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Blackpool Pleasure Beach: 2023 Discussion

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Rick said:
It's barely run successfully from the day it was built !
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I have had at least three rides when all the effects worked.
AT86 said:
Do BPB not get much involved in the school trip market? Towers is stacked at this time of year - you would think Blackpool would want some of that to fill up these quiet midweek days.
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Yup, they are busy(ish) with them now.
They don't do the kiddie rides, and most are gone around 3.
The kid rides have rarely fully opened in termtime.
That bit is always a midweek ghost town until the holidays.
 
AT86 said:
Do BPB not get much involved in the school trip market? Towers is stacked at this time of year - you would think Blackpool would want some of that to fill up these quiet midweek days.
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Yes, loads of school trips on some days. My last visit the place was like a youth club, but very few visitors apart from that and very few queues.
School trips also tend to leave the park between 3 and 4pm

EDIT: @rob666 beat me to it so this post can be deleted.
 
When was the system introduced where you need to scan your ticket (aka phone) on every ride? I'm guessing back when you could have multiple ticket types?

In theory using a phone to either buy a day ticket or ride tickets seems like a good way to manage multiple ticket options. Except for pay per ride isn't a thing at the moment so all it really means is you have to get your phone out right at the point you should be putting it away. Why have this system in use when pay on entry is the only option? Would save on staff maning the system.
 
I'm pretty sure that came in at the exact same time they scrapped the pay-per-ride option. No idea what their reasoning is - I've not visited since it came in but it does seem an utterly pointless exercise. Maybe it has the capability to allow pay-per-ride and they've just chosen not to implement that yet?

Next time I go I'm tempted to print off the QR(?) code and turn it into a home-made wristband just to make a point
 
Oh well, there's no need to worry, it's only a week till the hot ice show opens!! I am sure that will rake in millions !!

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The system of scanning your phone came in for the 2021 season.

During the post-covid 2020 season, it was POP but with no scanning on any of the rides. If they’re going for a POP system, they should have stuck with the no scanning.

But for reasons known only to a few people at BPB, scanning your phone came in for 2021, and since the introduction of this system, I’ve only visited the park once, which is really saying something since I used to visit easily 4 or 5 times a year.

This ridiculous system, together with last minute changes in opening times, early closure of rides without warning, general poor operations, and now the return of being able to travel abroad makes visiting BPB a massively unappealing proposition for me.

I recently got a Eurostar over to Belgium and spent a weekend visiting parks over there, for less money than what a weekend in Blackpool would have cost me. I say this because, for as long as BPB insist on keeping their prices high and their service standards low, I have no reason to visit, especially when there are more appealing alternatives available.
 
I wonder how many people, like me are holding off their visit to Pleasure Beach this year until Valhalla has opened. Its quite a long way for me so travel costs would be expensive so I usually only go Blackpool once a year but with the promise of Valhalla returning this year I'm not going to go until thats opened, I also try and avoid holidays so at this rate I probably won't be visiting until September this year. Maybe Valhalla will see a rise in attendance once that reopens?
 
Does anybody actually think Valhalla will open this year? I really wouldn't be surprised if it gets held off until next year now. For one of the wettest rides in the county it's still not opened and it's the 1st July today, they've already missed most of the good weather this year. Enso has already flopped so it wouldn't shock me if they held off (again) and opened it as next year's new attraction.
 
1/2 weeks till the Scottish Holidays start (Huge income for the PB) and 2/3 weeks until the English ones start.

It's not like they have had over 2 years to get this thing back open is it? Probably tried doing it on the cheap no doubt and found that isn't possible hence the delays.
 
It does seem like the ride is testing rather late into 2022 for it to be a 2022 opening, but stranger things have happened; seeing as it’s allegedly been testing for a few weeks, the ride could be open by the end of July for all we know!

One more minor thing I hope new Valhalla provides is bag storage on the platform. If the wetness is anything like what it was before, then I think valuables potentially being damaged by being taken on board is a potential concern. Particularly if BPB insists on you scanning your phone on each ride; if that’s in place, you can’t just bung everything in a locker before queueing or whatever.

Stormforce 10 at Drayton Manor has on platform bag storage, and that worked really well; I got pretty wet on there, but my stuff was fine!

I’ve never been so wet in my life as the first and last time I rode old Valhalla in 2019… it made SF10 look positively dry in comparison, and even though it was a near 30 degree day, I came off literally shivering and feeling like I’d just swum in the Arctic Ocean…
 
I think Valhalla will be open for the summer holidays. There seems little point in testing it now if its not going to open for another 12 months.

