How would you speed that up? All the lanes last night were open, the workers were going as fast as possible. They can't help guests asking 1000 questions. I went at 4:30 yesterday and the line was on the ramp almost on the going up part and only took like 20min. Im not doubting the hour and half but a hour and half line would be out to interstate id think
How does that stop a long entry line? It takes 2 seconds to scan a pass or ticket and get the parking pass/recipt. Again they were using all lanes last night. Least the fingerprint reader is gone
Then they need more lines, greater granularity between the lines to move more people faster, and/or the "as fast as possible" allowed by the current system isn't fast enough.
Alternatively, they can reduce and/or better distribute arrivals by incentivizing earlier or later entry to prevent additional traffic at peak times, by actually blacking out lower-teir admission products (instead of imposing and then subsequently lifting said blackouts for no reason other than greed), and/or by reopening the employee gate to Platinum passholders to peel away a percentage of the flood from the main entry. There are plenty of options. They just require a desire to fix the problem and an investment in the guest arrival experience.
I mean, they can. One solution is to remove humans from the majority of lanes all together and use a plate scanning system a la Six Flags for pass members and those with prepaid parking products. Offering a lower parking price for pre-registered parking would incentivize the usage even more, reducing the needed number of staffed lanes even further.
Another human-free option could be to partner with EZ-Pass and implement their EZ-Pass parking payment system that can be found at some airports, parking garages, and other large venues. Many people on the East Coast have EZ-Pass toll transponders anyway. Having a lane or two for people who need to pay for parking to utilize their EZ-Pass transponder and drive right though could massively reduce wait times for everyone. Even better if there's a way to link you membership benefit to it to allow members to do the same.
So yeah, there are plenty of options. BGW just won't invest in them because they don't believe the problem is currently hurting their bottom line.
Then they need more lines, greater granularity between the lines to move more people faster, and/or the "as fast as possible" allowed by the current system isn't fast enough. Alternatively, they can incentivize earlier or later entry to prevent additional traffic at peak times, actually black out lower-teir admission products (instead of imposing and then subsequently lifting said blackouts for no reason other than greed), and/or reopen the employee gate to Platinum passholders to peel away a percentage of the flood from the main entry. There are plenty of options. They just require a desire to fix the problem and an investment in the guest arrival experience.
I mean, they can. One solution is to remove humans from the vast majority of lanes all together and use a plate scanning system a la Six Flags for pass members and those with prepaid parking products. Offering a lower parking price for pre-registered parking would incentivize the usage even more, reducing the needed number of staffed lanes even further. Another option could be to partner with EZ-Pass and implement their EZ-Pass parking payment system. Many people on the East Coast have EZ-Pass toll transponders anyway. Having a lane or two for people who need to pay for parking to utilize their EZ-Pass transponder and drive right though could massively reduce wait times for everyone. Even better if there's a way to link you membership benefit to it.
So yeah, there are plenty of options. BGW just won't invest in them because they don't believe the problem is currently hurting their bottom line.
Never even knew six flags did a plate thing. Thats pretty smart and all the other ways mentioned. I was thinking yester how amazing a seperate pass member line would be or whole other entrance
Also. Speaking as someone who briefly worked the parking tolls at BGW, just because they have all 10 lanes open doesn’t mean they have all 10 booth positions staffed. Usually it’s 5 people out there with one person tending to 2 lanes each. To add on top of that, the registers are old, as are the readers and are constantly slowing down/freezing up at the worst possible times. In addition, you now have the booth(s) that handle the cash to card machine due to the park being cashless, which adds time per transaction. Basically, parking tolls needs a lot of improvement by themselves before you think about expanding them.
