Taste of Busch Gardens 2020

[BGWnut]

Honestly, considering they charge 2 bucks for a 2-hour rental(at least they used to) it might be just as good to go that route.

Except you can't move your stuff around that way. But it might not be a big deal either way.

Don't know if this has been mentioned before or when the hike went into effect given that this is the first time I have used a locker this year but movable lockers are now 8 bucks. That wouldn't bug me in a regular season but seems stiff with less then half the park open.

It's likely that was the price it was going to increase to at the start of this year anyway. I believe that price is set by the Vendor that actually owns them. If you are doing both sessions one day, you actually should be able to use a locker purchased in the morning for the evening. I doubt that they had anyone take the time to adjust the code to limit that

 

[Zimmy]

Exclusive footage of BGW marketing paying the SEAS web team a visit this morning:

View attachment 21077

Apple Support recommends Panda Smash as a troubleshooting method when you are trying to do something productive with a Mac.

 

[Zimmy]

That's what we're planning to do, so I say not insane at all. ?

yes... But you are also going to get to see peoples!

 

[horsesboy]

I seriously question if there is any shrimp in the shrimp dumplings. The ones I had tasted like all filling and breading I didn't taste any actual meat.

 

[Mwe BGW]

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Finally!

 

[Zachary]

So really quick before I go to bed (we'll say more tomorrow on social media probably):

Unsurprisingly, this event is a huge improvement over Coasters & Craft Brews. The ride selection is better, the footprint feels a lot larger, there are actual dining options (no more endless Trappers meals!), and I actually think there may be enough to see and do to justify double reservations on the same day now.

I have gripes about mask enforcement (and noted multiple unmasked employees tonight), but setup-wise, the newly-opened areas of the park feel more thought-out when it comes to COVID modifications. The Verbolten queue is a great example of this—they cut out parts of the railing to enable skipping switchbacks—a fix for an issue that has plagued Griffon's queue since Brews began. The park has plexiglass shields up to separate back to back seating on the Alpie overlook—a very respectable modification that is much preferable to just seeing the area closed off.

Anyway, yeah, enforcement, especially on a humid, hot night like tonight, needs work. That said, structurally, the park has a winner here. Assuming this event sees success, it will be proof that this 1,000 guest cap business is workable—not only can the park operate a solid collection of rides, but they can put on a small but respectable special event too. Hopefully the park will see profits and we'll see more of this for October, November, December... and beyond...?

 

[BGWnut]

I will like to see the park try to do small events like this in addition to regular operations. I think that there is definitely a market there for events like this.

That being said I really hope that we aren't looking into next year with the same 1000 person cap. Honestly I think it's pretty likely the governor will increase it soon, especially after Labor day has come and gone.

 

[Memles]

I will like to see the park try to do small events like this in addition to regular operations. I think that there is definitely a market there for events like this.

That being said I really hope that we aren't looking into next year with the same 1000 person cap. Honestly I think it's pretty likely the governor will increase it soon, especially after Labor day has come and gone.

I admire your optimism, but I just don’t see it: I think the phrase “moderately contained” from this week’s briefing combined with the ongoing debacle on college campuses means that Virginia is very much in a holding pattern, and any gains from cooler weather will be offset by the impacts of the traditional cold and flu season.

The chances of slightly increased capacity this calendar year are not nil, mind you, but I just don’t think that a single business has the leverage to lobby for a change under the circumstances, and I think the best case scenario is being able to get to 2500 by Christmas Town and hoping they can approach 25-50% capacity by the start of the full season in March (and we were talking about this in the park tonight, but potentially running limited events in January and February to help make up some lost revenue).

Anyway, yeah, enforcement, especially on a humid, hot night like tonight, needs work. That said, structurally, the park has a winner here. Assuming this event sees success, it will be proof that this 1,000 guest cap business is workable—not only can the park operate a solid collection of rides, but they can put on a small but respectable special event too. Hopefully the park will see profits and we'll see more of this for October, November, December... and beyond...?

My new strategy for not getting too caught up on enforcement is hashing out forum conversations IRL instead of just actively seeking out enforcement problems (not that they didn’t keep falling into our lap anyway). Worked pretty well, to be honest.

 

[WDWRLD]

Was just told after driving to the park that the event is full. Guy said they are planning for 30-40% no shows so I assume that means overselling the event by 30-40%. It’s 7 pm and the 23 minutes i’ve been waiting and not seen anyone leave. I’m guessing 20-30 cars of people waiting. What a shit show.

 

[boston191]

I've got 11am tickets for Saturday. Its supposed to be one of the nicest days on a long time. I'm going to make sure to be there early.

 

[Zachary]

@Adam was caught up in this tonight too and he reports that they were giving out snack vouchers at least.

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[rswashdc]

If it’s a few minute wait, a snack voucher is fine, but if someone drove a ways to get there and/or has to wait awhile, this doesn’t come close to being decent compensation.

 

[Zachary]

Yeah, if I drove a ways to get to the park only to have even just 1/8th of my time (30 minutes) burned through by the park, I’d be furious.

