Anyone have experience doing this shop? This is my first shop with this MSC. I'm hoping it's not as complicated and tiring as the IKEA shop was (like is it closer to doing a grocery store, multi-department shop?). I signed up for it to do something fun with my husband for our anniversary while also cutting down on expenses (by doing shops) as much as possible without totally taking out the fun.

No, I haven't ever seen this shop. Let us know how it goes. My family loves this acquarium, but it's pricy and I can't always afford to take the troops.

Before I've scared anyone off, this is not the same MSC as the one that does IKEA.

how wonderful!


before I married dh, we went up to Monterey Bay for a long wknd.. it was so nice!!!!!

Finished my shop and am awaiting feedback. If anyone's interested, the shop itself is worth it, but it's not for total newbies. If I'd tried doing this shop in the first few months I'd been shopping (and I've only been mystery shopping, outside of my event-center gig, for nine months), I would've done a terrible job of taking notes and would've had serious writer's block on the narratives. After I did the shop, I realized that all of my "little" shops, like the cell phone shops or, even, the grocery store shops where I needed to note multiple employees, prepared me for this. There were about 20 things I needed to assess and 16 employees (and you have to interact with/ask a question to every employee). Sadly, I scheduled this shop the day before I had a regular job deadline due and had to drop everything to help with that deadline (yes, in the middle of my anniversary vacation, which did not thrill me). It also didn't help that I was traveling all the next day before being able to sit down and write the report, which, like they stated took a few hours (they tell you it takes 2-3 hours) -- basically, don't do what I did. Still, if you want to save money on a trip to the aquarium, it really is worth it to pick up this shop. The narratives really weren't difficult or long; the report is mostly multiple-choice. I'm hoping everything turns out okay (such as I don't hear back something like "everyone was alerted to you being a shopper so your report was rejected" ). I'd do it again if I thought I would be in the area; it really was a fun shop and a great way to celebrate my anniversary. It makes me think that, maybe, just maybe, I really could handle a hotel shop or a cruise shop. : )

The MSC does high end attractions. The one offered in my area last summer was a fee of $25 and a reimbursement of $125. The reimbursement was a turn off for me. Lots of separate interactions, several observations, 3 food shops, 3 gift shops, valet parking, bathrooms, pictures and receipts galore! Huge amount of narrative and small window both for day of visit and writing report. Had to stay a minimum of 4 hours at venue. Just not worth it for me, I wouldn't go there if it was free.

I did this shop! I took on a few other shops in the area to make it worth my while.

cindy55 Wrote:
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> The MSC does high end attractions. The one
> offered in my area last summer was a fee of $25
> and a reimbursement of $125. The reimbursement was
> a turn off for me. Lots of separate interactions,
> several observations, 3 food shops, 3 gift shops,
> valet parking, bathrooms, pictures and receipts
> galore! Huge amount of narrative and small window
> both for day of visit and writing report. Had to
> stay a minimum of 4 hours at venue. Just not worth
> it for me, I wouldn't go there if it was free.

Well, usually, I bypass the low fee, no fee/high reimbursement shops, but I was looking for something fun to do on my anniversary that I could do as a shop to cut down on the cost, and this worked out perfectly. For these types of shops, it's really only worth it if it's something you wanted to do anyway, like grocery shopping. My husband and I have both wanted to go to the Monterey Bay Aquarium so I figured, hey, I know an MSC that does shops for them so I'll see if I could pick one up, which I did. We both know we likely won't be in the area again for years, if at all, so this was worth doing once. I did actually pick up another shop in the area to try to offset the cost of travel, but the shop fell through because the client wasn't open the day I requested to do the shop (the client was available the next day, but I wasn't as I couldn't secure another day's lodging where we were staying so I had to be traveling home the next day). I did, however, pick up a shop to do in the area my husband and I were visiting before we headed out to the coast (which was pretty easy and I just received a grade of 10 for). I would've picked up more shops (found at least one more in the area) but didn't want to spend my entire vacation with my husband doing mystery shopping.

I wonder if this is the same MSC that is doing my local aquarium and museums? I read the guidelines and even though technically I can take the shop I didn't think I was experienced enough to do this shop. Reading this and your description of it, I know I'm not ready for that yet, though it would have been fun, my princess monkey loved th aquarium when we took her last week.

It's a fun shop and, if you don't mind looking like some loon obsessed with his/her phone and texting (like many others are these days), then you're able to pause after a few interactions and send yourself some quick notes (start times of each interaction are VERY important; I thought I was being incorrect in taking them down but almost every interaction asked for the time it occurred). It's really no more difficult than doing, say, four grocery store shops one after another in the same day. The hardest part was making sure I hit all the areas I needed to/interacted with everyone I needed to. At one point, my husband said we didn't need to go to one activity that he had expressed an interest in so I agreed then checked my guidelines and realized I really did need to go to that activity (and I'm glad we did because it was one of our favorites). Anyway, I just entered key points for each interaction to jog my memory -- time of interaction, where it took place, name of person, physical description. I should've put down the question I asked but, fortunately, remembered it for each interaction (which wasn't difficult -- person A, "Where's the restroom?"; person B, "What size soup comes with that?"; person C, "Are the otters part of the tours?" and so on).

Actually you can ask a similar question for many interactions. This is suggested by the msc, at least in the shops I have done. I have not done the big aquarium but have done the smaller scale one in Long Beach. You can, if you want, ask "where is the closest bathroom?" to a whole bunch of the people. Some you need to ask specific questions related to their job. But with "where is the closest bathroom?" you mainly need to remember only those that did not know and a little about their attitude when answering. Since most customer service people these days are trained to be nice generally you can say similar things about almost all of them. I focus on the outliers who do the "wrong" thing.