Colorado River Adventures CRA Memberships - Lousy Customer Service

We have been members of Coast to Coast (C2C) since 2009 and have used it many times and for the most part have been very happy with them.  We have had a few issues with some of the resorts but this article is about one particular issue with CRA and unfortunately there are several locations in the C2C system.

Making reservations with C2C can be challenging at times since most of the resorts limit the usage by the C2C membership but all except CRA’s are flexible.  Reservations must be made between 72 hours and 60 days prior.  If changes need to be made to the reservation within the 72 hours it needs to be done by calling the resort directly.  Any other resort on the C2C system does not have an issue with calling them and changing reservations or even making a new reservation but apparently the CRA does not know how to do that if requested.  We have always been a little peeved on how they treated non CRA members but just always overlooked it since several of their locations are where we like to stay…that is until now!

There are some people that are just not meant to be in the customer service environment.  We get upset because if we would ever treat people the way we have been treated while we were working at any of our jobs we would have been fired and never rehired.  But we notice other people getting away with it all the time and that just not sit very well with us.  People that work at the resorts are very nice, it is when the corporate office gets involved when the issues arise and apparently they are the ones that make the rules that they insist cannot be changed.

Our original reservation was the 7^th to the 11^th but then a few days prior when I looked there were a few more days available that we could add to the end of our reservation which would be perfect but it was within the 72 hours so I called both C2C and CRA.  As usual they both pointed fingers the other direction and nothing was being done.  Then somehow in the process without our knowledge and all fingers are now pointed at us for making this error, the arrival date got changed to the 8^th but it was through the 20^th now.  When I seen this error I called the resort the morning of the 7^th to see which arrival date would they be honoring and the lady told me the 7^th, so we chose not to stay another night in Ehrenberg and to head to Yuma instead, which by the way Ehrenberg was willing to add another night to our C2C reservation without any issues.

As we were checking in on the 7^th at Yuma Lakes RV Resort which is a Colorado River Adventure membership resort but accepts Coast to Coast I asked her to extend it through as far out as we could go which would have to be cutoff at 14 days per our membership.  She was inexperienced so she called her main office…big mistake.  

Wendy (the wicked witch) stated that our reservation now says we cannot get in until the 8^th and we would have to come back the next day…END OF CONVERSATION!  So I asked if I could speak with her…another huge mistake.  From the start there was an edge to her voice so I tried to stay calm because I know you can get a lot more if I remained nice and she just told us that they “could” not but more like “would” not allow us to stay the 7^th.  Are you kidding me?  We are in Yuma during winter season where rates are high if we could even find a place to stay the night.  Now factor in the tire issue we are having and you get where I am going.  THEY HAD THE AVAILIBILITY!!!  Our original reservation checking in on the 7^th was the one she was honoring at the gate. 

We pulled over while calls were made but Wendy always came back with the same response so out of frustration and not willing to put up with her nonsense any longer, I told them to cancel our entire reservation, give us back all of our points since the reservation was not until the 8^th we were within the penalty and we drove off.

Now I know that sort of reaction only hurt us but we were so frustrated and there was NO way they were going to let us in since Wendy apparently said I had a bad attitude.  Yes, I did once we were told that under no circumstances would they honor our reservation I was to say the least a bit discouraged.  No yelling, no vulgarity, just firmness and trying to understand why she was not willing to even look at any other possibilities. 

We hoped it was just her having a bad day but this is not the first time we had to deal with the corporate office, not sure if it was always the same person we dealt with at that level but it sure sounds as if it was the same person. 

Things happen while traveling and there are times when reservations need to be changed and to be so rigid is just not customer oriented at all, especially when I have worked at resorts before and have made the exact changes and it really is not that difficult.  We were not asking for a handout, we were not asking them to put us in where there was no availability either physically or by membership status.  All we were asking for was a bit of kindness and compassion, neither of which we received on the phones. 

Let us be perfectly clear about the personnel at the gates, each time we had to deal with these issues they were fantastic, but as soon as corporate got involved is when it went bad.  And, apparently the folks at the gates could not change anything without corporate approval or they would be reprimanded. 

We would most certainly like to boycott these places in the future but there are several that are located in areas where we love to hang out during prime season and would only end up hurting ourselves.  So instead we would just like to forewarn others to keep your reservations at all CRA resorts simple so there is no reason to have to deal with the corporate office.  

That is how we plan to handle all of our future dealings with the CRA resorts and we believe the corporate office just has mean spirited people working there and should look into it.