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Blackpool Pleasure Beach: General Discussion

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Unicorns_are_lovely said:
I'm intrigued by what this means MattN? What element of the ride experience was running better on opening day than through last year?
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What I mean is that I heard someone who rode it on opening weekend in the morning and said it was running faster than they would have expected for a morning run. This person had also ridden it last year.
Dipper_Dave said:
I’m not sure why the ride experience would be better now on season opening weekend than it was last Autumn after running daily for a few months
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There have been cases in the past where coasters have bedded in and gotten faster over time. I think I once heard that Helix at Liseberg had wiped a good couple of seconds off its ride duration between 2014 and 2016, and I've also heard people say that Mako at SeaWorld Orlando has gotten faster since it opened.
 
Regarding the quoted 'facts' they are many many years out of date (and even then seem hard to believe) the 3 big wooden coasters did at one time have bulbs attached to the handrails, these were removed and replaced by rope lights, before being removed altogether now.

Also the Rev did have Bulbs at one point
 
I guess maybe the entirety of the Illuminations perhaps went through this many bulbs. Certainly not Pleasure Beach.

They have always been good at massaging their facts though - see Big One’s height and its worlds tallest record lasting until about 2005 or the claimed visitor figures in the 90s.

As for Icon’s ride experience, I’d take this with a large pinch of salt. Given it will be an opinion likely based on a single ride, in a specific seat and attempting to compare to the same ride at least 3.5 months ago, it’s almost certainly not to be relied upon.

There is of course merit in the claim that the ride has sped up, but this could be seen last year. That comes from it running in, but given it’s been stood still for several months, there can be little if any noticeable increase in running speed versus the end of last season. If anything, I’d expect that the long period of winter inactivity would mean it starts a little slower this season than it was running at the end of last.
 
Maybe instead of calling it woeful I mean wow weekends they should call it something like Staff Training weekend to be more transparent to the GP? I understand how operations are going to be much slower at the start, I don’t understand how their flagship coaster keeps breaking down unless they didn’t put in enough pre season testing
And as for running coasters on one train when they had a good idea how busy it would be before I don’t understand.


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Behind the scenes cutbacks...particularly to the engineering department, means a large number of the rides had only one train ready for service.
This was Icons first winter break...modern machines with fancy technical bits don't like salt or sand blown in on gales.
Blackpool has lots and lots of sand, salt and gales.
Not excusing it, and after the bucketloads of grief the park has taken on social media, hopefully a lesson has been learnt for next year.
 
rob666 said:
Behind the scenes cutbacks...particularly to the engineering department, means a large number of the rides had only one train ready for service.
This was Icons first winter break...modern machines with fancy technical bits don't like salt or sand blown in on gales.
Blackpool has lots and lots of sand, salt and gales.
Not excusing it, and after the bucketloads of grief the park has taken on social media, hopefully a lesson has been learnt for next year.
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Not quite "the same as every other year" then Rob?
 
rob666 said:
Not excusing it, and after the bucketloads of grief the park has taken on social media, hopefully a lesson has been learnt for next year.
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They really should use February to sort all this stuff out; get more than one train serviceable on all coasters (not Rev) & iron out any technical problems with rides. I agree that as they had a very good idea of guest numbers, they should have been better prepared. I am not a fan of Speedy Pass in general but really, it should not be used on Wow weekends.

I don’t have a huge amount of sympathy for enthusiasts who queue for 120 minutes to ride The Big One. Of course I’d love to see it run 2 trains all the time but without opening that can of worms again, it simply isn’t gonna happen. @MakoMania the GP won’t realise The Big One is only running one train until they get into the station, but enthusiasts know well before this. You chose to still ride it and be stuck in a lengthy queue.

As much as I enjoy that ride, there is simply no way I would join a massive queue on one train ops with likelihood of an exit ramp half full of speedy passers. If you choose to still ride it, that’s 2 hours out of your day at your own choosing. Each to his own but personally I’d rather go on something else, go for a walk or chill out then waste 2 hours in a PMBO queue
 
Dipper_Dave said:
@MakoMania The Big One is only running one train until they get into the station, but enthusiasts know well before this. You chose to still ride it and be stuck in a lengthy queue.
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I was visiting with first timer non-enthusiasts. They wanted to ride PMBO, I did warn them about the wait. Queue was probably increased by 30-40 minutes by Speedy Passers, I did not know that they ran Speedy Pass during wow weekends, I thought low ride capacity would've put a stop to it; clearly not.

