It has been a while since we’ve had a “Pleasure Beach is on the verge of closure/Merlin are buying the park” discussion.
In regards last week in particular, it’s true to say it’s been quieter than one would usually expect, since it’s half term. However, one of the reasons is that the half term week has unusually been split over this week and next, depending on schools. This has meant the crowds have equally been split. The park, originally scheduled to be closed, is actually open all this week because of the split half terms and there are a fair few people around because of it.
It’s correct to say there’s been minimal investment in recent years post-Icon, although a lot of those years have been covid-filled, until Valhalla returned this year, with the Loki’s refresh. That of course excludes the new hotel and coming associated units being built on Ocean Boulevard.
There’s minimal noise about new rides, but the park don’t need planning permission for most rides, so it would be reasonably easy to bring something in pretty quickly if they wanted to. We’ve also seen reasonable profitability across the group, especially when you consider the misinformed reading of the park’s accounts by so many, so I would expect capital to be available (and in fact we know it is from the accounts). Whilst I’ve got no real idea of whether we’ll see something in the near future, the availability of funds would not be the sole reason if we were not to see anything new.
As for a take-over, be very careful what you wish for. There are (and have been for many years) a lot of operational issues with the park; they’ve been overlooked by many for just as long. Equally, there are some pretty big operational issues at other UK parks. Hoping for the washing away of an independently owned business to be replaced by the sterility of Merlin though is ridiculously short sighted. Besides the fact that it’s very unlikely Merlin would ever buy the park (even if it were for sale), if they did end up running it, expect to see the disappearance of all the unique food outlets and Aramark slop to be imported, RAP lines everywhere, the shuttering of many of the more difficult to maintain rides and the total destruction of the excellent quality at the hotels. The very last thing we need is for the monopoly of the UK theme park business to be extended even further. It’s not exactly been healthy for our country’s theme park industry over the last two decades.
Be careful in being influenced by short sighted vloggers. Their opinions are often more related to which attractions have most recently provided them with freebies, rather than a properly informed and considered analysis of the issues.
