New Glamping Destination Booked Through 2021
COCAGNE, N.B. – Creekside RnR opened in October 2020 and co-founder Angele Miller says business hasn’t slowed down since.
In fact, the glamping site has booked all five of their domes through the summer and all weekends through the end of the year.
Miller and her family began planning to turn their owned land into a glamping destination prior to the pandemic, and right before construction began, the world shut down.
“One of the questions we asked ourselves was do we continue with the project and hope that everything would be fine? Or do we hold off on the project? We decided to continue,” said Miller.
Miller likens the glamping experience to a resort and says that by providing people with that experience, it’s easy to see why visitors are drawn to the domes.
“I think the good thing for us is we were looking at offering an experience that brought a similar experience as if [guests] would be travelling abroad,” said Miller. “When you go to a resort, you’re used to being served all kinds of good food and alcohol or have cool experiences to do. What we had in mind when we opened was to try and bring some of that experience.”
Miller says there have been reservations from visitors from across New Brunswick and from other Maritime provinces with the hopes of the Atlantic Bubble opening this summer. If guests are unable to make their reservation due to Covid restrictions, there is a waitlist for cancellations.
“When zone colours change, we receive an enormous amount of calls to change bookings or cancel and refill everything. We’ve been tripling our work and it’s very intense, you know,” said Miller.
Located in Cocagne, a thirty-minute drive outside of Moncton, visitors to the “glampground” stay in a dome that is equipped with a king bed, two twin beds, kitchen, bathroom, hot tub, barbeque, and picnic table. Miller says there are plenty of walking trails and beaches nearby for the summer along with snowshoeing and cross-country ski trails for the winter.
Creekside also partners with fellow local businesses and suppliers. There are products from local farmers, oyster farmers, chocolatiers, apple suppliers, and honey suppliers.
Miller hopes to construct more domes in the future but would like to maintain the atmosphere’s intimacy and solitude by keeping the number low.
“We might add another two or three more max because we want to keep it very intimate. We’re in nature and it’s very beautiful so you always have a lot of wildlife and we want to make sure we keep that there,” she said.
Miller said deer appear regularly in front of visitors’ domes and on the nearby creek where there will often be 10 deer gathered at once. The natural environment is something that Miller and her family, who grew up in the area, loved about the land.
“We always go there to walk or hike or do other things and then it just occurred to us after we had seen domes online to move forward with the project so people can really get a true glamping experience,” she said.
Liam Floyd is a reporter with Huddle. Send him story suggestions: [email protected].