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Lightwater Valley

TheMan said:
PeteA said:
Lightwater have raised their on the day prices to £28 this year though which is a £5 increase from last year. The way I see it, this increase is to inflate the on the day price to make these kind of 50% offers available. I predict, and I hope I am wrong, that you will see offers like this all year from Lightwater.

Is £14 a good price? Yes, but at the end of the day £23 for Alton is a lot better. Lightwater do not have anything of major quality, apart from Raptor Attack that is. Coaster wise there is only the Ultimate and Raptor Attack worthy of a mention, whereas at Alton, you have the likes of Nemesis and the Smiler (when ready). Of course only my opinion.

It isn't though is it, even if two of you do manage to go, the inconvenience and mare to plan taken into account, with parking split between two it works out closer to £27 each.

If you fancy just popping along for the day, what do you do? You don't lol!

£14 is dirt, dirt cheap. Of course, fuel to get there isn't.

Is it really that hard to plan a trip to Towers using BOGOF vouchers? Ok if you've got an odd number it's a pain but you make out that it is one of the hardest things to organise in the history of organisation!

As for the point about popping along for the day on your own. I do this quite a bit at Towers as I have a MAP. However I wouldn't do this if I had to pay to get in each time. I'd imagine the number of people that go to Towers or any other theme park for that matter by themselves and pay on the gate is incredibly insignificant and not something that parks need to worry about when deciding their pricing structure.

Also, I'd much rather pay £23 plus parking for Towers than £14 for Lightwater. Towers is in a completely different league to LWV in terms of what it has to offer.

:)
 
Rob said:
Is it really that hard to plan a trip to Towers using BOGOF vouchers? Ok if you've got an odd number it's a pain but you make out that it is one of the hardest things to organise in the history of organisation!

As for the point about popping along for the day on your own. I do this quite a bit at Towers as I have a MAP. However I wouldn't do this if I had to pay to get in each time. I'd imagine the number of people that go to Towers or any other theme park for that matter by themselves and pay on the gate is incredibly insignificant and not something that parks need to worry about when deciding their pricing structure.

Also, I'd much rather pay £23 plus parking for Towers than £14 for Lightwater. Towers is in a completely different league to LWV in terms of what it has to offer.

:)

The Bogof organisation has always been a royal pain the ass, really has Rob mate ;D - I can usually manage 2 or 3 maximum a year - hence again this year I could NOT be bothered with that hassle and decided to officially join Geekdom and grab a MAP - and boy am I ever glad I did!

That to one side, £14 or a bucket of KFC chicken? I mean comparatively you can't argue with that. And yes of course LWV is in a different league, as well it should be with their backing.

PeteA said:
Would I pay £14 for a ticket to Lightwater or £23.30 for a ticket to Alton using a 50% off coupon I have (not a bogof)? Parking at Alton wouldnt come into it, as I dont pay it. I just wait in the hotels until the staff have gone home !!! :)

For me, someone who doesnt have a Merlin pass, it would be a trip to Alton ANYTIME... Again, just my opinion

First point - nicely done! Second point.... :X ;D

And of course these are all only our opinions, value is subjective like everything else. I like the smaller parks, they offer a more intimate experience.

I am a big Towers fan of course, just this time LWV have done something fantastic and as an enthusiast for parks and rides I have applaud it.
 
How have they something SO fantastic though? For as long as I can remember they've always offered vouchers for entry for £15.95, and I think they're still doing that this year. So this time, you can save an extra £1.95.

Both new attractions aren't open yet, and they've obviously realised that they've ballsed up with the price increase, hence why they've sent out this £14 offer for the easter hols, half way through the actual easter hols? I bet they've had an awful start to the year.
 
Easter weekend was extremely quiet.

However, the plan has always been to offer further online discounts during certain periods - the online booking system had promotional code support built into it over the closed season for this purpose (also allows them to monitor how effective each campaign has been).

