Blackpool Pleasure Beach: General Discussion

[Spin-Ride-Lover]

Rubbish!
Where is your info coming from? Just a guess? Or are you basing this on rumour and gossip from someone else that is just guessing aswell?
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It's what I have been told be a few people who would rather not name one of which is on this forum!

Rubbish!
Sorry but the "couldn't be insured" theory is just utter nonsense.
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In your opintion.

Regardless is dreadful we lost it but Its gone and never coming back.
And there is ****** all we can do about it unless one of us wins the euro milltions.

Rubbish!
Just been on Nash today. Worst ride I have ever had on it. Back will be sore for several days after that. Not to mention the cricked neck I got half way round. And others on the ride were also far from happy when they got off.
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Where did you sit on the train?

 

[shakey]

Where did you sit on the train?

Middle ish.

I know it's a bit rough but it was horrendous today.


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[Dipper_Dave]

Nash is brutal at times, I love the ride but kind of expect to get my **** kicked by it these days. But I can see why some of the GP would not like it. Honestly, I find it can batter you far more than the ‘uninsurable’ Wild Mouse ever did.

I just hope that the whinging GP who filled out the accident books for Wild Mouse with whiplash and whatever other injury claims, do not start getting on their high horse about Nash now. It is what it is, if you don’t like it, don’t ride it again. Simples

 

[D4n]

Personally I've always found The Big One to be by far the most potentially painful ride at PB, can cause some real back pain from the vibrations on any of the wheel seats especially towards the back. Really nasty.

Never understood the criticism of Nash or Wild Mouse in comparison as they're more of a fun, 'getting thrown around' type of rough which I don't mind so much. Worst case a couple of minor bruises.

I don't know if pre-conceptions come into it at all, especially with non-enthusiasts? Ie, Wild Mouse 'looked' very unsafe and therefore people were more inclined to complain about injuries on it / consider them signs of it being a dangerous ride.

 

[DiogoJ42]

I find it hard to believe anyone would be capable of intentionally "doing something stupid" on Mouse. Self preservation instincts whould force anyone panicing to hold on for dear life!

 

[Benzin]

I find it hard to believe anyone would be capable of intentionally "doing something stupid" on Mouse. Self preservation instincts whould force anyone panicing to hold on for dear life!

Given some ride incidents at various park, the idiocy of guests should not be underestimated...

 

[shakey]

Had a great day out on bank holiday Monday but the park was worryingly quiet considering it was a bank holiday, the sun was out and a new coaster had just opened.

Queue times were very short with most of the coasters only having a few minutes wait. And even Icon hardly ever got beyond a 20 minute queue.

Operations were really good. There were some ride outages, with Dipper, Icon, Nash and Valhalla all having down time at some point during the day but other than that I thought the staff were genuinely trying to get all the coasters out as quick as possible which was good to see.

For reference I would say that a queue all the was back to Icons entrance (which I only saw briefly), is about a 30 minute wait on 2 trains (assuming there are no stoppages).

The only note of concern regarding operations is that I sat in FY4 having lunch and a pint for about 30 minutes and I didn't see a single mouse car go round

I really hope attendances pick up soon though or we may have to wait another 24 years for the next new coaster.

 

[MakoMania]

I have seen 4 TV ads for Wicker Man since Icon opened and none for Icon. Not sure how they are expecting to increase attendance.

 

[Rick]

I have seen 4 TV ads for Wicker Man since Icon opened and none for Icon. Not sure how they are expecting to increase attendance.

I don't know what market you're in but for me it's the opposite.

 

[MakoMania]

I don't know what market you're in but for me it's the opposite.

I'm in the North West, where BPB is.

 

[KarlT]

I agree this is not a good sign (low - average attendances on a hot bank holiday weekend). I've only seen one advert for Icon but several for WM (Sheffield area). On the otherhand I was down at Towers on Sunday and while there were a decent number of people there, it should have been rammed on a weekend like this one.
I do wonder if the #DareToRide tagline was a mistake. For me, Icon is absolutely fantastic, but I'd describe it as a family thrill coaster, which is not really compatible with the tagline, which screams high adrenaline, scary sort of ride to me. That might put the GP off? Not really sure, just speculating.

