Campers frustrated after Sask. Parks online booking delays

Some people are feeling frustrated with the Saskatchewan Parks website after running into issues reserving nightly campsites Monday morning.

Lori Walker is one of those not-so-happy campers.

Walker said she, her husband and her daughter woke up early to be in the queue for 6:40 a.m., only to have the page continually freeze.

“You would get so far in the system and then it was done. It wouldn’t let you get any further and you couldn’t see what you had booked,” Walker explained. “I gave up because I just don’t have patience for it.”

After being in the queue for more than an hour, she said her daughter eventually snagged two sites.

“She said she was first (in the queue) for Pike Lake — the first to pick — and she got in around 7:50 a.m. How bad is that?” she asked. “It’s a joke.”

The province is attributing the delays to a server malfunction, which is believed to be resolved.

“When we found out that there was a malfunctioning server, (the third-party software provider) shut that off and traffic was rerouted to the remaining eight servers. Once we did that, the system was functioning properly again,” explained Minh Truong, director of parks experience with the Ministry of Parks, Culture and Sports.

Out of the around 1,400 people who visited the Saskatchewan Parks website to book nightly camping Monday morning, Truong noted 90 per cent of them were successful. The ministry is still working with the other 10 per cent to help them make reservations.

As for those planning to book nightly camping in the near future, Truong doesn’t anticipate any more web problems.

“We’re working with our third-party software provider to ensure that we don’t run into the technical issues when the other parks open up for reservation later in the week,” he said.

If campers have trouble booking online, Truong recommends phoning the Campsite Reservation Service call centre at 1-855-737-7275.