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Blackpool Pleasure Beach: 2023 Discussion

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I actually paid for parking on the prom, right by the entrance, four hours for a fiver!
Very quiet, you all missed walk on Grand Prix...in the dark...with headlights!
Flying Machines going round with a single rider, Dipper on two...punters that is, not trains.
Had the joy of watching them taking a train off Icon because it was so quiet...which created the first queue of the evening.

Here is the Valhalla news...unreliable gossip from a member of staff I have known as a complete liar for about a decade.
The ride has been running for weeks, without any real issues.
The problems have been syncing the effects and triggering them correctly, and the problems remain.
The tale is, a certain somebody is determined to get the ride open by mid October, the 15th, come hel or high water.
Hope it doesn't happen, I don't want to be doing tshirt and shorts on the next jolly boys overnighter...

Oh, and the new wheel may end up very close to the old ones...allegedly.
 
They have been closed Monday Tuesdays, and running tests have often been done in the past in the morning before punters arrive, and after the early park close.
Ice Blast has been frequently closed for "repairs".
All the interior physical works are complete apparently.
 
rob666 said:
I actually paid for parking on the prom, right by the entrance, four hours for a fiver!
Very quiet, you all missed walk on Grand Prix...in the dark...with headlights!
Flying Machines going round with a single rider, Dipper on two...punters that is, not trains.
Had the joy of watching them taking a train off Icon because it was so quiet...which created the first queue of the evening.

Here is the Valhalla news...unreliable gossip from a member of staff I have known as a complete liar for about a decade.
The ride has been running for weeks, without any real issues.
The problems have been syncing the effects and triggering them correctly, and the problems remain.
The tale is, a certain somebody is determined to get the ride open by mid October, the 15th, come hel or high water.
Hope it doesn't happen, I don't want to be doing tshirt and shorts on the next jolly boys overnighter...

Oh, and the new wheel may end up very close to the old ones...allegedly.
Click to expand...
So we went last night - didn't get in until 530 due to the PitA of getting out of South Manchester on a Friday. All of the rides were open apart from Valhalla and Ice Blast. Literally walk on all rides - one train wait mainly. Limited F&B open - no Coasters or BK but we didn't have time for that anyway. Staff all brilliant. Icon was walk on all night until we went in around 825 - saw 2 people all night on Enso (one train sent with that single rider) - they took the full train off but left the Enso train on which is a bit weird but fun to see the trains being taken off the track, never seen that before. 2 trains on Icon most of the night - but sometimes stacked as people taking their shoes off wtf!! Big One on 1 train but mostly into the station or a little outside. Icon when we got on around 535 was sooo slow and no mist, our last rides it had warmed up a bit and was decent but sitting in the front can hear a wheel rattle so hopefully they'll be changed for next year. All in all great to get night rides in, ops were great, even Infusion was only horrible not unrideable, Big Dipper better than GN.
 
I forgot to post when I got back on Friday, my plan was to do a couple of rides, get some food as I hadn't eaten all day and perhaps bump into @rob666

Two out of three achieved. Walked onto the National and Icon, then bumped into Rob so we took a lap on the Big One. Decided to then get some food and perhaps meet back up for a final ride / beer before the end of the night.

If I wanted anything other than chips, I had to leave the park. BPK was closing with the (far too many) staff sweeping up around the final diners, most other things closed. So I went home and got a takeaway.

Time in park, about an hour. Money spent = £0.
 
More gingers than you can shake a glowing light saber at on friday night.
Chatting at the bar about the usual half term tartan invasion with the charming staff in Crevettes, and then four fine drunken ladies of Caledonean extraction staggered in sideways like a bunch of french crabs, cheering all the way in.
Only two were ginger.
Fun brief visit, too cold for shorts, hot chips, cold beer, good gossip, short queues for night rides, and things are always more fun in the dark.
 
So I popped my Blackpool/PB cherry last week from Weds - Friday, so here's a breakdown on my overall thoughts/experiences.

Parking: Shout out to @WillPS for suggesting Clifton Drive, managed to park up here and left the car for the 3 days saving £30, literally across the road from Big Blue Hotel.

Big Blue Hotel: We booked 2 nights through HotUkDeals/TravelZoo at a cost of £149 staying in a deluxe double with views looking out at PB. Included was 3 course evening meal(Weds Eve), breakfast for the Thurs & Friday morning and a bottle of semi decent wine in the room.

The hotel was brilliant, fantastic staff, exceptionally clean and one of the best hotels we've stayed in for the price. A few minor snags in the bedroom where the quality was lacking; shower head had seen better days, paint on the metal/wood where the painter had been shoddy etc but I only noticed them because the rest of the room/hotel was to such a high standard.

Other downside was lots of pictures of Hot Ice placed around the hotel and our room.

Sitting in front of the double doors watching Icon, Steeplechase, Big One and on the Friday Big Dipper all testing whilst I had my morning coffees was lovely.