The only real surprise is that the discounted rate is £2 lower than expected. I imagine it'll increase once Eagle's Creek Farm and the Angry Birds activity park are open.
 
The Man if you say it's a pain the arse to organise the fact that you only have until midnight the day before to book your tickets surely is also a pain wheras if you want to go to Towers on the day surely you can just ring up a friend and say fancy a trip? So surely Towers is easier?
 
£53 is ridiculously expensive for towers (though, technically only one in the car would pay this). £28 for lightwater is also ridiculously expensive.

At the end of the day, you get what you pay for. I love lightwater, but it essentially has 4 decent re-ridable rides, crap food and you can't really drag a day out there. At least you would definitely get your money's worth at towers, from vast increase in experience.
 
Natalie said:
The Man if you say it's a pain the arse to organise the fact that you only have until midnight the day before to book your tickets surely is also a pain wheras if you want to go to Towers on the day surely you can just ring up a friend and say fancy a trip? So surely Towers is easier?

My friends are extremely busy folks, as most people are nowadays, I need to organise a trip ages in advance - well did, till I MAP'd it this year again lol! Then the faff over who has a voucher, or trying to find them, if they did half price offers it would be easier and would have meant I actually went more than I did.

Not sure why Tower's don't get this either quite honestly. So unbelievably obvious to me.

I'm not comparing the ease of LWV and Tower's due to distance being prohibitive, but in terms of what these offers are like to use - then LWV wins easily.
 
I think the issue with offers is that Towers is restricted to BOGOF as it's the simplest and easiest to produce. Merlin can give out standard vouchers on anything and they can be used at any attraction. Making them money off vouchers starts to get very complicated...

As for Lightwater, it's always good when smaller parks try offers to entice people in. Especially when the weather has affected attendances badly this season so far.


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Scott said:
I think the issue with offers is that Towers is restricted to BOGOF as it's the simplest and easiest to produce. Merlin can give out standard vouchers on anything and they can be used at any attraction. Making them money off vouchers starts to get very complicated...

As for Lightwater, it's always good when smaller parks try offers to entice people in. Especially when the weather has affected attendances badly this season so far.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk.

Seems like they are all struggling a bit right now, and I am sure we all agree that none of us wish that on the parks. We need them all up and successful.
 
*BUMP*

Having recently visited Lightwater Valley for the first time I thought I would share some thoughts on the park. One thing I can highly commend is their friendly staff and customer service. The ride lineup was fully available that day to. My top 3 rides I loved were The Ultimate, even though I was wheeled out on a stretcher, Raptor Attack which is an awesomely themed little dark roller coaster and Whirlwind. I have never seen rides operate like they do at Lightwater Valley! Whirlwind was INSANE! we must have been on it for over 3 minutes and it was nuts! The same had to be said for Eagles Claw! They should teach Thorpe how to do it!

The park was clean and very well looked after but I can't help feeling they need a really big new WOW attraction to really boost the number! Here are some photos and the rest can be found on Flickr HERE







 
Lightwater Valley's Facebook Page said:
OOOOOOO. There's so much exciting news coming your way - but we can't quite tell you yet. The suspense is killing us…

This was posted tonight, and I've heard that this could well be Knightmare from a few tip-offs. However, I could be majorly wrong and it could be as 'exciting' as an Angry Birds' opening date...
 
I find it unlikely that they'd announce a major new ride mid season, unless they got it at a bargain price.
 
As of the 9th April, Knightmare was still for sale.

And anyway, wouldn't there be a planning application for Knightmare?
 
Lordy said:
As of the 9th April, Knightmare was still for sale.

And anyway, wouldn't there be a planning application for Knightmare?

Would it not be the same as Towers where the only thing they need planning for is any new buildings etc and the ride itself doesn't need permission as such?
 
Please don't joke about them getting Knightmare. It's unfair to get my hopes up like that.
 
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