Easter 2022 Crowds at the Theme Parks

[rappa]

I think the concept that any park/company hates it’s guests, generates bad publicity in purpose and doesn’t understand that a good guest experience is good for business, or does understand that and willingly chooses to do the opposite (for what 🤷‍♂️) is laughable. 
 

About as insane as the entitlement to suggest the park needs to apologise that every idiot thought it was wise to take a holiday the first long weekend in years there wasn’t a lockdown. These are the same sort of people who expect Qantas to apologise airports are busy and people forgot how to airplane. 

[Rivals]

i think it’s safe to say the Public definitely are not happy with how the park handled itself, many staff were even overworked and had to stay back as late as 7:00 (ben and jerry’s staff especially due to everyone running there at park close then having to stay back and clean.) they need to figure out some sort of solution fast, cause if the public starts catching on they care more about the money then guest experience (which is pretty much a given at this point,) that won’t go down well

1 minute ago, rappa said:

About as insane as the entitlement to suggest the park needs to apologise that every idiot thought it was wise to take a holiday the first long weekend in years there wasn’t a lockdown. These are the same sort of people who expect Qantas to apologise airports are busy and people forgot how to airplane. 

the park could’ve done so much to improve the guest experience during the holiday period but they chose not too and now people are rightfully angry they wasted $100+ each for a bad experience which they weren’t warned of prior. The last they could do is issue an apology and explain the situation 

Edited April 19, 2022 by Rivals

[rappa]

They won’t though. People will keep going, if facebook complaining was to be believed there would never be a Gold Coast tram. 

[Rivals]

3 minutes ago, rappa said:

They won’t though. People will keep going, if facebook complaining was to be believed there would never be a Gold Coast tram. 

people spread the word about how bad an experience was and then people check reviews and if it’s saying the same thing, boom you have a bad reputation, meaning people will be less eager to go especially if they see the comment about “don’t come then”… it’s how everything works these days

Edited April 19, 2022 by Rivals

[rappa]

Yes thats right, because some people said its bad nobody will come to the Gold Coast Theme Parks again. 
Do you actually think that’s reality?

 

please enlighten us as to all the ways they could have improved the guest experience?

Do they take the lead from the country’s airports? Or how about Sydney ferries?

Should they have closed the gates at 5000 people and said ‘sorry you paid but we’re all full’? What exactly would you like them to do?

[Rivals]

1 minute ago, rappa said:

Yes thats right, because some people said its bad nobody will come to the Gold Coast Theme Parks again. 
Do you actually think that’s reality?

didn’t say no one will visit again but it certainly will affect their reputation and people feeling eager to visit again after their experience.

 

2 minutes ago, rappa said:

please enlighten us as to all the ways they could have improved the guest experience?

- provided more shows and entertainment so they can do more then just wait  wait in the lines all day

- extend park hours 

- stopping letting people in at a certain point (when people are shoulder to shoulder down main street and supermans line is nearly reaching main street with 2 train operations, you know there is a problem.)

- prior to holidays explain how there will be a reduced capacity, allowing people to plan more accordingly and possibly decided to visit the parks on a later date

- put more staff on for a shift so staff aren’t overworked and in a bad mood, this is very evident to guests (they have the staff but decide not to put them on, have staff connections within the park and are definetly underpaid for what they have to do and deal with) 

do i have to keep going on?

[webslave]

21 minutes ago, rappa said:

I think the concept that any park/company hates it’s guests, generates bad publicity in purpose and doesn’t understand that a good guest experience is good for business, or does understand that and willingly chooses to do the opposite (for what 🤷‍♂️) is laughable. 

I don't think that's what people are accusing them of.  Instead they are variously accusing them of incompetence, laziness, and money-grubbing at the expense of the bigger picture.  Can you really, honestly say any of our parks haven't ably demonstrated each of those in at least the recent past?

[rappa]

Until you find a realistic solution yeah. 
Most of those are ‘pull magic staff that don’t exist out of their ass’ solutions. 
 