The food at BB was exceptional, simple as that! Both in the evening meal and breakfast you could taste they used good ingredients. Evening meal was a set 3 course menu or £22.50pp to use on the main menu, main menu was fairly pricey but you were paying for quality and well cooked food. Breakfast had a good selection of hot and cold items, good thick bacon and quality sausage etc.

We broke down the costs of dinner £45 for 2 people, Bottle of wine in the room was going for £10, Breakfast for 2 people, 2 days would have cost us at least £10ea PP if we had eaten out so to us it cost £27 per night for 2 people and £54 for both nights in a deluxe room = Amazing value, would 100% recommend staying here if you can get a good deal.

Pleasure Beach We had tickets booked for the Thursday and paid £17.50ea through some offer, Sadly it pished it down all day so we didn't have the most enjoyable day. we was told on the way in that due to the rain we could come back on the Friday for free. unfortunately it didn't open until late in the day/evening and we would be on our way home.

We spent a fair few hours at the park, not the most pleasant rides for some of the coasters.

Highlights - Icon!! Wow that has to be up in the top 3 coasters in the UK IMO, possibly the best overall coaster experience i've had; the restraint system used is brilliant wish it was used on more coasters, It has all the elements on one ride hang time, air time, launch etc it was the complete package of a coaster without the gimmicks( I love Stealth, Smiler, Wickerman, Swarm)

Streak, Steeplechase and others were good if not a little rough, but other than Icon our two other favourite rides/experiences was Wallace & Gromit - Fantastic dark ride and more enjoyable than I thought it would be. Merlin need to take note on how to build a proper dark ride compared to the carboard cut out Gangster Granny.

Lastly the surprise of the park - River Caves, Wow that thing is like Dr Whos Tardis! I never expected it to house such massive rooms with excellent proper theming, looks abit worn in some places and a really old ride system etc but came out of it thinking wow I wasn't expecting that.

Lowlight - Only really one and its controversial....The Big One....Wow that thing was rough as hell, not sure if it was made worse in the rain but it was a boneshaker and on par with Collosus as worst coaster at a major UK theme park for us, neither of us enjoyed it at all. Yeah the initial drop is good and that's it, spent the rest of the ride being bashed and battered. Not one i'd be rushing back to ride.

I wont rant about having to scan QR code for every ride...such a pain in the arris, save it as a lock screen to make it easier, couple of ride ops was just clicking people through without scanning to help dispatch times.

Dipper & National were both closed so didn't get to ride them

Overall - Pleasure beach was ok, if not a little underwhelming experience re-riding Icon was worth the £17.50, maybe in better weather, Valhalla being open and modernising some of the coasters and rides would help. I can see why punters are not returning, like the south area around PB it seems to be stuck in the past and unappealing.

Blackpool itself was decent, can see that the money has been spent in the North around the Tower etc, Tussauds was a pleasant way to spend an hour using our MAP, Sealife is Sealife but anyone who has a MAP has fantastic value for money given all the attractions.

Away from the Tower/North there needs to be more money spent, so many abandoned shops, B&Bs, run down areas. you could see the whole place used to thrive in its glory days but seems like the demand isn't there to sustain so many businesses, like most seaside towns they just don't hold the same appeal for holiday makers when you can go abroad for a week all inclusive for the same or less for a week in Blackpool/Seaside.

Unlikely to return again next year unless we get a good deal on Big Blue or Boulevard next door, maybe 2024 purely for Icon and Valhalla.
 
Big One is still my favourite (existing) coaster in the UK.

Yes it's a bone shaker and yes it's not exactly an air time machine, and it probably doesn't have much of the elements you would expect in a modern thrill coaster.

But there is something special about it. The fact that a small northern seaside amusement park decided to build the tallest, fastest, steepest rollercoaster in the world is pretty bonkers.

Records that have long since been surpassed of course but to build something like that at pleasure beach was an amazing achievement.

For the first time rider it probably doesn't live up to the modern silky smooth thrill coasters of today, but it is still the tallest coaster in the UK and the longest in Europe now the Ultimate is no more. And it is still the biggest draw for the pleasure beach, 28 years after first opening.

It's a ride that you grow to love over time and there is simply nothing like it on a night ride, especially when the illuminations are on.

Just enjoy the long lift hill, the incredible first drop, the views, the height and the speed , and maybe even have a laugh about the bruises afterwards!!







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shakey said:
Big One is still my favourite (existing) coaster in the UK.

Yes it's a bone shaker and yes it's not exactly an air time machine, and it probably doesn't have much of the elements you would expect in a modern thrill coaster.

But there is something special about it. The fact that a small northern seaside amusement park decided to build the tallest, fastest, steepest rollercoaster in the world is pretty bonkers.

Records that have long since been surpassed of course but to build something like that at pleasure beach was an amazing achievement.

For the first time rider it probably doesn't live up to the modern silky smooth thrill coasters of today, but it is still the tallest coaster in the UK and the longest in Europe now the Ultimate is no more. And it is still the biggest draw for the pleasure beach, 28 years after first opening.

