Florida SP's - Step by Step booking instructions?

[bobgold0424]

Hello,

I have been trying every morning for the past two weeks to reserve a site at Bahia Honda for February 2024. Can anyone who has had success snagging a spot exactly at the 11 month/8am window give me crystal clear instructions on how they did it?

I don't need the basics, I know to be logged in and to know what spot(s) is available, but what exactly do you do at 8am on the dot (or 2 seconds before or after)? Do you refresh the browser and see if the site is then bookable then quickly click to book? Do you refresh by clicking the refresh thumbnail on the site, then quickly book an available site? Do you just click the first date box even though it still appears as unbookable as its not within 11 months? Does the site automatically refresh at 8am and the available spots suddenly appear at the top of the list (if you have sort by availability" clicked?

Maybe this is a trade secret...but if someone can find it in the heart to share the details on what worked for them I'd appreciate it.

Thanks,
Bob

[creativepart]

Here’s how I would do it.

Go to www.Wanderinglabs.com. Join the site. Add a Request for Bahia Honda SP. put in the details for what you want and wait. When you get a notice of a cancellation drop everything you’re doing and jump on the reservation.

Keep in mind that this state park is the number one requested state park in their system.

If you pay for a premium membership - $30 for a full year - their system checks every minute for a matching opening.

I joined this site and bought a Premium membership. I got into a beach state park during spring break in one day. And, since then have gotten sites at sold out state parks two more times this year. I passed this on to a friend and he used it twice to get into some national forest campgrounds, too.

It doesn’t make the reservation for you, it just notifies you immediately of an opening.

There are other websites that do this, too. But Wandering Labs seems to cover more campgrounds than others.

[creativepart]

By the way, 5 years ago we wanted to get into Bahia Honda SP and like you tried every day. Eventually, we got a 5-day reservation a full year in advance. Yea!

Then as the trip approached something came up, I don’t remember what exactly and we had to cancel our reservation one month out.

So, it does happen. Spots can open up at anytime.

[armullis59]

An alternative to Bahia Honda would be Sunshine Key RV Resort, or the Sugarloaf Key KOA. February in the Florida Keys is at the height of their season, so good luck!

[bobgold0424]

Thanks for the responses. I signed up for wanderlabs and got a backup reservation at collier Seminole. Still would love to hear from anyone who has knowledge of the best step by step strategy for snagging sites when they are released at 8am and 11 months out. Thanks

[cruizerEd]

We were setting up a sequence of Florida state parks in the Keys.

I wanted to discover the correct time to hit the site and then I would pound it with many requests, starting at just before until a few seconds after the window closed.

I tested it on a low demand site where I knew I could get a reservation and measure the results of success.

The results demonstrated that the system does not queue up requests in any particular order. My scripts were running on multiple computers in multiple threads and the requests were not serviced in timestamp order. I worked hard to get coordinated timestamps on my data.

So it is basically a lottery. If you some how managed to hit their server within nanoseconds of the reservation window opening, someone much later than you is just as likely to get the reservation.

The only way to improve you odds is to script up a request, get on a low latency internet connection, start pounding the site before the window and keep pounding until the site comes back with success or an all ready reserved status.

This worked on all the parks within a few tries except Bahia Honda. I think I tried for two weeks (14 days) and never got one.

My scripts no longer work because Florida took over the reservation system and the new site is very different.

Kind of lost interest in Florida last year any way. The wild life is disappearing except maybe alligators. The water quality seems to be way down. The starving manatees were very sad to see.