The State of the Park: Busch Gardens Williamsburg

[horsesboy]

Went to the park yesterday and I just need to vent a little. Okay, so it was Sunday of Memorial Day weekend. They actually opened the parking lot before 9 o'clock which was crazy. Crazy because nothing was open until the usual 10. Even M. Sweets was closed until 9:45. That is not my main gripe though. It has been brought up here repeatedly, but somebody needs to take some responsibility and fix the kiosks once and for all. Yesterday maybe 3 of them were working at 9:15 or so. I know for a fact that GS sets the time for those kiosks to turn on. You would think everybody would be on the same schedule when they are going to open the parking lots early. Of course, if it's like it has been several times this year the machines just plain don't work. We ended up leaving the park around 1 and the line for GS was back to the stroller rental. Wasn't sure why until I got to the kiosks, and they still weren't working.

My other biggest complaint is at the Brauhaus. The A/C hasn't worked for 2 seasons now. Last year the excuse was they needed parts and covid was holding things up. Okay. What's the excuse this year? For me I can walk in, buy a beer and leave. The ones who are really suffering are the employees who have to be in there for their entire shift. There is just no excuse for this to have gone on this long.

I 'm sure this will piss off the cheerleaders for BGW, but I lay the blame on one person. Kevin Lembke. If he can allocate money for new bars and rides than he can damn sure allocate money to fix things that are broken. Maybe it's time for a leadership shake up!

Can we verify that it was planned for parking to open that early? My understanding is that BGW has somewhat of an obligation to try to prevent the parking line from backing up an creating problems with the non park traffic lanes. It might be that someone saw the line getting longer then they were comfortable with and decided to open the gates to prevent it from getting worse. If so that would explain them being ahead of other areas that were not prepared to open that early.

 

[Rothbury]

IMHO there is no excuse to pass the buck to somebody else. He is the overall boss. He makes the decisions. If he sees something and points it out to middle management is still his responsibility to see that they follow through.

The parking lines were maybe 10 cars deep. Had just gotten to the curve. Just seemed to be all around poor planning. I forgot to mention they were parking everybody in preferred parking. The trams weren't even prepared to start running.

 

[Zachary]

Kevin can't do anything other than resign in protest if corporate refuses to fund important park maintenance projects. We now KNOW from the recent WSJ reporting that the chairman of the board is meddling in individual line items in park budgets to try to cut every dime possible. AC that hasn't been working for two years now but people keep buying just as much alcohol? Not only is it cheaper not to fix it but it's cheaper to not run the AC too—double win from Scott Ross' perspective, right?

I'm not saying Kevin can't do more than he is to protect the park experience for guests, but the buck also doesn't actually stop with him, it stops with the person who controls the purse strings and who reportedly has a habit of shouting down park presidents—Scott Ross.

 

[Coasternerd]

We now KNOW from the recent WSJ reporting that the chairman of the board is meddling in individual line items in park budgets to try to cut every dime possible.

So instead of repairing stuff that is something people count on during a hot summer day, such as AC or drink stands that aren’t exclusively alcohol, they’ll just ignore it until corporate gets enough complaints. Basically what I’m trying to say is that if they want something repaired, someone at the park has to pay for it, instead of having money budgeted from corporate to fix said items. If that is indeed what is happening, I personally wouldn’t mind having to pay a little extra so long as that money is going directly to repairs within the park.

 

[Nibbins]

IMO it is very shortsighted to think that just because the park is busy right now everything is fine.

There people were planning their trip before they experienced the mess the park is right now and will go home remembering that.
The real question is if these people will come back next year for more of this.

I would hope management understands that.

 

[Alf33]

We now KNOW from the recent WSJ reporting that the chairman of the board is meddling in individual line items in park budgets to try to cut every dime possible.

I'm not saying Kevin can't do more than he is to protect the park experience for guests, but the buck also doesn't actually stop with him, it stops with the person who controls the purse strings and who reportedly has a habit of shouting down park presidents—Scott Ross.

This is what happens when a Private Equity firm gets involved with the operations of a business just because they have tons of money and buy up a whole bunch of stock that then gives them the ability to have a seat or more on the Board of Directors. This is one instance where they are just out to make more money and they think that they know how to run the business but in reality they just run it into the ground for the sake of profit. There are a few articles out there from business people who believe that Private Equity firms are slowly ruining many companies.

 

[warfelg]

IMO it is very shortsighted to think that just because the park is busy right now everything is fine.

There people were planning their trip before they experienced the mess the park is right now and will go home remembering that.
The real question is if these people will come back next year for more of this.

I would hope management understands that.

My take after some reading on upper investors is that it’s heard by the local management but it’s falling on deaf ears above them.

