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Blackpool Pleasure Beach: General Discussion

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shakey said:
Well if we are dreaming, just remove Valhalla and rebuild the wild mouse in the dark - or bring back the fun house.

I do actually think that Valhalla may be the next major ride to be removed/replaced, although it could still be a few years away. If you look at what else they could replace, it is either listed or wouldn't really free up much space so it's going to be either Valhalla or Infusion, and I suspect that Infusion is much cheaper to maintain and keep running.
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Valhalla - either get stuff working inside it or bin it. Actually TBH I couldn't give a monkeys as I've all but given up riding it. What bugs me more than which effects are / aren't working are the corners after each lift hill, that massive knee-bashing you get along with a bucket full of water dumped on you. Also that jerky turn after the turntable, when you set off again going forwards. Am I right in thinking that different boats have ended up running on it to what was originally intended by the manufacturer, and that's why they corner like turds?

I have no affection whatsoever for Infusion, so I would love a water coaster to replace it. It would also be good to get a massive, Hurakan Condor style drop tower, though its highly unlikely.
 
Valhalla is an incredibly frustrating ride - it has flashes of brilliance but the overall package is a total mess. It's unreliable, low capacity and uncomfortable, before we even get started on how unnecessarily wet it is. Most people probably don't know that the ride is designed so that boats don't go down the 2 main (adjacent) drops at the same time to avoid soaking riders with the splash from another boat - seemingly a pointless concern given how wet the ride is anyway.

The reliance on a small number of set-piece effects inevitably leaves huge gaps in the ride when something isn't working and I don't see how they can sort the ride out without ripping out most of what's in there now and starting again entirely with the theming.

I'd enjoy it more if they just replaced the water effects with dry effects though - the drops are wet enough without anything else.
 
One of the main problems with Valhalla is that the effects are the whole point. Each scene has its effect and nothing else to distract the eye. If the river of fire isn't working, for example, you just float through an dark, empty bit of the ride with no extra themeing to hide the fact the main effect isn't working.

I do wonder how long the ride has left, either as a whole or before effects are removed. I'm sure it made loads of sense to have a finale that uses nearly £500 worth of gas an hour when the ride cost £6 per rider, 10 boats an hour and it's in profit, but not so much when each rider has got a wristband that contributes less than 50p per ride a day (-ish, give or take some business knowledge)
 
Dar said:
One of the main problems with Valhalla is that the effects are the whole point. Each scene has its effect and nothing else to distract the eye. If the river of fire isn't working, for example, you just float through an dark, empty bit of the ride with no extra themeing to hide the fact the main effect isn't working.

I do wonder how long the ride has left, either as a whole or before effects are removed. I'm sure it made loads of sense to have a finale that uses nearly £500 worth of gas an hour when the ride cost £6 per rider, 10 boats an hour and it's in profit, but not so much when each rider has got a wristband that contributes less than 50p per ride a day (-ish, give or take some business knowledge)
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But they do make quite a lot of money from £2 plastic bags that the majority of riders buy.

One reason for them to keep the ride so wet I suppose.

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Valhalla can actually achieve a pretty good throughput.

When running at it’s full capacity of 20 boats, it can get 2000 per hour. Of course it never does but I’ve seen it run 11 on peak days.

The main problem of this is that it results in more than one boat being in each section at a time, which often means that effects don’t trigger as often as they would on 4 or 6 boats.
 
Valhalla can only have about 3 boats on each upper level, I've no idea how it was ever supposed to fit 20 around the ride but due to the block system (of sorts) the reliability plummets if they go over about 10, the most I've ever seen them run is 12.
 
They do actually have loads of space if you include all their car parks but I guess they generate too much cash to ever consider putting rides on them.

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John said:
Valhalla can only have about 3 boats on each upper level, I've no idea how it was ever supposed to fit 20 around the ride but due to the block system (of sorts) the reliability plummets if they go over about 10, the most I've ever seen them run is 12.
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Same as any log flume runs 20+ boats. It’s harder to do with Valhalla due to the various turntables but the transitions are fairly quick meaning that even when running around 15 boats there shouldn’t be too much stacking in each section, in theory.

It’s pretty ridiculous how these days it tends to only run 4-6, it can only be getting around 400 per hour, especially now that some of the boats have changed to six seaters.
 
But it only gets a real queue on very warm days...usually there are three a year in Blackpool.
Most days it either has no queue or a ten minute one max, apart from the end of the day when it may get a little longer.
Capacity is rarely an issue. Wonky effects is the issue.
Scrap it, put the mouse in one corner in the dark, and all the fun house rides back in the rest of the space.
Get round the h&s nightmare by wrapping everyone in bubblewrap on the way in.
 
Are they giving out free return visits? It’s great they made the effort to open.

Avalanche, PMBO, Dodgems, Dora Voyage, Flying Machines, Grand Prix, Ice Blast, Rugrats lost river - closed
 
ScottPBE said:
Pleasure Beach was very, very quiet yesterday and today, there was absolutely no need to be open later than 4pm.
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It does make a mockery of the “earliest ride close time” though. They should learn from it and instead state 4pm earliest ride close from the outset and then extend if it is busy.
 
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