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I don’t know…. The city of Virginia Beach seems to have figured out the ‘secret’ at least temporarily….
Saved 9 of 14. Given the complaints on here if BGW paid the staff enough but closed an additional 1/3 of the park the same complaints would become louder.
 
Yep, just in the short term. If the trend continues they can save more. You have to start somewhere. You can’t expect to have no staff then jump to full staff in a few weeks. It takes time. The more staff you have, the longer it will take.
 
Yep, just in the short term. If the trend continues they can save more. You have to start somewhere. You can’t expect to have no staff then jump to full staff in a few weeks. It takes time. The more staff you have, the longer it will take.
Conversely the more you have the more it will cost to operate which means either charging the parents more or raising taxes. Most likely charge parents more which will cause a dip in enrollment and you can’t afford to pay everyone and you got to make cuts.

Multiple places have had the same issue in the past year plus. They offer to pay more, do it, then are unable to afford or people leave because of other reasons. One place changing doesn’t mean it’s better across the board, even if just temporary.

These things aren’t as cut and dry easy as some here want make it out to be. Just think of this chain: you pay new people more, your tenured people want to be paid more to stay ahead and reflect that. Then their pay starts creeping to manager level so you either let them go and find someone new or pay the managers more. You pay them more their managers want more, and up and up everyone’s pay goes. Then you either need to raise rates or cut spending. Both of which have drawn complaints on this forum.

Heck, I’d do this in BGW/SEAS shoes instead of paying more: Improve the benefits of working for BGW. Have an education reimbursement program. Offer free employee meals. Longer tenured employees get to pick their schedule. Have employee exclusive days/times. At certain work anniversaries send employees to visit another park.

I said it back when the employment crisis started nation wide, throwing money at the problem isnt the solution. And that’s holding true.
 
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I have no sympathy for staffing issues at a park that pays its staff 30 to 40-ish% less than its closest competitor. It seems to me that additional analysis is frivolous until that changes.
And I don’t either. I have sympathy for the customer service industry in general.

Edit:
Basically, it’s possible to acknowledge its both a BGW/SEAS problem and a problem in general at the same time.
 
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I don’t want to come off like I’m absolving them of issues, just rather it’s not a BGW alone issue to have staffing problem. Yes, their added salary cuts and management culture isn’t helping, but the culture thing is more widespread as well.

Should BGW/SEAS stop being so profit focused and remember where the profit is coming from? Absolutely. Should we,consumers, be more concerned about widespread customer service employment issues? Absolutely.

He’ll let me give you an example: I work as a manager of a golf instruction facility. The other day I had someone walk in asking if we sold golf balls. I said no. They got frustrated, and rather finding out what we do they started pressing about getting something. I stated again, we do instruction. They started getting mad they couldn’t walk out with golf balls because they can see some in the bay and I must sell them balls because I have some they can see. I said, they are for my bays for practice reasons. They started saying how absurd it was to have balls but not sell them and finally goes “fine, I’ll get them a gift certificate to buy them from you”. I stated we don’t do value gift cards, they are for the service itself. I had to stand there for 5 minutes getting yelled at in front of a student because I wouldn’t let that person just buy golf balls. Politely I suggested they try Dicks. They said, verbatim, “I was trying to help a new business but I guess you don’t care about Annapolis.”

Like, if your a high school or college kid…why do you want to deal with that. And if you are an adult how high does the pay and how good does the culture need to be to deal with being degraded like that.
I get all of that believe me I do as it's the story of my life right now. But I go back to what I have said many times this year that if the local McDonald's is out bidding you by several dollars for hourly wages you have a major issue.
 
I get all of that believe me I do as it's the story of my life right now. But I go back to what I have said many times this year that if the local McDonald's is out bidding you by several dollars for hourly wages you have a major issue.
And I don’t disagree. But how long are they staying there and are they doing quality work? I know the McDs near me when I was in Richmond started going massively downhill (2-3 min to 7-10 min) when they outbid everyone.
 
Quality of hires, quantity of hires, and higher wages - pick 2 and only expect one.

The KD comparison makes sense when thinking of the particular industry, but unlikely BGW locals are interested in making the trek to Hanover County.

I think the fast food comparison is more useful - if the park was willing and able to provide better pay for everyone and a decent benefits package (even if some degree of tenure is required for an employee to receive it - make it past 60 days or whatever's appropriate), then the concerns would be about the quality of hires, not necessarily quantity or costs.
 
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I don’t want to come off like I’m absolving them of issues, just rather it’s not a BGW alone issue to have staffing problem. Yes, their added salary cuts and management culture isn’t helping, but the culture thing is more widespread as well.

Should BGW/SEAS stop being so profit focused and remember where the profit is coming from? Absolutely. Should we,consumers, be more concerned about widespread customer service employment issues? Absolutely.