How does that stop a long entry line? It takes 2 seconds to scan a pass or ticket and get the parking pass/recipt. Again they were using all lanes last night. Least the fingerprint reader is gone
How would you speed that up? All the lanes last night were open, the workers were going as fast as possible. They can't help guests asking 1000 questions. I went at 4:30 yesterday and the line was on the ramp almost on the going up part and only took like 20min. Im not doubting the hour and half but a hour and half line would be out to interstate id think
BGW has one of the slowest, least efficient parking systems I’ve ever encountered. First, they require you to show photo ID to verify your pass — which takes additional time for every single person, even if the guest is ready with their photo ID in hand. In my experience, most guests aren’t prepared with their photo ID, so now you’ve added another 30 seconds for each pass member to fish their ID out, pass it to the attendant, and have it verified. That time adds up, quickly. On the other hand, parks like KD have the pass member’s photo pop up when their pass is scanned, bypassing this process.
Moreover, unlike other parks like KD, BGW skimps by having one attendant service two lines of cars, not one; the attendant alternates between the line to their left and to their right. This makes each line half as efficient as if BGW actually paid to staff one attendant for each line. And naturally, the lines crawl.
Absolving BGW of the blame for this horrible guest experience is crazy talk.
While i have seen 1 person doing both sjdes which sucks, last night the 3 that i briefly looked at did have 2 people in each both. I was on the left half do i have no idea about the right half but yea.
I mean, they can. One solution is to remove humans from the vast majority of lanes all together and use a plate scanning system a la Six Flags for pass members and those with prepaid parking products. Offering a lower parking price for pre-registered parking would incentivize the usage even more, reducing the needed number of staffed lanes even further. Another option could be to partner with EZ-Pass and implement their EZ-Pass parking payment system. Many people on the East Coast have EZ-Pass toll transponders anyway. Having a lane or two for people who need to pay for parking to utilize their EZ-Pass transponder and drive right though could massively reduce wait times for everyone. Even better if there's a way to link you membership benefit to it.
Even without going that deep on it they could do the "Tune to channel" as you get near the park that will answer some of those questions. My big one is on days that they know is going to be busy, they should just open the overflow lots from the start and offer a discounted rate to go over there. From a customer service perspective the people at the posts should just be saying "all answers can be found at customer service" (well this would require BGW to have their shit together on that front).
If money was no cost then they should completely redo all the entrances and exits. IMO there should be no direct Merrimac Trail or Pocahontas Trail access to 64 at this spot. There needs to be a dedicated exit for just BGW. Then utilize the land opposite Apollo's turnaround to make a much bigger toll plaza. Then have one entrance from Pocahontas Trail from the eastbound land with a U-Turn ramp from westbound to the land that becomes the entrance to BGW.
Long run that would allow you to use the perimeter road for all entrance/exit ways, take out the roads to the "inside" of the lots, expand some parking into those spaces, use some for backstage, or just create green space.
Some color coding here: Red is what's eliminated. Green is for leaving the park connected to 64. Dark blue is entrance off 64, lighter blue is the entrance off Pocahontas Tail. Apologies for not having great software for drawing this out and the scaling being terrible.
BGW has one of the slowest, least efficient parking systems I’ve ever encountered. First, they require you to show photo ID to verify your pass — which takes additional time for every single person, even if the guest is ready with their photo ID in hand. In my experience, most guests aren’t prepared with their photo ID, so now you’ve added another 30 seconds for each pass member to fish their ID out, pass it to the attendant, and have it verified. That time adds up, quickly. On the other hand, parks like KD have the pass member’s photo pop up when their pass is scanned, bypassing this process.
I don't understand why I need to take a picture with BGW if I always need to scan my ID. This IMO is a HUGE time suck even if it's 10 seconds each time. Personally, I don't see why they can't do a hard card for everyone and have your picture printed on it if people stealing passes and getting free parking is that big a deal.
Sorry BGW's entry way in car and on foot is a big soap box issue for me. It's just so god awful and for a park that does about 15x the volume it was all designed for. Along with their cheapness to doing actual good systems for this system it just is a train wreck IMO. Everything they did with the current car design was like it was designed for what they needed at the time and not what is coming.
