Volcano Bay: General Discussion

[Dan B]

Hey how about this everyone, all of the tweets and reviews complaining and peoples criticism online that is there for the public to read is a tiny tiny tiny percentage of the number of visitors that pass through those gates each day, probably lucky if its what 1-2% probably not even that. Just like all other places to review things online and despite becoming more common most people still don't go out of their way to go online and voice what a great time they had, but they are more likely to voice their opinion if they didn't like it.

I can fully imagine that most of the general public are having a good time, its opening week, things have clearly been rushed and not finished yet but they will tidy the place up, make it look finished and the park will be operating smoothly in the near future. Most will return, even the ones that have moaned like they will never visit another UNI park will also be back in time and teething troubles of opening week will be a distant memory in the near future.

I kind of expected the thread to turn into what it has since the end of the project neared. When in construction we all discuss what is happening, predicting analysing etc etc with a smaller expectation and more of an intrigue as to what is being created, now what is left to talk about? Pretty much nothing other than peoples opinions on what has been produced and those opinions are going to be varying to a large degree from person to person, all message boards are the same and there are always individuals that take things too far, simply don't feed the trolls....

As for me I probably won't be lucky enough to visit from the UK in the next year or more and have nothing over here that even compares to 10% of VB let alone the entire place so I expect I will be one of the general public that love the place when I finally visit! Enjoy your water theme park people, consider yourselves lucky you have a choice of water parks let alone one.

 

[Jonea32]

It boils down to the internet age of everything being the best thing ever or the worst thing ever. The way I see it is they have removed wet n wild and replaced it with a far superior product and that's all I want as a theme park fan providing the kinks get ironed out.

 

[UNIrd]

The TripAdvisor reviews are brutal so far but it is indicative of the most common complaints. Today should definitely run a lot smoother with the holiday weekend crowds gone.

 

[rcoasterdude]

If you follow the "girly" accounts on twitter a lot of my friends are retweeting things like "Someone take me to Volcano Bay" with pictures of the park and they have followers of 100k+ so I think the park is generating a LOT of buzz

 

[MattA]

If you follow the "girly" accounts on twitter a lot of my friends are retweeting things like "Someone take me to Volcano Bay" with pictures of the park and they have followers of 100k+ so I think the park is generating a LOT of buzz

Unfortunately most of the "followers" of those accounts are bots. Those accounts themselves are bots lol. It'll generate a little bit of buzz, but not NEARLY as much as you'd expect.

 

[Mad Dog]

My opinion is that the last few comments above are right on. Dan B comments remind me of why I think so highly of our UK posters. They always seem to set themselves above the fray and look at events with a good common sense approach. Just looking at the sheer number of slides and what appears to be a beautiful park, I'm sure that in a couple of weeks, finishing touches will be done, staff will be adequately trained and the park will work well. We've seen so many new attractions, at both Universal & Disney, that have had rocky launches for one reason or another. But the quality ones bounce back and become some of our most beloved rides.:thumbsup:....That being said, I just can't pass up this little funny that just popped up in my mind. If Tapu Tapu continues to have issues, they may change the name to a different Polynesian phrase, namely Pupu Pupu. :bolt:And with that, I end this comment.

 

[jrn14]

Ok those reviews are worse than I expected. Perhaps they should have staggered capacity until they got some of the kinks worked out and it would have helped keep the buzz more positive... Yesterday it ranked 403rd out of 424 things to do in Orlando.... what was lower? Citrus World?

 

[epcyclopedia]

About the "those are just a tiny percent.." comments...

Water parks have small guest populations. I suspect they stopped letting people in well before the park's actual designed capacity on top of that.

That many complaints from that small of a group is not good.

 

[Donald Razorduck]

"Crapu, Crapu" - now that is funny!

The park was not ready for prime time and they premiered during sweeps week. Poor programing. This park shoud have had at least a couple of soft open weeks for working up to at least 75 percent capacity before raising the flood gates. The Tripadvisor reviews are brutal.

 

[Donald Razorduck]

Amazing that all the complaints don't mention anything else negative other than their experience with Virtual Queue.



I'm not saying the customer isn't right, and Universal has to do whatever it takes to make them happy - but it being opening weekend over Memorial Day Weekend with everyone itching to go utilizing new tech isn't solely on Universal. Customers shouldn't blame Universal for the crazy crowds, but the lack of "Real World Testing" - but I would gather maybe 90% have no idea how manic the race to finish was. I'd imagine Universal would have preferred to have a month of actual testing with a complete park instead of rushing to complete before opening. I'm sure it's a hard lesson and maybe a few heads will roll.

It is absolutely on Universal, they chose this opening date knowing full well the type of crowds that are to be expected.

 

[1up]

Check out the views from the Cabana Bay Towers!

Wow, easy room upgrade for me!

 

[Evan]

It is absolutely on Universal, they chose this opening date knowing full well the type of crowds that are to be expected.