He’ll let me give you an example: I work as a manager of a golf instruction facility. The other day I had someone walk in asking if we sold golf balls. I said no. They got frustrated, and rather finding out what we do they started pressing about getting something. I stated again, we do instruction. They started getting mad they couldn’t walk out with golf balls because they can see some in the bay and I must sell them balls because I have some they can see. I said, they are for my bays for practice reasons. They started saying how absurd it was to have balls but not sell them and finally goes “fine, I’ll get them a gift certificate to buy them from you”. I stated we don’t do value gift cards, they are for the service itself. I had to stand there for 5 minutes getting yelled at in front of a student because I wouldn’t let that person just buy golf balls. Politely I suggested they try Dicks. They said, verbatim, “I was trying to help a new business but I guess you don’t care about Annapolis.”

Like, if your a high school or college kid…why do you want to deal with that. And if you are an adult how high does the pay and how good does the culture need to be to deal with being degraded like that.
Can’t relate, but I have seen an incident during August (?) last year where a guest had a double whammy where they were yelling at an employee because they told them to put their mask on and that their pass was having an issue.
(If this doesn’t fit here, please move to appropriate forum)
 
The park is a shit show tonight……No Scrooge, No Unto Us, No Festhaus shows……all signs say “No Shows Today. Was told no preferred parking you will be parking across the street yet the preferred lot is half full.
 
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The park is a shit show tonight……No Scrooge, No Unto Us, No Festhaus shows……all signs say “No Shows Today. Was told no preferred parking you will be parking across the street yet the preferred lot is half full.
This is the 2010 thread....
 
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The park is a shit show tonight……No Scrooge, No Unto Us, No Festhaus shows……all signs say “No Shows Today. Was told no preferred parking you will be parking across the street yet the preferred lot is half full.
 
After waiting in a long line for Polos, there was no desserts that section was closed and the drink machines have almost nothing. FAF5EC3C-A4D7-4A6D-8126-B0E3573136B3.jpeg
 
Is it mobbed or not? I was thinking of going tomorrow and seeing an actual show for the first time in years, but you're not telling me what I most want to know.
 
The park is a shit show tonight……No Scrooge, No Unto Us, No Festhaus shows……all signs say “No Shows Today. Was told no preferred parking you will be parking across the street yet the preferred lot is half full.
Scrooge and Unto Us both usually have Tuesday shows while Haustop does not. The times guide shows no Scrooge shows tomorrow (Wed 12/19) either. Wonder if some performers are out due to covid and they've had to cancel some shows?
 
Scrooge and Unto Us both usually have Tuesday shows while Haustop does not. The times guide shows no Scrooge shows tomorrow (Wed 12/19) either. Wonder if some performers are out due to covid and they've had to cancel some shows?
Wouldn’t surprise me. I’ve seen the outdoor shows start having performers with masks.
 
Ok, so tonight was pathetic....and I saw tons of people going in with paper tickets so they paid to get in not just members or passholders and I would have been furious. Now I will also say I didnt look online to see what shows were running or not or times, wedecided to go with out of town family at the last minute who are also members.

We arrived about 5pm and the line at the toll booth was to the curve, took maybe 10 minutes. We get to the booth and she scans my pass and says "theres no preferred so youll be parking across the street". Drive on to just under the tram bridge where its backed up, as we creep by I look and at the preferred lot and at least the last 3 rows were empty. Once I got into the lot there were tons of empty spaces and people leaving all the time.

We had not seen Scrooge so though we would do that....but as we walked through England "no shows today". As we walked past Unto Us...again no shows. Get to Festhaus the line to get in was back and fourth to the side br Drachen Fire park. Once inside I realized that was the food line too......which went all the was down the side and across the front of the festhaus and into the food area.....so we decided to go to Marco Polos. When we got there the end of the line was just past the old flower sculpter place. We assumed there were only letting a few in at a time since there are no lines inside....but nope just one huge pile of people with ro organization on where to line up for food at each area. The dessert area aslo was closed. Then when we get to the drink fountains just aboutr all the drinks were "out of order". I had the smapler and portion size was roughly 2/3 what it normally is......literally 4 peices of orange chicken. I was hoping the seating area would be heated like normal but none of the heaters were on....and no background music even playing.

Verbolten.....full queue and line down to beginning bridge. Scrambler.....closed. Invadr...no line. We didnt ride anything....just some examples.

We did decide to do the train. Posted wait on the sign 45 minutes. We got in line about 7:15 and end of line was just to the entrance of the flume so not bad.....or so it seemed. At 45 minutes we had only made it to the entrance of Invadr. They had 2 trains running, green and blue. Green leaves and blue pulls in, and they anounce it was leaving empty and it did after sitting there for about 10 minutes. Finally green shows back up and they load......then it sits there....and sits....and sits......for like 15 minutes. The lady kept anouncing the next train would be in a couple minutes. While waiting there was a interesting "we will rock you" stomp done by about all the passengers on the train. Finally it leaves and then a few minutes later here comes the empty blue train. We get on and ride. All in all 1 hour and 30 minutes from the time we got in line and got off the train....double the pasted wait.

The new sback stand had a long line well past the entrance of Darkastle....also interesting on the side they have 3 screens. One inthe center has the menu.....the other two were playing two diffrent football games.....had a nice B-Dubs Applebees feel.

Not sure about CelticFyre...when we came by that at just before 9pm there were no show times that I could find. On the app it showed it was open. After that we left because everything was closing up.


All in all......if you get in free and dont mind waiting and waiting go this week. If you need to buy a ticket save your money.
 
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