COVID-19 & Coasters: Coronavirus Impacts on the Amusement Industry

[Nicole]

Do not go to BGT, unless they change their operations or we find a way to control COVID.

Let me say that again a little more emphatically: If you do not want to get a incredibly contagious, sometimes deadly, and currently incurable virus, DO NOT GO TO BUSCH GARDENS TAMPA.

I am not simply being picky about the behavior of other guests; we just left after having observed, documented, and reported a systemic behavioral problem across the park.

@Zachary and I drove over to BGT, after having enjoyed a safe (if uncomfortably sticky) trip to Universal yesterday. Maybe it is because the staffs at USO and IoA are used to enforcing draconian loose article policies, or maybe the guests and employees just take the pandemic seriously, but we observed virtually no mask or social distancing violations all day.

We arrived in Tampa at park open, and the there were already violations everywhere. We can’t imagine what it will look like, when it gets really hot outside (and we won’t be around to see it, because we are going back to Uni, where we felt protected.

I honestly expected a certain number of guests to flout the rules, and I understand how hard it is for ops to enforce unpopular policies, but I didn’t expect the staff to wander around without masks covering their mouths and noses. I also didn’t expect people to violate the social distancing guidelines so flagrantly. The park isn’t very crowded; there is no reason to be in my personal space, breathing all over me.

I think the experiences that startled me the most were:

1. In line for the health check, before we entered the park, other guests were following close behind each other, and none of the staff staff said anything. I really didn’t feel comfortable with the family behind me, following so closely.

2. At security, they touched everything in my bag and then insisted I carry it though the metal detector. When my bag inevitably set off the machine, another guard got up close to me and wanded me.

3. We observed cleaning crews touching everything without gloves and masks.

4. The staff at customer service said nothing to the people at their counter, who weren’t wearing masks.

In general were saw no one enforcing policies and a disturbingly high number of guests and employees ignoring them.

This is all especially crazy, when you consider that Florida is currently the new U.S. epicenter of the pandemic and is breaking New York’s records... or maybe these two conditions are correlated.

 

[WDWRLD]

Thats basically the same as it was when we were there a couple weeks ago. Its amazing how they did things compared to SWO. We arrived before the parking lot opened, parked in preferred and as we were walking up to the temp tent the first tram arrived loaded. Basically everyone gets off and is in one big crowd pushing into the tent at once. From there though the park was desserted and distancing wanst a issue. We did all the coasters as walk ons, the only wait was the train and they sprayed that down.

 

[VonDerrick]

@Nicole

Do not go to BGT, unless they change their operations or we find a way to control COVID.

Let me say that again a little more emphatically: If you do not want to get a incredibly contagious, sometimes deadly, and currently incurable virus, DO NOT GO TO BUSCH GARDENS TAMPA.

I am not simply being picky about the behavior of other guests; we just left after having observed, documented, and reported a systemic behavioral problem across the park.

@Zachary and I drove over to BGT, after having enjoyed a safe (if uncomfortably sticky) trip to Universal yesterday. Maybe it is because the staffs at USO and IoA are used to enforcing draconian loose article policies, or maybe the guests and employees just take the pandemic seriously, but we observed virtually no mask or social distancing violations all day.

We arrived in Tampa at park open, and the there were already violations everywhere. We can’t imagine what it will look like, when it gets really hot outside (and we won’t be around to see it, because we are going back to Uni, where we felt protected.

I honestly expected a certain number of guests to flout the rules, and I understand how hard it is for ops to enforce unpopular policies, but I didn’t expect the staff to wander around without masks covering their mouths and noses. I also didn’t expect people to violate the social distancing guidelines so flagrantly. The park isn’t very crowded; there is no reason to be in my personal space, breathing all over me.

I think the experiences that startled me the most were:

1. In line for the health check, before we entered the park, other guests were following close behind each other, and none of the staff staff said anything. I really didn’t feel comfortable with the family behind me, following so closely.

