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Blackpool Pleasure Beach: 2025 Discussion

Never really understood why when they removed the old rides from Beaver Creek they felt the need to rebuild them next to Avalanche. Barely seen them operate at all over the period of time they've been in situ.

Good to see the park being open with the ride closures and answering questions (though slightly vaguely) about the river caves. Hoping they can have that open, maybe with a new theme. Sort of odd how that's remained the same as long as I can remember whilst gold mine changed to W&G and the Ghost Train has had all manner of scene changes over the years.
 
Guarantee what happened to Valhalla closed for years and came back as a downgrade the same will happen to River Caves.

What happened to the Gyro they were bragging about with all its height on trucks?

Just because things get removed doesn’t mean they have any future plans? You just have to look at the site for Wild Mouse again years of underinvesting and no forward planning.

The park management and direction has been a shambles for a long time now, they just tell you what you want to hear to keep some hope going thinking there guests are absolute idiots.
I honestly would actually argue they’re worse than Merlin as they only have one park to look after and they struggle to ever generate any growth.
 
On repeat...
The management of the park is not the problem.
They have had lots of very good managers on the park over the years.
The consultants, when paid to inspect, assess and provide good advice, are not the problem.
The problem is the owner of the park, who seems to have little interest in the advice given.

She knows best, we don't understand.
 
TBoy535 said:
What happened to the Gyro they were bragging about with all its height on trucks?
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This never happened.

The video vans around Thorpe Park, for Hyperia's launch, stated "we'll just have to come up with something else then, won't we?".

The Intamin Gyro Swing rumour comes from a Ride Rater article. They use a loan entry round on Companies House as a source, but the loan was very quickly paid back.

Blackpool Pleasure Beach have never said, let alone bragged, that they were getting an Intamin Gyro Swing. That was everyone else.
 
GooseOnTheLoose said:
This never happened.

The video vans around Thorpe Park, for Hyperia's launch, stated "we'll just have to come up with something else then, won't we?".

The Intamin Gyro Swing rumour comes from a Ride Rater article. They use a loan entry round on Companies House as a source, but the loan was very quickly paid back.

Blackpool Pleasure Beach have never said, let alone bragged, that they were getting an Intamin Gyro Swing. That was everyone else.
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I have a feeling this hasn't been dropped but will come in the next couple of years.

There was rumours and discussion of a family coaster coming on the Grand Prix site which with the closures of the rides below Avalanche, it seems to fit in with this. It might also mean Avalanche could be on it's last season but at the same time, I think a family coaster could fit in there.

I think the only surprise was the Gallopers.
 
GooseOnTheLoose said:
The Intamin Gyro Swing rumour comes from a Ride Rater article. They use a loan entry round on Companies House as a source, but the loan was very quickly paid back.
https://riderater.co.uk/12204/gyro-swing-coming-to-blackpool-pleasure-beach/
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What has never been explained is the reason for the charge being so quickly satisfied.

The other, even more interesting, detail which has been overlooked is that for a charge to be made on an asset, BPB Ltd need to have title to said asset. That means they must have or had title to said gyroswing. The satisfaction of the charge doesn’t necessarily mean they no longer have title to the asset, just that the security offered by the charge is no longer required by NatWest, who are one of the park’s regular lenders.
 
So I have just caught up with this thread and the announcement from pleasure beach.

My initial thoughts are that it is going to be another shambolic year .

Yet another year without a full ride offering.

My guess is Nash won't be open for at least a couple of months, and River Caves will be out of action all year.

The decision to not open SkyForce has to be cost cutting. It isn't the best ride but it was another one to the line up.

And it wouldn't surprise me if the dodgems are left to rot all season as well.

I think the best we can hope for is another announcement from the park that something big is coming in the next couple of years, but I won't get my hopes up.

The death spiral continues.
 
I still find it strange that they will leave Skyforce SBNO all season because it has poor throughput and on account of it ‘being 10 years old this year’. What's that got to do with anything? There's not even mention of it needing significant maintenance or anything like that. It just screams of cost cutting and CBA. I suspect we will see much more of both those things this season.

Any thoughts on River Caves? What else can they realistically do in that space? If the issue is water related (supposedly the trough was leaking, but possibly the roof too), I guess they could knock the boats on the head, and make it more of a W&G type car ride or something similar. If they've solved the leak issues they could retain the boats, but re-theme it or majorly update the scenes. I mean it is pretty dated, as much as I love it. Gold Mine was very dated (I still loved it), but keeping the track & layout was a pretty smart move, I always liked the W&G theme, and there should be renewed interest in it all after 'Vengeance Most Fowl'. What do people think will happen with River Caves? I really missed it last season.
 
