Go Ape refusing refund

Your not being a mama bear, you are being “that customer”. And that’s coming from someone who also has a ND child. I think they have been very fair and you are trying it on - good on them for standing their ground as you come across as very grabby.

Well the point is that if they hadn't delayed at the beginning you had plenty of time in your 2 hour slot to complete all 4 levels despite being slower than average. They were the ones who caused the delay in the first place and then cut short your time on the course, so you should be entitled to a refund or a discount of at least 25%. Their offer of a 10% is low in my opinion.
They have acknowledged the shortcomings so it's really only agreeing how much they compensate you for your poor experience. Do you want a full refund of £60, half of that, or 25%?
In my experience (financial services) people never actually say what they want up front because they think it's cheeky then get pissed off when they don't get it. Often if they actually say what they want , they get it.
Tell them what you want and stop fannying about.

People are misreading some of OPs early posts where she's listing timings. The safety meeting didn't take 20 mins, they had to wait for someone to run it for 20 mins where they were waiting around not doing anything.

So I understand timing loosely as
4.30 start slot. Waiting for someone to do safety briefing
4.50 safety briefing starts
5.10 harness up
5.20 in treetops
6.00 finish tree tops

OP I think their email response is actually apologetic and I don't think you're entitled to a full refund. But I would be pushing for a partial refund or better discounted voucher

70 minutes was in there somewhere too. It's impossible to follow

Are you expecting them to pay extra staff hours, and potentially affect whatever evening plans the staff had, because your kids were slow? And not manage the session within the timeframe advertised, because it’s not the done thing to rush an autistic kid?

I think you’re lucky they offered anything. You should have checked what time the place closes and how that would fit with your session timings, booking a late slot like that. Then you should have managed it.

It is absolutely entitled to think you can take all the time in the world, without an awareness of how that will impact others.

If you knew you had more time why did you not ask to do loop3 afterwards?

I think their email is quite fair, but a 10% discount is crap. At 90% of full price they will still be making a profit from a second visit which you otherwise would not have made, so they are effectively profiting from their mistake. Poor form.

A 50% discount would be much more appropriate in the circumstances.

I agree @MeowCatPleaseMeowBack the maths seems obvious

I’m afraid when you’re taking kids out for the day expectations are set high
In this case OPs son understood he could do all 4 climbs without being told maybe he won’t as it depends how long you take on each.

When we used to go to Howletts wild animal park we didn’t always see everything because ours loved the monkeys and stayed there for ages. Sometimes we missed the play area or the lions.
If it’s explained fully it shouldn’t become an issue.

You don’t get a full refund just because you didn’t finish something, sounds a bit like a ridiculous request. A discount for next time is perfectly reasonable. Think of it is as partial refund

I agree with you completely, OP, and am surprised they are picking this fight. Their safety briefing was slow starting and then they shut the course early, at 6, not at 6.30, so that's unreasonable. You only had a lesser time in the trees 40 minutes and they were hurrying you along.

None of this makes for a pleasant fun disability-friendly trip.

Giving a 10% voucher is embarrassing, because the whole trip make you feel rushed and unwanted and too slow, and why was that necessary if they were closing at 6.30 as originally told? You aren't going to go back with a lot of faith in their procedures, are you?

They shouldn't advertise the last slot of the day if it's not suitable for people and they close early at 6 instead of 6.30.

I have no idea why everyone says just suck it up, I don't go to places to be hurried and made to feel bad for doing the thing they just said you could do and then changing their minds and hustling you out of the door!

If you honestly only got 40 or 50 minutes then you should get a refund proportionate to the time lost plus a bit for the inconvenience and missed fun.
If it is more that you thought they'd make it 2 hours altogether and it took 90 minutes then that's irrelevant.
So it really depends on which of your posts are accurate on whether you should pursue it or not.

Do you have any proof that you only had 40 minutes? Otherwise I imagine that they would dispute it.

You could go to one of the national newspapers money columns. But you need to focus on the fact you only got 40 minutes of a 60 minutes session, which you didn't even include in your first email to them. All the other information about being at the end of thr day is superfluous. The fact you didn't get a hour is your complaint

Yes - it is very difficult to keep track when the account keeps changing. OP can you cut and paste the response from Go Ape where you say that accepted you had less than one hour in the trees as this is surely the most important email.

You need to be really clear about how much time you had post safety briefing and when you got your wrist band. If you’ve toyed between 70 and 40 in the thread then your complaint emails may have been equally confusing. If you had 70 minutes in trees then nothing to complain about- you need to let the 2 hour thing go as that is not for the activity, it’s to make sure people allow the right amount of time for parking etc.

If you only had 40 minutes in the trees then you do have a legitimate complaint but need to be much clearer about that being the issue.

its largely irrelevant whether you did course x, y or z- you’re paying for time in the trees not a specific route. There will be kids who just do the easiest course over and over in the hour.

I was referring to her initial email to go ape ( no timings mentioned they’ve been added later for us )
and go apes response, which given her initial email to them is fare.

If OP isn’t happy with the offer then the next stage would be contacting the ombudsmen. They’ll need proof.

Oh come on, it's obvious she had 90 minutes in the trees as the email from them confirmed. She started off annoyed at not getting her "2 hour slot." Once people pointed out it's 1 hour in the trees she changed her story to an hour then 45 minutes then 40 and then 50.

I feel sorry for customer services having to try to pacify these chancers.

It wasn't OP that was running slow it was them. She completed 3 sections in 40 minutes, actually quicker than they anticipate you do. They cut her time short by 30% because they were slow to start the safety brief

I get OPs times keep changing. But if what she's saying is true then of course she should be pissed off, you don't pay for something and expect to only get 2/3rds of it just because you paid for the last slot!

Imagine you go to the cinema and they stop the film 2/3rd of the way through because they were slow to start the ads!

I also feel that 15 minutes isn’t really worth a lot of upset. As mum you could have put on a cheery voice and reassured the kids that it was fine, level 4 is the best one, and now we will have time to stop for a treat on the way home, etc. The kids didn’t need to be upset about it? And if they were upset about not completing, why wouldn’t you want to come back so they could do it again and finish it? That sounds like cutting off your nose to spite your face.

In fact when DS and I did a go ape recently, we found it was too difficult for him. We also progressed very slowly but he was finding aspects of the course scary.

The instructors did exactly what they did with you and advised us to skip course 3, which they said was the hardest bit - maybe it was the same course?

We just did course 4.

So what was their response when they agreed that you only had 40 minutes on the course?

Take the offer. They seem pretty reasonable.

But OP didn't get what she paid for

She paid for an hour and got 40 minutes. Only 66% of what she paid for.

I think you’re a frustrated customer who didn’t get what they expected, but did get what they should have expected iyswim

It’s not a “mama bear” type situation at all - no one was in a danger or at risk, you’re just frustrated due to not getting what you wanted.

I think it stands to reason that if you book the last slot there’ll be less wiggle room for if you’re running slow. I would have cheerfully said to DC to go and do the last part of the course (my DS is also ND so I do understand) which would have mitigated some of their stress had having a slight change of plan.

Often I think it’s a parent’s own frustration or feelings of not getting value for money that leads to kids getting distressed by these things.