Sound Advice For Travelers
I found a very interesting article and some good advice for travelers (especially with the inclement weather we’ve been having recently) over at USA Today where a person asks about getting a refund on their hotel stay after they were blocked from entering the park due to last years flooding. Here’s an exerpt:
USA Today: The trip to Yosemite was a graduation present for my son. The day before our reserved stay, we flew from Nebraska to California and drove five hours to Groveland, near Yosemite, where we spent the night at a bed and breakfast. We had called the park but had no indication that there was a problem.We went to Yosemite the next morning, but were denied access because of flooding. We were due back home for the graduation ceremony and an upcoming wedding, so we had to leave without seeing the park, which we had looked forward to for such a long time.
I subsequently was told that we were not entitled to a refund of the first night’s lodging, even though we had done everything we could to get to the Yosemite Lodge. I wrote to Yosemite Park and to the National Park Service asking that they reconsider their cancellation policy in this case, but neither office had the courtesy to even answer my complaint.
We’ve visited other national parks, from Big Bend to Crater Lake to Glacier, and were so excited to finally see Yosemite, but we ended up spending hundreds of dollars only to be disappointed. Why should I have to pay for lodging not provided due to a situation beyond my control?
For a little over 30 years now I've enjoyed hiking, backpacking, fishing, photographing and exploring Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada. Yosemite Blog presents me with the opportunity to share, with you, the beauty and the grandeur of Yosemite and the High Sierra. Read the 
March 6th, 2006 16:47
complain like heck, don’t give up. do not take the first person who answers your call, they only read what the canned response is. ask to speak to the supervisor on duty, the the manager. be persistant, but not rude, rudeness will not help at this point. keep restating the fact the you did in fact try, but where turned around the NPS. call the nps for concessionaire contrant person. i have forgotten their exact title, but they will connect you. complain, complain, complain. you might even call your local congessman. the conessionaire contracts are approved by congress. they have the oversite. i worked for four years in yosemite for the nps, and have found that if you a persistant, you can most always have your complaint resolved in your favor.
December 3rd, 2007 13:53
[...] industry. (Guiding theme: stop giving people the idea it’s so damn hard to do this stuff.) Yosemite Blog cautions that paid-in-advance lodging can seem quite expensive if you don’t show up to use [...]