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Blackpool Pleasure Beach: 2021 Discussion

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Popped on park this afternoon to collect my season pass from The Globe (which was closed...)

Big One was running two trains, but only 80% of one of them was open for passengers. Park was extremely quiet, didn't see a queue for anything. Ride availability looked good, the only thing I saw that was closed was the National.
 
We joke but it's pretty lousy customer service really isn't it. Oh it's a quiet day? Shut a major ride or two, no-one will notice.

Reflects the general collapse in quality of the visitor experience in the past few years really - you either visit on a busy day when the queues are an absolute nightmare, or you visit on an off-peak day when there's nobody there but they don't bother running all the rides.
 
That is a shame, I noticed that Grand National is missing from the queue times app which makes me wonder if they're planning to close it a lot off peak :(
 
Hang on, hang on. Do we actually know for certain that Grand National closed to save money?

Where has that been stated? What park staff have confirmed that information?

There seems to be a lot of negative assumption here.

Last week there was talk that Big One had been closed due to off peak cost cutting, and this turned out to be untrue.

I really find it strange how people like to bash BPB yet this seems to be the one park on this forum (apart from Towers obviously) which has the most loyal fans. There could be a whole heap of reasons why GN was closed, yet everyone seems to be taking it as a given that it was cost cutting, despite seemingly no evidence to suggest this to be the case.
 
Enter Valhalla said:
I really find it strange how people like to bash BPB yet this seems to be the one park on this forum (apart from Towers obviously) which has the most loyal fans. There could be a whole heap of reasons why GN was closed, yet everyone seems to be taking it as a given that it was cost cutting, despite seemingly no evidence to suggest this to be the case.
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I think they fact they are loyal fans is why they bash it so much. Its frustrating to see a place you like and enjoy carrying out operations in a frustrating way.
 
Ok fair point. But, in terms of my original point, there’s no reason to just assume that this ride is closed to cut costs when this hasn’t been stated anywhere. Especially when last week’s rumours of Big One being closed for that reason turned out not to be true.
 
But didn't the Big One open a lot later than it was scheduled to ? Something that rarely happens on peak days unless it is too windy.

I think there is just too much evidence of unscheduled ride down time on midweek days compared to peak days for it not to be a cost cutting measure, or maybe just CBA.

The latest set of accounts have to be published by the 2nd of June. (Companies have been given longer to publish their accounts this year due to covid). I hope they have managed to at least break even this time but I find that highly unlikely.
 
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Enter Valhalla said:
Ok fair point. But, in terms of my original point, there’s no reason to just assume that this ride is closed to cut costs when this hasn’t been stated anywhere. Especially when last week’s rumours of Big One being closed for that reason turned out not to be true.
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I am not sure any park would be stating something is closed due to cost cutting, that doesn't feel very likely?

I think there is a distinction to make between rides being closed. If you look at the Grand National off peak last year, particularly towards the back end of the season, it was closed mid-week, it wasn't staffed, didn't morning test and was announced as closed as you walked into the park, for all intents and purposes, it appeared that for whatever reason, the park had no intention of running it. That could be related to cost, maintenance, staff availability etc.

If you look at the Big One last week, that wasn't the case, word was they were waiting for a part and indeed it opened up on in the dying hours of one of the days and then has run pretty consistently since.
 
jon81uk said:
I think they fact they are loyal fans is why they bash it so much. Its frustrating to see a place you like and enjoy carrying out operations in a frustrating way.
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This. Off peak closure of Nash has happened so much in the last few seasons that it does smack of cost cutting. If it was a maintenance issue, how can it miraculously be fine to run over a weekend?

I don’t like to bash the park, and I don’t bash it as much as some people, I would just like to see major rides operating when I visit. I realise that the park makes more money on weekends, school hols, etc, but as stated before it’s a shame they can’t close a lesser ride or two before closing a significant, historic, listed rollercoaster which is the only one of its type in the country, a ride which is popular amongst both the GP and enthusiast community, bar from a few wimps @shakey and he was the one who called the ride ‘an abomination’ which I feel is harsh!

Especially so now, with Valhalla shut. Having 2 of the the first rides you see when you enter the park closed is not giving off a good impression. I mean North Park feels like it’s dying without Wild Mouse & with Valhalla shut anyway, without Nash being out of action for half the week too. I wouldn’t imagine those visiting Towers midweek would be too pleased to frequently find say Nemesis or Oblivion closed
 
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Enter Valhalla said:
Hang on, hang on. Do we actually know for certain that Grand National closed to save money?

Where has that been stated? What park staff have confirmed that information?

There seems to be a lot of negative assumption here.

Last week there was talk that Big One had been closed due to off peak cost cutting, and this turned out to be untrue.

I really find it strange how people like to bash BPB yet this seems to be the one park on this forum (apart from Towers obviously) which has the most loyal fans. There could be a whole heap of reasons why GN was closed, yet everyone seems to be taking it as a given that it was cost cutting, despite seemingly no evidence to suggest this to be the case.
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I visit roughly weekly through the season, mainly off peak.
The National was closed on a large number of off peak days last year, with no work taking place on it, and being advised on entry that the ride was closed, not closed for repairs, just closed.
The talk of the Big One being closed on days two and three this year...does anyone have any evidence whatsoever of the reasons for closure...I have heard nothing. So there has been no evidence that this wasn't the case.
The Big One was also closed on a number of days last season, off peak, with no signs of work taking place.
I am one of the Beach Happy Clappers, I tolerate limited openings as a realistic method of keeping costs down when the park has had a very challenging time recently.
The National will probably reopen Friday for the weekend, it may have "problems" again early next week.
Wait and see.
 
On a more positive note, further to my post a few pages back I have been thinking what the park could do with a theoretical capital spend of £30m across this decade, which would represent a massive decrease on the spend from 2011-2020. Obviously these figures are rough but they are based on how much other projects out there have cost.

-Firstly I’ll set aside £1.5m for the overhaul of Valhalla for 2022.
[£28.5m remaining]

-Some sort of flat ride investment on the Wild Mouse/Trauma Towers spot for 2024, Tigeren at Djurs Sommerland which is the same Intamin Gyro Swing model as Loke at Liseberg cost around £4.5m.
[£24m remaining]

-For the park’s 130th anniversary in 2026 I would make use of the indoor space within the now unoccupied dome by investing in a compact, low cost themed family dark ride from Mack Rides. Something akin to Snorri Touren at Europa Park, which received an award for best limited budget attraction. I think a budget of £5m would be adequate for such a limited budget addition.
[£19m remaining]

-2028 would be a decade gap between coasters, which seems to be about the trend for the park (no bad thing if you’re investing in creating a well rounded ride lineup.) I agree with others on this page that investing in the UK’s tallest roller coaster would be a way of ensuring the next major investment does not fall on deaf ears with the public. As such, I would put around £17m towards a Mack Rides Hyper Coaster. As a reference, DC Rivals Hypercoaster cost around £16.5m inclusive of shipping everything from Germany to Australia, many many times the shipping cost to Blackpool. With the removal of the bowladrome, Impossible, Beach Amusements and Ice Blast, a nice L shaped hyper coaster layout becomes feasible, possibly interacting with the Big One’s turnaround.
[£2m remaining]

And then we have £2m of capital remaining in the rainy day fund for projects running over budget. Again, I think this would be an exciting plan for the park which is a reduction on their capital spend from 2011-2020 by around 50%.
 
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