Also you would have thought the park would have made an announcement by now if it wasn't going to open (but this is PB so who knows)

The question is , will anyone be able to spot any differences when it does re-open ?
 
pjanvil said:
I wonder how many people, like me are holding off their visit to Pleasure Beach this year until Valhalla has opened. Its quite a long way for me so travel costs would be expensive so I usually only go Blackpool once a year but with the promise of Valhalla returning this year I'm not going to go until thats opened, I also try and avoid holidays so at this rate I probably won't be visiting until September this year. Maybe Valhalla will see a rise in attendance once that reopens?
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If I hadn't been in the area I'd have definitely waited until Valhalla reopened. It might be stupid wet but there's no other ride like it.

siralgenon said:
Does anybody actually think Valhalla will open this year? I really wouldn't be surprised if it gets held off until next year now. For one of the wettest rides in the county it's still not opened and it's the 1st July today, they've already missed most of the good weather this year. Enso has already flopped so it wouldn't shock me if they held off (again) and opened it as next year's new attraction.
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Has Enso flopped? It might not have increased attendance but at £15/£25 a go (and I only saw it run empty a few times during my brief visit) it's got to have paid for itself many times over at this point.
 
ENSO: is it a flop? It depends on how you measure a flop, but I’d say the fact that it doesn’t even operate for large parts of the time gives you an indication on how popular it is. I can’t imagine that BPB would have wanted it to be so unpopular that they weren’t even operating it for large parts of a day.

Valhalla: I can’t quite believe there’s been such scant build up to the reopening. After over two years of messing around, you would have thought they’d have gotten their act together to start building anticipation. I don’t think the very loose timeline for construction has helped, but that’s not an excuse. From a perspective of opening, one would have thought they’d have wanted to get this open for the start of July, if not before. I think the reality is that they’re still not finished.

Park generally: the mid week closures, changes to opening times etc are not new, but previously they were starting from a better position, for example only a few years ago they were trimming weekday hours from 8pm to 7pm. It seems like we’re now pretty close to the bottom of the barrel, but the cuts continue. Given the combination of pricing, operations, opening hours etc, I struggle to say they didn’t have this period of low attendance coming. Personally, I’ve only visited twice so far this year, whereas I’d normally be on visit 6 or 7.

I’m sure they’ll claw back some revenue in the traditional busy times of summer and Illuminations, but the constant management fumbling really does make you question where the long term future lies.

It’s been said here before, but in an age of online reviews and instantaneous feedback, will there really be another fresh set of punters to rip off next year?
 
Totally agree with this. Even as recently as 10 years ago, they’d have been ok with the ‘well if you don’t like, don’t come back’ attitude towards customer service. But not now. They really need to pull their finger out.
 
Is it me, or is the Big Blue Hotel surprisingly cheap for an on-site hotel?

I was looking into possibly going to Blackpool in September and staying there for a night, and it was only £76.50 for the night, which I thought was incredibly cheap for a theme park hotel! For some idea, that was cheaper per night than the Premier Inn in Pickering when I was looking into going to Flamingo Land, as well as quite possibly the Premier Inn in Blackpool too.

I did look at their packages that included park tickets, but the room with a wristband was £120 and only included 1 day of admission, so I worked out that it would be cheaper for me to just pay for the 2 days of wristbands (well, 2 wristbands, as it would only be me going) separately.
 
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Blackpool has thousands upon thousands of rooms, mass supply means cheap prices when general demand is low...staycation is over.
Shame there isn't competition for amusement parks in Blackpool as well.
And Venny, when was the year when the Beach didn't basically screw their punters over?
Before my time even!
Fresh bunch of mugs washes in with each tide from July to November, every year.
Grandparents want to take the grandkids to the same place they got ripped off all those years ago.
 
To be fair £76 is absurdly cheap for Big Blue, they’ve certainly dropped from what they used to be previously!

I guess BLVD opening made them reconsider the cost, but even that’s £103. Admittedly it’s a weekday but still, not bad at all!

As much as there’s a lot of B&Bs in the area, many are reluctant to stay in them (I’m picky to be honest) so the chain/higher end hotels are still able to charge a premium. The travelodge and premier inns are rarely cheap for that reason, so looks a good deal!
 
Could the drop in hotel prices be why the park has raised entry prices so much? So the rise in park entry is offset by a decline in hotel prices?

That could be a lucrative business model in a place like Blackpool, to be fair; I can imagine there’s a lot of demand for accommodation from Blackpool holidaymakers who might not necessarily want a theme park visit.
 
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