By Russ and Tiña De Maris
For years, guests at the Lazydays RV Resort at Seffner, Florida, enjoyed a real “perk.” Guests got vouchers for free breakfasts and lunches each day when checked in at the resort, all part of the price of staying with them. Sadly, that old expression “No such thing as a free lunch” has come true even in Florida.
One of our readers, currently staying on at Lazydays, let us know about the change. Referring to the Lazydays’ Front Porch Restaurant, he writes, “Gone are the crowds to congregate with already made friends, to make new friends, plan trips and make wonderful memories. And gone is the opportunity to get more guests into the Sales Area twice a day. Sad.”
We reached out to Lazydays management to inquire about the loss. “Chalk it up to costs,” we were basically told. The company says if they had held onto the free food for guests program, they would have had to raise resort rates, and feared they would have lost many of the small groups that frequent the RV resort. So last November, they pulled the free food program.
Our reader proposes a different approach. “The Front Porch continues its operation providing food, basically for the large staff of management, sales, service, maintenance and grounds personnel. That is mostly at lunch time so workers do not have to travel off-site for a meal. A very inefficient use of the Front Porch when they have hundreds of guests on site who would gladly select a separate food package, not bundled into their site fees, to eat at their Front Porch facility.”
That ball is now in Lazydays’ court.
Lazydays has been going down hill for a number of years.
We visited Lazy Days this past January with friends while roaming around Florida and we completely caught off guard by the no free meals and they added another $10 per day, special event upcharge they said, due to the Tampa RV show being held a few miles away!!! Ended up being $64 total per day. And was not impressed with the sites right on top of each other. Lot of people were griping and saying they would not be back, including us and our friends. By the way, I recently read an article that the founder of LD has his home on the market in the Tampa area. I believe the dealership is now owned by a New York holding company. Here’s a link .
https://www.tampabay.com/business/founder-of-lazydays-rv-puts-hillsborough-county-estate-on-market-for-22-million-20190201/
My lovely spouse & I were treated terribly by the sales staff 3 different occasions and bought Motorhomes elsewhere due to the pushy attitude..their loss as it was not about just the numbers but the fear of service and battles if we bought their so “NO Deal” ..we like dealing with smaller companies that need sales and future service and not arguing about warranty repairs..so we wrote off LD years ago as the free lunch was the nicest part of our effort..So it’s OK with us that they are getting what’s due as they developed a nightmare for themselves..There are too many friendly dealers who really care about after the sale..So what’s next now at LD..hold onto your seat as this is just the start of decline..we buyers don’t need ignorance…
Lazydays is the new camping world and next on the list of the worst places to do business…. If someone would start a business and run it with the actual customer being the key focus both in being treated fairly on trading deals and sales and customer service they wouldn’t have to worry about profits as they would do so much business based on the sheer volume of having thousands of satisfied customers and ones that would do repeat business they couldn’t possibly fail and i would love to see someone like Bob Tiffin do that as he has the best reputation in customer service and quality and standing behind his products and service after the sale….. WOW what a totally non rocket science way of thinking….. But will it ever happen ….. it wont until people stop doing business with the Lazysays and Camping worlds across the USA……. Wake up Camping world and Lazydays and change your ways and save yourselves before the customers make the change for you!!!!
Lazy Days stopped giving free lunches to their “customers for Life” several years ago and started charging a nominal fee.