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Blackpool Pleasure Beach: 2025 Discussion

Hid said:
Forget to mention Ice Blast was under overhaul requiring a new cylinder, River Caves needed work, Valhalla was down for refurbishment, Wild Mouse was removed due to insurance and that was from the owner.

All of what you have spouted is nonsense
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Yep , ice blast was refurbed, over an extended period of time to save money. Could have easily been done in a few months. River caves maybe does need work but it doesn't take 3 years. Valhalla was very likely closed for an extra year to save costs.

Wild mouse may or may not have had an issue with insurance costs but there is absolutely no doubt they could have saved the ride if they had the finances and the will to do so.

If you cannot see the park are making ever more desperate cost saving measures then you are either Stevie Wonder or a mad man.

It may be that the park have no other option but to cut costs , I don't know. But the fact is that a fully solvent proffitable park would not be doing some of the things we have seen recently.
 
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shakey said:
Yep , ice blast was refurbed, over an extended period of time to save money. Could have easily been done in a few months. River caves maybe does need work but it doesn't take 3 years. Valhalla was very likely closed for an extra year to save costs.

Wild mouse may or may not have had an issue with insurance costs but there is absolutely no doubt they could have saved the ride if they had the finances and the will to do so.

If you cannot see the park are making ever more desperate cost saving measures then you are either Stevie Wonder or a mad man.
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Ice Blast requires work with S&S and they deliver things slowly so they would have of gotten it open sooner if S&S delivered things faster.

It River Caves has not be down for 3 years been down for just over a year. It opened for the first few days of 2024.

Valhalla was held back because of the pandemic so was likely put on hold for a bit.

Insurance cost was not an issue with Wild Mouse but rather getting it insured itself was the problem.

All parks want to save money any business who doesn't will struggle. I am logical and don't just go for cost cutting
 
River caves opened for one weekend in 2024.

It has been down for 2 years already and if it opens next year then come and see me in Crevettes and i will buy you a pint.

If you are logical as you say then why don't you come to the logical conclusion as to whats happening with the park ?
 
shakey said:
River caves opened for one weekend in 2024.

It has been down for 2 years already and if it opens next year then come and see me in Crevettes and i will buy you a pint.

If you are logical as you say then why don't you come to the logical conclusion as to whats happening with the park ?
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I think cost management might be part of the issue it but not the overall reason
 
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Nice Beach afternoon today with mates and their kids.
Good ridecount, but the place was absolutely dead, the only queue was twenty minutes for the Big One...running a 0.6 train service.
I would guess the staff outnumbered the punters by about two to one overall.
 
Pleasure Beach haven't let people know in advance about Nick Streak though, they only added it to the website after Big Dipper reopened. Most people going to Blackpool on holiday for October half term will have planned it well in advance.
 
...and the vast majority won't even notice one more closure amongst so many.

My mate went round the place yesterday going "What used to be here then?"
a lot.

The place is best visited after dark at the moment, so you can't see the open dereliction in places, and massive closure of rides.

Skyforce and dodgems were on the list for yesterday, as was the river caves.
Most food outlets closed as well.
No alternative to lager and cider on draught apart from the beloved Crevettes.
 
It also demonstrates just how wrong the popular narrative of the park being scruffy in the 90s is. Yes it was busy, there was litter and a jumble of rides, but the general upkeep of the park was far better. Just take a look at the freshly painted rides in that video and compare it to the peeling paint of today. Even the grass is nicely cut, rather than the regularly overgrown patches we see today.
 
venny said:
It also demonstrates just how wrong the popular narrative of the park being scruffy in the 90s is. Yes it was busy, there was litter and a jumble of rides, but the general upkeep of the park was far better. Just take a look at the freshly painted rides in that video and compare it to the peeling paint of today. Even the grass is nicely cut, rather than the regularly overgrown patches we see today.
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Absolutely, the park of today is the worst, dreariest and most unkempt I've ever seen it. Even stuff like basic cleaning in the stations etc isn't being done anymore.
 
I am tempted to say you guys don't like Pleasure Beach anymore to the point of hating it.

Who would be a better operator to take over really not sure a corporate company would be all that good. As much as its has its issues I'd rather it remain private
 
Hid said:
I am tempted to say you guys don't like Pleasure Beach anymore to the point of hating it.

Who would be a better operator to take over really not sure a corporate company would be all that good. As much as its has its issues I'd rather it remain private
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There is a lot of negativity in here, and to be honest its for good reason.

Its easy to look at the past with rose tinted spectacles and I am sure most of us do that at times, but there is no getting away from the fact the park has been on a downward spiral for many years.

The negativity is probably because people love the park and we all want to see it do well.

Not sure who would want to take it over if that ever became an option.
 
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Hid said:
I am tempted to say you guys don't like Pleasure Beach anymore to the point of hating it...
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Nope.
Check out the post from yesterday.
We had a great time, likewise a fortnight ago...we had a great time and all love the place.
Just don't like all the closures and poor state of operations and repairs.

The new garden where the grand prix spiral was...
Half hearted, looks incomplete, no real landscape planting at all..and yup, long grass that is badly in need of cutting.
Not that I'm an expert mind.
 
Another one here for loving the park, still visiting regularly, but equally sorry to see it in the state it’s in. Not everything’s bad - I think the park cleanliness is generally good, even if maintenance has suffered. The toilets for example are generally good for a theme park standard, as too is the cleanliness of paths. Food and drink wise, when the outlets are open, most of the offering is again decent for theme park standards.

That said, I’ve never seen so many rides closed. Despite all the closures announced at the start of the season, which one would expect would allow a more consistent opening of the remaining rides, exactly the opposite is true - it seems like this year has been the worst I’ve known. There seems to have been at least one or more rides closed at any one time throughout the season. Marketing remains laughable, pricing chaotic.

I truly wish the park the best and hope things improve, but they’ll need to start getting some of the simple things right. Opening their rides and operating them properly would be a start.

On a side note, I agree on the garden Rob. It is literally the very bare minimum and it feels entirely charmless for it. You can be modern and clean whilst retaining some identity and character, but that new garden epitomises the bland, unimaginative sanitisation of most of the park’s newer developments.
 
Is part of the problem Pleasure Beach doesn't have much competition directly nearby so the incentive isn't there to perform better.

But also Blackpool itself have seen a decline in tourists since the 90's with it being run down for quite some time
 
They’ve got competition directly across the road.

For pre-planned, longer trip visits, they’ll be competing with Towers primarily. A lot of the resort’s draw is from north west towns, for whom the distance is comparable. That’s not true of Scotland of course, but then there’s never been much competition in that respect. Even Southport and Morecambe were PB-owned. If you’re taking that trip back in time, then the only other real additional competition would be the Granada parks.

It’s certainly true to say that the town overall doesn’t get the visitation patterns it used to. There’s not a great deal PB can do about that on its own.
 
It has been in decline since the early seventies, and the start of costa holidays.
Saw it all personally, the resort doesn't get 10% of the overnight trade it used to get.

And Venny, if we are going back...Belle Vue used to be fantastic.
Saw that die as well, like Camelot and Morecambe.
 
Out of curiosity, what proportion of Blackpool’s visitors do we feel book in advance and go to the park for the day in its own right? I was under the impression that Blackpool was one of those parks where many people went as part of a wider holiday to Blackpool rather than on a visit there in its own right.

I guess the main day trip competition probably is Alton Towers these days, particularly from more southern places in the North West like Manchester, Liverpool and Chester. Would Flamingo Land maybe factor in as a competitor in parts of the North West, or is it a bit too far east for much of the region?
 
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