Department of Natural Resources state park and recreation officials today announced the central reservation system (CRS) for state park camping and harbor reservations will be closed temporarily from March 7-14 to allow improvements and upgrades to be made to the system.

"We apologize to our users for the inconvenience this temporary closure may cause," said Ron Olson, chief of the DNR's Parks and Recreation Division. "However, the improvements will enhance the reservation system for our customers and is the result of input from our users."

Olson said two upgrades that will directly improve the system for customers include the addition of a shopping cart feature to the reservation Web site and an enhanced software platform to accommodate greater capacity on the Web site during peak use times.

"The upgrades provide a number of improvements that have been requested by our campers," Olson said. "It will allow online users to put a hold on a site while they input their information. The hold will expire after a few minutes in case they change their mind or get busy doing something else."

To install these upgrades to CRS, both the call center in Iron River and the online reservation system will be shut down from 5 p.m., Saturday, March 7 until 9 a.m., Sunday, March 15, when both the call center and the online system will reopen for reservations. No camping or harbor reservations can be taken during this closure.

"The system will be closed after the six-month booking window for Labor Day weekend reservations has passed and will reopen before the booking rush for the fall harvest festivals," said DNR Department Analyst Christa Sturtevant. For more information about the temporary closure of the reservation system, contact Sturtevant at (231) 861-2703.