Before PMBO we tried to ride Icon, Revolution, Steeplechase & Avalanche but unfortunately we were either turned away or evacuated from every single one of them, there really was not much choice but to join the queue for PMBO.
 
Coaster said:
Not quite "the same as every other year" then Rob?
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Well Jamie...
I didn't go on the first day, despite being a happy clapper, because I knew how crap opening day operations are.
They were.
I tend to go on the second day, because things are generally a bit better.
They were.
Three coasters in the first hour, excellent company with good mates, zero queues at the bar, zero queue for good quality fresh food made for us as we waited, nice new merchandise to buy. Bloody good day out, with mates who felt the same.
The sheeple queued for hours for rides I never queue for more than twenty minutes for...nobody forced them to...but the queue for the Dipper was less than half an hour all day, Avalanche similar.
Yes operations were worse than usual for opening day, but it was twice as busy as last year...if not three times as busy...so big queues were expected...and there were warnings in advance of how busy it would be on here.
And at the end of the day, many people felt they didn't really get good value for money...same as an awful lot of previous years.
Opening weekend always has a number of issues.
This year was no exception.
Many people moaned about it on social media, including large numbers who weren't there who found the situation completely unacceptable.
Same as most opening weekends.
Digidetox month is nearly here...party.
 
MakoMania said:
I was visiting with first timer non-enthusiasts. They wanted to ride PMBO, I did warn them about the wait. Queue was probably increased by 30-40 minutes by Speedy Passers, I did not know that they ran Speedy Pass during wow weekends, I thought low ride capacity would've put a stop to it; clearly not.

Before PMBO we tried to ride Icon, Revolution, Steeplechase & Avalanche but unfortunately we were either turned away or evacuated from every single one of them, there really was not much choice but to join the queue for PMBO.
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Fair enough. Sounds like a poor day all round. I’ve just lost count of the number of enthusiasts who moan about a 2-3 hour queue for PMBO. Nobody makes them join said queue! Go on a different ride or do something else, it’s not rocket science.

Thinking about speedy pass, I am not a fan of the concept of it, but if it didn’t exist then those people would be in the normal queue with the paupers anyway, thus making the main queue bigger. Everyone is getting on the ride regardless of whether they’ve done a paid queue jump or not. It just seems worse when you’re close to getting on the front car of PMBO and then you have to wait for speedy passers to get on, right under your nose. Like I said though, everyone’s getting on the ride. Is there much difference between approaching a ride and saying “Oh no, it looks a 90 minute queue, then add 30 on for the speedy passers” or “Oh no, there’s loads of people here, that looks like a 2 hours queue” ?

As for ‘large numbers of people moaning about opening weekend operations, who weren’t even there’, this does seem pretty ridiculous. Perhaps next time something negative happens at Alton or Thorpe (parks I don’t visit often), when I am a couple of hundred miles away, I should join social media and have a good whinge at said places. Yeah right
 
There is no question in my mind that this was the worst opening weekend I have ever attended, and I was around in the 50p weekend's.

BPB senior management need a massive shake up, and the owners are the ones to do it. I however have a feeling that won't happen.

BPB have for many years now intentionally or otherwise crippled the capacity of the park to the point where it now can no longer cope with a few thousand people. The only way to obtain value for money and stand a chance of getting around rides with that kind of operation is to be open longer, and quite honestly, I'd be ready to commit murder had I been there much longer.

Not only have the rides in operation had capacity cut but the removal of other filler rides without replacement's has created a scenario where if the Nash and Valhalla go down, North park looks very sparse without the likes of the Ark, Trauma Towers, Superbowl and the Black Hole to soak up the crowds.

A combination of many different things have lead to this rather unfortunate situation, and for things to stand any chance of improving, the owners need to see things are not as perfect as they like to think they are, and make the necessary changes, and I for one don't see that happening any time soon.
 
I love how they proclaim in that info pack that Valhalla is 'the biggest, most spectacular dark ride ever to be constructed by mankind.'

The biggest it most certainly is not. I would love to know by what they are measuring biggest by.

Some of the show buildings that house some of the largest dark rides in other parts of the world are much larger (in volume & building height) than Valhalla. Jurassic Park River Adventure has a taller building. POTC in DLP quite clearly has a much larger show building by volume.

Biggest by scene size or complexity? Nope. Any large European or American dark ride puts the scenery to shame on this in many ways. Including size, complexity and SFX.

Maybe it is the biggest by track length or drop height?.....Nope. Jurassic Park River adventure has a taller drop. Splash Mountain is a much longer ride.


