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Blackpool Pleasure Beach: General Discussion

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I have been visiting BPB for over 30 years and never have I witnessed the kind of farce that took place yesterday.

11-5pm with that number of people is insane, I'd love to know at what point they consider extending these days.
Add to that the following:

Nash down for part of the day
Streak down for part of the day
Dipper down for part of the day
Big One down for part of the day and when it was open its on 1 train with a queue I believe to be around 3 hours.
Icon closed longer than it was open
Sky force and Ghost Train shut all day.

With the exception of the Dipper nothing was on what I consider a satisfactory capacity to deal with that number of people.

BPB needs to look seriously at the way they operate. At very least the hours needed extending yesterday to offer some sort of value for money.

Going forward, I'd rather BPB closed each coaster in turn and sort them so they can hit a desirable capacity, rather than have them throw in new rides which draw in visitors they park can't cope with and in tern level with a negative view of the place.

Very poor show.
 
I don't know why anybody would visit on BPB opening day.
  • Reliability is always questionable
  • WOW weekends, due to the pricing, is often busy but hours are short and throughputs low
  • The place is packed with vloggers and it's all just a bit much
I have learned just to not bother. TP AP day would be another one to just avoid.
 
If Blackpool Pleasure Beach cannot get the park to a suitable level of experience for guests at this time of year then they should do what Alton Towers did and scrap the whole lot and wait till March.

I always used to like going on Nemesis & Co. in February but the park was never at its best.
 
Might interest you all to know that Icon apparently couldn't make it over the first hill yesterday; might that be why it's having so many problems?
 
Matt N said:
Might interest you all to know that Icon apparently couldn't make it over the first hill yesterday; might that be why it's having so many problems?
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Been at pleasure beach all day today and yesterday.

Don't know who started that rumour but as far as I know the only time ICON's not made it was during testing.

Was making an awful sound during the full launches though. It rolled back plenty of times during the tests so everyone and their dog probably has a video of it now.
 
I've seen that a park manager is going around calling customers "tits" and telling them to "deal with it" after waiting 45 minutes for Icon to then be evacuated out of the queue?

If this is the attitude of their managers then no wonder the park is in absolute shambles! They don't even care that they're letting their customers down and are telling them they're wrong for complaining? What the ...!
 
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My two pennorth.
East gate 10.30...exclusive to season pass holders!!!
Twenty people in front, don't think a single one was a season pass holder...all with printouts or cash in hand, so politely dodged the queue, straight to the security guy, who was well aware of the season pass "issue", and allowed me quick entry to get my band at guest services...so no queue to get in, no queue for wristband.
Managed Icon in fifteen minutes...five minutes at the gates waiting, ten minute queue.
Then steeplechase with two in front of me (on 2 tracks), then Streak with a one train wait. Usual excellent first hour on a Sunday!
Then met the charming shakey and little tremble for beer, tried Icon again but down, then a long queue for the Dipper, but that and Avalanche were the only rides running reasonably well.
After that, we checked out the National, which was testing but closed
From the Dipper queue we saw that even the P.B.Express (train) had broken down by Infusion...first time ever I have seen that stuck on the track!
Excellent hand made sandwiches at the champagne bar with zero wait and good service...good suggestion shakey.
Did Infusion with an exit pass, that had been refused on Big One because it was so busy...Big One queue looked to be at least two hours due to speedypassers in large numbers up the exit ramp.
Managed W&G, Icon had reopened, so we queued for an hour before it broke again...so we gave up and visited the W&G "Trumper impersonator" Bernard for another beer at FY4...zero queue.
For opening weekend, we did pretty well, but operations overall were not even average...even allowing for opening weekend.
My suggestion, scrap wristbands completely, the park does not have the capacity to cope on anything other than a quiet day.
Bring back ride tickets,...go back to white knuckle/family books of specific ride tickets (a.b.c.d) give season pass holders half a dozen tickets per day, and scrap speedypass.
That way they might begin to cope...
For a brief overview of today's visit...you will have to go to the pet hates topic.
 
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AstroDan said:
I have to say, reading some social media channels this weekend has been like reading that the weekend went swimmingly for the park.

Odd.
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It's almost like they want to look like angels to park management...

I've also seen a lot of stuff like "An absolutely great day" only to see that that is referring to having fun with the company they were with which seems a very odd way of reviewing a day. It's like saying I was stuck in a cave for two weeks but I had some great company, still doesn't make the situation any less dire / bleak.

Surely, any time you go anywhere you should be with people you enjoy being with...
 
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ThisGuy said:
Been at pleasure beach all day today and yesterday.

Don't know who started that rumour but as far as I know the only time ICON's not made it was during testing.

Was making an awful sound during the full launches though. It rolled back plenty of times during the tests so everyone and their dog probably has a video of it now.
Click to expand...
Ah right. Thanks for the clarification @ThisGuy; weren't those as part of testing the LSMs before the ride even made its first full circuit?
 
Not paid, just blatant fanboyism, wanting to suck up or part of the 'best day eva' brigade even at its worse.

As for who said it? Every man and his dog with a Go-Pro or vlogging camera.
 
Coaster said:
I've seen that a park manager is going around calling customers "tits" and telling them to "deal with it" after waiting 45 minutes for Icon to then be evacuated out of the queue?

If this is the attitude of their managers then no wonder the park is in absolute shambles! They don't even care that they're letting their customers down and are telling them they're wrong for complaining? What the ...!
Click to expand...
Singular tit was the accusation
 
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Here's my review of today....

Arrived at 10:30am. Picked up season passes in about 10 minutes, then another 10 minutes to get into park.

Did the following...
Ice Blast
Streak
Avalanche
Grand Prix
Drink with Rob in Crevettes
Big Dipper
Flying Machines
Lunch in cafe under flying machines
Infusion (with cheeky passes. Cheers Rob)
Wallace and Gromit
50 minute queue for icon which broke before we could ride it.
Pint in FY4.
Free photo at the fountains.

I thoroughly enjoyed my day out despite the wasted 50 minute queue for icon. Still got 8 rides in (and stopped riding an hour before close) so £2.50 per ride if i was paying to get in and could have easily done a few more if i really wanted to.

Yes I could criticise the park... Nash, ghost train and sky force were shut all day, Infusion and big one had ridiculous queues due to one train operation, and most of the other rides broke down at some point, some for most of the day (including icon).

Shame I didn't get to ride Big One or Icon, but I still had a good day with good company.

Still no sign of wild mouse being fixed yet by the way !!!!









Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk
 
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