Riversport Adventures — Attraction in Oklahoma City

Unfortunately I choose this adventure for a birthday weekend and I was throughly disappointed.

When I checked in at noon I told the front desk staff I had never been there before. The only information given to me was to fill out my waiver and buy shoes. Once that was completed we walked outside to grab drinks and start an activity. We decided to paddle board. The location of which we could not find. Not a single employee asked if we needed help or guided us at all. Once we asked, we were told there would be no paddle boarding that day. (1.Front desk staff should've told me this before suggesting the activity. 2.This was one of the three activities that I paid for).

It is now 1:30pm. We then decide to go tubbing. We find the station and there are no staff to be found. We begin to gear up after being watched by staff for about 10minutes. One staff member runs over and informs us they don't open until 2:00pm. (Front desk staff should've told me this when I checked in at NOON).

We decide to get a snack while we wait for the park to open. We arrive at the concessions and place our order. The staff hands me the one pretzel that had been in the rotator since noon. As soon as I touched it, it crumbled because it was so dry. I ask if it would be ok if I waited for a fresh one. I knew it wold take time and that's ok. The employee flipped out on me. She lets out a big huff and says it's going to be a minute and that my friends had already ordered two. I explained that it's ok and I don't mind waiting. She proceeds to explain to me frustrated that another employee left them un-stocked and now they have nothing. I tell her it's ok I understand. She begins to yell at said employee then walks out of the stand. I don't see them use an oven or anything but watch them put the pretzels directly into the rotating machine. We wait about 10minutes, then all three of us are served COLD pretzels, yet the cheese was so hot it burned through the plastic cups they served it in. I gave up. My friend asked that hers pretzel be warmed and they responded that there is no microwave. How the rest out that turned out I cant even tell you.

After our sad snack break we kayak. Which is why this review has one star because that was literally the only positive experience we had at this twilight zone.

We then go tubbing. We had a fun way down although the cement blocks underneath can really be a pain in the rear, pun intended. At the bottom of the activity a petit young girl tries to catch our tube (4 woman in their 20's). The current drags her with us and my friends proceed to grab tight to the blue blocks. The poor girl is holding on for dear life calling out for another employee to come help her as we hang onto the blue block. She calls for him but he doesn't come. She tells us she isn't sure what the protocol is here. (Anyone who works in water should be aware of ALL SAFTEY PROTOCOLS.) We offer to get out but she says no. Another woman tries to come to the rescue but is working against the current and is unable to get help as well. Causing her to drop her tube which I catch and now holding on to. Durning this the staff is still calling out for another employee to help. He finally runs over and just instructs us to get out. Like we had been asking for 10 minutes. We arrive safely back to deck and decide to just end our day.

I have been paddling competitively for 8 years, earning 5 gold medals throughout my career, needless to say I was very excited about visiting here and paying for my cousins pass at it was her birthday. I regret spending the...

First time experience with my Grandkids 15 & 13 years old. Bought passes and paid extra for the zip line. There's no direction which line to get into, had to ask and a very nice employee directed us to the correct line. We waited in line for 1 hour 45 minutes, there was only one person pulling 20 people and getting them harnessed. The second line next to us was for the obstacle course only so we couldn't get in it but they kept pulling people from that line that had only been waiting for 15 - 30 minutes when our line had been waiting an hour and a hafl. I watched several parents go talk to the people running it, they were not happy because of the cuts from the Epic pass people and pulling from the second line repeatedly. The Epic pass holders are treated like the president of the united states, if they walked up to the gate they were let in when the rest of us had been waiting an hour and a half! Very frustrating considering what I spent purchasing my passes for all of us and the add'l for the zip line. Then we finally get to the front of line the girl ask for our tickets!!!! What tickets? I asked and she said when we bought our passes that the zip line was extra, I told her I paid the extra to do the zip line. She said they should have given me tickets for each of us and I told her we've been waiting an hour and 45 minutes do not pull us from this line. I told her when I paid the girl asked if I wanted my receipt for my credit card and I told her no, she never handed us tickets! Thank the Lord for this sweet young lady, she allowed us to go through. The zip line was fun and the kids enjoyed it but by the time we waited in line we were so sore from standing so lone, hot and tired my Grandkids didn't want to do anything else so we came home. So I buy a pass, pay extra for the zip line and we had to wait for so long that by the time we finished, we're literally finished; we did one thing! It was very unorganized and there needs to be a better way to get people through that course. The people up top hooking people up were very informative and professional. The Grandkids really liked it, it was just a shame how long it took to get up to it.