2. At security, they touched everything in my bag and then insisted I carry it though the metal detector. When my bag inevitably set off the machine, another guard got up close to me and wanded me.

3. We observed cleaning crews touching everything without gloves and masks.

4. The staff at customer service said nothing to the people at their counter, who weren’t wearing masks.

In general were saw no one enforcing policies and a disturbingly high number of guests and employees ignoring them.

This is all especially crazy, when you consider that Florida is currently the new U.S. epicenter of the pandemic and is breaking New York’s records... or maybe these two conditions are correlated.

That doesn't surprise me coming from SEAS in general.

 

[b.mac]

This article also has a couple of other interesting tidbits like the fact that Steel Vengeance is banning phones again because they won’t be able to sanitize the pouches on the coaster (something we should expect at Twisted Timbers if KD reopens).

I am not 100% certain on what KD was going to be doing this year but Cedar Point planned to remove the pouches before COVID happened. Metal detectors have been moved up to the entrance for the ride.

 

[Jonesta6]

Boo - I usually carry little with me into the park anymore, even skip bringing a phone most times - but what am I supposed to do with car keys? Pay for a locker when I should only need my key secured for maybe 5 minutes (ok, longer than that with any sort of line, but still)?

 

[b.mac]

Across the industry these cuts should be somewhat concerning as it's showing that the projected enthusiasm to go back isn't what parks thought and that the downturn in attendance cold be concerning for the long term.

A lot of it has to do with how shifts are handled and such as well. When parks are open 10-9 or whatever they normally are you need 3 rolls of staffing in order to make it through the day legally, Morning, Swing, and Night. This is especially so if you employ minors (which make up a large portion of amusement park staffing in almost all departments), and cutting the hours to 10-7 or 11-8, or whatever the other parks are doing removes an entire roll of staffing that they have to worry about outside of individual availability.

The hope is that these moves reduce the stress on the employees and also permits for more to be done since more people will be scheduled at the same time. However the problem arises when school starts back up again, whether or not it's in-person or online.

 

[WDWRLD]

Boo - I usually carry little with me into the park anymore, even skip bringing a phone most times - but what am I supposed to do with car keys? Pay for a locker when I should only need my key secured for maybe 5 minutes (ok, longer than that with any sort of line, but still)?

Put a lock box on your vehicle, they make both permant and temporary ones, check amazon search "kidde lock box". Thats one nice feature of Ford is the keypad lock on the doors.

 

[rswashdc]

https://www.wearecentralpa.com/news...m&utm_campaign=socialflow&utm_medium=referral

Hershey in the news for denying entry to an Autistic child who wasn’t wearing a mask.

Hershey screwed up comms on this a bit. A few days before opening they were telling people with medical issues they wouldn't need a mask at all to enter and security would take care of them (a wristband I assume). Once word got around of the exception, there was a ton of encouragement to just go and tell them you had a medical condition. Hershey realizing this put the face shield alternative requirement in at the last minute with little notice. It was the correct move, but not communicated smartly.

 

[Jonesta6]

Put a lock box on your vehicle, they make both permant and temporary ones, check amazon search "kidde lock box". Thats one nice feature of Ford is the keypad lock on the doors.

I've seen it done but that isn't particularly secure - one thing if I'm in and out of a store where I can see my car, totally another if I leave my vehicle in a parking lot far from where it's visible.

 

[WDWRLD]

I've seen it done but that isn't particularly secure - one thing if I'm in and out of a store where I can see my car, totally another if I leave my vehicle in a parking lot far from where it's visible.

What are you saying is not secure? The Kidde lock box or the Ford door keypads? Both are very secure for their purpose, the fact is no one will go through the hassle of busting into one of those lock boxes just to seal a car from a theme park. And if they just want you iphone charger and some loose change they will just knock out a window.

 

[b.mac]

Hershey screwed up comms on this a bit. A few days before opening they were telling people with medical issues they wouldn't need a mask at all to enter and security would take care of them (a wristband I assume). Once word got around of the exception, there was a ton of encouragement to just go and tell them you had a medical condition. Hershey realizing this put the face shield alternative requirement in at the last minute with little notice. It was the correct move, but not communicated smartly.

