Please explain why a park would advertise an 8 or 9 PM closing and close earlier than that with no dangerous weather in the air and obvious low attendance in the park. Its definitely NOT about employee safety or they would pay the employees for their scheduled hours when they send them home in these situations. My employer pays us if the roads are dangerous because of snow etc.
Posting here because the other thread is way off topic.
Anyways, as someone who has worked within theme parks as a ride operator, and then as a team lead, there is more than just attendance and weather that go into making the decision to close early.
So say the park was advertised to close at 8. But the storms are supposed to last all the way until 2am. Instead of making the staff work
all day in those conditions, they will likely cut closing shifts, and ask the people who opened if they’d like to extend their shifts to close (this is not the same for all parks, just the one I worked at). This due to the fact that those staff are already there, and the closers may not yet be there. Why do they do this? Because it
saves the park money. It’s not because the park
wants to close early, but because they
need to close early. When the park has to make the decision to close early, they’re not simply looking at attendance. They’re also looking at their money flow that day. On a day where there’s maybe less than 500 people in the park, they are operating at a loss. The park cannot justify staying open if they are losing money. By closing early, they save money because they weren’t open for as long.
Yes, it seems crappy from the guest side of things, but from the back end, it’s ultimately for the good of not only the guests, but the employees as well. I for one always loved to pick up an extra couple hours on a day where I opened but we closed at 2pm.
Now, on the flip side, what if the weather forecast says storms are supposed to clear around 2:30, but the park is open until 8. How many people do you know are likely to wait until then to visit the park? Additionally, the decision to close early is usually made relatively early in the day. Once the decision is made, there’s no going back. Shifts are removed, openers asked to stay if they can, and guests are informed. So even if the weather may clear up at some point, unless the park thinks they can recover from a weather day like that, they’re more likely to close early.
Yes, the weather and attendance play a factor, but so does the backside of things. Park operations will need to adjust their staffing, culinary will need to cut down their food prep and staffing. Guest arrivals will need to deal with rainy day tickets. So much more than just “We’re closing early because we don’t want to stay open.” It’s because “We aren’t able to stay open due to factors beyond our control.” There’s a very fine line. It would be one thing if it was Disney or Universal pulled this, because they have so much to keep people in and justify going on a rainy day, but these aren’t Disney or universal, these are regional parks. These regional parks aren’t going to have the same draw.
The bottom line here is that when a park closes early, it’s not that they want to, but that they need to. Businesses exist to make money. Theme parks are the same way. If they’re not making money, they can’t justify staying open. Unfortunately, theme parks often suffer from weather impacting their operation more than most places.
As for your employer paying if roads are dangerous and such, I assume I’d be correct in assuming your hold a fulltime job?
One thing worth noting is a large majority of theme park employees are not fulltime, but rather part time. Part time jobs do not guarantee you 40 hours a week, unless you have a contract explicitly stating so. Another thing worth noting is that being hired on at a theme park, you agree that when you’re hired, that you’re okay with working outdoors for long periods of time, in potentially extreme weather conditions such as high wind or heavy rain. The employees that work on a day like those are working because they agreed to do so, and on those days know full well it’s likely they may not work their full shift. Theme parks are a completely different beast, and comparing your fulltime job to a primarily part time job location definitely doesn’t work here.
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