 

[mikes]

I know 1 family of 4 that probably won't return due to a bad first experience over spring break. The short staffed excuse is beyond old at this point. I became a member in 2019 and we had a few decent trips before 2020. I gave them some slack in 2021 and even into the early months of this year, but enough is enough.

I have 2 platinum passes that are month to month and one that was paid in full in March. March 2023 will be decision time. My oldest will be 54" and Hershey park is the exact time away from me as BGW. It may be time for a change.

Finding drinks and ice cream on a hot day should not be hard yet it is. I'm typically prepared with as many waters that will fit in the stroller, but I know many people rely on drink stands

 

[finalcloud]

Sunday pissed me off. We bought the refillable drinks at the stand by Griffon. Went to the Wolves and we wanted a refill but head to the horses to catch the train. No place to fill the drinks and we missed the train. Ok so we went on to Fiesta, again no place to fill the drinks. At this point I'm pissed off and did a Karen. Sent the park a mean tweet. I'm so ashamed of myself lol. Food places had drink stands but the lines were crazy for food. I tried to hit all the spots I knew but they were closed.

 

[Jonesta6]

As part of my career, I deal with CX measurement and analysis. This is a classic case of not letting it be a core component of the business, and it shows.

Any organization will have 3 main types of data it will work with: Experiential, Behavioral, and Transactional.

The thing is, nothing stands in a vacuum, each type of data influences the next.

If an organization is only focusing on transactional data, they're not giving themselves the opportunity to address negative experiences and/or behaviors that lead to a decline in transactions.

The sad thing is it's actually not that difficult to measure, analyze, and implement changes if there's a desire to do so.

 

[halfabee]

This will be the first year in a decade that my family skips the annual summer Williamsburg/BGW trip and goes elsewhere in June.

While I usually put extremely limited stock in trip reports from others, what I've heard and read from visitors this year is so consistent and so convincingly negative that IMO it just isn't worth the risk to make the trip. There are many other great regions to visit within an easy day's drive of southeastern PA.

If summer park ops suddenly see a ton of things reopening in June, a raft of great reports from park visitors, and so on, then maybe we will reconsider. But by then it will be long past prime vacation-planning season, and the most we might do in W-burg at that point, maybe, is 2-3 days. Zero days is far more likely.

Generally speaking, encouraging target-market families whose travel habits benefit you to break those same habits and create new, non-beneficial habits is a Very Bad Long Term Idea.

I have worked extensively with private equity in the past, and with other orgs who have pursued a VC style mindset with their own long-held properties. This all looks so extremely familiar, sadly, and brings to mind the many reasons -- some forced, some entirely elective -- for aggressively slashing "non-essential" expenses in an experience-based business.

 

[Jonesta6]

I just read Bob Iger's Ride of a Lifetime, and one of the core things in there is the amount of things Disney did under his watch that would be bad for short-term profits but were to build long-term value. And in some cases, the expected investment community backlash didn't materialize; once investors figured out the benefits of these behaviors it seemed to sometimes help out the stock price instead of hurt.

Granted many of those things were the acquisition of IPs or technology that then eventually found a way into the parks, but an unstated core to why he did this is to provide the best possible experience - the money spent on it today will be worth far more in return later.

But I guess that's not how the current SEAS board operates...

 

[WDWRLD]

Its a problem when you have to bring your own waters to a park because you know there will be no where or no where to easily get a drink. Ive said this for a while but it seemed I kept being told bythe fan boys what I see is only a limited view and not the normal for the park but long term visitors have found other places to vacation because of how the park has operated over the past couple years. Those people if they try a new park and have a great experience will then make that their new vacation spot....but again Busch dosent care it seems.

 

[panopticon31]

Honestly given BGWs downward trend in operations , staffing levels and upkeep has me pretty much decided that following Christmastown I will cancel my membership and switch over to Kings Dominion. They seem to be putting in effort in all the places that BGW is dropping the ball.....which is weird but here we are. I honestly dont think BGW/SEAS will ever change from this unless there is a major financial hiccup and they have to sell some/all parks to Herschend.

 

[b.mac]

My impression of SEAS corporate right now is that they're basically acting as a steamroller. Have your own ideas based on your experience with your park? Too bad. Get out of the way or get crushed.

This is a lot of the corporate amusement parks lately, not much attention being given to the local issues. A lot of these smaller ideas that employees may come up with will get hand waived on "budget constraints" or "it has to be approved but I'll put the idea down." Said ideas then will sit off the burner for a couple of years until someone's looking for busy work and has some freedom in the "budget." It's not anything a park cannot do, there's a neighbor up the road that's doing a hell of a good job with guest experience that Busch hasn't been trying to maintain or recapture in years.

