I believe they now sell that at Rita’s.
The State of the Park: Busch Gardens Williamsburg
- Thread starter CoasterTalkBob
- Start date
I visited the park on Saturday and the cuts felt very apparent almost everywhere, but mostly in the Squire’s Grille. The food pickup area was downright disgusting, with soda spilled everywhere, ketchup all over the condiment bar, napkins and other objects on the floors. Looked like it hadn't been touched in hours. Something you expect to see at other regional park chains.
It really has nothing to do with being year round and everything to do with budget cuts. There was an entire crew that worked overnight and early morning every day to prep the parks for guests and there was ample area host and ride staffing that enabled team members to do additional cleaning (backstage, mulch areas, ravines, cleaning, removing cobwebs, wiping down handrails, ride vehicles, etc). This is a result of PRKS greed that the parks look terrible.
This wasn’t really the point of my question. A lot of the comments around dirty sound to me like more than just extra people to toss trash rather then need to be completely dismantled and cleaned at a deep level.
Yes it does come back to the budget cut of wanting to make more money by being open and not hiring as many people to do the work has an impact. But having prolonged time without guests where you can really get in there and clean the stuff is major. The one restaurant I worked at would (and still does) close for 1 week every spring and fall to do things like completely dismantle booths, chairs, tables, service stations, beer lines, soda lines, ect that wasn’t possible to do with daily operations.
I get what you're saying. The crew that worked overnight fire-hosed and pressure washed the pathways, tables, chairs, benches, etc every single day. The extra team members I referred to were not just for park operating hours. We had work crews in the spring and fall that came in for 8 hours a day and did deep cleaning of just about everything you could think of. Your statement was how much impact not having an offseason impacted the ability to deep scrub the parks, and as I commented before, very little. The offseason was much more about ride and building maintenance, new projects and construction than cleaning. The reason the parks look dirty and grimy is that PRKS doesn't care to staff the overnight/early morning crews or completely staff other departments that cleaned before, during, and after park operation.
Squires was just renovated. What does the lack of an off-season have to do with filth there?
Nothing. Thats why I said random thought.
I asked because many comments lately revolve around the cleanliness of the park, and while some of this stuff are the things that can be done by overnight crews, I was curious as to what people’s opinions of not having an offseason impacts this stuff.
In my opinion some of the things brought up are things that might get better with regular cleanings, but there’s a much more in depth project (for lack of a better word) that needs to be done. I feel like that some of the issue if they started cleaning now would be taking care of the symptom not the disease so to speak.
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I would say it should be zero effect. Certain rides and food locations sit idle all winter. Thise can be cleaned. The others can be cleaned in the 18 hours that the park sets closed every day of the slow season.
Take these complaints to guest services people!!! Don’t be afraid to show how upset you are about this. Absolutely unacceptable!!!
I get the feeling that the only way this aggressive capitalism can truly be combatted is to have masses vote with their wallets and refuse to pay... Supply/demand hurting stockholder value should force a course correction.
I actually avoid Guest Services as much as possible. It is a game of Russian Roulette. Some of the regular employees seem nice enough, but a number of the people I have encountered have been rude and even openly aggressive to me. For example, one kept lying to justify not helping me and when I showed her photographic evidence to support my case she said she didn’t care. Even trying to leave a compliment has been difficult.
Guests services used to great with friendly and helpful staff. More recently, unfortunately, some the people behind the desk seem to be apathetic or even antagonistic. I just have no belief that going to them will solve any problems, and sometimes actually creates new ones.
I’ve had a chance to talk with Kevin in the park multiple times, one time the guest service was so terrible coming right in to the gate and I saw him immediately by big Ben and I asked him if they have any focus on customer service and he pretty much had no answer, and was almost silent. The leadership is corrupt.
Please don't clog up guest services to make complaints. Guest services is the only place people with disabilities can get assistance and the line for it is already a horrible experience.
The other day me and my friends were out in the park and it started storming and all the rides closed down so we tried leaving the park but there were no trams so we had to walk all the way back to the Italy parking lot in pouring down rain.
Usally if the rides have shut down it's because there is a lightning strike detected within 10 miles of the park. That is also the threshold for outdoor operations to stop and for staff to be told to shelter that includes tram ops. Technically they want you to do the same not go to the car but they can't stop you from leaving. As a reminder one guest was actually killed and several others injured as a result of doing this at the park in 2003. LIGHTNING AT BUSCH LEADS TO A DEATH
I mean the park is based on Europe...so no ice is technically on brand.
Oddly this is one of the things that stuck out to me the most when I made my first post Covid trip to BGW yesterday. There are a lot of slapped together signs in places. It belies an ineffective bureaucracy in park management of getting a given booth or attraction the necessary attention to function its best. There should not be a blank butcher boards with only dry erase markers used to advertise a mobile dining option or operating times of an attraction. There should not be black on white printer paper advertising prices and policies in the shops. Is there no internal sign shop to whip this up in a more professional manner?
At the absolute very least, they should provide a template so any supervisor can easily type out whatever message they need and print out a full-color sign with professional-looking branding. And have some cheap plastic holders available so they aren’t literally just taping the paper directly onto things.
I 100% agree that the sign shop should be making these things, and it’s terrible that BGW has so stripped the sign shop of personnel and resources that they aren’t able to provide actual, professionally made signs throughout the park anymore. But to not have a Microsoft Word template, a few color printers, and a stack of plastic paper holders from Staples available is a whole other level. That’s not just cheapness — it’s laziness.