Complaints

The complaint text that is displayed might not represent all complaints filed with BBB. Some consumers may elect to not publish the details of their complaints, some complaints may not meet BBB's standards for publication, or BBB may display a portion of complaints when a high volume is received for a particular business.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:08/29/2023

  Type:Service or Repair Issues
  Status:

  ResolvedMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  I am writing to request corrective action due to the mishandling of my July 16 and July 23 in-person requests, at the Guest Services sections o* ***** ******* *** and Busch Gardens Williamsburg, respectively, to cancel the renewal of the two-park unlimited memberships of my wife and I (accounts ******************* and ********************* respectively).
  
  The above-indicated annual memberships were purchased with a credit card ending in **** *n July 3, 2022. Between that time and the end of the membership, the account was transferred to a new card issuer and I was given a new card ending in ***** * thought my membership would end effective COB July 3, 2023, but a few days later I noticed a $*** charge on my new card.
  
  On July 16 my wife and I drove personally to ***** ******* **** The guest services employee there informed us that he cancelled both memberships and we should expect a refund to our credit card within a week or so. The following weekend my wife and I went to the Guest Services section at Busch Gardens Williamsburg, where an attendant checked our accounts and verbally confirmed that our memberships were indeed not active and cancelled. She also recommended we call ###-###-#### in several weeks to follow up.
  
  On August 14 I called ###-###-#### through which I reached ******** ** *******n informed me he was unable to process the refund, due to the fact that we had “used” our membership passes on July 16 and July 23 when we entered the parking lots at Water Country USA and Busch Gardens Williamsburg, respectively, to resolve the situation and despite the fact that on neither of those dates nor on any date since July 3, 2023 have we “used” our membership passes to actually go through the main gates to be admitted to either of the parks.
  
  I trust you will assist us with this matter and correct this error by ensuring that our annual membership renewals are cancelled and we receive the refund we are due in the amount of $****

• Initial Complaint

  Date:08/08/2023

  Type:Service or Repair Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  I received email notification that my family's season passes to Busch Gardens Williamsburg would automatically renew if I didn't cancel automatic renewal. I logged into my account and thought I was successful at cancelling auto-renewal. Upon receiving my credit card bill in the mail several days later, I noticed a credit card charge of ******* on 04/23 to Busch Gardens. Referenc* ***************** I phoned customer service on 05/3/2023 and was told not to worry I was within 30 days of auto-renewal and since the passes were not used I was entitled to a full refund which I would receive in 1-2 weeks. I waited approx. a month and hadn't received a refund. I phoned again and was told by the representative that they saw the problem with the refund and would expedite refund. After several more weeks and no refund I sent a message through the Busch Gardens website explaining the problem since it took anywhere from 45-60 minutes to reach a representative by phone on my prior calls. I've been waiting over 3 months for the refund. I've received no follow-up calls or emails and am appalled and frustrated by this total lack of customer service. I have spent thousands of dollars over the years at this park with my family and friends and this is how I'm thanked.

  Business Response

  Date: 08/21/2023

  Hello,

  I do apologize for any inconvenience this has brought to you and your family. I'm having a hard time trying to pull up your account. Could you please email ********************************** and send over a screenshot of your passes/barcodes and any order confirmations you have received.

  Thank you, I look forward to being able to help you further.

  Customer Answer

  Date: 08/22/2023

  MESSAGE FROM BUSINESS:
  
  Hello,
  I do apologize for any inconvenience this has brought to you and your family. I'm having a hard time trying to pull up your account. Could you please email ********************************** and send over a screenshot of your passes/barcodes and any order confirmations you have received.
  Thank you, I look forward to being able to help you further.

  
  Please see attached passes from last year for my two daughters which you auto renewed this spring after I cancelled and made several follow up attempts for refund and was told my refund would be processed. I was told I was within the 30 day grace period for cancellation as passes were never issued/redeemed. I never received an email regarding passes for 2023 (only a charge on my credit card). I was charged ******* on 04/23/2023 per my credit card statement for passes never received. See attached credit card detail. I'm not sure why my information can't be found as the representatives on the phone found it quickly when I phoned multiple times and was assured a refund?   