The other is to close the gate which as I said would great just as much negative backlash as not. So there no win. Situation is shit, welcome to 2022, remember that covid thing or did we all forget it already?

2 minutes ago, webslave said:

I don't think that's what people are accusing them of.  Instead they are variously accusing them of incompetence, laziness, and money-grubbing at the expense of the bigger picture.  Can you really, honestly say any of our parks haven't ably demonstrated each of those in at least the recent past?

Actually I’d say you were fair if you said they dropped the ball. But the overall tone of this thread exactly implied they have some sort of intentional contempt for their customers and that notion is just beyond foolish. 

[webslave]

16 minutes ago, rappa said:

Do they take the lead from the country’s airports?

Take the lead from businesses that are already universally regarded as anti-consumer, money-grubbing pieces of trash?  Yeah, good one.

16 minutes ago, rappa said:

Should they have closed the gates at 5000 people and said ‘sorry you paid but we’re all full’? What exactly would you like them to do?

Well, yes, they probably should have.  Otherwise at what point do you shut the gates?  I mean, if you hit the number you can safely admit to the park you're having to say exactly that anyway, so it's not like you're never prepared to say that.  Same outcome as shutting the park on days where the weather is unsuitable to operate ("sorry you paid, but we aren't opening today").  Contingencies exist for handling that situation - it's not like it's impossible.

The notion that you just keep admitting as many guests as turn up no matter what it does to your brand is lunacy, and I'd think you'd be above seriously suggesting it as a viable option

[rappa]

6 minutes ago, webslave said:

Take the lead from businesses that are already universally regarded as anti-consumer, money-grubbing pieces of trash?  Yeah, good one.

Well not from me, so maybe its just the opinion of a different demographic. 
 

 

Honestly I think some people just live in gumdrop rainbow fantasy land in terms of where they set their expectations of what should happen. 
 

How on earth can anyone think going on holidays and visiting tourist traps was a good thing to do this past Easter Weekend?

[webslave]

I just can't imagine what would give the public the impression the parks were ready, willing and able to welcome back the public...

I mean, the messaging has been all about "we can't wait to welcome you back" and "it's great to have our parks open and firing on all cylinders again", rather than "but not too many of you because we don't have enough staff to cope".

If you know you're running thin and you don't have any levers to pull to increase capacity then you either choose to collect the cash and let people have a shitty day, or forego the cash and look after the customers.  Being turned away at the gate for one reason or another (in this case because the park is full) is something that the park knows how to handle, and is a one-off disappointment to a customer (that, I might add, you could probably do something about in advance) compared to letting those customers in and having a full day of misery that you present as the genuine experience.

[rappa]

Yeah I mean it’s not like half the country was caught off guard by the insane demand of tourist pressure this weekend or anything. 
Honestly 🤦‍♂️
 

Yea it sucks for those that went that it was busy. But news flash, the last TWO YEARS have sucked. 

[webslave]

2 minutes ago, rappa said:

How on earth can anyone think going on holidays and visiting tourist traps was a good thing to do this past Easter Weekend?

Well, pretty easily given for the last six months the industry has been advertising for people to do just that.  If you advertise for it to happen, and then you sell tickets that would suggest people are going to do what you advertised to get them to do then it probably isn't on the punters.

After all, we do not tolerate a hotel selling rooms that they do not have, we do not tolerate restaurants taking bookings for tables they do not have and we do not tolerate cinemas selling more tickets to a film than there are seats in the theatre.  The expectation from a consumer is that their tickets will be fit for the purpose they intend.  No consumer intends to spend all day in line and be able to do two attractions.  At some point you need to stop selling rather than blaming the customer.

[rappa]

Ok thanks for clarifying, now I know who would think it was a good idea 🤦‍♂️ 

[webslave]

Just now, rappa said:

Yeah I mean it’s not like half the country was caught off guard by the insane demand of tourist pressure this weekend or anything. 
Honestly 🤦‍♂️
 

Yea it sucks for those that went that it was busy. But news flash, the last TWO YEARS have sucked. 

