Volcano Bay

[Tom Morrow]

Was at UOR today but didn't go to Volcano Bay. Crowds were fairly light, 15-30 minute waits for just about everything. Talked to a family that had gone to Volcano Bay this morning, they too said that they were able to ride a lot early in the morning but after an hour or so of being open, wait times were up to two hours again.

 

[clemmo]

I thought I read somewhere that the expansion being planned was another water coaster. Anybody hearing this as well?

 

[Tom Morrow]

I'll admit that I rarely go to water parks, but I'm pretty sure two hour+ waits for water slides are more or less unheard of. My guess is that it's pretty rare to wait for more than an hour for any waterslide, anywhere.

 

[djdan888]

So is the issue that the park is just new? Again, I am remembering my last trip to Wet N Wild and it was busy too, but I think I waited max 45 minutes for any one slide. I am not understanding the long waits. Is it bad ride loading design, people not getting to their spots on time, crush of crowds? Maybe seeing physical queues helps as you can see what is busy and go quickly run to a less occupied que. I really don't know.

 

[captainkidd]

So is the issue that the park is just new? Again, I am remembering my last trip to Wet N Wild and it was busy too, but I think I waited max 45 minutes for any one slide. I am not understanding the long waits. Is it bad ride loading design, people not getting to their spots on time, crush of crowds? Maybe seeing physical queues helps as you can see what is busy and go quickly run to a less occupied que. I really don't know.

Mostly it's TapuTapu and not being able to do standby in any lines. Common sense math issue that somehow Universal thought they could solve.

 

[JoeCamel]

Mostly it's TapuTapu and not being able to do standby in any lines. Common sense math issue that somehow Universal thought they could solve.

Or it could be that Ops is taking twice as long to load some of the slides as they should be?

 

[mergatroid]

Or it could be that Ops is taking twice as long to load some of the slides as they should be?

But why would this be the case? Getting on a slide isn't new, water parks have been operating for decades and certainly loading slides isn't rocket science. Certainly if this is the case then they should get in some experienced people to train the staff to stop this continuing?

 

[JoeCamel]

But why would this be the case? Getting on a slide isn't new, water parks have been operating for decades and certainly loading slides isn't rocket science. Certainly if this is the case then they should get in some experienced people to train the staff to stop this continuing?

I think they are erring on the side of safety at this point and not rushing anything

 

[Jon81uk]

Or it could be that Ops is taking twice as long to load some of the slides as they should be?

I read elsewhere that a major issue is that they should have designed it with double loading slides and haven't. If you had one ring at the front waiting for the green light while the second ring has people getting into it then it would be much quicker. But apparently they have many tubes dispatching way after the green light as they guests can't get in quick enough.

 

[rushtest4echo]

The massive flaw in the arguments of the Universal apologists responses to 2-4 hour queues is that those are NOT NORMAL for any water park on planet earth, virtual queueing or not. The biggest slides at any other water park on the busiest of days rarely exceed an hour. I've been to water parks all across the country on busy days and I've never ever queued more than an hour for anything.

I was at Dolly's Splash Country yesterday (beautiful park with a decent slide collection) and we did not wait more than 15 minutes for anything. And that park uses Tapu Tapu's exact same wristbands for thier paid line jumping scheme (so innovative, just like VB's exact same bands, lol). Thier lazy river had rockwork throughout that just made VB's river look outright stupid in comparison.

Honestly, Universals launch of VB is more a product of terrible design than it being 'rushed'. They chose low capacity models for several slides (water coaster and mat racer should both be twice the capacity that they are). The quality and type materials used for the wave pool and lazy river are well below most of the best parks in the industry. And then there's the whole 'take in a show, see some of the great entertainment, relax, see the volcano erupt, grab a drink and some excellent food' narrative that kept being pushed as an excuse for the terrible queueless blunder everyone saw coming. Most of those other choices ended up being duds or simply equal to the offerings that other parks already have without the broken queueing system. None of those offerings (the few that bothered to materialize out of all of Unis broken promises), is helping one bit.

I really hope they have time to massively overhaul/upgrade the slides, the theming and the operation of the park before the bad rap sticks with the park. This smells a lot like Animal Kingdoms first few years where people liked the park but found offerings to be lacking and just shockingly bad areas in operations and entertainment. Lets hope it doesn't take Uni the decade plus to fix the place like Animal Kingdom needed.

 

[Tony Perkis]

The massive flaw in the arguments of the Universal apologists responses to 2-4 hour queues is that those are NOT NORMAL for any water park on planet earth, virtual queueing or not. The biggest slides at any other water park on the busiest of days rarely exceed an hour. I've been to water parks all across the country on busy days and I've never ever queued more than an hour for anything.

