Schedule Group Itineraries

After you add itineraries for a group visit or facility rental, you customize the itineraries by scheduling the daily admission programs, program events, custom items, and resources the group will need. For example, a third grade class visits the aquarium. A typical itinerary for this group may start off with a custom item for arrival from 8:30 to 9:00. This would be followed by a daily admission program, which is admission to the aquarium, from 9:00 to 12:00. This gives the group three hours to explore the exhibits. For lunch, another custom item is added to the itinerary from 12:00 to 12:45. After lunch, the group attends two timed program events, a shark feeding from 1:00 to 1:30 and then the Creatures of the Deep IMAX film from 2:00 to 3:00.

For a facility rental, the typical itinerary involves only a single itinerary with a custom item used to book a location within your facility for a specific period of time. For more information, see Schedule Custom Items for a GroupItinerary. Although this is the most common situation, a reservation for a facility rental can also include scheduled event tickets or admissions, resources, and other custom items. If there are no tickets included in the reservation, the pricing structure selected on the reservation does not apply. Instead, pricing is charged according to the amount associated with the location booked.

Tip: Custom items are used to schedule things that are not daily admission programs or program events. For example, you can use custom items to schedule meals, gift shop visits, informal tours, meet-ups, facility rentals, or anything else that is needed.

Typically, a group visit or facility rental involves one day. However, you can schedule a multi-day itinerary that spans up to five days. To schedule a multi-day itinerary, you add programs and custom events to the group itinerary on subsequent days following the date of the visit specified on the reservation. For example, a school calls to book a two day group visit to your organization. When the reservation is booked, the arrival date is entered and saved. When you schedule the itinerary for the visit, you add events for the first day as you would a typical single day itinerary. For the second day, when you add a program, you select the date of the second day in the Date field. When you save the program, the new day is added to the itinerary and displayed on the calendar view. A multi-day itinerary can span up to five days starting with the date of the visit.

When you access the itinerary page, the date of the group visit, as well as the ticket price types and quantity of tickets included in the reservation are displayed. The cost is calculated and displayed on the itinerary as you schedule programs for the group. However, the cost is displayed differently depending on the pricing structure selected for the tickets included in the reservation.

• If the pricing structure is “Per ticket,” the total cost is calculated and displayed as you add daily admission programs and scheduled events to the itinerary.

• If the pricing structure for the tickets included in the order is “Flat rate pricing,” the cost displayed on the itinerary is “0.00.” This is true when you add only programs to the itinerary that are included in the corresponding rate scale. If you add programs to the itinerary that are not included in the selected rate scale, the group is charged on a per-ticket basis for those programs. The per-ticket amount is displayed on the itinerary but the flat rate is not. You can view the total cost that includes the flat rate and any per-tickets charges when you return to the reservation record.

Tip: When you schedule a group itinerary, especially a more complicated multi-day itinerary, you may want to start by copying an existing itinerary that is similar. Copying an itinerary is also helpful if a group contacts your organization and wants to book a visit with the same itinerary they had on a previous visit. For more information, see Copy a GroupItinerary. You can also load predefined group tracks to quickly and consistently schedule itineraries. For more information, see Load a Track for a GroupItinerary.