This year, Manitoba spaced out campsite locations available for booking in hopes of preventing the system from being overwhelmed.
Despite those changes, many Manitobans were left frustrated Wednesday morning with the process, including Cheryl Mowat.
“Booking in the last five years has been horrible, but booking in the last three years has been really bad,” Mowat told Global News.
She’s been camping in Manitoba for nearly 20 years.
“Used to do it (booking) within 20 minutes or a half max, now not anymore. Now you’re looking at, like I said, last year was five (hours) this year was two (hours).
Last year she resorted to booking some spots at private campsite as well, to alleviate the stress of using the provincial system. Now, she’s looking at other options.
“My husband was saying, ‘Well, if we can’t get in here, maybe we’ll have to go to the states for camping,'” she said. “You shouldn’t have to leave the province if you want to camp.”
The same frustration is felt by Mike Witkowicz who’s been camping in Manitoba for seven years.
“It’s not something I look forward to every year, it is an activity that I dread,” he said.
This year he decided to use both a cellphone and a laptop to log in to the booking system and snag a spot.
“At the end of the day, yes, it was better, but there’s a big caveat on that — I had two browsers going.”
It’s an assurance strategy he decided to use after getting booted out of the online system last year.
“It’s more devices hitting their server, but I don’t know what else to do.”
The Manitoba government says the overwhelming amount of users contributes to the system glitching.
“Five years ago people didn’t have as many mobile devices and computers all trying to access at their disposal in their households,” says Elisabeth Ostrop, the manager of Recreation and Education Services at Manitoba Parks.
By 9:45 a.m. Wednesday, Ostrop says there was no longer a lineup for online bookers, a major difference from last year, when the queue disappeared at 3 p.m.
“We made several technical enhancements and adjustments. People may have noticed once they were in the application it was very responsive, they could do their searches quickly and they could add sites to their cart more quickly then they could have last year,” she says.
A complete overhaul for the reservations system is expected in 2023, a task Ostrop says isn’t any easy feat.
“Reservations are five days, it’s one part of the application. This is our whole campground inventory management system.”