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Blackpool Pleasure Beach: 2021 Discussion

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It did, just that...we only booked the Grand Prix at the time because a lot of the other coasters were booked up.
It said the queue was two hours, and that is what we waited, and watched our place in the queue exactly.
What would have been a half hour queue on a quiet day took two hours because of a large number of "invisible" speedypass holders in the queue ahead of us...even though the queue only looked half an hour.
 
Not quite the point I was getting at - by the sounds of it the ride was running close to 75% speedy pass but is there anything preventing a situation where they're filling every seat from the speedy pass entrance and still have a speedy pass queue stretching all the way along the overpass?
 
Never actually seen it, what normally happens is you get a queue full message, but as we all know, the whole thing falls apart when the park gets busy.
They just don't have the overall capacity these days.
 
Yep, capacity has been a growing problem at the park ever since the end of PPR, though from recent reports it seems to have got much worse in the past couple of years. Queues of substantially more than an hour at BPB used to be limited to PMBO if it opened late and on 1 train due to wind, these days it seems multiple rides can have waits of 90+ minutes on peak days. Not good when the park is only open 10-6 this week.

It seems we've suddenly arrived at a situation where queues are no shorter at BPB than AT, whilst the park closes earlier - both pretty much unthinkable even 5 years ago.
 
Well, first visit of the year on the bank holiday and I can confirm it was indeed a 2 hour queue for Icon, with an hour from the gate.

I totally miscalculated it, thought it looked like about an hour in total but when I eventually got into the station it became apparent that speedypass was taking about 50% of the throughput.

It was running 3 trains but the stacking meant it was no better than running 2, and when you add in the speedypass and cleaning then it was the equivalent of a 1 train service.

I think this is the 1st year Icon has been on the standard speedypass and it totally killed the throughput. Avalanche and Dipper which didn't have speedypass were much faster at shifting punters. I waited about 20 mins each for those, so it just shows how much speedypass affects throughput.

Steeplechase also had speedypass but that was only 40-50% of one lane, so only about 15% of the total throughput which made it bearable. 30 min wait for that one.

We didn't even attempt the Big One - guessing that was at least 2 hours.

So some positives.....

The park did extend to 7pm (sort of), and all rides were running full trains (No gaps in seats), so they were doing their best. We arrived at about 10:45am and managed 10 rides in this order........ Streak, Avalanche, Dipper, (then went to spoons for lunch), Train, Steeplechase, Icon, SkyForce, Flying Machines, Derby Racer, River Caves. We didn't rush round and stopped for drinks a couple of times so apart from the 2 hour wait for Icon it wasn't too bad a day.

We tried to get on Ghost Train at 6:45pm but they had closed the queue! So went to W&G... Same there! - so went to River Caves and managed to get in the queue just before 7. They actually let people in at 7:05pm . There is no consistency whatsoever.

One bugbear that I must mention.... The number of Asian people who were wearing green wristbands.. (so exempt from wearing a face covering) was ridiculous. Whole families seemingly medically exempt. On leaving the park I saw three guys with the green bands on that were picked up outside by a woman wearing............. You guest it !!!
 
Good point about Icon moving to standard Speedy Pass. There was previously only a trickle of Speedy Passers, taking maybe two seats per train on average, so if that’s now increased by several multiples it will have a huge impact on the standby queue.

Icon’s queue has been slower all year on busy days, which was originally attributed to the belts. The Speedy Pass explanation makes a lot more sense. It also means there’s an easy solution, which is to return it to the higher tier speedy pass.
 
Dismal reading. BPB is now a northern Thorpe Park in terms of queues etc. At least Towers usually has something with a semi bearable queue, but BPB are seemingly hell bent on limiting everything. Sounds like midweek only from now on.
 
venny said:
Good point about Icon moving to standard Speedy Pass. There was previously only a trickle of Speedy Passers, taking maybe two seats per train on average, so if that’s now increased by several multiples it will have a huge impact on the standby queue.

Icon’s queue has been slower all year on busy days, which was originally attributed to the belts. The Speedy Pass explanation makes a lot more sense. It also means there’s an easy solution, which is to return it to the higher tier speedy pass.
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Yes, I think seat belts have minimal effect on the throughput.

Standard speedypass has gone up to £25 from £15 last year which is a big jump, but people are still paying it.

They have scrapped the middle tier one and the top one is now £50 (effectively a walk on pass)
 
I really didn’t think the queues were that bad on Saturday. Albeit I will agree Icon’s queue does not move at the pace it used to.
 
Poisson said:
Dismal reading. BPB is now a northern Thorpe Park in terms of queues etc. At least Towers usually has something with a semi bearable queue, but BPB are seemingly hell bent on limiting everything. Sounds like midweek only from now on.
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It is no worse than towers on a busy days.

Obviously Icon and Big One are the 2 major draws at Blackpool so you could be in for a long wait for those, but the rest of the rides weren't too bad to be fair yesterday.

