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Blackpool Pleasure Beach: 2023 Discussion

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Rob F said:
So my first trip to pleasure beach in a number of years, this will be from a different perspective as we had 2/3yr old in tow, but wow those rose tinted glasses are deffo out in force among the pleasure beach’s staff.

1st we have push trikes for both children, they can only be moved/ steered by the adult… trikes are banned on park as they have peddles, they are not actual propelling peddles like a bike.

These are banned on park apparently but are actually no different to a buggy, other than size, this left us with no buggy (as it was at home in London) really useful with a 2yr old.

You have to pay for a 2yr old like nearly £40 yikes, I've yet to come across a park where a small child has to pay nearly the same as an adult. ??

Loads of rides that are suitable for her either completely closed or on stupidly reduced capacity. We spent the 1st half of the day negotiating queues, stupidly long and with my partners health, opted to spend the money for there equivalent of RAP, yes you have to pay for it if you want to ride together.

I don't know if its just me, but the pleasure beach need to get the ride cars refurbished/ back in use. So many just seemed to be on low low capacity. Grand prix spent moat of the day closed and was on 7 cars when it did open on about 100 people per hour ! The queue was most likely 1.5-2h long down the path with 50% speedy pass.

So for just the kids rides, as much as I wanted to do the big rides over £150, just seems totally unjustified.

Closed kids rides
Dora,
Crusty crab
Submarine ride
Alpine rally
Thomsons carousel
Impossible
Grand prix (most of day )

Please tell me I’m not crazy by thinking the above is abit OTT
Click to expand...

That's pretty bad to have that many rides closed in peak season.

2 year olds used to get the free non rider entry and I think they got a few ride tickets thrown in aswell (Could be wrong about that bit).

With the current system they should be charging much less for pre school kids. Especially with the amount of kiddy rides they had shut.

More great PR for the pleasure beach !! It's like they want the place to go under!!



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A completely reasonable perspective. With the entry prices charged you’re well within your right to expect rides to be open and capacity to be good enough to allow you to enjoy your day.

My experience of the park this year has been poor. Even with staffing problems and whatever other excuses there are, there appear to be some completely avoidable operational issues which nobody seems to want to address. It’s gotten to the point where I fear that these poor experiences are going to effect repeat visitation. The park has a sense of decline and the ongoing Valhalla and social media debacles have only served to reinforce this.
 
Rob F said:
So my first trip to pleasure beach in a number of years, this will be from a different perspective as we had 2/3yr old in tow, but wow those rose tinted glasses are deffo out in force among the pleasure beach’s staff.

1st we have push trikes for both children, they can only be moved/ steered by the adult… trikes are banned on park as they have peddles, they are not actual propelling peddles like a bike.

These are banned on park apparently but are actually no different to a buggy, other than size, this left us with no buggy (as it was at home in London) really useful with a 2yr old.

You have to pay for a 2yr old like nearly £40 yikes, I've yet to come across a park where a small child has to pay nearly the same as an adult. ??

Loads of rides that are suitable for her either completely closed or on stupidly reduced capacity. We spent the 1st half of the day negotiating queues, stupidly long and with my partners health, opted to spend the money for there equivalent of RAP, yes you have to pay for it if you want to ride together.

I don't know if its just me, but the pleasure beach need to get the ride cars refurbished/ back in use. So many just seemed to be on low low capacity. Grand prix spent moat of the day closed and was on 7 cars when it did open on about 100 people per hour ! The queue was most likely 1.5-2h long down the path with 50% speedy pass.

So for just the kids rides, as much as I wanted to do the big rides over £150, just seems totally unjustified.

Closed kids rides
Dora,
Crusty crab
Submarine ride
Alpine rally
Thomsons carousel
Impossible
Grand prix (most of day )

Please tell me I’m not crazy by thinking the above is abit OTT
Click to expand...

Wow! What the hell has happened to the park which I used to love?!

It’s shocking to hear that so many kids rides were closed, despite the fact that 2 year olds are being charged.

Speedy Pass on Grand Prix? Seriously? One of the lowest capacity rides in the UK? This is truly shocking. I never even realised that this ride offered Speedy Pass, but wow, what a disgusting attitude to guests standing in the queue which barely moves even without Speedy Pass.

And hearing of all those rides closed in Nickelodeon Land. Nick Land used to feel like the one area they were proud of, and all rides would be open, now it sounds like half of it is shut. I wonder how Nickelodeon would react if they were aware of their brand being represented in this way.

