DNR reservation system to go back online Thursday
Officials with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources are confident the state park reservation system will work well when it is relaunched later this week.
The DNR will resume taking reservations for state park campgrounds and cabins on a limited basis starting Thursday. They're asking for public cooperation in the first few days of the relaunch.
The DNR's upgraded reservation service launched March 1, but immediately crashed because of high traffic, and has been offline since.
The online reservation system now has added capacity and changes to speed up the reservation process, said Courtland Nelson, DNR state parks director.
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Those who already have a reservation are advised to wait until the weekend to call or log on. Those who want to camp after May 12, must wait until Monday. Campers planning later summer vacations can make reservations later next week.
For reservations during March, the agency is directing callers to individual parks. The DNR also posts a downloadable document each weekday to this web page that shows the number of campsites available at each park.
The agency wants people to prepare in advance of their reservation call.
"We'd request that they go to our website, look at maps, and answer as many questions in their own mind as they can prior to going online or making that call center contact, so we can quickly move them through," Nelson said.
