Huge props to Gilroy Gardens for hosting the Golden Ticket Day.
What a great idea
– a Willie Wonka style ticket in the water bill (next year,
insert a chocolate bar – dark chocolate, please – into the envelope
also).
Huge props to Gilroy Gardens for hosting the Golden Ticket Day. What a great idea – a Willie Wonka style ticket in the water bill (next year, insert a chocolate bar-– dark chocolate, please – into the envelope also). Six people allowed in for free, including parking, just for being able to flash some I.D. to prove Gilroy residency. Perfect. You guys did great. A wonderful way to get families in who can’t otherwise afford admission.
The only bummer … driving rain. Gusting winds.
Almost 1,500 stalwart souls braved those conditions, as opposed to nearly 6,000 on last year’s nicer-weather free day. The plus side for them was doubtless a sense of being an insider, as well as not having to wait for any rides.
Our family went instead on the next day. Dry, warm weather and still not crowded. I wished that the days could have been reversed, or that Gilroy Gardens would honor the Golden Ticket on Sunday, too. (We have season passes already, but felt bad for families who wanted to go but were rained out.)
I wasn’t even sure Gilroy Gardens was open on that rainy Saturday. And there have been other days in the past that I wondered about too. The webmaster should paste a big banner on the home page that says, “Open today (and insert the pertinent date) despite the weather!”
In fact, given the park’s sporadic schedule (like being open weekdays during school breaks, for instance), it’d be great if the home page always had a little runner that said the day’s date and the specific hours open or the legend “closed.” That might mean the webmaster has to cook up a little code to make that happen, but it would be so worth it.
I have personally spent a lot of time on that site trying to figure out hours and days of opening, especially since it often takes forever to load secondary pages, which is where the calendar is currently found.
A good web presence is hugely important these days: not just a presence, but a good one.
The home page should always answer the major W questions (who, what, where, when, why), just like journalists are taught each article should address. Gilroy Gardens is such a spectacular place, and the website is visually pleasing. I think it could also be a little more informative as well.
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Speaking of Gilroy websites, the one for our restaurants needs some more traffic so that it shows up on the first page of a google search for “Gilroy restaurants.”
The Chamber of Commerce site doesn’t link to it, nor does the city’s site. Luckily, though, the city’s site does have a page on “dining” which made me remember that the website I was looking for was called gilroydining.com.
Such an odd name, so fussy and
old-fashioned. Who says, “I am going to dine tonight?” That said, once you’re at the site, it’s great. Participating restaurants host a page which includes a little history, the number to call for reservations, and best of all, the menu. There’s also the option to load a little video, which Mimi’s Cafe has done.
The site’s format is clean and simple. It resembles a little spiral bound notebook (the food critic’s notebook, perhaps?) with a way to search restaurants by name from a roll on the right. The names are color-coded to their cuisine style as well, with a key at the top. Nice work!
The only thing that could improve it would be rankings from locals – but the site does have a clickable link to Yelp, which provides that. Bon appetit!