Now, while it is a subjectively spectacular ride, with an impressive waterfall front. The ride is not the biggest and in my opinion not the most spectacular when measured up against a large amount of dark rides on the planet. In it's own right though, it is a good ride. I don't doubt that. Just dispute their overhyped claims.
 
I wasn't at BPB at the weekend. However if I had have been it would have been a one off and I would have had to travel long distances and spend a lot of money to get there. I would have been disgusted if that had have been the case.

Alton Towers is much the same. Opening day at AT was a disaster 2 years ago and again I would have been disgusted if I had went to the effort and expense to get there for a rubbish day.

I have had a few visit to towers mid season were operations were awful with a lot of downtime on rides. Free fastrack seems to be towers answer to the problem but all that does is cause queues on other rides and slow down the normal queues therefore making the day even worse. Not acceptable to visitors on a day out who won't be visiting again that season.

We visited BPB in August 2018 and it was our first and will certainly be our last visit. Operations were slow. ICON down due to stalling. One train operations on the rest of the coasters. Hated the place. A free return wristband would be no use to us as our visits to UK theme parks are one off annual events.

For anyone saying that you'd have to be mad to queue 2 hours for PMBO, well you're wrong. Our first visit there, travelled from Northern Ireland, no return visit planned so we did wait over 2 hours to ride. No choice. We shouldn't have to wait 2 hours to ride it though.

So think of the weekends events not as an enthusiast but as someone on a one off visit who spent a lot of money and time to get there and have no plans to return for some time. It's not acceptable.

I've been to Florida 8 times in total and not once have I left a theme park disappointed. On occasion the odd attraction would be down but never really spoilt the experience. Outside of BPB and AT the only time I've queued for more than 2 hours for a ride was when Skull Island Reign of Kong soft opened at IOA and that queue time would be expected for a new ride that's just opened.

UK theme parks really need to get their act together.
 
Dipper_Dave said:
Fair enough. Sounds like a poor day all round. I’ve just lost count of the number of enthusiasts who moan about a 2-3 hour queue for PMBO. Nobody makes them join said queue! Go on a different ride or do something else, it’s not rocket science.

Thinking about speedy pass, I am not a fan of the concept of it, but if it didn’t exist then those people would be in the normal queue with the paupers anyway, thus making the main queue bigger. Everyone is getting on the ride regardless of whether they’ve done a paid queue jump or not. It just seems worse when you’re close to getting on the front car of PMBO and then you have to wait for speedy passers to get on, right under your nose. Like I said though, everyone’s getting on the ride. Is there much difference between approaching a ride and saying “Oh no, it looks a 90 minute queue, then add 30 on for the speedy passers” or “Oh no, there’s loads of people here, that looks like a 2 hours queue” ?

As for ‘large numbers of people moaning about opening weekend operations, who weren’t even there’, this does seem pretty ridiculous. Perhaps next time something negative happens at Alton or Thorpe (parks I don’t visit often), when I am a couple of hundred miles away, I should join social media and have a good whinge at said places. Yeah right
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Gotta disagree with this Speedy Pass logic Dippy. Those with Speedy Pass would not necessarily be in the queue regardless because SP allows them to be virtually queuing for one ride whilst physically queuing for another. So your man who is in PMBO’s SP queue has also been in another queue whilst waiting for their SP time. In this scenario it has the effect of doubling queue lengths (ish) if you aggregate across the park.

That’s entry level SP as well, which reflects current ride queue time. Higher levels cut the queue time, thus allowing said person to jump in front of people in the queue almost immediately on every ride. So whilst the plebs queue for 2 hours for one ride on PMBO, said VIP SP user could maybe ride four times.

Any which way, SP can only serve to increase queue times for regular guests.
 
venny said:
Gotta disagree with this Speedy Pass logic Dippy. Those with Speedy Pass would not necessarily be in the queue regardless because SP allows them to be virtually queuing for one ride whilst physically queuing for another. So your man who is in PMBO’s SP queue has also been in another queue whilst waiting for their SP time. In this scenario it has the effect of doubling queue lengths (ish) if you aggregate across the park.

That’s entry level SP as well, which reflects current ride queue time. Higher levels cut the queue time, thus allowing said person to jump in front of people in the queue almost immediately on every ride. So whilst the plebs queue for 2 hours for one ride on PMBO, said VIP SP user could maybe ride four times.

Any which way, SP can only serve to increase queue times for regular guests.
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I used the entry level speedy pass last year in the summer holidays as I stayed at big blue and got a half price voucher

I could generally set it to queue for a ride... have a go on icon and then a pint and it'd be time to ride what I'd set it for

I had a great day and I'd definitely do the same again
 
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