 

[WDWRLD]

We arrived about 7pm, with the wife working and me working tomorow today the the day even thought it was limited time. The plan was to have 2 hours of hitting food booths.......then we got there and had to wait. It was 7:30 when we were told we could get out of the truck and go into the park and we were given snack vouchers. Basically now we had just enough time to stop at one booth, walk to the far end of the park and since the snack vouchers were only good for tonight we used them on funnel cakes and pretzels which the line moved sloooooow. I asked about the refill cup which I had in my hand and was told no they werent honored at this event so we did buy one drink. Then later I asked at another location and was told I could but at the time didnt need another drink. By the time we finished the funnel cake the park was closed. So all in all BGW made about $14 off me total and I got a drink, two food samples, pretzels and a funnel cake in which I had planned to get to at least 3 or 4 booths buying a couple samples at each as well as a beer or two. So I didnt spend the $50-$60 I had planned on spending. Park was desserted.....not sure where the 1000 people were but I didnt see that many of them.

 

[salveamicus]

I've got 11am tickets for Saturday. Its supposed to be one of the nicest days on a long time. I'm going to make sure to be there early.

I'm here now... Got to ride Griffon, Invadr, Alpengeist, and Verbolten. On Alpengeist and Verbolten, we were the only ones on the train. Great weather and much better time than when I came a month ago, and there were thunderstorms for four hours.

 

[Memles]

Seeing reports that the park was at capacity by 6pm tonight, and there's a line of people standing waiting for guests to start leaving. The overbooking situation has reached its moment of crisis: beautiful weather, holiday weekend, etc.

My best guess is that they made the mistake of failing to successfully factor in the weather when they looked at the data on no-shows during Coasters & Craft Brews, and whatever number they set—let's say it was 1250, which presumes a 20% no-show rate—was poorly calibrated for the realities of the situation.

 

[warfelg]

FWIW, this is why I made commentary against overbooking long before any park was open. This isn't like flying where there's usually an alternate way to get to where you want to. You can fly through another city and just get a connector flight. Ad at least waiting for a plane there's things to do in the terminal. There's none of that for waiting in line to get into BGW.

If they are going to overbook, they need to put it as a standby ticket or tell you that's what you are about to be with that.

This is an IMO thing, but if you are a member/passholder and you book for a 2nd session in the same day, you should automatically be put on standby for that second session. It's not right to make a person that only signed up for the second session to wait for someone that's already had time in the park. (realistically they should ban this from happening at all).

But really what they should do is bad 2-session visits, don't overbook (or at least cut it massively back), and make an appeal to Northam that with their space and success that the limit can be raised.

 

[Zachary]

I’m less mad at double-booking a day to be honest. For people coming from hours away, it can be a good solution in my opinion.

Capping the number of reservations a single pass can hold is really important though. I’d bet money that the more reservations a person books, the more likely they are to no-show at a reservation. Disney is capping passes at three reservations on the books at a time. BGW can reasonably limit it to two in my opinion since supply is so much lower here. That would allow someone to double book a single day or schedule two visits. After the reservation(s) are used, they should repopulate to allow booking additional days—you just can’t hold more than two at a time.

You could even implement a no-show penalty into this system—if you no-show, you don’t get that reservation slot back during the current event. If you no-show twice, you would effectively be barred from visiting the current event unless you purchase a single day ticket. This seems super fair in my opinion.

 

[BGWnut]

But really what they should do is bad 2-session visits, don't overbook (or at least cut it massively back), and make an appeal to Northam that with their space and success that the limit can be raised.

I agree. I know that some people don't think that the limit should be higher, but there are locations that are smaller that significantly smaller that BGW is lumped in with. That's my problem with the current restrictions. It doesn't make sense to me that other much smaller businesses can be open with a higher percentage of their capacity but BGW which is something like 380 acres can still only have 1000 people on property. There's a disconnect there where I just don't understand the logic. I'm saying that BGW should be allowed to have 50% of their capacity, but I think that 5,000 is more than reasonable. That's only roughly 13% of BGW's capacity.

 

[Memles]

I agree. I know that some people don't think that the limit should be higher, but there are locations that are smaller that significantly smaller that BGW is lumped in with. That's my problem with the current restrictions. It doesn't make sense to me that other much smaller businesses can be open with a higher percentage of their capacity but BGW which is something like 380 acres can still only have 1000 people on property. There's a disconnect there where I just don't understand the logic. I'm saying that BGW should be allowed to have 50% of their capacity, but I think that 5,000 is more than reasonable. That's only roughly 13% of BGW's capacity.

I realize we're going in circles on this issue, but I think it all comes down to areas of the park where distancing would be difficult due to congestion. There's no question that 5000 people COULD spread out throughout the park, and certainly the current footprint feels INCREDIBLY empty with just 1000 people. But there's still points of congestion—at the temperature check screening/security, at the front gate, congregating waiting for the other areas of the park to open, narrow bridges/pathways between areas, etc.—where increasing the number of guests fivefold would create a higher risk factor. And beyond that point, the fact is that for the sake of public health the state's restriction is not saying that 5000 people couldn't distance within the space of the park: they're saying that they don't want 5000 people gathered in one place period, lest the virus spread widely should, say, an employee in a key area test positive.

With cases rising in other areas of the state due to college outbreaks, we're remaining at a point of "barely containing" the state's outbreak, and right now frankly I don't even know if the park COULD draw 5000 people if it wanted to (Howl-O-Scream will be different, I imagine, if they can mount a meaningful attempt at it). I would argue that right now the best course of action would be to keep the current strategy but push for an increase to 1500 guests, which would enable them to get to 3000 a day. I feel that is feasible in the current event footprint, and would be a trial run for pushing to 2000 or 2500 a session when we get closer to the end of the year if numbers start to recede statewide.