To think this was badly handled? London zoo

[LondonZoo55]

They are doing an accessibility scheme thing for people on low incomes, so anybody who receives supplemental universal credit etc.

A woman took it upon herself to post about it in a Facebook bargain group and it went viral.

Thousands of people (us included) have been turned away at the gates after travelling for 2hrs to get here. We were happy to pay full price and came fully intending to even though we do qualify, but we were refused as they're at max capacity.

Cue a meltdown from autistic DS. A tantrum from DD. It was absolute mayhem.

AIBU to think this was badly handled?

There are people that have travelled further than us, the zoo employees are apologetic and suggested they try again tomorrow. It'll be like this daily until the offer ends on 31st March.

Ridiculous.

Maybe could have been handled better. Maybe allowing X number to pre book with needing to show proof of entitlement on the gate?
But it was always going to be bonkers though. I had the misfortune to go the Natural History Museum pre covid during half term. My fault entirely. Didn't think it through.

They were at capacity so they've done the right thing.
If they let those thousands of people in, there would've been complaints, too.

I suspect its more the angle you've approached it from OP- instead of being miffed that it's at capacity and you couldn't pre book it came across that you were annoyed because people had been travelling down to take advantage of the decent offer. I suspect the zoo didn't think people who can't usually afford a ticket would spend £££s on travel and probably assumed it would be people local and the usual half term amounts.

To be honest I wouldn’t travel to a specific attraction anywhere further than 30 minutes away (maybe at all with an autistic child) without a booking that secured entry!

You should have to prebook tickets. Its not very well thought through to have people arriving and getring turned away.

The Natural history museum? In half term? Are you completely insane, woman?

We did this once, about 12 years ago, and it STILL makes me feel a bit weird when I remember the sheer length of the bloody queue!

I mean this kindly but yabu. I have autistic children - you don't do something like this spontaneously as there is the high likelihood of being disappointed.

Posted too soon...I meant to say, I miss spontaneity. Bloody hard when you're dealing with autism!!

They have posted a message now to say you have to book online .

you are meant to book tickets in advance online, this is true in most places (possibly started during covid to control numbers)

sorry it happened to you.

Sorry this happened to you OP - it’s been a gorgeous day today though and there is so much to see for free in London - I hope you managed to save the day out

Membership is the key! DD is dinosaur obsessed and I bought membership as a Christmas present purely so whoever takes her can waltz smugly to the head of the queue no matter how long it is!!

I’m sorry op but I’m actually with the others. I assume you prebook anything if you actually need to get in!

So did they let more people book than they could actually let in?
I would complain if that's the case but if you just turned up without booking I'd say it's your own fault.

They appear to have changed the system to allow pre-booking now. Hope your son managed to have a good day

I thought you could only prebook and it's turn up if you're a member. I was going to go tomorrow hope it's not madness. Were members being turned away?

London Zoo has been been turning people away during school holidays for decades, this isn’t down to this campaign being surprisingly effective.

I think any campaign, but especially one trying to reach a different demographic, should have included information about the risk of being turned away and, if they weren’t allowed ping pre-booking, should have been explicit that there was little chance of getting in during half-term.

So while I do think people who go to these sorts of venues should have anticipated not being able to get in, if the Zoo didn’t include warnings I agree it was very badly handled by the Zoo.

I think I would've booked in advance- especially if it says on their site that people are best to book in advance.

Yeah it wasn’t down to that woman!

I agree, pre booking was needed.

They didn’t 😵‍💫 people just showed up on the day

Other posters were telling OP she should have booked online.

It was a bad move by the zoo not having pre-booking for the deal set up before half term started.

its complicated but it’s doable - they double check that people who’ve booked a carer free have the correct proof when you arrive so they could easily have done the same with this - and is presumably what they’ve now done.

Barely anybody on this post has mentioned how distressing it is for the animals to have hoards of screaming kids and people surrounding them particularly with the special offer going on, no doubt parents letting their kids run riot. Do you honestly feel like filling the park to absolute maximum capacity benefits the animals and the animals are benefitting and enjoying being in that environment? People don't give a shit as long as their kids catch a glimpse of them and they get their £3's worth. I personally feel teaching your children that animals behind bars are there for our amusement is extremely outdated regardless of conservation work the zoo carry out.

The Zoo is at maximum capacity in the holidays whether they run an offer or not. There is no reason this offer should mean more screaming children than normal.

The maximum capacity is set to a level that should not be distressing for the animals and most animal enclosures at the Zoo have places the animals can go away from visitors, so if they don’t like the crowds they can escape them.

I won’t claim that zoos are ideal environments for wild animals, but your post suggests a lack of understanding of what the enclosures are like nowadays.

Nonsense. I am able to book a free ticket for travel on the Thames clipper as a carer to to a disabled child. The proof only needs to be shown when tickets are being scanned on entry. Poor planning on the zoo’s part as they could adopt a similar strategy.

I have the same with other discounts, I just tick that I have a particular type of membership to qualify for cheaper tickets, the card is checked on entry.

I wanted to say sorry for my rude post. I'm sorry you had a rubbish experience. We ALL screw up sometimes. To be honest, I hate going anywhere when it's the holidays because i can't deal with crowds. I hope you can have a nice visit another time.