Who was caught off-guard?  Are you telling me now that the issue was not actually availability of staff but that instead the parks were just caught off-guard?  That seems at odds with comments you made earlier.

I don't for a moment believe that the park was caught off-guard.  I think they knew what type of attendance to expect, and captain surly on MW's Facebook page would even have to agree.  It's unfathomable that they did not know.

And yeah, people know the last two years have sucked.  That's been part of the marketing to get them to the parks; get a break from the last two years and have fun.  What you don't get to do is engineer a situation where demand greatly exceeds supply, still charge those people full-whack, and then hand-waive it away as "well the last two years has sucked".

Lots of us are struggling for staff.  If we don't have enough staff then we have to forego the work - rather than me just taking the money, spreading the crew too thin, and screwing my customers.

[rappa]

The alternate reality you live in really does baffle the mind

[webslave]

Just now, rappa said:

The alternate reality you live in really does baffle the mind

I'm not sure if you've noticed, but you're not really getting a lot of support here for your point of view.  The customers seem pretty upset about it too.

Maybe - just maybe - you might be living your own reality on this one?  I know you love to defend the VRTP properties but this one is a bit of a stretch.

[Rivals]

40 minutes ago, rappa said:

Until you find a realistic solution yeah. 
Most of those are ‘pull magic staff that don’t exist out of their ass’ solutions. 
 

The other is to close the gate which as I said would great just as much negative backlash as not. So there no win. Situation is shit, welcome to 2022, remember that covid thing or did we all forget it already?

Actually I’d say you were fair if you said they dropped the ball. But the overall tone of this thread exactly implied they have some sort of intentional contempt for their customers and that notion is just beyond foolish. 

all solutions i mentioned are pretty simple and can be done easily for a ‘world class’ business that they pride themselves of being. The staff do actually exist but they chose not to put a lot on at one time, leaving the staff that are their to take on a huge amount of pressure, ask anyone that works there (like i have with friends that work there) and then tell me that they have no staff.  

if they were to close the gate and offer a refund for the tickets or an extended valid ticket (one day ticket valid until end of the year if you can’t enter the park) sort of thing would work a lot better then accepting people into the park to deal with the experience they had to deal with. 

Edited April 19, 2022 by Rivals

[Levithian]

The number of people you can safely allow entrance is VASTLY greater than the number of people you can allow to enter and still stand a chance of keeping the majority happy with wait times for rides. Don't get those two things confused. They aren't even close to being mutually exclusive. I'd guess its likely even double, maybe 15,000 or more safely vs maybe 8000 to reduce the wait times?

We keep having discussions about extended opening hours every year (sometimes every holidays!). Parks keep giving this a trial and the end result is it's not really that well supported. Especially when you factor into the logistics of keeping a park open "for a few more hours" and all the costs involved, the impact it has to staff levels/rosters, etc. 

Anyone that doesn't think (or realise) that accountants have a detailed cost analysis and know exactly how much money this generates for the park once everything is paid for, AND management still have come to the conclusion that all things considered, it's still not a viable long term proposition; really isn't grounded in the reality the rest of us live within. 

Customers have been unhappy with congestion and ride wait times for much much longer than this year, last year, or even the year before. It's nothing new, remember when village removed the ability to leave reviews for their parks or allow visitors to publish posts on their page (visitors post)? That happened well before covid appeared and messed everything up. 

Go to theme parks during holidays and it's going to to be packed. If you can't deal with crowds, if you can't handle a lot of waiting, you are going to be miserable. It has been like this for longer than some people probably can remember visiting. 

Pretty much every issue in this thread can be solved, or at the very least, significantly lessened by one single thing....

 

[pin142]

Parks have closed the gate in the past. White Water world and Wet'n'Wild Sydney have both done this. It might not be the most popular of things but it shows some level of care towards those in park already. If you're going to get in the park then do almost nothing all day versus coming back another day I know I'd rather wait for another day when it's quieter. Single day tickets should be flexible with dates for this reason. 

