Go Ape refusing refund

Its unfortunate as it was obviously a busy day, they were running late for the last safety briefing and still needed to close at 6.30.
I think you need to start again by asking for a refund which compensated the percentage of time lost. I don't know whether harness on, safety briefing and harness off is all going to be in your 2 hours? T&C will tell you.
Write back, use bullet points not paragraphs and don't confuse it by adding emotion. I know your dc's autism makes it difficult, but it is also irrelevant in this situation - the facts to stick to are that they started late, finished early and cut down your time slot.
Apart from that, all you can do is make sure you never book the last of the day slot, which is always going to be the vulnerable one for delays and needing to close on time.

I don't think the fact that OP's child is ND is relevant at all. She seems to be complaining about not having the full hour/90 minutes/2 hours/40 mins, and im struggling to see why it's relevant that her DS is neurodivergent. I feel she'd be stamping her feet about a full refund regardless. My DC are neurodivergent too but it doesn't make me grabby and demanding refunds. If something has genuinely been difficult for my DC then I might feed it back to the company in case they're able to make changes for the next family, but that's all. As the parent it's my job to manage their expectations, not the company.

I agree. Treetop Challenge at our Go Ape would cost £117 for three people. In fact, it costs more than £60 for three people to do the Treetop Adventure (the first little kids level), and £87 to do the levels that OP completed. It sounds like she’s had a bargain to me!

Probably get flamed for this but…

I notice more and more of these posts of people being utterly unreasonable and demanding (often involving wanting all their money back) - and every time the reason ‘oh my child is neurodivergent’.

It’s really great that more places are adapting to help ND children experience things in a way that accommodates their needs - but if every experience isn’t 100% as you’d have liked it to be, it doesn’t mean the provider has failed and you should get all your money back.

You keep saying it was a lot of money.

Was is 60 pounds for two hours?

That's very good, and very cheap.

Most activities are way more expensive than that?

I just paid 25 pounds for a castle tour that is 30 minutes long

@Stripyseason are they really cutting and pasting the same reply to you each time with the exact same phrasing?

She also (claims to have) cut and pasted an email from them saying she had 90 minutes on the course. Why are you choosing to believe in the one she posted after 10+ pages of being told to let it go?

Christ almighty.

You didn't get to do one loop!

You did three!

OP you are totally over reacting.

You do not look good in this, sending them loads of long emails.

They've already apologised.

Also, I don't agree with calling people this, but the staff are almost certainly calling you a Karen and are simply trying to make you go away by talking about "training". Is it your aim to get the minimum wage staff who are probably teenagers in trouble?

They have short changed her if the latest version of her very fickle account is correct. It's a shame that they don't have CCTV to verify and it's a shame that companies don't do more to take action against people when they go to the media with downright lies tbh. The slander could still be very damaging to the business however big or small it is.

Honestly OP I wouldn’t let this drop. I would push for either a refund of 33% of your costs, since you lost a third of your hour. Or for a 50% discount on a future visit. 10% is a piss take. And I don’t think having an autistic child is the main issue here, although clearly it made the situation harder to manage.

The fact is, they short changed you, and they should compensate you for that. It’s like booking a table in a restaurant, paying for 3 courses, being kept waiting to sit down, then being asked to leave after your second course.

If they’d started the session at the correct time, you could have had your full hour. They started late, so they were running out of time and moved you on before your hour was completed. It’s their mistake and for them to rectify.

This isn’t a small independent business struggling to make ends meet. Go Ape is massive. They can afford to make this right.

OP, I get where you're coming from and agree you had a bad experience.

I'm going to say this next bit as someone with ND kids, who is prone to getting drawn into these kind of things...

I don't think GoApe is worth the stress or headspace you are giving it. You have enough battles in your life. Your time and mental health are more valuable.

I think it would be ok at this stage to reframe it and potentially model to the kids: "We had some fun there, it's a shame about what happened at the end. I've let them know that was unfair and really difficult for you and they have apologised."

...have assured us the manager doesn’t think his staff are as up to speed as they need to be working with neurodiverse children and will be retraining them

*Neurodivergent children

My bet here is that this "retraining" will consist of a brief conversation during a staff meeting that goes something like

"Hey guys, please make sure you don't tell any kids that they'll get to do all 4 courses, because otherwise if they're too slow to finish them all in an hour, we'll get more entitled parents like this one harassing us over email for days at a time for refunds and it's a ball ache to deal with"

This behaviour honestly gives SEN parents a bad name.

I also think when they said you would be able to do all 4 courses, they meant all 4 courses were open and available to you. But you still only have an hour to complete them.

The one thing I can see from this thread is that Go Ape are missing a trick here. It probably would be a good idea for them to put on some smaller group sessions that are specifically geared towards SEN families or those who are anxious/nervous and likely to take longer doing the course. It could remove the pressure of being in a mixed ability group and give people more time to complete, more time for briefings, explanations, individual attention. Of course it might have an increased cost attached, but many families might well pay that to have a more relaxed experience for SEN children and more instructor support.

(And obviously not put those sessions at the end of the day!)

YABU.

It doesn’t sound like they did anything wrong really. They are only capitulating to make you go away.

Their response seems reasonable. You aren’t in any case due 100% of a refund, given you did at least 75% of the course.

Kindly, with your level of family/work commitments and presuming yesterday afternoon was a non-work day - maybe your time off would be better spent on self care, rather than pursuing a lost cause.

You’ve already sent 12 (I think) emails to them too, and now you’re going to start up on other social media. If you are hurrying posts and misrepresenting Go Ape publicly as a result - that’s probably not a sensible idea.

I’d be interested to know if they have the usual email disclaimer about contents being for recipient only too.

OP your response email that you finally produced is just a carbon copy of the original email with 47 minutes substituted for 90 minutes. Of course it's possible that the person writing the email did use the exact same phrasing or it's more possible that you just substituted a shorter tome in there after frequently changing your account and being told that YABU. I'm out. Let Go Ape deal with this not MN. I think you're lucky that they are being as polite to you as they are tbh. Their customer service seems excellent. I must remember to go there some time.