Complete rip-off/scam. I truly believe the team has this set-up in a way to charge you as much as possible with no remorse for their poor management. Much of what I'm writing has been echoed in numerous reviews, which I should have listened too before I went.
My family and I spent over $600 on three single day tickets with FastPass Plus add-ons, expecting to experience the park’s attractions at their best. Unfortunately, our visit was marred by several issues that significantly impacted our experience.
Firstly, nearly half of the rides were closed for “annual maintenance,” which was not disclosed anywhere on their websites or app. We confirmed this with a customer service representative at the park, who stated that the website and app were not updated to reflect the closures. She mentioned that the marketing team was working on having this issue resolved in the future. This lack of communication left us feeling misled and disappointed, especially after paying for tickets and add-ons with the expectation of enjoying all available rides. The app showed everything was operational, what a scam in itself.
Secondly, we encountered problems with the FastPass system. The FastPass lanes were not properly monitored, allowing guests to bypass the system by lane-hopping without any verification of their FastPass access. We only observed one ride (Rising Phoenix) where someone was actually monitoring the FastPass line and scanning passes. On our first attempt to ride, the ride was closed for about 45 minutes after waiting in line for some time. When we returned for a second attempt, our passes were scanned again, but no other rides had their lanes monitored. Additionally, we noticed that some rides had their FastPass lanes roped off in the middle of the day for no apparent reason, while guests continued to hop into the FastPass lane from the regular line.
This combination of ride closures, lack of FastPass monitoring, and inconsistent lane management was extremely frustrating and disappointing. I expected a much higher level of service and coordination, especially with how much money we spent.
It was disheartening to spend a significant amount of money and time and not receive the experience we anticipated. We live outside of the U.S., had we known that there were going to be unannounced closures, and disregard for add-on purchases to “enhance” our experience, we would not have spent the time and money into this location the way we did.
Also good luck trying to get ahold of anyone, they never responded to my e-mail when I informed them of the issue. I had to call after waiting 10 days for a response, in which they basically said there's nothing they can do about how the park manages their staff and advising people of what's open and when. They were also aware that they do not advertise what is closed and when. (Probably on purpose).
Here's some advice:
- Buy the tickets at the park if you decide to go, and call ahead even before you do that to see what's open.
- Don't bother buying fast-pass lanes as no one will be there to monitor it anyways, it'll save you almost 200 bucks per person and you can just skip the line.
- If someone is scanning, don't worry, they probably will only be at one. (if they scan your pass once, you can't get a refund, which is why we couldn't get a refund because they scanned our pass once at the only ride that was being manned and said "well your pass was scanned so we can't issue a refund even if no one else was monitoring the other lanes lanes".
- Bring your own food, most of the stands won't be open anyways and its extremely over priced.