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Any Thousand Trails members out there?  We are considering a membership but was looking for some pros & cons.

I can't really imagine not staying at the Fort when it's available - but the membership would pay for its self if we stayed at Thousand Trails after Christmas....dilemmas, dilemmas!

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Thousand Trails can be good but you have to research it. look for a USED membership get the membership # and call the main TT office to ask what that membership includes. They are not all the same, ours can make reservations 90 days away and can stay in one park for up to 21 days, then we can go direct to another park. You could always try a zone pass but make sure you get it in the area you want to camp, that's a good way to try it out without getting trapped in something that might what you want.

The Orlando park is nice and also big but very crowded and hard to get into in the winter as it's full of snow birds, good luck and ask any questions I just hope I can answer them.

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Thousand Trails can be good but you have to research it. look for a USED membership get the membership # and call the main TT office to ask what that membership includes. They are not all the same, ours can make reservations 90 days away and can stay in one park for up to 21 days, then we can go direct to another park. You could always try a zone pass but make sure you get it in the area you want to camp, that's a good way to try it out without getting trapped in something that might what you want.

The Orlando park is nice and also big but very crowded and hard to get into in the winter as it's full of snow birds, good luck and ask any questions I just hope I can answer them.

Thanks so much! We were looking a the southeast zone pass because we live in Texas and enjoy the Lake Whitney area (which has a Thousand Trails Resort), and of course Disney is in the area too. We have a 10 year old daughter in school, so we don't really camp for longer than 6 days at a time, and that is alway during busy holiday times. Hadn't thought of looking into a used membership --- will to that for sure.

 

My hesitation is that I know how we are and aren't likely to stay outside the Fort unless we have no other choice.  If we buy the membership with the idea that we will go this Christmas, but are able to get into the Fort at the last minute - - - I KNOW we will take that over staying off site. 

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The only bad thing with a zone pass is you can make reservations less days out then most people so for Orlando after Christmas might be tough to get, but I think you will also get discounts or special offers at Encore parks also so that might help.

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The only bad thing with a zone pass is you can make reservations less days out then most people so for Orlando after Christmas might be tough to get, but I think you will also get discounts or special offers at Encore parks also so that might help.

Wow, this is REALLY good to know. They are not really forthcoming with restrictions or how far out you can reserve. The whole point would be that for what it costs to get a site at Christmas, I could pay for zone pass for a year. But if I can't even get in at Christmas, I'm not sure why I would do it. Our biggest "problem" is that Texas is do dang big and we live right smack in the middle, so it is really a 5-8 hour drive to just get out of the darn state! It really limits weekend getaways.

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The only bad thing with a zone pass is you can make reservations less days out then most people so for Orlando after Christmas might be tough to get, but I think you will also get discounts or special offers at Encore parks also so that might help.

Wow, this is REALLY good to know. They are not really forthcoming with restrictions or how far out you can reserve. The whole point would be that for what it costs to get a site at Christmas, I could pay for zone pass for a year. But if I can't even get in at Christmas, I'm not sure why I would do it. Our biggest "problem" is that Texas is do dang big and we live right smack in the middle, so it is really a 5-8 hour drive to just get out of the darn state! It really limits weekend getaways.

We went over Christmas 2012 and found that the campground wasn't overly busy. I think we can make reservations at 60 days (just to show the memberships are really different). I'm under the impression that it gets real busy once you get into January.

My TT membership is really why we'll rarely end up at the Fort. It's just hard to beat the price of pre-paid. :)

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

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It is true a lot of the TT snowbirds flock there after Christmas but I do know that by New Years they are pretty full.

We'd want to stay until after the new year, so we might have trouble...and we are still hoping to luck into a FW site when it gets close to time when people lose their deposits.

We have also looked into renting a house or condo for the holidays. I just hate to be off property. This is me right now... :gaah: :gaah: :gaah:

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My parents purchased our TT membership a LONG time ago...actually now that I think about it...we toured Lake Whitney for the sales pitch. We were there riding around in the salesman's car about a week after they broke ground on it, only had 1 dirt road from the "office" to the lake. If I had to guess I would say that was in 1983ish? Anyway, I spent a LOT of time at Whitney growing up and I absolutely love it there. Haven't been back there in 20 years or so but would love to at some point. I am added to the membership with the "family" plan but don't get to use it much since there are no parks within a  3 - 4 hour drive for us now.

I really don't have any input on your question, just wanted to share that :)

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My parents purchased our TT membership a LONG time ago...actually now that I think about it...we toured Lake Whitney for the sales pitch. We were there riding around in the salesman's car about a week after they broke ground on it, only had 1 dirt road from the "office" to the lake. If I had to guess I would say that was in 1983ish? Anyway, I spent a LOT of time at Whitney growing up and I absolutely love it there. Haven't been back there in 20 years or so but would love to at some point. I am added to the membership with the "family" plan but don't get to use it much since there are no parks within a  3 - 4 hour drive for us now.

I really don't have any input on your question, just wanted to share that :)

I have only been out to Lake Whitney once and we atleast drove through some sort of "country club neighborhood" to get to our site by the lake but I can't remember the name of it. We really liked it there!  There is also an RV park near by where you can buy a deeded RV lot and put up a small villa.  Down side is, we are about 4 hours from Whitney and only about 45 minutes from Canyon Lake...so we are more likely to go there. Although as it turns out, I'm not really sure we are lake people. Like you, my main concern with purchasing a membership at all is the distance to any of the TT parks. There is one near Medina Lake which is only an hour from us, but i'm not crazy about that area. They didn't do a good job of developing the surrounding area, so there are lots of neighborhoods that are very run down and not a ton of extra stuff to do by the lake. Ho, Hum...I think I am really talking myself out of TT. That idea is going down the... :flush2:

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