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Blackpool Pleasure Beach: 2021 Discussion

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Poisson said:
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
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Just checked the towers queue times for this afternoon. All major rides at least an hour, some nearer 2 hours. Even two of the fairground rides they added are an hours queue.
 
To slightly play Devil’s advocate here, at least Alton do advertise their queue times and make guests very aware of the length of queue they’ll be joining.

LED boards at the entrances to most rides, the app, the queue time boards around the park. BPB have none of this (except the speedy pass app which barely anyone knows exists). If I’d entered what looks like a short queue for say Icon or Grand Prix and ended up being stood their for hours, I’d be pretty irritated. Whereas at Alton I’d know what I was letting be myself in for.
 
Coaster said:
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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I saw a couple of your tweets from Sunday so I was expecting the worst on Monday but to be fair they did pretty well for the most part, and even extended to 7pm (although still issues around when a queue should close). It was just speedypass that tripped them up. They allow too many time slots to be booked on Icon and Big One.
 
Enter Valhalla said:
To slightly play Devil’s advocate here, at least Alton do advertise their queue times and make guests very aware of the length of queue they’ll be joining.

LED boards at the entrances to most rides, the app, the queue time boards around the park. BPB have none of this (except the speedy pass app which barely anyone knows exists). If I’d entered what looks like a short queue for say Icon or Grand Prix and ended up being stood their for hours, I’d be pretty irritated. Whereas at Alton I’d know what I was letting be myself in for.
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They also keep their queue lines open until the advertised time; not closing them on the sly early.
 
Coaster said:
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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Punter visits seaside amusement park on first hot, sunny late May Bank Holiday weekend since hotels reopened, with the GP desperate for a day out / holiday and some fun. Punter finds said amusement park to be rammed, with slow moving queues. Go figure.

Joking aside, I understand these frustrations to a point, but I’m not sure what they are expected to do on busy days really. Perhaps Speedypass is being oversold, I don’t know, but a 2 hour Icon & Big One queue seem a bit silly and make me glad I can go on quieter days. I am taking first time visitors on Thursday so it will interesting to know their thoughts on the rides, queues, park in general, at the end of the day. I’ll have to warn them in advance that at least 4 hours of their day will be taken up going on just 2 rides!

Is anything else known about that ‘private function’ which closed 3 rides on a busy weekend day? Seems rather crazy to me. Terms like ‘atrocious’ and ‘utter shambles’ seem rather extreme though; surely you were expecting a busy day?
 
The problem with putting up ride wait time at Blackpool is their operations are not consistent, take Icon yesterday. Normally 30 minutes from the gate, but an hour yesterday. It all depends on speedypass, trains in service (especially the big one which is known to go to 1 in the wind), and whether or not they can be arsed.


spoon said:
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.
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Welcome to the party Mr Spoon - How is button moon ? - (If you get that will depend on your age)

They were definitely cleaning Icon, SkyForce and Steeple because I was in the queue at the time, so guessing they were doing an hourly clean on most of the rides. Not sure what that achieves to be honest.
 
shakey said:
The problem with putting up ride wait time at Blackpool is their operations are not consistent, take Icon yesterday. Normally 30 minutes from the gate, but an hour yesterday. It all depends on speedypass, trains in service (especially the big one which is known to go to 1 in the wind), and whether or not they can be arsed.




Welcome to the party Mr Spoon - How is button moon ? - (If you get that will depend on your age)

They were definitely cleaning Icon, SkyForce and Steeple because I was in the queue at the time, so guessing they were doing an hourly clean on most of the rides. Not sure what that achieves to be honest.
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Surely having queue time displays would be of some use even if not 100% accurate. I mean they could give an estimate based on number of speedy passes sold, as to how much this adds onto the normal queue. If there’s a crowd, of course people expect to have to queue, but there’s a difference between them thinking a ride has what looks like a half hour queue, but it actually being a 2 hour one. Those things can really negatively impact someone’s day out.

Us regulars have a good idea just by looking at a queue how long the wait is, but the weekends situation with a huge speedy pass Icon queue shows that even we can be caught out. I really feel sorry for people who haven’t got the foggiest idea how long a ride queue is until 2 hours of their day has passed before they board it. There has to be a better way. All I can think is that they don’t display queue times because they think that if the park looks really busy, people will just buy speedy passes, thus making the park more money and compounding the misery of those who don’t want to perform paid queue jumps
 
Dipper_Dave said:
All I can think is that they don’t display queue times because they think that if the park looks really busy, people will just buy speedy passes, thus making the park more money and compounding the misery of those who don’t want to perform paid queue jumps
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But the answer to that is simple, set a maximum number of sales per day for speedy pass an a maximum number of reservations per ride on the pass per 10 minute slot.
 
I was about to say something to this effect.

If the system of operations is such that they can’t provide guests with an accurate estimation of the queue time, then surely all signs then point to a system which isn’t fit for purpose? Or am I missing the point?
 