  I attempted to send this message to Busch Gardens today 08/22/2023 in response to their request. I used the email provided above but the email kept getting kicked back and said "Message Blocked" with some technical problem. ???? Unbelievable

  
  

• Initial Complaint

  Date:07/31/2023

  Type:Service or Repair Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  In November 2022 I upgraded my children’s membership passes from basic to unlimited solely for the purpose of the free guest ticket benefit. When we attended Busch Gardens Williamsburg for Christmastown in December 2022, neither of my children’s unlimited memberships would register at the park. Their basic membership (which was supposed to be canceled) did work. However, they were not able to access the free guest passes with basic. We asked for help at the counter and were told that we would have to purchase the single tickets for our two guests, which we did, as we were already there and had purchased the very expensive Santa dinner experience. In May 2023, I realized that the auto-pay ****** system was charging me monthly for both the basic memberships AND the unlimited memberships (that the park had been unable to access). I called customer service where an agent took hours to straighten everything out. They were able to find the redundant charges and they could see the problem on their end. I was told that this was a glitch that affected many customers and that they were refunding the amount of the redundancy of the unlimited membership fees (because we could only access the basic membership and had paid for additional tickets out of pocket). I was frustrated by the amount of time this took, but pleased with the expected refund. I was told that **** and change would be refunded. A few days later **** was refunded to my account. When I called back to find out where the remaining amount was, I was informed that the customer service representative had misquoted and that they “are not able to refund the remaining amount”. They did confirmed the initial problem was that their system “did not detect” the redundancy and that they could see the refund quote of the roughly **** typed in the notes. I repeatedly asked for my remaining refund. I was talked to with the top level of condescension and then informed that I was being disconnected. Owed over $***

  Business Response

  Date: 08/01/2023

  Hello,

  Thank you for contacting us. I do apologize for the inconvenience and the frustration that you have experienced. At this time we can offer you the rest of the amount ****) in Busch Bucks to cover the rest of the misinformation that was given to you. If you would like to accept the offer please email us at ********************************** with "Complaint ID: ********" in the subject line with your Barcode numbers attached again for us to be able to pull up the account easily for you.

  Thank you and have a great day.

  Customer Answer

  Date: 08/02/2023

  Busch gardens reached out and offered a refund, but the email provided in the message is not working.  I have tried over ten times.  Could we get a different email address for me to send my information?

• Initial Complaint

  Date:07/20/2023

  Type:Billing Issues
  Status:

  ResolvedMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  Last Saturday afternoon we went to Water Country USA and had a particularly awful encounter with water country’s staff at guest relations at approximately 4pm. My son is autistic and water country has a program where you can get a couple passes so kids with autism don’t have to wait in as crowded of a line for an extended period of time. Per the staff member we spoke to my son is not autistic because he could tell just by looking at him. He accused my son and I of lying about a disability and said we needed to start bringing medical documentation for him to examine. This is expressly against current policy at both Water Country and Busch Gardens. I know this because we have been season ticket holders for over 10 years. It’s also incredibly disrespectful to tell a child you can’t have a mental disability because I can tell from your physical appearance. We have IEP goals for our son to work on improving self advocacy in school and to have a stranger act in such an awful manner towards my son is just can actually cause serious harm to his ability to self advocate which has been a multi year goal.
  
  My son is already extremely self conscious. He knows he is different and when people blatantly point it out to him he gets upset at himself. After COVID it took forever to get him to stop reverting back to hitting himself when he got distraught. after one excessively condescending and obnoxious conversation this past Saturday afternoon months of self esteem building went right out the window. We spent half the trip having convince my son he was allowed to go on rides and not banished from the entire park. This guy has zero business working in guest relations and is in desperate need of some serious training on what you can and can’t say to guests especially ones who have a disability regardless of whether you can see it or not. I would like to be contacted to ensure that some manager has it on their to do list to review how staff handle interactions with disabled persons.