It was not due to the "medical condition" policy, it was because of Pennsylvania's expanded requirements with masks that forced them to implement a stricter mask policy. Knoebels did the exact same thing as Hershey did after PA updated the requirements for masks in public spaces.

Like yeah, I get that it's hard for some people to go out and have fun in these conditions. But people need to be constantly on top of the information they are consuming in these times. Policies, practices, and procedures are changing nearly daily and anyone who isn't up-to-date on what's going on is in for a rude awakening.

 

[warfelg]

It was not due to the "medical condition" policy, it was because of Pennsylvania's expanded requirements with masks that forced them to implement a stricter mask policy. Knoebels did the exact same thing as Hershey did after PA updated the requirements for masks in public spaces.

Like yeah, I get that it's hard for some people to go out and have fun in these conditions. But people need to be constantly on top of the information they are consuming in these times. Policies, practices, and procedures are changing nearly daily and anyone who isn't up-to-date on what's going on is in for a rude awakening.

On top of that, if you haven’t seen the video, the mom is really fueling his outburst.

 

[rswashdc]

It was not due to the "medical condition" policy, it was because of Pennsylvania's expanded requirements with masks that forced them to implement a stricter mask policy. Knoebels did the exact same thing as Hershey did after PA updated the requirements for masks in public spaces.

Like yeah, I get that it's hard for some people to go out and have fun in these conditions. But people need to be constantly on top of the information they are consuming in these times. Policies, practices, and procedures are changing nearly daily and anyone who isn't up-to-date on what's going on is in for a rude awakening.

The expanded policy still has a medical exemption with no face shield requirement.

require all customers to wear masks while on premises, and deny entry to individuals not wearing masks, unless the business is providing medication, medical supplies, or food, in which case the business must provide alternative methods of pick-up or delivery of such goods; however, individuals who cannot wear a mask due to a medical condition (including children under the age of 2 years per CDC guidance) may enter the premises and are not required to provide documentation of such medical condition;

Hershey’s came up with the face shield requirement on their own, and honestly if they hadn’t, half the guests (or probably more) would be claiming medical conditions.

 

[Zachary]

Last night, leaving Universal, we definitely saw a big failure in their COVID procedures. Pretty much everything inside the park was fine (sans the Hagrid virtual queue entrance last night ?), but right when people got out onto CityWalk, things devolved. Universal didn’t seem to have anyone outside the park gates trying to direct guest traffic, encourage distancing, or enforce mask usage. There is a particularly bad choke point right at the Y-merge (coming from the parks) where construction walls basically funnel people into one another’s space. Add counterflow traffic to that and you end up with what felt like a pretty dangerous situation—especially with so many people basically saying “fuck it” with their masks on their way to their cars.

The parks did well, but something needs to change with CityWalk—they need a way to slow the flow of foot traffic getting through CityWalk and to their cars at the end of the night. Even if they just offset the two parks’ operating hours by one so that both aren’t being dumped into CityWalk at the same time, it seems like that would make a real notable difference. Only allowing outward flow through that choke point right as the parks are closing with security personnel on megaphones telling people to keep their masks covering their mouth and nose and to maintain socially distance seems essential too.

Next time, I’ll be sure to linger in the parks for as long as they’ll let me to allow time for CityWalk and the parking garage walkways to clear up before leaving.

PS: I don’t care if your family is in crisis and you’re about to divorce your wife after a long, hot, masked day at Universal—that doesn’t give you a right to remove your mask, let your kids remove theirs, and then literally drag your family behind you while shoving your way through a crowd that supposed to be socially distanced. Props to the couple who laid into them for their behavior on the moving walkway though—you love to see that.

 

[Mamunia]

Boo - I usually carry little with me into the park anymore, even skip bringing a phone most times - but what am I supposed to do with car keys? Pay for a locker when I should only need my key secured for maybe 5 minutes (ok, longer than that with any sort of line, but still)?

