to us via this form: Online Booking System Feedback
We can’t promise a personal response to everyone; however we can guarantee that all will be read and considered while we continue to develop and improve the webpages.
Once again we would like to sincerely thank all of our members for their continuing support and patience. We know that with your help we will develop the online booking system into a great one.
Corrections Page:
Another resource that we think members will find useful is this one: Updates, Errors and Omissions
This is a page we regularly update the Club publications, such as Your Place in the Country, with the most up to date information on opening and closing dates, directions and more.
You can browse the campsites without booking. The best way we think to do this is by typing in an area you’re interested in where it says Where? e.g. Cumbria.
The system will attempt to auto-complete the field with all campsites with Cumbria in the address, starting with Club Sites, followed by Forest, Certificated and Listed sites. If you don’t yet know the name of the site you want to visit, don’t select from the list, but instead click off the list.
Un-tick the Check availability box then select the equipment you’re taking and dimensions. You can change the unit of measurement from metres to feet. It’s only optional to check any of the Basic, Family or Activities criteria. Just remember that the more options you check, the fewer campsites will be returned.
Click Search >
This will return a list of campsites in Cumbria. Clicking the name of the campsite or the More information link will take you to the page about that campsite. Or click the ‘Map View’ tab (next to ‘List View’) to show a map with campsites within the specified radius.
Once you are ready to book, click Book this campsite > to bring up the calendar to search for availability. You will be presented with all the available pitch types to select from and the remainder of the booking process is straightforward.
The members’ only Quick Book function is now live.
Made especially for members who already know what Site they want to go to. It allows an express-style booking of one campsite stay at a time – and offers alternatives if the original search criteria are not available.
If you’re a member, you can go straight to the Quick Book facility here
https://booking.campingandcaravanningclub.co.uk/QuickBookWebsite
Part of the new booking system allows our Holiday Site Managers to be more flexible with the unit types and sizes booked in, even before campers arrive on site.
This is why we wanted to establish the unit type and size early on.
Feedback has indicated that this isn’t ideal for a number of members, who feel it’s too much detail to be asking at this stage.
Therefore we are changing the website to remove the need to fill in unit size until after a site is selected and the user is ready to book a pitch. This is currently in development stage and is scheduled to go live with a number of other changes by the end of February / early March.
Our new booking website does not have a grid based, pitch selection function. We know some of our members liked booking by “grid” but many also found this confusing.
We have had to change how we present this information as the Clubs’ new pitch classification and the new booking system does not allow for a grid to function in the same way as before.
The good news is we are currently developing a pitch alternative functionality and this will be released with our new ‘Quick Book’ option and will return pitches for you to choose from if there is not any availability for your stay details. We expect this to be live before the end of January.
The original Siteseeker search facility made use of a map to assist users looking for a campsite.
Members have voiced their opinions surrounding the removal of a map, which we are taking into account for the next stage of development of the website. This is now with our design and development teams for specification and we will update this page with an estimated delivery date as soon as possible.
Note there is a map view that can be seen by clicking on the ‘Map View’ tab (next to ‘List View’ tab) when the search results are returned. We are aware however that this is not functioning as the old map search did, in that you can’t use the map to actually search on. Also there is a limited view of only a few sites on the map at any one time. As part of additional changes, we are aiming for this to be amended by the end of February / early March.
At the time of the new system launch we did not have email confirmation functionality working correctly. We understand this was causing our on-line booking members frustration but were using postal confirmations as a temporary solution.
We can confirm that email confirmations are now in place but there have been a few teething issues which we are currently working to resolve. Members who have been affected by this are being contacted directly by the Membership Department to explain further.
All tick boxes are optional, so you don’t have to select any. We do accept that the current way they are presented to you can give the impression that an action needs to be performed with these. We are currently revisiting the search functionality of the booking website and this issue will be addressed in this review, expected to be live by the end of February / early March.
Of course, you may wish to specify some options such as ‘Electric Hook-up’ but do remember, the more options you select, the more specific your search will become and therefore fewer results will be returned, so consider this when making your choices.
There is currently an issue with the booking system where CS/LS sites are returned regardless of whether they are open or not, which is proving frustrating for users looking to browse the Certificated and Listed Sites.
We do have the option of removing them entirely from the search results but feel that most users would prefer to see the sites this way until we get a permanent fix in place to resolve the problem. This is currently in development and scheduled to go live with a number of other changes by the end of February / early March.
We are working on functionality which will allow users to search for CS, LS, Forest or Club sites only.
This is currently with our development team as part of additional changes; we are aiming for this to be amended by the end of February / early March.
This feature wasn’t quite ready for the launch date in November – as we didn’t want this to go live without working correctly, we chose to roll the date back. We are now pleased to report it is in development and we expect the function to be back in for members by the end of February / early March.
The good news is yes!
Over recent weeks, we have been making lots of small changes to the booking system itself as well as to the website. We are also working to deliver quite a number of amendments before the end of February / in early March as listed on this page.
We are delighted to announce that the members’ only Quick Book function is now live. Made especially for members who already know which campsite they want to visit, please take a look at the other FAQ on this page regarding QuickBook.
We have several additional updates currently being scoped and specifications in progress that will further enhance the user experience - as soon as we have some firm delivery dates, we will post them here.
We are also committed to improving the members’ area throughout 2012 – working towards a delivery of several new features in May – watch this space for updates.
Although Damage Barton and Trewan Hall are Club sites, they are currently not visible in the dropdown list due to a technical issue. We are working on this at the moment but as an interim measure we have listed both sites as Certificated Sites.
Please note that these sites can only be booked directly with them; browse the details on the Club’s campsite directory pages below:
You can view the Damage Barton Site details here
www.campingandcaravanningclub.co.uk/damagebarton
You can view the Trewan Hall Site details here
www.campingandcaravanningclub.co.uk/trewanhall