Dipper_Dave said:
I still find it strange that they will leave Skyforce SBNO all season because it has poor throughput and on account of it ‘being 10 years old this year’. What's that got to do with anything? There's not even mention of it needing significant maintenance or anything like that. It just screams of cost cutting and CBA. I suspect we will see much more of both those things this season.
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It’ll end up being flogged to somewhere like Fantasy Island.
 
Skyforce was a complete waste of money. £2.5m. So thats £250k a year plus running costs for the 10 years it operated.

We may get a car park in its place.

They could have spent £500k on a star flyer which would have been much more popular.
 
shakey said:
Skyforce was a complete waste of money. £2.5m. So thats £250k a year plus running costs for the 10 years it operated.

We may get a car park in its place.

They could have spent £500k on a star flyer which would have been much more popular.
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A car park, a hotel, fountains, or the infamous giant plant pots.

I still chuckle at the old line that Bling was 'replaced by plant pots'.
 
Really surprised Universal ordered two of those rides for Epic Universe. They are dreadful and have huge capacity issues too.

I get that they can be easily themed to Dragons but I wouldn't have gone that way myself.
 
Benjsh said:
Really surprised Universal ordered two of those rides for Epic Universe. They are dreadful and have huge capacity issues too.

I get that they can be easily themed to Dragons but I wouldn't have gone that way myself.
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It's probably smart that Universal did order two of these rides as they'd likely be loading two sides at once so the queue would go down quicker than a single sky fly.

The aesthetics also likely played a role in it too.
 
shakey said:
And it wouldn't surprise me if the dodgems are left to rot all season as well.
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Dodgems have vanished completely from the website now along with all the other attractions in the list.

They still want £200 (okay £199) for a season pass!

shakey said:
Skyforce was a complete waste of money. £2.5m. So thats £250k a year plus running costs for the 10 years it operated.

We may get a car park in its place.

They could have spent £500k on a star flyer which would have been much more popular.
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Heard a few people in the past saying the same thing about Skyforce replaced by hotel car park. Scary part is that its easily done without hindering service access to the park or Burger King :(. Personally, Huge gyro swinging in its place would work. Easily visible from main part of park, great interaction with The Big Ones lift hill and pull people into the hidden away Burger King area (I always forget it their).
 
owenstreet7 said:
It's probably smart that Universal did order two of these rides as they'd likely be loading two sides at once so the queue would go down quicker than a single sky fly.

The aesthetics also likely played a role in it too.
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also it is a unique ride in Orlando theme parks, and I would argue when attending with family or friends it can be fun to challenge people to spin the most, I could see it being very popular at universal
 
Jim said:
Dodgems have vanished completely from the website now along with all the other attractions in the list.
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This sucks. Ok, it's not a major ride, but the place needs fun filler rides like that. It looks like yet another ride that will be removed and not replaced - I mean what else can they do in that space?
 
Dipper_Dave said:
This sucks. Ok, it's not a major ride, but the place needs fun filler rides like that. It looks like yet another ride that will be removed and not replaced - I mean what else can they do in that space?
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how much dose it cost to operate (compared to other rides) I can't imagine the electricity is that high (compared to the big ones lift, stampedes lifts, etc) and it only requires what 1 employee, for an increase in park capacity it makes sense, especially if there is a group who aren't as keen on rides (perhaps it could be used on a non rider pass)
 
Just going back to this:

“In a similar way, this year we’ve made the decision to close some of our smaller, less popular rides during the 2025 season: Eddie Stobart Convoy, Alpine Rallye, Thompson Carousel, Gallopers and Red Arrows Skyforce. The smaller rides were already being run on reduced opening times and our rider data showed that they have some of our lowest throughput, while Skyforce is 10 years old this year.”

So they do use the scanner stats then! I wonder if they take into account the number of days that certain rides are shut when they look at these stats. It might give a somewhat inaccurate picture. Plenty of rides would get people on them if they were actually open - thinking of rides that open very late, shut very early, or are just closed randomly for no apparent reason.

Speaking of which, I'm certain I've seen Gallopers open at 12 and shut at 2. Really, what's the point at all?! Of course less people will scan on that compared to a ride that's open all day. But let's face it, Gallopers is an absolutely crap ride anyway. I rode it once and my feet were touching the ground even when the horse was at its highest point. I certainly don't think they've ever needed that, Thompson Carousel (baby version of Gallopers) and Derby Racer.

I think Alpine Rallye was very age and/or size limited anyway, my kids were turned away from it whilst I thought they'd still be young / small enough to get on it. I guess this only ever opened at peak times / school holidays. Convoy is a strange one, we've been on it, but others days been turned away and told its for kids only, but then loads of times we've seen adults on it. Usual BPB inconsistency really.

Not much to be excited about this season then, at least until these 'big announcements' come, and even then it will take ages for anything new to appear. Glad I only paid £100 on the 'one day only' flash sale when they panicked after drastically raising the price and must've realised many wouldn't pay it
 
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