Can you wear a fanny pack on coasters? Or wear your keys on a fob or carabiner that attaches to pant loops or a belt? A small cross-body zip pouch (like Travelon brand), maybe wear it under your shirt?

 

[Nicole]

Do not go to BGT, unless they change their operations or we find a way to control COVID.

Let me say that again a little more emphatically: If you do not want to get a incredibly contagious, sometimes deadly, and currently incurable virus, DO NOT GO TO BUSCH GARDENS TAMPA.

I am not simply being picky about the behavior of other guests; we just left after having observed, documented, and reported a systemic behavioral problem across the park.

@Zachary and I drove over to BGT, after having enjoyed a safe (if uncomfortably sticky) trip to Universal yesterday. Maybe it is because the staffs at USO and IoA are used to enforcing draconian loose article policies, or maybe the guests and employees just take the pandemic seriously, but we observed virtually no mask or social distancing violations all day.

We arrived in Tampa at park open, and the there were already violations everywhere. We can’t imagine what it will look like, when it gets really hot outside (and we won’t be around to see it, because we are going back to Uni, where we felt protected.

I honestly expected a certain number of guests to flout the rules, and I understand how hard it is for ops to enforce unpopular policies, but I didn’t expect the staff to wander around without masks covering their mouths and noses. I also didn’t expect people to violate the social distancing guidelines so flagrantly. The park isn’t very crowded; there is no reason to be in my personal space, breathing all over me.

I think the experiences that startled me the most were:

1. In line for the health check, before we entered the park, other guests were following close behind each other, and none of the staff staff said anything. I really didn’t feel comfortable with the family behind me, following so closely.

2. At security, they touched everything in my bag and then insisted I carry it though the metal detector. When my bag inevitably set off the machine, another guard got up close to me and wanded me.

3. We observed cleaning crews touching everything without gloves and masks.

4. The staff at customer service said nothing to the people at their counter, who weren’t wearing masks.

In general were saw no one enforcing policies and a disturbingly high number of guests and employees ignoring them.

This is all especially crazy, when you consider that Florida is currently the new U.S. epicenter of the pandemic and is breaking New York’s records... or maybe these two conditions are correlated.

Update: don’t go to SWO either.

While the staff were all wearing masks, themselves, we observed no effort being made to enforce either mask or social distancing policies among the guests. Only about half of the people we saw were wearing their masks properly (or at all). People were packed tightly into lines in restaurants and bathrooms. In a gift shop, we watched a cashier talk to two teenagers for over five minutes and never once ask them to put on masks. Once again people were in line at Guest Services without masks over their mouths and noses.

On the positive side, both health check points and security were socially distanced, unlike Tampa.

Maybe SEAS misses Blackfish and is looking for a new scandal to tank their reputation?

 

[Zachary]

It's bad in there guys. Seriously. No one cares.

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

 

[warfelg]

@Nicole and @Zachary whats your individual takes on this being an issue with Florida locals vs out of town visitors and how BGT-/SWO are doing vs UO/WDW?

 

[Nicole]

There is no question that we have observed dramatically better compliance at Uni and Disney than at either SEAS park. We saw at least 98% compliance and easy social distancing at the former and only 50-75% with tight mobs at the latter. I honestly don’t know if the people we were seeing in Tampa and at SWO were tourists or not. All I do know is that my Universal and WDW passes are going to get a lot more use than my Busch Platinum.

I would add that I won’t go to LEGOLAND at all. They don’t even have a mask requirement and after what I have seen this week, that terrifies me. It is as if no one believes that Florida is literally breaking New York’s records. How is that possible? NY was the epicenter before we knew anything about COVID. We have months of research and analysis to help us protect ourselves now.

 

[Nicole]

On another note, I think I stumbled on a solution to how overheated I get, when I am wearing a mask outside in the Florida Summer. If I suck on an ice cube, the air inside my mask doesn't get hot and swampy. It has helped tremendously today. I plan to have a cup of ice with me at all times in parks in the heat.