Gold Reef City's Overcrowded Theme Park and Rude Staff

I bought seven (7) tickets for my daughter and her friends for her 13th birthday party on Saturday 05/10/24. We live in Pretoria, and of all the places, she insisted on GRC. Much to her disappointment. We arrived at about 11h00 only to find the park so full of people, the ques were so long, the girls had 5 rides for the entire day! This is also on top of the fact that many of the rides were closed for some reason; only the Anaconda had a proper sign. I left the park with a miserable birthday girl / party just after 16h00 as all the rides closed at 16h00. When we asked why, all we got was attitude form officials, as we were informed "the park closes at 17h00 and we also want to go home, not just you". Whatever that meant, cause it's not like we wanted to go, we were forced to leave. One official shouted at us when we asked why everything is closed before 16h00, "I can't talk to you when you are like this!" while turning his back. No one was rude or offensive, we just asked. And there was a lot of other people also complaining and asking questions, just like us.

This is completely unacceptable. They should at least indicate on their web where we purchase tickets about what will not be available and I do understand that it's a business, but must they have so many people in the park at once? It was horrible for me to try and keep the girls happy after promising them a fun day out.

I did log a complaint and till today have had no response. This is really not on. After many, many years of going to the park, I realized that this was the last time. I'll rather convince the girls to go somewhere where they can actually have a fun birthday party.