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2025: General Discussion

djtruefitt said:
One thing to note from the Feb half term event, some side dishes were available at Burger Kitchen in mutiny bay, such as chips, onion rings, mozzarella sticks, etc. These were all previously removed as side options last year.
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It surprises me that Merlin/Aramark would want to restrict selling sides on their own or as an extra as it closes the door to different guests.

I.e. guests who may not want a full meal, fussy eaters who may only want fries, people who want an extra portion of fries, someone who may want onion rings and fries etc.

In addition, I swear the drinks is only Coke Zero so people who may want full fat coke could be excluded as well.

It's probably makes more sense making money to just sell sides rather than as part of a meal only.
 
owenstreet7 said:
It surprises me that Merlin/Aramark would want to restrict selling sides on their own or as an extra as it closes the door to different guests.

I.e. guests who may not want a full meal, fussy eaters who may only want fries, people who want an extra portion of fries, someone who may want onion rings and fries etc.

In addition, I swear the drinks is only Coke Zero so people who may want full fat coke could be excluded as well.

It's probably makes more sense making money to just sell sides rather than as part of a meal only.
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A lot of vendors stopped selling full fat coke due to the sugar tax, particularly those doing free refills as you can’t tell whether the customer selected sugar or sugar free drinks.
 
Dave said:
I’m no expert but 3 MD’s chicken selects which is the closest to a tender is £4.89 so is that massively different?

Genuine question I rarely have McDonalds/ KFC.
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MDs you can scale up into a meal for £7.50 or something though which is where the “value” comes in. Aramark Towers doesn’t necessarily have that value though tbf their chicken tenders from the place by Oblivion/Smiler are pretty good.
 
Squiggs said:
It's almost like Aramark are not particularly skilled in offering catering options in situations like theme parks, where customer experience is of primary importance.
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That's what I'm thinking. At a theme park, you don't always want a full meal but a side of fries would be sufficient as a quick bite to tide you over in between rides.

Especially when you want to go on the rides without getting sick 🤮
 
Steve74 said:
One thing that doesn't help the build up of grime is the hand dryers; I'm all for the high speed dryers but most places that have them don't allow for the water that gets blown off hands at high speed, splattering the walls and floor. More expensive most Dysons mitigate this to an extent by having the trough design where you "dip" your hands into it going through the jets of air as you do so and this trough generally catches most of the water. Although looking at their range, they don't make them any more, just ones that blow the water everywhere.

The best dryers I saw once were integrated taps and dryers (co-incidentally Dyson) but at £1500 a tap, I can't see Towers installing them!

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taps and sinks are 50 years in the future
 
I guess the reason Aramark got rid of sides originally was purely greed, basically forcing everyone to have a meal. But that does also remove those who may buy on top of meals, eg buy a burger meal and add on onion rings, etc. something which wasn’t possible when Aramark removed extras.

I still also find it bizarre they got rid of desserts from their menu such as the ice creams in burger kitchen. Guess trying to force you elsewhere like coachhouse or donuts, but many won’t bother with that, especially when they aren’t near to the likes of Burger kitchen or fried chicken.
 
Poisson said:
Just let me choose if I want sugar or no sugar drinks. Sugar free 7up for example is nice, but proper Coke is miles better than zero.
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Exactly this

There's people that are allergic to the sweeteners in sugar free drinks which in that case can only drink the full fat versions.

At KFC, I think they've made the wrong move by only selling sugar free drinks considering that Pepsi Max is vile in my opinion.

I think it'd be a better customer experience to have a choice.

I know Nandos offer refills at the same price for both regular and sugar free drinks. I'm not sure how they're able to with the sugar tax whether all refills are charged with the tax or whether Nandos are bearing the tax without passing it onto customers however it seems to be a good idea on a customer experience standpoint.
 
owenstreet7 said:
Exactly this

There's people that are allergic to the sweeteners in sugar free drinks which in that case can only drink the full fat versions.

