Grand View Cafe and RV Park — Restaurant in Alaska

We had booked an overnight stay at their RV (full hook up) campsite online with Grandview and received confirmation for it. A few minutes later the owner himself, MARK PARSONS, called us by phone explaining that he was "working with another customer" on booking that spot for a longer stay but we booked it online before he could finalize with this other customer. He begged us, if we were willing to give up our spot for this other customer he would put us in a different spot that will have electricity but no dump and water hook up. He would give us a discount (pay $20 instead of $52), and even throw in a pizza. I was not willing to agree at first. He assured us he would "take care of you. Just make sure to ask me, Mark Parsons, and I'll be sure to get you taken cared of." Knowing how hard it was to find an RV site on short notice (4th of July weekend), we wanted to help out a fellow RV camper as well as Mark and agreed, as long as we had a place to spend the night, be able to dump our waste and refill our water supply before continuing on the next day. I even told him he didn't need to throw in the free pizza as long as we had a place for the night! It was a different story when we got there however. We asked for Mark, and spoke to him. He acted like he did not remember us. And when we reminder him of the previous day's communications his words were, "Oh, that place is gone. We are pretty swamped right now. I gave that spot to someone else." And the manner that he said it! He was not apologetic, did not even pretend to be confused! He acted like he did not care at all. He just waved his hand and said, they were really full and he spoke to a lot of people yesterday and he did not have space for us. Then I asked him if he charged our card. He assured us that he di not. As cell signal was poor in that area we were not able to check if our card was charged until we got home. A few minutes later my husband went back in and attitude was the same. Completely unconcerned, and assuring that out card was not charged. Well, only did he charge our card, he added an extra $5 from the amount he wrote on our email, too. So he charged us $25. I was willing to let go of the incident as a little smudge on our otherwise great vacation, but when we saw that $25 charge... MARK...

On 15 September 2022 googled full hookup camping sites near the Matanuska glacier and the Grand View Cafe & RV Park popped up. I read over their website and decided it would be a perfect place to stay for our last rv camping trip of the year. I had no problem making reservations online for 17 September 2022, got a confirmation email that they had charged my credit card so I then booked a guided hiking trip on the Matanuska glacier for the 18th. My 8 year old daughter was super excited to visit the glacier.

The morning of the 17th, we got everything packet up except our generator, who needs a generator when you have full hookups, right? We stopped a few places on the 100+ mile trip and got to the Grand View Cafe & RV Park around 3pm to find the place empty and the gates locked. With not enough room on their driveway to park I had to keep going up the road a few miles to a turnout to stop. After a long drive my daughter wanted to get out and stretch her legs while I called the Grand View Cafe & RV Park. Over the next 30 minutes and repeated calls I gave up after getting the same voice mail message over and over. Just then my daughter sprained her ankle in the grass of the turnout. With no generator, an injured child, and no response from the Grand View Cafe & RV Park, I decided to head back to Anchorage.

Mind you, there is nothing on their website about a closing and one would assume everything was find if the reservation part of their site allowed you to book a spot and charged you for it!

God only knows when or if I'll get my...

This is on us - so we'll shoulder part of the blame. We had booked this Park for three nights on our way North. Had an RV issue pop up but we were fortunate that we found an RV Service Center in Anchorage who could see us on a Monday. We checked into this Park on Sunday, advised the staff we had to leave early due to a mechanical issue and they were totally NOT sympathetic. Simply stated no refunds unless given two weeks notice. Seriously, two weeks notice for a cancellation????? How can someone predict they are going to have an issue and not complete their reservation two weeks in advance? Sites are FHU but they are TIGHT and basically in a parking lot. Our neighbors picnic table was so close we could barely open the doors on our tow (we have a small 18' TT with no slides). You have to pay for a shower - $3USD for 8 minutes: $3.50 for wash and $2.00 for dryer. They do have a restaurant but the prices are awful - 3x3 rice Krispy cake was $4 and a 3" cookie was almost $7. They advertised several trails - to a bluff, river, and glacier however, none of these are marked except at the beginning of the trail from the Park. Quite a few "y" but no trail signs, so good luck finding the glacier, river or the bluff. All in all it was disappointing, perhaps if we hadn't had the mechanical issue and had the owners been just a bit more sympathetic I would feel different but at this point suggest you keep going...