  Business Response

  Date: 07/20/2023

  07/20/2023
  
  Better Business Bureau
  
  Refer to Complaint ID: ********
  
  Dear Sir or Madam:
  
  I am writing you concerning * *** complaint that our Management
  Team received, complaint ID: ********. After receiving the complaint, I happily
  reached out the customer by the phone number provided, on Thursday, 07/20/2023.
  It is my pleasure to inform you that we satisfactorily resolved the customer’s
  complaint. We look forward to this customer’s visit so they can have an
  excellent experience at our beautiful park.
  
  Sincerely,
  
  Michael Lamont
  Manager, Park Operations
  Water Country USA 

  Customer Answer

  Date: 07/21/2023

  
  
  ****** ******** ******:
  
  
  
  I have reviewed the response made by the business in reference to complaint ID ********, and find that this resolution is satisfactory to me. Really appreciate the call BG customer service gave us.
  
  
  
  Sincerely,
  
  
  
  ******* *****

• Initial Complaint

  Date:07/18/2023

  Type:Billing Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  I notice only a bank account with an unrecognizable fee from “SeaWorld” When I checked it out further I realized it was a payment that I thought I canceled from Busch Gardens. I called Busch Gardens Williamsburg to cancel my ** *** membership that I’ve only used once, and due to my upcoming bills, I cannot afford it. When I spoke with a representative, I was told that I could not be issued a refund and that if I did not pay it even though I could no longer afford it, it would go to collections. This is a **** **** and I would not recommend anybody to apply for one seeing as they won't let you get out of it. I want this canceled and my money back! I didn't even use it for the month they charged me.

  Business Response

  Date: 07/19/2023

  Hello,

  I apologize for any inconvenience this has brought you. It looks like your passes were purchased on 6/18/2023 which means they are still within the commitment time frame. The Commitment that Is left on the passes Is ******** if you would like to chose to move forward with paying the full amount I can go ahead and cancel your passes. They will not renew once the commitment has been met. Your next payment is due on August 18th fo* *******

  Thank you for contacting us.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:07/17/2023

  Type:Billing Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  I purchased tickets for myself and my family for the Fireworks on the Rhine Cruise and the captain canceled it as we were all waiting to board the boat. The staff apologized and then confirmed my name and number and told all customers there that someone would contact us in a couple of days to issue our refund. This never happened. The cruise was scheduled for July 3, 2023 and I still have not heard anything to date. My order number is 2**************. I paid over **** not including tax for this experience for my family which was neither received or refunded as promised. I would like someone to contact me for a prompt and fair resolution to this situation. I have been desperately trying to contact anyone who can help and I keep running into deadends everywhere no matter what numbers I call and no one is responding to the emails at [email protected] .

  Business Response

  Date: 07/17/2023

  Hello,

  Thank you for contacting us. From what I am seeing on the account the Reservations for the Fireworks Cruise were refunded back onto the card used to purchase. Please allow 7-10 days or 2 billing cycles for this to fully go back onto your card. I apologize for any inconvenience this has brought you.

  Have a great rest of your week.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:07/12/2023

  Type:Product Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  On 7/3/2023 I attempted to call Busch to upgrade our membership to include Water Country. The hold time was 90 minutes and my daughter was literally standing at the gate of WC waiting for me to upgrade our membership. I have done this in previous years with no issue but that day the phone wait time was crazy so I went to the website to attempt to upgrade our membership which again, I have done before. There did not seem to be any option to do that, again now it was like 20 minutes of my kid waiting at the gate. So I attempted their online chat feature, it was disconnected because they had no one to assist me. I then tried to purchase a day pass for WC and somehow in the stress of the situation I ended up with a day pass to WC but also Busch. I immediately called again for help in correcting this, again long wait, selected the option for a call back. The day passed and no callback, called again the next day right when they opened, long wait so again, I selected a call back because I was at work and could not sit on hold for an hour. Never received a callback that day either. Tried online chat feature again, another message that they did not have anyone available to assist. Today I finally was able to reach someone on the chat only to be told so sorry we can not refund. I even asked for them to apply the $***** towards our membership, no again. They said I could use the pass for a year but I do not need a pass because we are already season pass holders, still no help.