 

[rob666]

I find it hard to believe anyone would be capable of intentionally "doing something stupid" on Mouse. Self preservation instincts whould force anyone panicing to hold on for dear life!

A story I heard from ride staff on the Mouse towards the end of its beloved time on this planet.
Idiot loses sunglasses/phone/hat on the Mouse on the tight bends.
Goes back on the ride to try to snatch back the said item.
Breaks bones trying.
So the staff ended up shutting the ride and collecting dropped items when requested on h&s grounds.
And as my name has been mentioned more than once...
I never stand up on the National to protect my back, and it would be impossible with the Lapbar and seatbelt anyway.
The National is that rough it ripped my best coaster shorts last time I was on it.
The big one beat me up on an hours ert just the other weekend.
If anyone loses fingers now on the ghost train it is dippys fault, not mine.
And shakey...coasters suddenly beating you up is a sign of advancing age...
Allegedly.

 

[Matt N]

I've only seen one BPB advert this year, and it didn't even feature any mention of Icon whatsoever. Whereas I've seen a good couple of Alton Towers/Wicker Man adverts, including one for the 2017 CBeebies Land rides, which they are still advertising for some reason. I've also seen an advert for Paultons Park and the PPW expansion.

 

[venny]

Didn’t they say they had a marketing budget of £1m+ for this year? Are they waiting for summer to spend the big bucks or is it just being misspent?

 

[Dar]

I remember when I was a kid, there weren't many PBB adverts actually in Blackpool, but there were lots around Manchester? Maybe they've relied on local word of mouth in the past, but now they need to bring in more people and they're not used to having advertise people in?

 

[ScottPBE]

I've actually seen a lot of ICON adverts, saw a few yesterday when in a Southern hotel and have seen it once a night when watching the tele at home in Crewe.

 

[DiogoJ42]

Just seen this blog post about a water feature being removed in London for "elf-un-saiftee". Seems very similar to the one that runs past the front of BPB's Ghost Train (IE, a glorified gutter). I wonder how long that one has left?

 

[Matt N]

On a random, but still BPB-related note, I was just having a random look through the 2006 TEA Theme Index, and there was one figure that particularly caught my eye. Blackpool Pleasure Beach was listed as having 6,000,000 visitors, the same as Universal Studios Florida and 700,000 more than Islands of Adventure. They were also 2nd in Europe behind only the main DLP park. That's pretty staggering stuff for a UK theme park! But they didn't even appear in the 2017 EMEA top 20. So I was just going to ask; what happened to Blackpool over the past 11 years for its attendance number to not even appear in the Theme Index? Why are so few people buying wristbands now? Does anyone know?

 

[Rob]

On a random, but still BPB-related note, I was just having a random look through the 2006 TEA Theme Index, and there was one figure that particularly caught my eye. Blackpool Pleasure Beach was listed as having 6,000,000 visitors, the same as Universal Studios Florida and 700,000 more than Islands of Adventure. They were also 2nd in Europe behind only the main DLP park. That's pretty staggering stuff for a UK theme park! But they didn't even appear in the 2017 EMEA top 20. So I was just going to ask; what happened to Blackpool over the past 11 years for its attendance number to not even appear in the Theme Index? Why are so few people buying wristbands now? Does anyone know?

I have no idea how accurate that 6 million figure is, but I am guessing it was so high because you need not need a ticket to get in to the park. So anyone in Blackpool could just wander through, regardless of whether or not they planned to spend any money whatsoever.

 

[AT86]

On a random, but still BPB-related note, I was just having a random look through the 2006 TEA Theme Index, and there was one figure that particularly caught my eye. Blackpool Pleasure Beach was listed as having 6,000,000 visitors, the same as Universal Studios Florida and 700,000 more than Islands of Adventure. They were also 2nd in Europe behind only the main DLP park. That's pretty staggering stuff for a UK theme park! But they didn't even appear in the 2017 EMEA top 20. So I was just going to ask; what happened to Blackpool over the past 11 years for its attendance number to not even appear in the Theme Index? Why are so few people buying wristbands now? Does anyone know?

This was in the era when you didn’t need a ticket to enter BPB anyone could walk through the turnstiles and then purchase wristbands or ride tickets. This is why the entrance number was so much higher. I remember there being doubts on that number at the time though as to whether it was an accurate reflection on true visitor numbers.