Rushmore Tramway Adventures, Keystone, SD, Karavan

Experience with agency Karavan Travel was positive.
Experience with the Karavan Agency is very positive. They are kind, azure and professional. They organize the preparation for the program, the visa interview is scheduled from March, so there was more than enough time for everything.

Experience with location Keystone, SD was positive.
Keystone is a little tourist town, best known for its local attraction Mount Rushmore. The city is full of tourists over the summer, then the profit is good too. To whom is the goal to earn and save as much as possible, this is the right place for it, because there is no where to spend money. In this city are the most hotels, several fast food restaurants, souvenir shops and a local bar. The bad side is that there is no grocery store (if you do not pay attention and a small kiosk store where everything is 3x more expensive than in Walmart). So for all bigger shopping have to go to the city about 30km away, Rapid City. There is no city transport to there, the taxi in one direction is about $ 50, so people mostly managed by buying a car or renting it for a month. In addition to all this, the experience with the town itself is wonderful. The city is peaceful, sufe, local people are friendly, and, most importantly, there is a lot of work for those who want to work two or three jobs, you can earn a lot in this city.

Experience with employer Rushmore Tramway Adventures was negative.
The reason I decided to share my experience with this employer is to give all people who may be thinking to apply for a job with this employer have paid attention to a few things that they will not know until they leave their first day of work. Namely, it is a fun adventure park, with slides, jibs, etc. which is very popular in this city and has many visitors. The employer contacted us via Skype, where he talked to us about 40 minutes a week, and in the season and overtime. He asked us when we can come to the earliest, since he can provide us with work, preparation for the opening of an amusement park, training facilities etc. from the beginning of May. We agreed that by mid-May we came, and the employer provided accommodation. As I've already explained, the place where the job is about 30km away from Rapid Citia, where the airport is. After we landed at the airport, we were asked to ask for Shutle Bus, an organized transfer to Keyston, with which the employer had an agreement, and they charge $ 50 per person. When we somehow arrived at Keystone and managed to report to the employer that we arrived, he did not even belittle us, but he just gave us directions over the phone how to get to our accommodation, and that the next day we would meet. The accommodation was decent, they own three large houses, which are completely furnished, there are two or three in the room, the kitchen and the bathroom are shared, usually going to two rooms. The accommodation was $ 70 a week. As I mentioned earlier, we came to Keystone in mid-May because the employer was convinced that there was enough work to get started. Already in the first contact with the roommates, who were there for over a week, they told us that nobody called them to work and that they only had one day training. The next day is one of the managers, and there are three of them, he came to meet us and let us know when we will have a training session. When asked when we started to work, we got the answer when the time of the projection, considering that it was quite acid and nothing was ready for the beginning of the season. Then came the first working day, actually prepare before opening. These preparations included scrubbing wc without gloves, they gave us some universal tools that we wiped all surfaces and scalpels to tie the neccidity from the plates. Then the next day there was the possibility that he wanted to apply for the additional hour: the men were unloading the truck from the truck, while the girls could plant and swim the flowers in the yard of the restaurant, which was part of the amusement park. So our first week passed with two working days, promising us to move the season from next week and we expect to work full time. At the beginning of the second week, we got a shift schedule, through an application on the phone, where we could follow who worked. Given that there were so many students, and even the Americans they hired, if the duties were distributed evenly, everyone received two to three days in that week's maximum, the other days were free. The attendant park attendant actually meant instructing visitors how to use the device, while staying in the sun, and only the one who took his flashlight could drink the water. Again, we asked them to tell us when we would have a lot of working hours that we were promised, what we got the answer to be tolerant for the season to start. When we started asking ourselves when we could get out of the SSN, they said that there was time and that we did not need to get up with it, we could work with them without it. Other students also began to ask for another job, but the employer assured us that we had everything we needed and that there was no need to look for another job. Then we organized a group transport to the agency to remove all SSNs, demanding that we place PO BOX in the address, so that all numbers come first to him, and then he submits them to us later. In two weeks at this employer we had a total of 20h, although it was 40h per week under the contract. We invited the agency in America to make a complaint about what they stood on the side of the employer. We decided to fight for ourselves there. We found a new employer who agreed to be our sponsor, sent the paper to the agency, in the meantime, gave up the Tramway and got his SSN. It was the best possible decision, even with the risk of losing a visa and returning home, and we knew that this was not possible given the way that this employer treated us. The appeal to all the people who ever hear or read anything in connection with this employer is to circumvent it in a widespread port. Nevertheless, the entire experience of working in America, after two weeks of nervousness and disappointment, turned into a positive experience, thanks to the new employer who came to us and enabled us to achieve our original goal. People, it's only important that you do not consent to the imposed things and accept them because someone tells you that it must be so. The point is that you fight for yourself there, that others might appreciate you and that you would not be regarded as the cheap labor force that came here to do what it says. Any negative experience can be turned into positive, but only by its own resistance.

This review represents personal opinion of Tanja who was participating Work & Travel program in year of with agency Karavan Travel, working at Rushmore Tramway Adventures in Keystone, SD.

Oct 12, 2018