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2013: General Discussion

ILC said:
Just decided to work out the cost for a good day at towers when it's busy:

Family of 4

Tickets: £46.80 each. 4@£187.20
Fastrack (needed if you want to do every ride on a crammed day): Gold £50. 4@£200
Food: average £10 each. 4@£40
Photos: average £7. One for each coaster = 6@£42
Other merchandise: average £8PP 4@£32
Parking: £6
Grand Total: £507.20 PER DAY

Did this for a family who go very rarely and pay fill price at the gate.
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That is a very unrealistic scenario. You have to be incredibly stupid to pay full price on the gate when there are so many offers and other options flying around. You say they hadn't heard of photo passes but I can assure you they would have done either when entering the park or when purchasing a photo; Towers always try and upsell them.

:)
 
Explaining how my point is completely pointless and then putting a smiley face at the end doesn't make me feel any better ...

I was trying to show it at standard price to show how much it would cost if you payed full for everything. If anything, that was meant show a positive for BOGOFs, photopasses etc.

:)
 
ILC said:
Explaining how my point is completely pointless and then putting a smiley face at the end doesn't make me feel any better ...

I was trying to show it at standard price to show how much it would cost if you payed full for everything. If anything, that was meant show a positive for BOGOFs, photopasses etc.

:)
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I end all my posts with a smiley face.

Yes that's how much it would cost if you were stupid enough to do a theme park trip in such a way. It's the tabloids like to look at theme parks and quote how much a family day costs even though the proportion of people paying that much is extremely low. Yes it is the bottom line price when no promotions are used but I just do not think it is a realistic way of looking at the cost of a family day at a theme park.

:)
 
The point is though that standard prices at Merlin parks should pretty much always be taken with a big pinch of salt. It's something like less than 10% of visitors pay the full price at Alton.

Merlin operates by heavily inflating their entrance price and pushing discounts and offers at every opportunity. It gives the visitor a sense of value, having paid less than they would normally. It also could be said that it draws in visitors. If they have a voucher and think they'll be getting a good deal they will probably be more inclined to visit the park.

With regards to the likes of photo passes you'd have to be incredibly unlucky to not hear of them and pay full price for several photos. From the moment you pass the turnstile you're set upon by staff asking if you'll be buying any photos and selling photo passes. The same with Quenchers. They're unavoidable thanks to the upselling and advertising within the park :p

There are offers on practically every aspect of your day out at the park, which are all used to boost sales by offering perceived value. It's just the way Merlin attractions in the UK operate (Compared to European parks such as Efteling and Pou du Foy, however you spell it, who all say they don't believe in discounts and offers as a quality product will be able to sell itself and people will pay regardless - Their words, not mine!)

As Amanda Thompson put it "Every box of cereal seems to have a free ticket on it. In fact I don't think it's even possible to buy a full price ticket for a Merlin park!" :p
 
How can I make myself clearer?

I've never paid anything like that for alton (MAPs FTW), but was horrified at the non-reduced price I thought I'd share it. I didn't mean to start all this
 
As people mentioned above:

Main ticket - BOGOFs,
Fastrack - be sensible, get something like silver as gold price is inflated by putting rides on which never have queues (Duel, submission, battle galleons, maurauders to name but a few).
Food: Unless you eat at woodcutters or pizza pasta, won't be more than £8 each
Photos: Photopass. £20. Very openly advertised everywhere.

The others you can't argue with though.
 
Alton Towers have got a survey up regarding their Facebook page: http://survey.altontowers.com/s/AltonTowersFacebook

While it's great they are looking for feedback on it, I think the Facebook page is something that has been pretty spot on the past year - not something I see as any concern for the park's image.

Would be nice if they had an additional comments box on the survey though!
 
You mean the Facebook page that they could've easily used to promote the fact that Smiler was down for weeks?

Or the powercut updates?

There's plenty they could do with their social media, even if it's just stupid interactive stuff like Thorpe have been doing this year...
 
The Facebook page is nice, but is by far the worse for any kind of interaction with guests. You look on there and they ignore 99% of questions from the general public. When the Smiler had problems, they simply didn't visit their own Facebook page.

Hopefully they get pretty awful results from this survey, which will then focus their attention on social media. Thorpe Parks social media is 10 tens better!
 
Dear Fellow Towerstreeters.........

Is there any chance of being able to buy a nemesis mug over the internet. If so could how do you do this?

Merci
Slugjc
 
If you phone up they will send one to you but you will have to pay postage.
I had a Fireworks mug sent just last week from the Hotel shop.
 
cybermen39 said:
If you phone up they will send one to you but you will have to pay postage.
I had a Fireworks mug sent just last week from the Hotel shop.
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which number did you phone.
 
djtruefitt said:
The Facebook page is nice, but is by far the worse for any kind of interaction with guests. You look on there and they ignore 99% of questions from the general public. When the Smiler had problems, they simply didn't visit their own Facebook page.

Hopefully they get pretty awful results from this survey, which will then focus their attention on social media. Thorpe Parks social media is 10 tens better!
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Interestingly Merlin Jobs is now advertising for staff to work in a social media team... It's seasonal but definitely should help with their social media interaction!
 
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