[rappa]

6 hours ago, Rivals said:

The staff do actually exist

Clearly you have no tried to hire staff, for any role, in any industry in the past 6 months

[Rivals]

1 hour ago, rappa said:

Clearly you have no tried to hire staff, for any role, in any industry in the past 6 months

they were in a staff shortage but they’ve hired staff now lol, like i said i know staff in the parks personally and they always complain about not enough people being put on when there’s a lot more people that could be put on, most likely for cost cutting purposes is my guess

[DJKostya]

This may be an unpopular opinion, but if crowd numbers are such an issue why not require bookings to visit the parks in peak periods like school holidays? You can cap the number of people who can attend on a particular day, including an allowance for local passholders. I believe that Disney tried this recently due to capping numbers because of COVID (Happy to be corrected).

In some ways I do find it interesting that we don't book to visit a theme park, we can make a booking for just about any other paid entertainment activity (movies, concerts, ten pin bowling etc. etc.). Sure there are certainly opportunities to just walk in and partake, but you do run the risk of being turned away at the door.

[Gazza]

 

Decided to run some rough numbers on what capacity the park has based on what you witness in the park on a smooth running day. By my reckoning, when everything is at full capacity you get a total of 8164 guests per hour across all rides.

This means with 8124 in the park, you could expect to get on 1 ride per hour.

 

scoob	960	8 person double dispatch every 30 secs
jl	480	4 person car every 30 secs
bwss	320	16 person launch every 3 mins
gl	480	16 person dual dispatch every 2 mins
dcr	440	22 person train every 3 mins
se	400	20 pers train every 3 mins
wwf	960	8 person boat every 30 secs
rrc	400	20 person train every 3 mins
kids zone	1000	guestimate of all rides
roxy	640	320 cinema every 30 mins
hswd avg	642	1500 person show * 3 per day / 7h
doomsday	384	32 person ride every 5 min
showcase	1000	guestimate
	8124

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

9 hours ago, rappa said:

I think the concept that any park/company hates it’s guests, generates bad publicity in purpose and doesn’t understand that a good guest experience is good for business, or does understand that and willingly chooses to do the opposite (for what 🤷‍♂️) is laughable. 
 

About as insane as the entitlement to suggest the park needs to apologise that every idiot thought it was wise to take a holiday the first long weekend in years there wasn’t a lockdown. These are the same sort of people who expect Qantas to apologise airports are busy and people forgot how to airplane. 

I think the issue is that the park does so many things that folks say "why on earth would they do that" and there is no other reasonable, logical explanation forthcoming - so the conclusion is they must be doing it intentionally. Perhaps if they communicated openly to guests what their woes were, instead of saying "welcome back, we're ready to welcome everyone in!" then the public at large would at least know what they were getting themselves in for.

As for Qantas and Airports - yes of course, let's listen to Alan Joyce blame the customers, and it has absolutely nothing to do with the large numbers of staff they sacked during the pandemic, as well as things like baggage handling that they outsourced to the lowest bidder - no, none of that cost cutting had anything to do with the airport delays, and it's all the customers fault, right?

9 hours ago, rappa said:

They won’t though. People will keep going, if facebook complaining was to be believed there would never be a Gold Coast tram. 

Yep. Everything on facebook is made up. Zero possibility of there being any truth to the matter. We should never believe anything we read, hear or see. Everything is a conspiracy these days. Hand me my foil hat!

9 hours ago, rappa said:

please enlighten us as to all the ways they could have improved the guest experience?

 

Should they have closed the gates at 5000 people and said ‘sorry you paid but we’re all full’? What exactly would you like them to do?

Yes they should have. As has already been said on this thread several times - the park capacity is not capable of as many people as it used to be. The park is the same physical size, but the number of rides, and the number of guests each ride can put through per hour is far lower than it was when the park's capacity was determined. 

10,000 guests and 4 hour lines on a ride that has been open for 5 years now outside of the xmas-NYE hell week is beyond ridiculous.

If they don't have staff to handle the max capacity. If they don't have the trains to handle the max capacity. if they don't have show crews to put on enough extra shows to handle the max capacity.

