Go Ape refusing refund

[Stripyseason]

I can’t work out of I’m being unreasonable or fighting like a mama bear here in the right.
took my kids to Go Ape on Sunday as a treat as it’s expensive (£60 for all of us). I’ll pop my original complaint email in as it explains it all thoroughly. Emails have been back and forth since then with them apologising and offering a discounted voucher for us to return and “give it another go”. I’ve said we don’t want to return as the left in tears feeling like they’d been rushed and the last thing they want is to go back! I just want a refund but 12 emails back and forth are going nowhere. They have said they shouldn’t have been rushed but they don’t do refunds and theyd like us to come back with a discount. Do I just leave it and chalk it up to experience? Or do I keep going and if so how? TIA.

Dear customer services,

Im just writing after quite a disappointing experience at X Go Ape today. It was myself and my 2 children, 8 and 11, one of whom has autism. We booked for the only available slot left which was 16:30 and arrived by 16:15 to be in plenty of time.

We had to wait for a while for the safety briefing which was fine, and we got started. We were told we would have the chance to do 4 levels if we wished. We started off great and were enjoying it until we finished level 2 and my son heard some instructors saying we were “over time”. When we went to wait at #3 an instructor said we were running behind with time and as they were closing soon we likely wouldn’t have time to do course 4 if we did 3 so we felt pushed to do 4. This wasn’t helpful as it felt a big step up from course 2 and my son felt rushed and was worried saying they’re closing, so we hurried as much as we could. It ended in a bit of a downer sadly with the kids just feeling like they’d “taken too long” on courses 1&2 despite being told in the safety briefing that we could take as much time as we needed on the levels.

I’m disappointed because we arrived in good time and if the last slot was always going to be rushed I think that should have been made clear at point of booking. We had to miss out a whole level which we had paid for. It was a lot of money as a treat and we all just left
A bit downhearted after a good start.

I’ve been to Go Ape before and had a really
Positive experience so this felt quite disappointing sadly and I’d appreciate a gesture of a refund and to let the very nice staff know that rushing us didn’t feel fair given we had paid for a slot so feel we should have been given the same time as everyone else who booked for earlier.

Many thanks etc

Google it and educate yourself

When you say a refund-do you mean that you have asked them for all the money back?

I don't think they will do that because you did have most of the experience. Why don't you ask them for a refund of 30%. They might agree to that and then you can put it behind you.

This makes more sense from the ND-aware side of things. I personally wouldn't expect a refund for that slip up, as I can see why and how it's happened, but I would be emailing with a clear explanation of why that approach is a poor one for neurodivergent people, the reasons why and what would be better. I don't personally think it's a severe enough mistake to warrant more than telling them why that was problematic for an autistic child.

You cannot expect everyone to be an expert in autism. I have a hidden disability myself and never assume people comprehend how it affects me and what “adjustments” I might need. I spell them out if they’re needed. Clearly.

If I went on GA (which actually my disability would not allow me to, however..) and said on the booking I have X, I would not assume they understand the nuances.

I would say I have X, so this, this and this can be a problem so if you can possibly do this, it would be appreciated.

Would you like to take the time to Google and educate yourself on my disability if I shared it here?

No, thought not.

But they pride themselves on being hidden disabilities educated and knowledgeable. It’s fairly common knowledge children with autism find changes, especially very very sudden and rushed changes, extremely hard to manage. If they had no mention of being neurodiverse aware I would agree but they pride themselves on it.

You're contradicting yourself again.

Your OP said "my son felt rushed and was worried saying they’re closing, so we hurried as much as we could"

Then you said you tried to complete level 4 so you could do level 3.

Which is it? Were you hurrying and rushing because they rushed you and you thought it was closing imminently and your son was anxious or were you trying to get round the whole course before closing despite having been clearly told there wasn't time?

Your story just doesn't add up, you give different versions of things and that's why you're getting a hard time here from people.

I'm autistic and I'm the first one to get mad about genuine disability discrimination. But what you are describing just isn't that. You are taking absolutely no responsibility for reading the information about the activity and managing your own children's expectations and pushing all of that on to the instructors. As parents of autistic kids, we can't leave that to people who don't know our kids like we do.