This post is in response to Riversports Adventures response to my post: Thank you for the quick response. If we come back I"ll choose one of the other days that you mentioned but I'm a bit reluctant to come back because the money I forked out for 3 of us, passes plus the add'l for the zip line and to still be treated as if what I purchased wasn't enough, that because I didn't choose the EPIC passes my purchase wasn't enough to get fair treatment. What your doing is forcing people to buy Epic passes. We were looking forward to doing more than the zip line, that's why I bought the passes. We wanted a full afternoon playing, it didn't happen. I understand that other parks are doing the same by having a pass to allow people to skip to the front of the line but that seems a bit prejudice to me. Because I didn't choose the EPIC pass (higher cost) i can just stand in line was watch people cut because they paid you more money to do so. There's no respect for those of us that maybe can't afford the EPIC or just don't have the money at the time. Is that really how you want all of your customers to be treated? Don't we all deserve fair treatment, people should buy a ticket and stand in line and wait their turn,...

Poor communication. No accountability (in our experience). So how safe can they really be?

Safety in ziplines and water sports requires attention to detail. And when you can't get basic communication down on your own website or even the phone, how safe can you really be? I've used other rafting and zipline services in other states and that's where the bar is set.

We were coming up to Oklahoma City for a conference and we had heard about the rental services and the white water rafting. We actually tried to call just to confirm but their voice mail system was an endless loop and eventually we got dumped into a voice mailbox for scheduling etc. We left messages TWICE and no one ever called us back. So we checked the website for hours, times, and dates and everything was going to be open for our trip.

We actually booked the hotel room a couple of days earlier just to enjoy these water sports. Boy did we waste our money.

So the first day we show up at Lake Overholser to rent a canoe or kayak and no one is there. The place is dark. We check website for hours and it says it should be open. A guy in his forties sees us looking in the Windows trying to figure out what’s going on. He says it’s closed and has been closed all week and he was just there doing some operations work. We show him that the website says they should be open and right away you can see the “They did it again” look on his face. He apologizes and said that management told everyone to go home at the beginning of the week. He feels so bad that he let’s us in to the place while he can call the other locations to find out who is renting boats.

So he goes above and beyond to help us. This was a great way to deal with the situation. But that’s when the rest of the system lets him down again.

He calls the location in the Boathouse District. He tells them what has happened and confirms that they are indeed renting Kayaks at their location. He asks them twice and tells them that he’s going to send some people over. We thank him very much and immediately leave for the next location. Ugh.

Upon arriving at the Boathouse District we are immediately told that they are NOT renting any boats. Whaaaat? We tell them that the website says they are and that the staff member at Overholser called to confirm. In typical Millenial fashion the two counter staffers just say “Sorry” and then literally turn back to playing on their phones.

So we decided to tell them that the whole story about no one answering the phone system and the website being wrong - everything that was just poor communication. They still don’t even see anything wrong and just say the website is out of date a lot because only one person can make changes as far as they know.

So in our experience, so much of this organization is mismanaged and doesn’t communicate well. So you have to ask yourself. Do I want to hang from a zipline or ride in the rapids that this place manages?

I guess this is what you can expect when you take a nonprofit organization where people don't really have to worry about performance and then staff it with Millenials. It's too bad because I really want a program like...