I tell you one thing - If INBev ever closed the Williamsburg Brewery or moved it to expand - the bidding war for that land between Kingsmill and BGW should be nuts. If BGW got their hands on that land that would be amazing to put parking there, expand the park into the current parking lots, and get a whole new entrance.
Anyways Christmas Town. Anyone know if the wood worker still has a stand? I plan on being there next weekend and I want to know if I need to look for him in the usual Germany area or somewhere else.
BGW has one of the slowest, least efficient parking systems I’ve ever encountered. First, they require you to show photo ID to verify your pass — which takes additional time for every single person, even if the guest is ready with their photo ID in hand. In my experience, most guests aren’t prepared with their photo ID, so now you’ve added another 30 seconds for each pass member to fish their ID out, pass it to the attendant, and have it verified. That time adds up, quickly. On the other hand, parks like KD have the pass member’s photo pop up when their pass is scanned, bypassing this process.
Moreover, unlike other parks like KD, BGW skimps by having one attendant service two lines of cars, not one; the attendant alternates between the line to their left and to their right. This makes each line half as efficient as if BGW actually paid to staff one attendant for each line. And naturally, the lines crawl.
Absolving BGW of the blame for this horrible guest experience is crazy talk.
Actually on every visit I have had to Winterfest this year KD has used one person for two lines on at least a few booths if not all. I don't know if this is by choice or because it's simply hard to find staff to stand in a cold unhealed booth for a few hours. The parking line has also backed up all the way to 95 South on more then one occasion this year.
Actually on every visit I have had to Winterfest this year KD has used one person for two lines on at least a few booths if not all. I don't know if this is by choice or because it's simply hard to find staff to stand in a cold unhealed booth for a few hours. The parking line has also backed up all the way to 95 South on more then one occasion this year.
BG should have ended HOS on October 31. Instead they extended it trough November 3. Christmastown should have opened on November 22 not November 15. BG should have remained closed from November 1 through the 15th. This would have given the team three uninterrupted weeks including weekends for set-up. This process was utilized in the past and it was quite effective.
BG should have ended HOS on October 31. Instead they extended it trough November 3. Christmastown should have opened on November 22 not November 15. BG should have remained closed from November 1 through the 15th. This would have given the team three uninterrupted weeks including weekends for set-up. This process was utilized in the past and it was quite effective.
Park looked nice and setup to me minus opening weekend Christmas town starts fine. Its HOS that needs to start later and needs more time to setup. They do more than enough for christmas town setup in the short time they got. Only complaint I got is why the hell isint the parking gate decorated at all?
Park looked nice and setup to me minus opening weekend Christmas town starts fine. Its HOS that needs to start later and needs more time to setup. They do more than enough for christmas town setup in the short time they got. Only complaint I got is why the hell isint the parking gate decorated at all?
I don't know how to optimize BGW's parking experience, except with a complete overhaul, this is not the first time it's taken me an hour to get parked/into the park, but this was the first time I have had to park in either Scotland or Bavaria lots.
There is a part of me that says if you know you may have to park in Scotland or Bavaria then that says you should not go. Of course....for a lot of people with families they have to go regardless for reasons. But yeah, I have turned around because I know i would have to park there even when meeting friends.
Yes busch could manage it better, but at the end of the day...thats a lot of people.
If you choose to go at a almost capactity time it is what it is lmao. They can speed the parking up but once you get in the park it's going to be long lines for everything no matter what you do. No park has perfected being at almost capacity and the park feels "not that bad"
I've turned around and gone home upon arriving to a long line to get in to park twice. Turns out those times were probably quite normal (not backed up over I-64) and weren't large enough to indicate the park was slammed, just never experienced opening time before.
Christmas town starts fine. Its HOS that needs to start later and needs more time to setup. They do more than enough for christmas town setup in the short time they got. Only complaint I got is why the hell isint the parking gate decorated at all?