Towers will also have long queues for its major rides on busy days.
 
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Is it though? On my trips (not this season mind) apart from Icon most things were getting silly due to appalling ops and reduced rides. My second to last visit I was stood by Wallace and was thinking "what's actually worth it?" Icon was a saving grace with a short queue but if that's been ruined, not good
 
These were my waits on Saturday:

Icon:
-Ride one: 75 mins
-Ride two: 30 mins
Big One:
-Ride one: 20 mins
-Ride two: 25 mins
Revolution: 20 mins
Infusion:
Ride one: 15 mins
Ride two: 0 mins
Big Dipper:
Ride one: 25 mins
Ride two: 10 mins
River Caves: 30 mins
Alice in Wonderland: 15 mins
Derby Racer: 5 mins
Ice Blast: 15 mins
Steeplechase: 20 mins
Grand National: 15 mins

The queues looked bigger than they were from my experience. Overheard many saying I’m not waiting in that queue but in reality they were not too bad if you joined and waited.
 
shakey said:
One bugbear that I must mention.... The number of Asian people who were wearing green wristbands.. (so exempt from wearing a face covering) was ridiculous. Whole families seemingly medically exempt. On leaving the park I saw three guys with the green bands on that were picked up outside by a woman wearing............. You guest it !!!
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Hi, first time poster! I visited yesterday. I got stuck behind a large group who all had the green wristbands on at Icon and security were waiting for the group at the exit because they were being too rowdy. We ended up getting stuck in the middle of them again at the Big One and they were trying to shove us out of the way in the speedy pass line so they could ride together, staff asked them how big their group was and they counted 21, they ALL had the green wristband. They let all of them on together and didn't check their speedy pass. I noticed this at Icon too. We had 2 priority passes so decided to use them at Icon and the Big One and nobody checked they just let us on so we still have them. I also noticed they were letting large groups of speedy pass holders on together, sometimes filling a train with them. At one of the food stalls a member of staff at the till was telling people to take their masks off because 'they aren't needed'. I didn't see any cleaning of the rides but I could have just missed it.
 
Poisson said:
Dismal reading. BPB is now a northern Thorpe Park in terms of queues etc. At least Towers usually has something with a semi bearable queue, but BPB are seemingly hell bent on limiting everything. Sounds like midweek only from now on.
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Sadly, I have avoided school holidays and Saturdays for about a decade now, just not worth the effort compared to weekdays.
 
BPB is one park where crowd numbers are really noticeably different from a Saturday to a Sunday. I’ve never seen the park rammed on Sundays. I only went once on a Saturday- never again.
 
Blackpool Pleasure Beach was atrocious on Sunday.

Saturday was an excellent day helped by the 10pm close; we arrived in the morning to find Alice, Ice Blast, Nickelodeon Streak, Avalanche and Revolution on delayed opening, which wrecked our chances of riding the low capacity rides first, but fortunately things picked up later on and the rides ran excellently throughout the day. Icon was unfortunately still running very slowly once up to 3 trains, I waited earlier on 2 and the queue moved faster but some of my group ended up waiting over 90 minutes later on.

Sunday however, was the worst day I have ever had at BPB. The park was busier than the Saturday, which I presume was due to the bank holiday, and yet there was no extension to the 6pm closing time. We arrived early again to find Ice Blast, Alice, Derby Racer and the entirety of Nickelodeon Land opening at 11am! Nick Land was completely fenced off until 11, which was utterly useless when you consider that getting on the Streak early is the only way to avoid waiting an eternity for it.

The coasters due to open at 10:30am were closer to 11 by the time they actually opened, meaning that for the first hour, the only ride in the entire park open was Flying Machines!

The Big One and Icon's operations were woefully slow on the Sunday, I have never seen such slow dispatch times in all my visits to the Pleasure Beach. Icon was stacking for 5 minutes each time, meaning it took us 10 minutes to get off the thing, since we had to wait in two places as the ride was on 3 trains. 450pph was calculated I believe which is just abysmal, also bearing in mind that the Speedy Pass queue was enormous.

Icon had major capacity problems with it starting the day on 2 trains both times, at which point it was moving the queue reasonably, but they would then hold it up to add on the third train at around midday (which took them 20 minutes to do on the Sunday), after which operations slowed down to an absolute snail's pace. This caused the queue to overspill the extended queueline; past the entrance gate, all the way down the path next to it and back up, and overflowing out next to the Icon shop. It would then hardly move for the rest of the day making for some utterly horrible wait times.

Despite the park being absolutely heaving, Grand National, Ghost Train and River Caves closed an hour early at 5pm due to a private event?! This was absolute madness given how busy the park was, and again, I have never seen anything like it.

I've tried to see the good in the Pleasure Beach, but Sunday was an utter shambles and the worst day I've ever spend at BPB.
 
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