I know that a lot of people on this forum keep telling me that BPB has always been bad, but I’m sorry, all aspects of the park and it’s operations have definitely gone downhill very, very quickly since 2020.

What a joke. I’m so sorry to hear about your experience. There’s no excuse for most of what you’ve described.
 
Enter Valhalla said:
What a joke. I’m so sorry to hear about your experience. There’s no excuse for most of what you’ve described.
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You would have to assume that the only reason for keeping so many rides shut or opening them late/closing them early on peak days, would be that they literally can't afford to pay the staff or run the rides. I can understand having a few rides shut off peak but shutting them on peak school holiday days is extremely worrying. I think at this point it is also a pretty safe bet that the Valhalla situation is a lot to do with their lack of finances.
 
If things got drastic (not unexpectedly) I could see them taking the easy way out and mumbling about Covid, Brexit and energy prices, but I'm not sure there's anything happening that wouldn't be happening, except it's happening faster. Icon's failure was the start of major problems.
 
Tbh, there was work happening on a couple of rides that were closed, I do understand the nature of rides and unexpected closures, but it seemed to take the understanding of these things happen to being such a negative experience.

Staff have said Dora has been closed more than open this year.
 
shakey said:
I can understand having a few rides shut off peak but shutting them on peak school holiday days is extremely worrying.
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It’s actually kind of sad that we’ve got so used to BPB’s shoddy operations that we are even ok with having a few rides closed off peak.

When you think about it, that isn’t acceptable, but BPB have been doing it for so long now that it’s become the norm, and it’s now crept into peak days too.

Guests pay the same price whenever they visit the park. It could be that an off-peak day is their only opportunity to visit the park, so its not at all unreasonable that they should expect every ride to be open. It being an off peak day is irrelevant.

BPB isn’t a year round park. They have a closed season in which to do maintenance. It’s really sad that BPB have got us into this mindset of accepting ride closures as the norm.
 
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Maintenance???
The majority are just bloody closed mate!
The Grand Prix is much loved by kids large (some very large) and small, but it usually opens for two or three hours a day, with a true throughput of about sixty punters an hour, if it opens at all.
We have used standard speedypass on a busy day to be told the queue was two hours.
The queue was within the gate, about thirty people.
We "tagged" the people at the back of the queue, while we were in the virtual queue from Crevettes for the two hours.
We got on the ride bang on two hours, in our exact place in the real queue.
Shocking service, but hey...Mandy says fine.
 
2023 opening times are now on the pleasure beach website.

Mid March opening next year. I don't think that's a bad thing .

Yet another squeeze on the hours though and apart from just a few days it's pretty much all 5pm closes until July. So I'm assuming that's half the rides closing at 4pm !!

Similar prices to this year. £39 if booked well in advance for most days with a few cheaper ones.

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Are WOW Weekends not a thing next year, then?

Probably not a bad thing if not, in all honesty. I know a lot of people like the February opening at BPB, but I get the impression that the park often really struggles to open everything on time when they open in February, so hopefully moving the opening back to March should negate that issue.
 
The early openings were quite busy, then it became full price dead very quickly.
Covid gone, pricing structure needs to change, current model does not seem sustainable.
The Hot Ice financial burden needs stopping.
With occasional checks on the booking site, I would say the show has been running with 10% attendance most days.
The park seems to be heavily subsidising a show that nobody has wanted to see for decades.
 
The signs aren’t good are they?

With Wow Weekends, it feels like they’ve lost their way. Back when it was £10 wristbands, the place was regularly packed. Not all the rides were available but you’ve only paid £10 so it’s understandable. It feels like they’ve quadrupled the price whilst still operating on the £10 model and then wondered why they have so few visitors.

Given they are a small company, they should be using that advantage to be adept and dynamic with how they present, price and operate their product. I’m not sure any of that is happening. They seem totally intransigent to changing things which don’t work. It’s a baffling example of self harm.
 
Just had the season pass renewel email.

£99 !!

Bargain



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I got it too. I'm a little salty about it as my main purpose for getting a pass this year was because I planned to stay a night or two when Valhalla launched at the very least. However I have to say I've had my money's worth still luckily, delays happen and things go wrong, but when their own marketing and news influenced the purchase it stings a bit.
 
Rick said:
I'm still paying less in 2023 that I did in 2003. I wish someone could explain the economics of that to me.

But whatever, sign me up.
Click to expand...

I suspect two things:

The cash flow advantage of selling it this early at the reduced price.

The volume-price ratio.
 
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