Honest question here:
I feel like someone should talk to this person and ask if they would like to go to WAVY with someone with this story because this feels huge.
The State of the Park: Busch Gardens Williamsburg
- Thread starter CoasterTalkBob
- Start date
Honest question here:
I feel like someone should talk to this person and ask if they would like to go to WAVY with someone with this story because this feels huge.
Doubt it as the program exists and meets requirements I doubt that the government would back bad info from an outside contractor about a program as an actual violation. Now if it actual worked the way the call center explained it then oh hell yes they could.
i am in no way defending the park but it sounds like this rep simply has no idea what the fuck they are talking about.
this still falls on the park as they absolutely should provide adequate training to their staff but clearly that has gone out window.
this still falls on the park as they absolutely should provide adequate training to their staff but clearly that has gone out window.
The park position which is likely they unfortunately were talking with a third party contracted rep that is hundreds of miles away from the park andvunfortunately was not correctly explaining our procedures. I know people that use RAP and almost all of the info that this person was given is incorrect. I feel extremely bad for this person getting bad info but honestly those "untrained minimum wage ambassadors" not only know the program but are also actually train on how to handle it respectfully without gathering more info then is needed to insure safety.
The problem is he likely was never talking to anyone employed by SEAS as mist of the calls and chats are now answered by a third party contractor they might even have had the right info somewhere but not been able to find it as they have do much different info on all the parks.
What in the actual fuck.....
Unfortunately I don't think this is a violation of ADA if the guest could take care of getting on and off the ride himself. If the guest required a caretaker and that person was required to have a quick queue then there would be a problem but, as far as I'm aware, the ADA is compliant as long as the guest has access to the ride and doesn't give carve outs that others can participate with them. Morally, on the other hand, this is a shit show.
Personally I think you're correct but also missing an even bigger problem in that I'm sure BGW/SEAS gives their contractors a prime directive of upselling. Confusion may be the root here but it really feels like the rep is working off of a desire to sell stuff and if that desire/pressure/directive wasn't there this would have just been a frustrating outcome rather than an infuriating outcome.
The program allows the access for pass person plus 4 people to ride. That info was verified by a friend that used it 3 days ago. No waiting separate or anything else you go to the designated area as a group and they will let all 5 ride together.
The tweet about RAP is completely outrageous, and there is no reason anybody (park staff OR contractor) should be telling those folks to pony up for quick queue.
That said, I will say that I am still miffed by the first day of previews on Iron Gwazi in Tampa back in February. I saw the same RAP members ride Iron Gwazi again, and again, AND AGAIN as I waited in line for my second ride of the day.
That said, I will say that I am still miffed by the first day of previews on Iron Gwazi in Tampa back in February. I saw the same RAP members ride Iron Gwazi again, and again, AND AGAIN as I waited in line for my second ride of the day.
That is the result of poor training/oversight too. Ops are supposed to set the virtual queue length to the current standby time. RAP doesn't skip waits, only lines.
I'm aware of the pass program -- that's not what my reply was about. I was replying to a comment suggesting that not permitting the guests would be a violation of ADA.
Caregivers fall under the same protections as a disabled person in ADA laws.
GS giving false information is nothing new. Several years ago, we wanted to upgrade our memberships from unlimited to premier and were told we couldn't do that. We were told we would have to cancel our unlimited and buy new memberships. Well, that wasn't easy because we had the dining plan attached to our unlimited passes, so we actually had to pay for double passes for 3 or 4 months. On our last visit to CT that year we stopped by GS to cancel the unlimited passes. The lady asked us why we were doing that and said that was not the case and we could upgrade an existing pass. We lost our "hard" passes and have never been able to replace them. Apparently, they aren't doing hard passes at BGW anymore. Pretty much seems like everything has been downhill since.
For context, BGW has probably the worst ride accessibility program out there I’ve seen.
- You end up waiting at guest services for 30 minutes on a light day to over an hour on busier days just to get the program pass.
- When you want to go on a ride you have to take the disabled person up often lengthy exit ramps (Loch Ness and Invadr are terrible for this), wait 5-10 mins to get a return time from the operators that may or may not have any resemblance to the actual wait, and then take the disabled person back down the exit ramp to wait. This experience is really confusing for those with mental disabilities such as autism or downs, since they don’t understand if they are riding or not and can get really disappointed when they have to leave without riding.
i got my new hard pass at the members lounge at SEAWORLD Orlando 3 weeks ago
@rswashdc last I recall Uni and Kennywood do the same thing too. It’s so much easier. You gat a card with a time stamp. If you show up to the next ride before that you can’t go in line. If you go at it you go right up.
IIRC too at Hershey only the companion can go in the line though. Everyone else would need a pass. But even at that it was fine. We would all go as a group to the same ride, one person go as companion. They would ride then go do smaller lines, and when we got off they would tell us what they did, so we would go on all of those while they got timed out on something else.
UNRELATED EDIT ADD:::
This is the stuff that Ross has done at the highest level that “saves money” that bothers me more than stuff in the parks. You can’t get a straight answer on anything before getting to the park anymore. It’s a complete crapshoot once you get there. It seems when you get a tenured employee these things are easy, but when you don’t you get a long drawn out process.
But tenured employees aren’t being kept because it’s “cheaper” to just hire new people yearly (not really because of cost of training) who aren’t well educated or trained on all these little things with passes and situational items. So the inability to get a straight answer because the people who know this stuff aren’t there would stop people from entering.
I would almost argue at this point that they should just deal with that backlash and standardize things across the board for all parks. Especially if they want to have outsourced CS call lines.
IIRC too at Hershey only the companion can go in the line though. Everyone else would need a pass. But even at that it was fine. We would all go as a group to the same ride, one person go as companion. They would ride then go do smaller lines, and when we got off they would tell us what they did, so we would go on all of those while they got timed out on something else.
UNRELATED EDIT ADD:::
This is the stuff that Ross has done at the highest level that “saves money” that bothers me more than stuff in the parks. You can’t get a straight answer on anything before getting to the park anymore. It’s a complete crapshoot once you get there. It seems when you get a tenured employee these things are easy, but when you don’t you get a long drawn out process.
But tenured employees aren’t being kept because it’s “cheaper” to just hire new people yearly (not really because of cost of training) who aren’t well educated or trained on all these little things with passes and situational items. So the inability to get a straight answer because the people who know this stuff aren’t there would stop people from entering.
I would almost argue at this point that they should just deal with that backlash and standardize things across the board for all parks. Especially if they want to have outsourced CS call lines.
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You should be able to get plastic hard cards for your pass. My friends have all gotten them recently.
Last I went to Hershey they had a disabled group line on the exit side and they would send a group every other train. I believe they’ve switched to the reverse wait time system similar to CF from what I’ve seen on the Facebook groups as the prior system was a bit advantageous for those with a disability pass bypassing long lines.
Feels like we just keep pealing back the onion...
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When stuff like this has managed to fall through the cracks for YEARS, it's pretty clear that the staffing/oversight cuts have been too deep.
Direct Link to Embedded Media Source
When stuff like this has managed to fall through the cracks for YEARS, it's pretty clear that the staffing/oversight cuts have been too deep.