I was at Dolly's Splash Country yesterday (beautiful park with a decent slide collection) and we did not wait more than 15 minutes for anything. And that park uses Tapu Tapu's exact same wristbands for thier paid line jumping scheme (so innovative, just like VB's exact same bands, lol). Thier lazy river had rockwork throughout that just made VB's river look outright stupid in comparison.

Honestly, Universals launch of VB is more a product of terrible design than it being 'rushed'. They chose low capacity models for several slides (water coaster and mat racer should both be twice the capacity that they are). The quality and type materials used for the wave pool and lazy river are well below most of the best parks in the industry. And then there's the whole 'take in a show, see some of the great entertainment, relax, see the volcano erupt, grab a drink and some excellent food' narrative that kept being pushed as an excuse for the terrible queueless blunder everyone saw coming. Most of those other choices ended up being duds or simply equal to the offerings that other parks already have without the broken queueing system. None of those offerings (the few that bothered to materialize out of all of Unis broken promises), is helping one bit.

I really hope they have time to massively overhaul/upgrade the slides, the theming and the operation of the park before the bad rap sticks with the park. This smells a lot like Animal Kingdoms first few years where people liked the park but found offerings to be lacking and just shockingly bad areas in operations and entertainment. Lets hope it doesn't take Uni the decade plus to fix the place like Animal Kingdom needed.

I'm sure quite a bit in here is fairly accurate, but Universal deliberately picking low capacity versions of what ProSlide suggests seems like a stretch.

 

[mergatroid]

Give people an idea of Tapu, Tapu and wait times yesterday

 

[Mr.Freddy]

I have a question, if anyone can help. I am going in july and I have already bought my tickets, but when I see the mess with VB, I don't want to waste my time in that park.
I have bought a 3 park/3 day with one park a day (no hopper). Can I skip my day at VB and spend for instance 2 days at IOA and 1 day at Univeral park ?
Thank you for the answer...

 

[JT3000]

I have a question, if anyone can help. I am going in july and I have already bought my tickets, but when I see the mess with VB, I don't want to waste my time in that park.
I have bought a 3 park/3 day with one park a day (no hopper). Can I skip my day at VB and spend for instance 2 days at IOA and 1 day at Univeral park ?
Thank you for the answer...

You can go wherever you want. You'd just be eating the extra cost of VB.

 

[mergatroid]

I have a question, if anyone can help. I am going in july and I have already bought my tickets, but when I see the mess with VB, I don't want to waste my time in that park.
I have bought a 3 park/3 day with one park a day (no hopper). Can I skip my day at VB and spend for instance 2 days at IOA and 1 day at Univeral park ?
Thank you for the answer...

If you only bought this ticket to use a 3rd day at VB and no longer want to for the reasons given, I'd speak to guest services. You should be able to get a day's refund on your ticket as you bought it not knowing the problems with VB. I'm not saying this with any knowledge of refunds from Universal, just under the circumstances it would seem the right thing for them to do.

 

[UCF]

I have a question, if anyone can help. I am going in july and I have already bought my tickets, but when I see the mess with VB, I don't want to waste my time in that park.
I have bought a 3 park/3 day with one park a day (no hopper). Can I skip my day at VB and spend for instance 2 days at IOA and 1 day at Univeral park ?
Thank you for the answer...

keep in mind the improvement we've seen over the past week. Another month and it seems it will really be 100%

If you got park to park you can visit it in the morning and then move over to studios

 

[sedati]

Give people an idea of Tapu, Tapu and wait times yesterday

That path under the volcano with the mist is wonderful, hope they can add more touches like that as things progress. Though the loss of the neat little frog lights is a step back, hopefully they can find a new home.

 

[captainkidd]

Not sure what I'm expecting but Universals response to each of the many negative posts on Trip Advisor is really annoying. All canned "Sorry, we'll pass your comments on to management. We hope you'll visit us again.:
Come on guys, you're better than that. Show some sympathy and regret and make it sincere. Own up to the fact you screwed up, apologize and do what you can to make it up to people.

 

[JT3000]

Not sure what I'm expecting but Universals response to each of the many negative posts on Trip Advisor is really annoying. All canned "Sorry, we'll pass your comments on to management. We hope you'll visit us again.:
Come on guys, you're better than that. Show some sympathy and regret and make it sincere. Own up to the fact you screwed up, apologize and do what you can to make it up to people.

What more do you expect them to do? Most of those people are no longer on-site, nor are they even contacting Universal directly with their complaint, they're just posting on some unaffiliated website. There's only so much they can do. And saying "we screwed up" is a great way to get fired from PR.

 

[mergatroid]

What more do you expect them to do? Most of those people are no longer on-site, nor are they even contacting Universal directly with their complaint, they're just posting on some unaffiliated website. There's only so much they can do. And saying "we screwed up" is a great way to get fired from PR.

Well have a look at how Cowfish handle bad reviews on Tripadviser. A sincere apology within days with contact details of a manager requesting the customer gets in touch with them so they can discuss the issues and come to some resolution.