Precisely. I refuse to blame guests. Universal is a billion dollar company, people expect nothing less then perfection.

Of course, delays are expected on an opening weekend.. but I don't think anyone who wasn't monitoring the construction like we all do, would have known to expect that... 5 hours for a slide?! Yeesh!

 

[epcyclopedia]

Have all the adverts for Volcano Bay always said "artist rendering" at the bottom or is that new...? I just noticed it on the banner ad on this site. Like, it struck me as odd for a banner ad.

 

[adjjb]

A guest services rep should probably start responding to those reviews. It will show the potential guests reading them that UO is listening at least and apologize.

I don't think it's on the guests when there were no softs and they rushed so much to complete. Guest were sold on 3-day park tickets so long ago. Ads about no lines and commercials on the 3rd park being so amazing and while I'm sure they expected crowds I doubt they expected the queue system problems. I doubt anyone should have had to prepare themselves for riding 1 slide + lazy river after paying $70 or giving up and walking out of the park after 2 hours. It should be their fault that they only got to ride one ride because they arrived at noon.

 

[Latveria]

A guest services rep should probably start responding to those reviews. It will show the potential guests reading them that UO is listening at least and apologize.

I don't think it's on the guests when there were no softs and they rushed so much to complete. Guest were sold on 3-day park tickets so long ago. Ads about no lines and commercials on the 3rd park being so amazing and while I'm sure they expected crowds I doubt they expected the queue system problems. I doubt anyone should have had to prepare themselves for riding 1 slide + lazy river after paying $70 or giving up and walking out of the park after 2 hours. It should be their fault that they only got to ride one ride because they arrived at noon.

Definitely agree. Universal needs to take responsibility for the poor weekend debut. The timeline was too aggressive yet they pushed ahead anyway and this is what the results are - poor guest reviews so far.

 

[Cheezbat]

The more I read this thread the more I debate skipping reading it.

Everything has been about how terrible the park has been its first few days.

I was hoping to hear actual guests thoughts and more about improvements being made since day one...haven't seen much of any of that.

Maybe I should just come back in a month.

 

[Lisastevo88]

Sorry if this has been posted previously!

Does anyone know the state of the Express Passes yet? I know they aren't being sold online anymore but I think I heard someone mention that they are still selling them inside the park?

We have prebooked Express passes booked for the end of June and I am praying they are honouring the ones that's have already been sold. They were a gift I bought for my parents Ruby wedding anniversary and also a cabana which I am praying is finished also.

Fingers crossed this all works out!!

 

[P@n!K_Sw1tC#]

The more I read this thread the more I debate skipping reading it.

Everything has been about how terrible the park has been its first few days.

I was hoping to hear actual guests thoughts and more about improvements being made since day one...haven't seen much of any of that.

Maybe I should just come back in a month.

If you want actual guests thoughts there's a link to Volcano Bay's Trip Advisor reviews a few pages back. Unsurprisingly they took quite a hit opening weekend. It, on average, takes 22 positive responses to outweigh a single negative on Trip Advisor, (consumer behavioral studies show) so make sure to take that into account when scrolling through the feedback.

Also, the reason you haven't seen any improvements is that there haven't really been any besides some operational adjustments. Universal has been trying to keep their head above water all weekend. Hopefully, you'll see some visible improvements by the time we get to Friday of this week.

This is a lot of you btw:

 

[tielo]

Fact is that (again) Universal opened something to early.
They'll fix it, they always do, but first impression is valuable in this day and age.
As a theme park nerd I know this happens, I know the huge lines at Pandora won't last or the problems with Volcano Bay. I know not to go the first months. But the general public doesn't. Most of them read some of the bad, see some of the good but in the end they'll go to a resort and will vacation to whatever they want to include.

Still I hope Universal will take time to finish stuff, to have it tested and soft open for a few weeks. Not only for the public but for the workers who must have been in crunch time for quite a while.

 

[darkridelover]

If you look at the Opening week for Cabana Bay on Trip Advisor most of the reviews were awful too. Now it ranks as one of the top resorts in Orlando. I blame the public for not having realistic expectations. As a former Restaurant Manager for several different chains, openings were always a disaster. No matter how experienced the staff was or how well prepared you were. While a lot of these complaints are completely valid, none of them were unforeseen by operations. There are some things you just can't fix until you put the maximum stress on the system.

Here's some of the reviews for Cabana Bay opening week,

“Don't waste your money staying in this hotel when you have tons of better priced and better quality hotels in the near by area.”
“I Wanted to Love This Place”
“Bad experience and no organization by staff.”
“Need to step it up!”
“What a let down!”
“Disappointing”
“BIG LET DOWN!”
“Dissapointed”
“Disaster”
“Disappointing Experience”
“Missing Many Standard Amenities!”
“Not Magical for the $$”
“"A pretty painting with dirt on it"”