It's a ride that you grow to love over time and there is simply nothing like it on a night ride, especially when the illuminations are on.

Just enjoy the long lift hill, the incredible first drop, the views, the height and the speed , and maybe even have a laugh about the bruises afterwards!!







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I totally agree that the Big One is a very special coaster. I just love going up that big lift hill and seeing the spectacular view before plunging down that fantastic first drop. There’s no other coaster in the country quite like it and I think that in terms of the UK rides it’s a national treasure but one that’s strangely unloved. I think the fact that nearly 30 years on from when it opened there’s no other coaster that can match it for scale says a lot about how ambitious it was (yes, Stealth is almost as tall but it’s a very short ride). Rather than bemoaning it’s lack of forces and airtime I just see it as a good epic ride, and certainly since the demise of The Ultimate (and the possibly limited lifespan of Shockwave) we should absolutely treasure it.
 
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The interesting thing is, the Big One is now the longest roller coaster in Europe given the likely demise of the Ultimate; that’s nuts!

It really was an ambitious ride for the time, particularly given how huge it is and how dense Blackpool is as a park (in terms of concentration of rides within the small space). One thing that’s hard to deny about Geoffrey Thompson is that he had ambition, and I think the Big One is perhaps one of the finest examples of WGT’s ambition. It really is a living embodiment of the phrase “where there’s a will, there’s a way”; plenty of operators and engineers would have deemed building the tallest and steepest roller coaster on Earth within a site as tight as Blackpool Pleasure Beach totally impossible, but Geoffrey Thompson was determined, and he did everything in his power to do it, which is something I find quite admirable!

I must say, however, that the ride itself is not my favourite. If looking at it exclusively from a “ride experience” perspective; I’m not a huge fan. I find it a bit too rough for my liking and somewhat lacking in airtime, even if the sense of speed is very good. I’ve noticed that it seems to blow hot and cold somewhat; on my last BPB visit in 2019, it was my 5th favourite on park, it had quite a decent sense of speed, and while still a bit too rough for my liking, it wasn’t as terrible as it could have been. In 2018, however, it was overall bottom 10 material for me, and I’d have been hard pressed to rank it higher than 8th on park. My first ride on it back in 2018 was pretty sluggish, and it must have been one of the most excruciatingly rough coaster rides I’ve ever had; on that first ride, it was comfortably rougher than every woodie on park bar National, and I’d even say it gave Nash a fair old run for its money.

I’d argue that the ride was perhaps built too early. That might seem like a strange thing to say, but I think had they built The Big One a few years later, it could have benefitted from some of the technological advances in hyper coasters, with the advent of hyper coasters from the likes of B&M and Intamin coming in the late 90s, and been really quite a revered ride. Take something like Expedition GeForce, for instance; built 7 years after the Big One, it has the same twisted drop, but it follows it up with a layout rammed full of ejector airtime and a much smoother ride experience (or so I’ve heard), and it is still one of the world’s most revered coasters 21 years later.
 
PMBO suffered from that drive for the records and WGT being a lunatic.

Regarding timing I don't think that matters, other Arrow hypers not ordered by idiots get rave reviews. Out of all they hypers I've done it is easily the worst, it probably goes Zadra, Hyperion, Stealth, Silver Star, PMBO
 
Matt N said:
on my last BPB visit in 2019, it was my 5th favourite on park, it had quite a decent sense of speed, and while still a bit too rough for my liking, it wasn’t as terrible as it could have been. In 2018, however, it was overall bottom 10 material for me.
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There you go Matt , you have proved my point . 2 goes on it and it's already going up in your rating

Once you've had about 50 goes it will be your favourite..... possibly







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Poisson said:
PMBO suffered from that drive for the records and WGT being a lunatic.

Regarding timing I don't think that matters, other Arrow hypers not ordered by idiots get rave reviews. Out of all they hypers I've done it is easily the worst, it probably goes Zadra, Hyperion, Stealth, Silver Star, PMBO
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But the other coasters are all much newer with more modern technology, also probably built on land that didn't require shoe horning the ride in.

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The issue with PMBO isn’t its roughness, other Arrow hypers are still highly regarded, it’s the fact Geoffrey wanted to maintain the height across the full front of the park and Arrow coasters lose speed incredibly quickly. You therefore end up with a plodding slow ride.

It is one of the prettiest coasters out there, at night it looks brilliant, if you don’t mind the head banging the first drop is also fantastic, but the rest of the ride is just a bit boring.

Still it’s nowhere near as boring as Icon and it’s a lot older so that’s something.
 
Dave said:
:tearsofjoy:

It’s the flip to the right, head jolting is probably a more accurate term.
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Do you mean that horrible lurch you get at the bottom of the drop before the mid course brake run ?

That's a brand new feature introduced for the 2022 season, as part of the re-track work.

I reckon they need to have another look at that , it's definitely not quite right.



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