Dipper_Dave said:
Punter visits seaside amusement park on first hot, sunny late May Bank Holiday weekend since hotels reopened, with the GP desperate for a day out / holiday and some fun. Punter finds said amusement park to be rammed, with slow moving queues. Go figure.

Joking aside, I understand these frustrations to a point, but I’m not sure what they are expected to do on busy days really. Perhaps Speedypass is being oversold, I don’t know, but a 2 hour Icon & Big One queue seem a bit silly and make me glad I can go on quieter days. I am taking first time visitors on Thursday so it will interesting to know their thoughts on the rides, queues, park in general, at the end of the day. I’ll have to warn them in advance that at least 4 hours of their day will be taken up going on just 2 rides!

Is anything else known about that ‘private function’ which closed 3 rides on a busy weekend day? Seems rather crazy to me. Terms like ‘atrocious’ and ‘utter shambles’ seem rather extreme though; surely you were expecting a busy day?
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I think you've missed the crux of the issue I'm highlighting in my post. I fully expected the park to be busy, it was good to see the park busy, that wasn't the issue.

The problem is how the park was running with it being that busy. Having all the usual 10am rides not opening until 11 was atrocious given how busy the park was from the off, then Icon's operations being unbelievably slow is again inexcusable. It felt as though the park was geared up to run for 500 people, not nearly 10k.

In terms of the private event, I think it was the Bingo, as they closed the entirety of FY4 and were putting the tables across the path, fountain etc.
 
I think the main issue for me with PB / ATR queue times isn't that ATR have lesser queues. They don't.

The issue I have is that PB has gone from a park that simply didn't get really bad wait times to a park which gets long ones and, more often than not, it's due to speedy pass or changes to operations rather than anything else. Alton has seen much less of a shift like that - and the rides typically get higher throughput anyway.

Nemesis was 2 hours in 1999. Black Hole would be the same. Icon has gone from 30/40 min a couple years back to 90+ now...AND they're fully loading (right?) - ATR aren't on any coaster.

Like Thorpe, PB is claustrophobic on these very busy days. Just unpleasant.

Sent from my SM-G991B using Tapatalk
 
I’ve always been very defensive of BPB but, the more I hear, the more one thing is very obvious and that’s that the park just don’t help themselves.

Closing queue lines half an hour early without advertising, operating an ineffective Speedy Pass system at the detriment of people in the main queues, selling Speedy Pass on rides such as Grand Prix with throughputs not equipped for it, closing the entire park two hours earlier than scheduled with less than 24 hours notice, running coasters on one train at times when they chronically need to be on two are all issues which I have personally encountered on my own visits, and I only go once or twice a year.

And the biggest frustration is the inconsistency. I’ve visited on days when none of the above list are an issue and when operations have been flawless. It often seems to be pot luck on the day which really doesn’t help.
 
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Inconsistent is the best word to describe the Beach.
We open at ten, but open the rides a bit later, depending on how many staff got smashed on their day off in the Velvet yesterday. If we think it is going to be busy, we will probably open a lot of the rides late, depending on the time of the high tide.
The East gate is exclusively for season pass holders, except we might just close it, and people with cash can come in that way as well, oh, and people who have booked online.
The rides close at five, unless it starts raining, or unless the area manager isn't about, so then we close when there is no queue, any time after four thirty, unless the bingo is on, where we reserve the right to close most of North park at four.
Must say though, excellent service in Crevettes, every last time.
It's as if they know me.
 
The bingo on Sunday was Bongo’s Bingo at FY4.

I’m not sure there’s too much BPB can do about being busy in and of itself. But given that nearly, if not all, their business is now prebooked, to not be prepared for said crowds is bad. I agree, it does seem to be pot luck as to whether you’re going to experience decent operations or not, but in a way that’s more frustrating because you know they can operate rides decently.

The park just seems to implode nowadays when it’s busy. Whether that be overselling speedy pass, poor operations or absolutely humongous queues for food service - they really do seem to shoot themselves in the foot when they have the opportunity to demonstrate they are a better day out than the competition.

What does seem remarkably consistent though is that park operations in the first few hours after a late night riding event are pretty much always fairly terrible. You can almost guarantee closed rides, staggered openings and one train operations throughout for the first few hours.
 
Dipper_Dave said:
Yep, can’t be much happening if that’s front page news. For some of them said evacuation would have been less terrifying than if the ride had gone round as planned!
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Great money spinning idea there. Get rid of the trains and just have walk the woodie all day long. Full track walk round. No bruises, guaranteed (unless you fall off)

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shakey said:
Welcome to the party Mr Spoon - How is button moon ? - (If you get that will depend on your age)

They were definitely cleaning Icon, SkyForce and Steeple because I was in the queue at the time, so guessing they were doing an hourly clean on most of the rides. Not sure what that achieves to be honest.
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Shining very brightly! I don't know how I missed them cleaning with all the standing around, it does seem a little pointless
 
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