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Blackpool Pleasure Beach: 2021 Discussion

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Visited for the very first time and did two days. Absolutely loved it! The sun was shining (most the time), queues were decent and operations were great for the most part. Here's my thoughts on the rides:

Icon: Absolutely loved this. Did it nine times over the two days and can confirm it's my UK no.1. Lived the near misses and interaction with the other rides. The air time was impressive too. Props to the team running it on two trains and loading them out quickly. Amazing operations.

Big One: Had a front row ride of this first of all which I thought was good but then towards the back which wasn't so good. It was bumpy and chaotic but not in an enjoyable sense. For me, after the drop the rest lacked anything memorable. Still a good experience though nonetheless, definitely one you have to do if it's open.

Grand National: I'd heard horror stories of this so came prepared. Both times me and my girlfriend got a non wheel seat and... It was really enjoyable. I'm not sure if we were extremely lucky or I braced myself but it was surprisingly smooth. The occasional jolt but nothing major at all. I actually really enjoyed it. My favourite wooden roller coaster there.

Big Dipper: This was another story. We sat on a wheel seat and it was not fun. Extremely rough. Literally kept jolting every dip and got progressively worse. Needless to say we didn't re ride.

Nickelodeon Streak: I loved this. Amazing airtime and I have nostalgia with Nickelodeon so I loved the entire land. There was surprisingly a lot of airtime though. Just a simple fun coaster which was smooth too.

Revolution: This was disorientating but that's the enjoyment for me. Going backwards was the highlight. Great ride.

We didn't manage Infusion but did do the dark rides. Rives Caves and Wallace And Gromit are the two finest in the country imo. It's an excellent park though, I can definitely see the hype. So unique too. Definitely going to revisit at some point but being a southerner it's a long trek.
 
Re: Nash & Dipper

The difference between the wheel seats and middle seats is collosal. Both rides are perfectly fine in the middle rows but extremely unpleasant over the wheels, Nash is probably slightly worse of the two and has fewer "good" seats too. If you're over the wheels you can't just sit back and let the ride do its thing - you have to be prepared to brace at the bottom of each drop.

Dipper could have been worth another go in a better seat as from reports I've seen it's running very well this season. Admittedly since they ripped out the loading bays it's now much harder to guarantee a premium seat as you can only choose from whatever's available when you're let in, but in my experience you can usually get a middle row unless you're amongst the very last to board.
 
Came back into the park for lunch, against my better judgement for a nice portion of BPB WTF.

Opted for BPK for speed (ha!), the usual madness of being greeted, shown to your table and then sitting there for 10 mins for another member of staff to come and ask you what you want continues. When you say "the buffet", they then disappear for the card machine, you pay and then they disappear to get you a plate and cutlery. About 17 minutes has elapsed from this point, with barely a word said.

You approach the buffet as you normally would and begin to help yourself (!) only to be barked at to "put some gloves on" which are on a table in the distance.

You finish your drink and head over to the machine, doesn't work ... it's switched off, you have to get a refill from the bar.

Why oh why when they insist on having 12 staff in there can one of them not tell you that the food is self service but you must first collect your gloves and for goodness sake, stick a sign on the drinks machines to save lots of confused people. Both things are so simple and not only would make the visit less frustrating but would also save people touching stuff they don't need to touch in the middle of a pandemic!

Also, everyone's one gloved hand approach to the buffet made most of what was left look like the aftermath of some kind of surgery.

Even better, let me tap my credit card on the way in and direct me to the trough.
 
@Rick love the food rant. They don’t do themselves any favours with these things. No wonder people walk out of the park and eat at Velvet Coaster. I’m a bit surprised the buffet has even returned yet
 
Rick said:
Even better, let me tap my credit card on the way in and direct me to the trough.
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Yes last time we were at Alton Towers they had switched the pizza buffet to just being pay on entry and it felt so much more efficient compared to being seated, the order paid for and then plates brought out. For a pay-one-price meal with soft drinks its far easier to just pay on the way in.
 
Out of interest, what do ride throughputs generally tend to be like on each ride at Blackpool Pleasure Beach? Does anything there get above 1,000 riders per hour these days?

Some of the rides have very high theoretical throughputs (for instance, Big One is 1700pph, and Valhalla is 2000pph), but many of the queues seemed quite slow-moving in comparison to the likes of Alton Towers. I did do a couple of throughput timings at Blackpool last time I was there, but not many. The ones I did get were Icon at 844pph, Streak on 512pph and Dipper on 514pph. Icon felt like the fastest moving queue there, along with possibly the Big One, but I was surprised to discover that the throughput was only 844pph; it felt very efficiently operated, and I’d have guessed at least 1000pph prior to timing it. Maybe I got Icon on a slow day?

Are the others any higher, and are the ones I did correct?
 
To be honest, on all my visits to BPB in the last 10 years, I have never thought capacity or dispatching is something that seems to be of any concern to ride teams.

I find the park generally pretty badly operated - and things have only really deteriorated.
 
Had my annual visit today. A shocker to start with. Infusion, Icon and Big One all late opening. So toddled off for a ridiculously rough (but fun) ride on the Grand National.

Then tried Steeplechase (as it was open), very uncomfortable, and hard to mount, but also fun.

Icon then opened about an hour late. Appalling dispatches for about 30 minutes with 5 minute gaps between trains, but enjoyed the ride as always.

On the verge of giving up, but had a break at Coasters for a drink. But then something magic happened, everything started running well, Icon was being dispatched quickly, and had many afternoon rides, mostly short queues om on most of the rides that were open.

It was pretty quiet there today, but only after lunch did it get going, and in the end it was a good day
 
I too was on park today as well and had a very similar experience to you @Mikw! We were joined by 2 first-time visitors and there was certainly a concern that the park would be a bit crap, considering Big One and Icon were showing no signs of life even up to an hour after park opening. However we ended up having a great day, getting on basically everything we had any vague interest in doing, including re-rides on Nash, Big One and Icon. Was great to have walk-on rides for attractions simply not worth the wait on the busy days I've previously visited on. :)
 
Matt N said:
Oh dear! How has the dispatch time fallen so drastically; have the seatbelts really had that much of an impact?
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It was utterly appalling, the ride was running two trains in the morning, and then went up to three later, but the queue seemed to move quicker when it was on two!

We stacked in the brake run for 5 minutes twice when it was on 3 trains, as it was taking them that long to fill up and send the trains. A combination of the phone scanner, speedy pass, seatbelts and seat swapping I think, it's one of the lowest capacity rides in the park now.
 
Why is it that Speedy Pass seems to reduce ride throughputs at Blackpool? Fastrack at the Merlin parks doesn’t actually reduce the ride throughput itself, as much as it reduces the amount of people coming from the main queue, and neither does any other Fastpass-style system I’ve seen, so I’m stumped as to why Blackpool’s system seems to cause such problems.
 
On several coasters (Streak, Infusion, Avalanche - possibly others) Speedy Pass users enter via the exit, this slows down loading significantly as they have to be let in before anyone else can board. At Merlin parks, fastrack users always board from onload side so ride operations are not affected.
 
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