Then. They. Shouldn't. Let. That. Many. People. In. The. Park.

Disney has been routinely maxxing their parks out. They shut the gates. They offer appropriate alternatives to passholders and single-day ticket holders. They refund people who have no other option. 

Its the trolley problem. Are you gonna reject 3000 guests and upset them, offering refunds, complimentary passes, or some other form of customer service, or are you going to let that 3000 in, and in doing so, upset 10,000 who all have a miserable fucking day getting 1-2 rides while spending all the time in a queue?

9 hours ago, rappa said:

Until you find a realistic solution yeah. 
Most of those are ‘pull magic staff that don’t exist out of their ass’ solutions. 
 

The other is to close the gate which as I said would great just as much negative backlash as not. So there no win. Situation is shit, welcome to 2022, remember that covid thing or did we all forget it already?

Actually I’d say you were fair if you said they dropped the ball. But the overall tone of this thread exactly implied they have some sort of intentional contempt for their customers and that notion is just beyond foolish. 

Closing the gates is a realistic solution. it doesn't require extra staff - there are already staff at the gate and ticket booths. And it doesn't create 'as much' negative backlash because the folks who did get in have a much better day and the folks who didn't have an opportunity to get compensated - a refund, or a return visit ticket, or some other thing that means they didn't waste $100 per person on one fucking ride.

And not shutting the gates shows intentional contempt, or obliviousness to the fact that the park wasn't able to cope with it's former "max capacity"

9 hours ago, rappa said:

Yeah I mean it’s not like half the country was caught off guard by the insane demand of tourist pressure this weekend or anything. 
Honestly 🤦‍♂️
 

Yea it sucks for those that went that it was busy. But news flash, the last TWO YEARS have sucked. 

"because covid" doesn't wash when Dreamworld up the road was a pleasant day. 

"We're ready to welcome you back" is marketing, but its also total bullshit.

9 hours ago, rappa said:

The alternate reality you live in really does baffle the mind

I think your alternate reality is baffling everyone else here.

7 hours ago, Levithian said:

The number of people you can safely allow entrance is VASTLY greater than the number of people you can allow to enter and still stand a chance of keeping the majority happy with wait times for rides. Don't get those two things confused. They aren't even close to being mutually exclusive. I'd guess its likely even double, maybe 15,000 or more safely vs maybe 8000 to reduce the wait times?

This goes back to the fact that the park's theoretical maximum capacity was most likely determined when you had a studio tour, BATRide, PASS... etc etc.

8 minutes ago, Gazza said:

 

Decided to run some rough numbers on what capacity the park has based on what you witness in the park on a smooth running day. By my reckoning, when everything is at full capacity you get a total of 8164 guests per hour across all rides.

This means with 8124 in the park, you could expect to get on 1 ride per hour.

 

scoob	960	8 person double dispatch every 30 secs
jl	480	4 person car every 30 secs
bwss	320	16 person launch every 3 mins
gl	480	16 person dual dispatch every 2 mins
dcr	440	22 person train every 3 mins
se	400	20 pers train every 3 mins
wwf	960	8 person boat every 30 secs
rrc	400	20 person train every 3 mins
kids zone	1000	guestimate of all rides
roxy	640	320 cinema every 30 mins
hswd avg	642	1500 person show * 3 per day / 7h
doomsday	384	32 person ride every 5 min
showcase	1000	guestimate
	8124

Even these numbers are very generous. Rivals dispatches when i've been in the queue, outside of peak times, with two trains or one are more realistically closer to 5 minutes. GL dispatch times assume the grouper isn't also the loader, which is very common, and like superman on the regular, they don't group people to the doors while the ride is running.

Does west still dispatch every 30 seconds when it isn't continuous load?

I think MW's current "comfort" capacity sits closer to the 5-6000 mark. 8k is an extreme and is going to start putting pressure on some rides (because the above numbers also ignore popularity and just consider bums on seats. I've never seen every seat in Roxy full, for example)