 

[Nicole]

For what it is worth, SEAS does not seem to me to be the only corporation in the industry preferencing short term profits over guest experience. For example, Disney, in my opinion, has also become a bit of a nightmare. It is virtually impossible to ride more than a few attractions per day without either staying in a deluxe resort or standing in very long lines. Paying for Genie+ and LL gets you very little. Meanwhile prices are skyrocketing, while many experiences have yet to return. Like SEAS they also seem to be dramatically understaffed, as well.

None of this is to excuse the systemic frustrations at BGW, but I thought it was relevant to contextualize what appear to be myopic corporate decisions.

 

[WDWRLD]

For what it is worth, SEAS does not seem to me to be the only corporation in the industry preferencing short term profits over guest experience. For example, Disney, in my opinion, has also become a bit of a nightmare. It is virtually impossible to ride more than a few attractions per day without either staying in a deluxe resort or standing in very long lines. Paying for Genie+ and LL gets you very little. Meanwhile prices are skyrocketing, while many experiences have yet to return. Like SEAS they also seem to be dramatically understaffed, as well.

None of this is to excuse the systemic frustrations at BGW, but I thought it was relevant to contextualize what appear to be myopic corporate decisions.

Diffrence is most other places at this point are back to very close to pre Covid operations. Very little at WDW has not come back, KD is the same as pre Covid, Universal never really was affected it seems, and SWO and BGT are doing great. Now for BGW....everything is closed still and the park is still crying about staffing......heck the other day inside the ice cream shop next to Squires I noticed they still have up the plexiglass dividors.....why? That shop was closed at the start of covid and has yet to reopen? Again it feels like they are riding the train of membership profits and not spending to open things.

 

[Nicole]

It is factually incorrect to claim that “very little at Disney has not come back.” They don’t even have parking trams at all of their parks. Blizzard Beach is completely closed despite the sunny, hot days this week. Several restaurants have yet to open. Housekeeping in the resorts appears to be slashed permanently. Many tours are still in hiatus. Reservations are still required and park hopping remains limited. Only two of the four parks even have nighttime shows. I could go on, but I think you see my point.

As for other SEAS parks, culinary and ride operations at both SWO and BGT remain slashed. Lines at their restaurants remain slow and long.

I didn’t say anything about KD and Uni specifically because they are both recovering well. Please don’t try to claim I said otherwise. I explicitly listed Disney for a reason.

 

[mountaineers]

What gets me is the drink/snack stands that are unattended. Of all the things in the park these would to me seem one of the most profitable. Low overhead and high margins. If a drink stand sold 5 drinks an hour it would more than cover employee wages. I would even hazard to guess if you payed overtime wages it would easily cover that also. I saw multiple people last month wanting to durchase a drink or snack and just walk away due to the long lines at the few places that were open. I did not purchase the refillable mug later that week due to not wanting to wait in the long lines and having to walk to another hamlet (or 2) to find a stand that was open with a reasonable wait time.

I understand Marco Polo being closed due to staffing even though it cost them a sale last Monday as the family was a little hungry a couple hours before close and we didn't want to walk to the Festhaus or Trappers for a meal. We just ate snacks from the stroller instead.

 

[WDWRLD]

It is factually incorrect to claim that “very little at Disney has not come back.” They don’t even have parking trams at all of their parks. Blizzard Beach is completely closed despite the sunny, hot days this week. Several restaurants have yet to open. Housekeeping in the resorts appears to be slashed permanently. Many tours are still in hiatus. Reservations are still required and park hopping remains limited. Only two of the four parks even have nighttime shows. I could go on, but I think you see my point.

As for other SEAS parks, culinary and ride operations at both SWO and BGT remain slashed. Lines at their restaurants remain slow and long.

I didn’t say anything about KD and Uni specifically because they are both recovering well. Please don’t try to claim I said otherwise. I explicitly listed Disney for a reason.

I expected you to defend BGW like this.....but your comparisons are a little off....while yes Blizzard Beach is closed there is a ton of work happening, new lighting, a new attraction, new lift systems and more are being added so its hard to compare somewhere just being closed and being closed while they dump tons of money in for improvements. As far as your incorrect statement about only 2 of the 4 parks have night time shows? In reality of the 4 parks all have night time shows now. Yes there are a few select WDW resturaunts that have yet to open but at least the drink and snack stands are open so you can get a drink. Yes a few of the WDW tours have yet to return but many have and in fact they have added tours that were not there before. Again a trip to WDW right now things seem pretty much back to normal where as a trip to BGW its very obvious things are still scaled way back.