I took a good bit of time to cool off and make sure I was okay with putting this out. Now about 2 weeks after my trip, I am still very irritated with my experience and decided I would try and prevent others from having the cluster-splat of a trip as my party did. I will not be coming back.
Thankfully, I did not bring my kids to experience this kind of trip because I try to shield them from the terrible things in this world, and this would be one of them.
Do not offer powered pavilions if you cannot keep your power on. Those who pay for their weekend home away from home expect to have the same type of service as their home, and you cannot provide, even if you offer, powered pavilions. Thankfully other camp-goers brought generators and were generous enough to share with us. I had a feeling at that time they they'd been here before and this was a common occurrence. (First Fail)
Get your plan together."We need your party leader to come to the front office to discuss the float plan". We were originally under the impression that we were setting off on the river from our campsite, as it was very close to the river. This was not the case when our party leader was told that we would be shuttled to the launch site, and we would pull out at our camp site(which is what we did at other locations on my previous float trips). Our party met at the front office to join the shuttle(which was 30 minutes later than they told us to be ready for departure), at which point they shuttled us about 30 yards from our camp site to set off on the river from the bank. (Second Fail)
You should not send guests out onto a river with faulty equipment. You take the hit, refund some of their money and offer them safer alternatives."Your raft has a very small leak and should be able to make the 4 mile float". We made it approximately 3 miles, and swam to a competitors pull out point after swimming the last 1/4 mile to it. My group also had at least 4 inner tubes that had no retention of air, and thankfully one member of our party brought their own tube which came with a pump. Every bank that we could stop at, we were constantly handing that pump to one another refilling our devices. I understand that it was a busy weekend for Arapaho, but you need to know your limits and capacity and not just look at the$$. We had raft number 1 as I was informed when we returned to the camp, and this is likely the very first raft the location ever acquired. If you are unwilling to part with faulty equipment and replace it with something newer/safer, eventually, you may have a lawsuit on your hands in the terms of"wrongful death". (Third Fail)
Learn how to talk to people. When a customer is voicing their complaints with a situation, do not interject at their argument at every breath they take in order to openly prove that you are a narcissist and spin your problems onto them. You probably had plenty of good feedback from the other float-goers on this day, because they had no troubles. When you scraped the bottom of the barrel, however, and brought your terrible equipment to my group, do not take a stab at my group for being"a bunch of pricks"(direct quote from the owner of this camp ground) when we have a complaint with our situation. There was no need for you lay your hands on other float-goers, either.(Fourth Fail)
In closing. I hope this location doesn't close. I hope new ownership takes over and makes this place a great place. We had a decent camp the night before our float, and we even paid for a second night for plenty of our group to stay again. After being treated terribly and listening to the staff talk about how they were openly racist, on meth staying awake for days in a row, and ESPECIALLY the owner being a terrible person that I expect to see in hell when I get there, my party simply called the weekend a wash and decided we would never return. I'm sorry, but you can take your$180 cash back and 1/2 off next float and smoke them away. They will likely be going along with your profits before long.