If I was commenting on your post and felt I needed to educate myself on it, sure🤷‍♀️

Yes, we hurried to level 4 because the instructor was rushing us. as soon as we got up there and i looked at my watch and saw we had plenty time we slowed down but it was too late for my son who was upset and fixated on completing the 4 levels the first instructor told him he would and that we had time for!

Before you go off at people for not knowing what terms mean, you may want to consider Googling "neurodiverse" and "neurodivergent" and using those correctly.

I do. Perfectly. Thanks though 🤣

"Neurodiversity"
Term to describe the fact that all human brains differ.

"Neurodiverse"
Term for describing society or groups of people who all have different brains or neurotypes.

"Neurodivergent"
Term to describe a person whose neurocognition falls outside the expected norms, such as autism, ADHD, dyslexia etc.

Technically, neurodiverse refers to the whole human population. The brains of humanity are neurodiverse, as there is a diversity in our neurology. Neurodivergent refers to a specific individual with a brain that works differently to the majority, hence "diverging". An individual cannot have neurodiversity; they are neurodivergent.

Proving my autism diagnosis here with my indulgence in pedantry 😂

Stop using your autistic child as an excuse to get a refund. Your posts are all over the place and this is what is coming across on here. Give it a rest.

Same here 😂

Normally I don't indulge my deeply autistically pedantic tendencies around language. Neurodivergence is also my professional area of work and a special interest, so I try to be mindful that others are not immersed in it to the same level I am! But I dislike it when people are snotty towards others for not knowing the correct terminology while not using terminology correctly themselves. Hypocrisy isn't a good look.

I think the purpose of this thread it to name and shame Go Ape because you are angry - but if you have been to Go Ape before then you would know what its like. You know that its booked in blocks of time because that's what it looks like in the booking system which you have used twice now.
The website says "Treetop Adventure offers an immersive one to two-hour high ropes experience." The start is from when you are putting harnesses on and the safety briefing etc - its not two hours of climbing.
I am sorry you did not enjoy your family experience as much as you expected you would.

You’re missing my point OP. I literally have zero need to educate myself about your son’s disability.

I’m sorry to be blunt. But the world does not revolve around your child’s disability. Nor does it revolve around mine. We as adults are responsible for making sure needs are met where possible, by communicating clearly, supporting emotionally (still don’t know why it got as far as both kids crying) and making life feel somewhat navigable. People aren’t perfect at understanding, but I find most people kind and helpful. I’m not entitled and I don’t have a chip on my shoulder about it, it’s just part of who I am.

So you got 47/60 minutes. They shouldn’t have cut you short. It’s probably reasonable to be asking for up to 20% off but no more given you did the bulk of the course. If you through in lots of irrelevant waffle to your complaints they’ll just get fed up of you/find it easy to fob you off. If you’re very to the point that you didn’t get 60 minutes and felt that the staff could have managed expectations better you’ll likely get further. If you’ve had more than 10 emails already I think you just need to move on and stop being quite so fixated on getting a refund.

This is what you posted "We had 90 mins but 20 of those taken up waiting for safety briefing" which means you had 70mins instead of the 60mins? So 10mins more than what the website says is a min on the trees?

Thank you for this, I didn’t appreciate the meanings myself. Massive differences.

Yes op, you are being unreasonable

Actually, with this additional information, I agree with you. A 10% discount voucher is also very stingy. But why didn't you explain it like this before?

"Yes, we hurried to level 4 because the instructor was rushing us. as soon as we got up there and i looked at my watch and saw we had plenty time we slowed down but it was too late for my son who was upset and fixated on completing the 4 levels the first instructor told him he would and that we had time for!"

So the instructor rushing you is irrelevant as you had already discovered level 3 was closed to you - and the bit the instructor rushed you to do was to start level 4.....and then (in your words) "as soon as we got up there and I looked at my watch and saw we had plenty time we slowed down".... so level 4 was not in rushed? Just you physically getting to level 4 to start the course was rushed?

By the way - same happened to us - we got to level 3 and were told not enough time but our slot was mid afternoon. But I just accepted it and when we went again we made sure we went through faster.

So you didn’t get an hour in the trees?!

Presumably the course was open for the full hour. You just skipped a part, and by the time you got back to it, that specific part had been closed because everyone had gone past it.

As a business, the just sensible course of action would be to close every section once the last customers were through. Had you done them the other way round, you may well have been able to do both 3 & 4.