To be honest, I’m similar to
@Benjsh in terms of my opinion of wild mouse-style coasters, in general. I don’t especially care for them; I’m not really into the strong laterals, personally.
With that in mind, I’m not sure Wild Mouse would have been my cup of tea had I been able to ride it.
However, I do personally disagree with the notion that the woodies should be torn down in favour of brand new B&Ms (or similar) and that there’s too much emotion surrounding BPB.
If Blackpool was a park that thrived on the basis of its new and current rides in the same vein as Alton Towers or Thorpe Park, I would perhaps agree with the notion more. However, Blackpool isn’t really like that.
While I have only been following Blackpool heavily for 5-10 years, my impression is that they had kind of given up on any sustained attempts to be a “new and current” park by the mid-2000s, if not earlier. Prior to Icon, their last major “new and current” ride was probably Valhalla in 2000 (or perhaps Infusion in 2007), and 4 years on from Icon, there are no strong signs of anything major on the horizon. Now I’m aware that Blackpool’s financial state may have played at least a partial role in this, but to me, Blackpool’s recent investment patterns don’t imply that the park is focused on keeping up with the latest trends and boasting the biggest and best new rides in the same way that the likes of Alton & Thorpe are. Don’t get me wrong, the park is investing in new attractions, but I think they’d want to have something new to boast about far more often if they were focused on keeping up with the two “modern” big thrill parks in Britain.
As such, it appears to me as though nostalgia plays a far more important role in Blackpool’s success than it does at any of the Merlin parks, and they can’t really tap into that without their classic attractions. I could be wrong here, but I get the impression that Blackpool relies far more on repeat custom than Alton & Thorpe due to the fact that it’s in Blackpool. Due to the type of place Blackpool is, people likely go there on holiday every year and do the same things, so Pleasure Beach likely has a lot of people visiting it who are carrying on generations-old family holiday traditions. For instance, I’m thinking that many parents take their kids to Blackpool Pleasure Beach to ride Big Dipper, Grand National et al just as their parents did decades prior, and their parents’ parents did even longer ago and so on. While I’m sure that Alton & Thorpe do have similar visitor groups (although I’m unsure about Thorpe, as the Thorpe of 25 years ago or so was a
very different beast to the Thorpe of today…), I get the impression that Blackpool relies considerably more upon them than the “newer” parks, what with their location within a centuries-old holiday resort and the fact that they don’t really invest in new & hip major attractions on an overly regular basis anymore.
