SUMMER PROFILE Taking people for rides gives Splash Planet driver loads of pleasure
Holland Toso, 29, is working his sixth season at Splash Planet in Hastings.
IHAVE lived in Hawke’s Bay for about 15 years. I never came to Splash Planet as a kid. I came for the first time in 2008 and thought it was a nice place to be so I spoke to my wife and the next year I got a job here.
Now I’m a ride operator, which means I deal with the train, the gokarts, the bumper boats and the jungle jeeps.
We move around day to day between rides and one of us is a ‘‘spare’’, who covers all rides in one day filling in for lunch breaks.
I love the train. I’d say that was my favourite. Mainly because kids love the train. Their faces just light up when I say ‘‘welcome to the Fantasy Land Express’’.
It’s kept that name from when there was Fantasy Land, before Splash Planet started in the late 1990s.
And I love greeting customers and showing them through the train. We’ve got a tunnel for the
Holland Toso loves his work. first time this summer. I think they’ll like that. There are nine ride operators in Splash Planet’s staff of 60-70.
I’m the longest-serving ride operator.
I work the whole season between November and February. In the off-season I work at HeinzWatties.
The spare’s day starts about 7.30am when they check all the rides and make sure everything is good for opening at 10am.
The go-karts go up to 27kmh, the jungle jeeps are quite a bit slower.
And the bumper boats are really good for the little kids who can’t go on the go-karts or jeeps. Visitors come from all over. I’ve noticed a lot more people coming from out of town now, and overseas.
Sometimes when I’m on the gokarts I’ll go through my whole safety talk to people about to get on them and then discover they don’t speak English. Then it’s out with the sign language.
Part of our job is talking to the customers, getting to know a bit about them, how far they travelled to get here, that sort of thing.
We get a lot of people who are surprised how good it is.
We had a family from Wellington who were staying down the road.
They were in the Bay for four days and came here on the first day. They liked it so much they came here for the next three as well.
We get a bit over 100,000 visitors a year. Our peak season is from Boxing Day till end of January when we get around 60,000 of them.
Most visitors are in family groups.
A big day is 3000 people. A few summers ago we had 3600 in one day. It gets pretty full-on.
Most people come to go in the pool or on the water slides.
Some like to do the rides and get hot before jumping in to cool off.
Everyone tends to be well behaved. We get the odd one who plays up a bit, but we always get on top of it. It’s all about putting a bit of time in and getting them to be happy so they leave here in a better mood than when they arrived.
That’s the aim. If you put a bit of fun in a person’s day, they tend to brighten up.
I have four kids. Sons aged 13 and 7 and girls aged 4 and nearly 3.
They come every chance they get. We live just around the corner. When I was getting ready for opening day my daughter recognised the logo on my uniform and was straight away asking when she could come.
We get Christmas Day off. It’s the only day in summer we’re closed.
I can see myself working a few more seasons here. It’s a great place to work, different to anywhere else I’ve worked. I love it actually.