At KFC, I think they've made the wrong move by only selling sugar free drinks considering that Pepsi Max is vile in my opinion.

I think it'd be a better customer experience to have a choice.

I know Nandos offer refills at the same price for both regular and sugar free drinks. I'm not sure how they're able to with the sugar tax whether all refills are charged with the tax or whether Nandos are bearing the tax without passing it onto customers however it seems to be a good idea on a customer experience standpoint.
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Nandos used to charge more for coke on their menu for refills, but it was removed a few months back. I guess everyone just pays the tax now regardless.
 
djtruefitt said:
I guess the reason Aramark got rid of sides originally was purely greed, basically forcing everyone to have a meal. But that does also remove those who may buy on top of meals, eg buy a burger meal and add on onion rings, etc. something which wasn’t possible when Aramark removed extras.

I still also find it bizarre they got rid of desserts from their menu such as the ice creams in burger kitchen. Guess trying to force you elsewhere like coachhouse or donuts, but many won’t bother with that, especially when they aren’t near to the likes of Burger kitchen or fried chicken.
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Removing desserts makes more sense to me than onion rings. I would be more likely to get something to eat alongside the burger meal, like onion rings. Whereas for ice cream why queue up again to order, when you can wait and go to a different outlet an hour later and probably get something better. They need more places offering speciality ice cream type stuff rather than just a whippy machine in Burger Kitchen.
 
I suspect it had more to do with them scaling back the choice from a supplier perspective rather than forcing people down meals only. If they have returned they have probably sourced a supply they are happy with the profit margins on.
 
jon81uk said:
Removing desserts makes more sense to me than onion rings. I would be more likely to get something to eat alongside the burger meal, like onion rings. Whereas for ice cream why queue up again to order, when you can wait and go to a different outlet an hour later and probably get something better. They need more places offering speciality ice cream type stuff rather than just a whippy machine in Burger Kitchen.
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Put a coach house confectionary type place in every zone and they will make a mint. It's our go-to for an ice cream but its a pain in the backside trekking all the way over there if we're at the other end of the park.

I'm not one for the Project D rip-off doughnuts, ice cream all the way for us and I won't pay £3 for a Twister or whatever the current going rate is.
 
This time last week you couldn't book to stay onsite for most weekdays leading up to the fireworks weekend, this has now changed to show all days available yet the park opening times remain closed
 
We would eat our way around the park if there were good quality options. Throw in a GBK, Nandos or similar for a season and see the difference. Sometimes a small percentage of a lot is better than a big percentage of FA. Mark it up 25% an everyone is happy. I'd have no problem spending £25pp at Nandos - more if they had decent beer. Sitting down spending money is better for Merlin than standing in a queue spending nothing.

The issue is when you have a monopoly, there's no need to be competitive or increase quality. Sooner or later you're going to be hungry/thirsty.
 
Smiley said:
We would eat our way around the park if there were good quality options. Throw in a GBK, Nandos or similar for a season and see the difference. Sometimes a small percentage of a lot is better than a big percentage of FA. Mark it up 25% an everyone is happy. I'd have no problem spending £25pp at Nandos - more if they had decent beer. Sitting down spending money is better for Merlin than standing in a queue spending nothing.

The issue is when you have a monopoly, there's no need to be competitive or increase quality. Sooner or later you're going to be hungry/thirsty.
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I'm surprised that Merlin haven't bought in Nandos yet to somewhere like Thorpe Park.

I can imagine they'll make tons of money if they did that at Thorpe Park specifically with it's teenage and adult audience. Especially with it being a quick service restaurant.
 
Chessington had an own-brand peri-peri for a while, but replaced it with the smokehouse. Thorpe might have done it at the jungle BBQ place too?

I don't think at this point Merlin would be looking to add that sort of branded outlet back into the parks. If anything they would add peri-peri glazed chicken to the Woodcutters menu.
 
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