  Business Response

  Date: 07/12/2023

  Hello, thank you for contacting us. I went ahead and canceled your Busch Gardens Day Specific ticket since it had not been used. I also went ahead and refunded the Service fee as well. You will be seeing ****** returning to the card you had originally purchased your ticket through. I apologize for any inconvenience and frustration this has caused you.

  Thank you and have a great day!

• Initial Complaint

  Date:07/12/2023

  Type:Billing Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  I have been trying to contact this business for the past week. I purchased 4 single day tickets and less than a week to going I got diagnosed with a torn meniscus on my left knee. So I can’t bring my family there and I’m looking to reschedule but no one answers at this business. And the one time they did they hung up. Customer service there is horrendous.

  Business Response

  Date: 07/19/2023

  Hello,

  I pulled up your order and saw that the tickets you had purchased on 7/18/2023 were used. Unfortunately since they have been used we are not able to rebook your day for you since the product had been scanned. I apologize for any inconvenience this has brought you.

  Thank you for your time.

• Initial Complaint

  Date:07/10/2023

  Type:Billing Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  My family purchased 5 tickets for Tampa Bay Busch Gardens to use 4/4/23. Unfortunately, we were unable to use these tickets on that date. I was able to get a hold of Busch Gardens and they said I could use them at the Williamsburg Busch Gardens at a later date and to call and notify them closer to the date. I have attempted to reach Busch Gardens of Williamsburg for the last 4 days, even calling at 9am when they open. Each time I call after an hour on hold they force me to a callback number. I have done this 4 times and nobody has called back. I also have left 2 emails. I want to use the tickets coming up on July 16 and need to make sure this is possible. Appreciate any assistance.

  Business Response

  Date: 07/12/2023

  Thank you for contacting Busch Gardens. My team and I will be more than happy to assist with your request. When you come to the park on July 16th please visit our Out Park Guest Relations (Or Zone C) and give them your email address and they will be able to switch it out for you there. Please also bring the Tampa tickets with you as they will take them at the window when they swap them out for the Busch Gardens Tickets + Meals. I apologize for any inconvenience this has brought you and I hope you have a wonderful visit here at Busch Gardens Williamsburg!

   

• Initial Complaint

  Date:07/07/2023

  Type:Billing Issues
  Status:

  AnsweredMore info

  Complaint statuses

  Resolved:

  The complainant verified the issue was resolved to their satisfaction.

  Unresolved:

  The business responded to the dispute but failed to make a good faith effort to resolve it.

  Answered:

  The business addressed the issues within the complaint, but the consumer either a) did not accept the response, OR b) did not notify BBB as to their satisfaction.

  Unanswered:

  The business failed to respond to the dispute.

  Unpursuable:

  BBB is unable to locate the business.

  Water Country USA's business practice is to charge customers who purchase tickets on site, whether at the kiosk or at the ticket booth, a different price than is reflected on their website. Last time I went, they charged ****** for a ticket in person whereas it was only $***** online. It's a poor business practice to penalize unsuspecting customers who chose to purchase tickets at the park and are unaware of the price gouging the company engages in.

  Business Response

  Date: 07/08/2023

  Hello, Unfortunately we do not offer any website deal at the local parks. We apologize for any inconvenience this has brought you. Our Fourth of July sale which is up to 50% off on Single Day Tickets, Fun Cards, and Membership has been extended till tomorrow July 9th.

  Thank you and have a great day.

  Customer Answer

  Date: 07/12/2023

  
  
  Complaint* ********
  
  
  
  I am rejecting this response because: Intentionally taking advantage of your patrons and preying upon their unawareness of varied price models is appalling and unacceptable. It's alarming that Water Country feels so comfortable exploiting unsuspecting patrons and charging over double for tickets in person vs online. What kind of business practice is that to rob park goers of their hard earned money?

  Sincerely,
  
  
  
  ********* *********