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Blackpool Pleasure Beach: General Discussion
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ScottishChris
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Legend
Anyone heading to late night riding this Saturday?
Why don't the boats manage to drain on the first lift hill?
Do they need more / bigger drainage holes ?
Usually quite a lot is retained in my experience could be solved with some sort of valve that lets water out but not in
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Coaster
TS Member
Here's a few thoughts from my first visit to Pleasure Beach in 2019, this is based on visits over a few days.
The new pre-opening show is a good idea to keep people entertained whilst waiting for the gates to open.
Areas of the park look and feel dismal at the moment. The entire FY4 from the back of Alice in Wonderland’s warehouse, empty Mouse site and the monstrosity that is the newly reopened arcade feels like you’re walking through an abandoned theme park that closed 20 years ago. It’s very sad considering the area looked mostly fine up until 2018 and with Icon tidying up south park considerably, they’ve now let north park get worse than south park ever was. It leaves a horrendous first impression on guests entering the park that way, too.
The place was fairly busy over Easter, with moderate crowds (and then very busy on the Saturday). Ride availability seemed pretty good (aside from Sunday morning) with Icon and Valhalla being the only rides having significant downtime, even then it wasn't too bad. Extension to 6pm on Monday was nice.
Sunday morning was poor with The Big One, Big Dipper and Revolution on (very) late opening whilst Infusion also broke down. Icon also took 25 minutes to transfer a third train on?
We managed a ride-count of 17 on Saturday with the park open 10am - 10pm, however this was with us making sure to do the low capacity rides first. For first-time visitors trying to get on Nickelodeon Streak or Avalanche in the middle of the day it would have been miserable.
The fireworks were great but I wasn’t keen on the music choices… they’re missing a trick by not using Icon’s score for at least part of the display. The new location was much better from a viewpoint perspective as they weren’t blocked by Icon’s station, but I still disagree with closing rides over an hour early on a “late night riding” event to put on some fireworks.
Operations were very mixed. Big Dipper and Grand National were running very well, or in the case of Nash, as well as the system will allow it to. On Saturday we queued 20 minutes for Dipper from outside the queue entrance, and 25 for National from well past the entrance to the steps. Very impressed! Valhalla’s queue shifted very fast on Saturday, but was extremely slow every other day despite having the same number of boats on… weird.
Continuing from the end of last year, The Big One’s operations remain dreadful. Dispatch times were very slow, largely caused by Speedy Pass but also the lack of management watching the operations. There were instances when they took 10 minutes to load a full Speedy Pass train, and out of every 10 trains I’d say that 7/8 of them stacked for a considerable amount of time. For a ride that lasts over 2 minutes, that’s just not acceptable.
The staff were holding the queue outside the station which I assume was to prevent it from getting too hot, which I thought was a good idea. On Monday however, a quieter day, they were running one of the trains with only two carriages open until late afternoon. With the queue being held outside the station in the morning (meaning it’s more visible on the ramp) and then not in the afternoon, it definitely felt as if this was being done to increase Speedy Pass sales. With crowds on this level it would have previously taken 10 minutes to wait, as by lunch time it’d have shifted the queue to the final two switchbacks. It took us 40 minutes purely down to slow operations, it’s just a complete and utter mess.
Pleasure Beach have really taken their eye off the rest of the park since Icon opened and The Big One has suffered hugely, operations have got to rock bottom and Speedy Pass continues to make queueing in the main queue a misery. It isn’t the ride staff’s fault; they try their best. It’s poor management and upselling of a fast pass system which the park knows will have an adverse effect on the operations of their signature ride.
On a positive note, PMBO was absolutely flying on Friday and Saturday, reaffirming why I love it so much and still regard it as my absolute favourite coaster by quite some distance. Amazing.
Valhalla continues to be an absolute mess. Here’s a brief status report of effects from 3 rides over Easter.
- Water curtain over skull entrance worked for 1/3 rides
- Trommels not working
- Projection audio (Odin voice) on lift 1 slightly louder but still not audible
- Projection looks like it needs a new filter/replacing (wire hanging down, picture not clear)
- Green popup face not working
- Waterfall corridor not working
- Blackout doors after backwards drop not closing meaning light leaks in and exposes the workings
- Lots of torn and/or missing blackout curtains throughout entire ride exposing maintenance areas
- Ice room half-frozen, no ceiling misters
- Water vortex soaking the boat
- Light on waterfall following vortex switching off too early so effect is missed
- Water geysers on either side of the track after water vortex not working
- Light leaking into this area as fire exit left open
- Maintenance lights left on
- Chandelier not swinging
- Crow animatronics not fully functioning
- No ring of fire
- Fireballs in first room following final drop not working (room in pitch darkness)
- Only one small explosion in final room
- Ride soundtrack loop cutting out and jumping
River Caves has also had CCTV put in thoughtlessly over elements of theming as well as awfully implemented emergency lighting. Dark rides are supposed to provide seamless experiences with the back-end hardware hidden away, so it’s a disgrace that Pleasure Beach are so careless and clumsy with implementing these things. They did the same with new CCTV cameras in Valhalla last year.
Lots of effects broken in Ghost Train.
Alice and W&G were in decent condition overall.
Overall, I had an enjoyable time at Pleasure Beach.
Some areas had a nice atmosphere on Saturday, with the live music and busy crowds. With that said, the park has lost its buzz for me and the overall impression I got was that it feels like it’s missing something. The vibrance, the classic PB feel, it’s all gone.
The park still houses some of my favourite coasters, but on reflection I don’t rate Icon very highly at all. The ride has lost its “new factor” and I’m already growing tired of it. It just feels too sluggish and there are so many places where you *nearly* get force or airtime, but it doesn’t quite have the speed to deliver. A shame.
Two of the best assets at the park are still missing for me… Wild Mouse, and Valhalla. I include the latter because with the ride experience offered at the moment, it may as well just be a log flume in the dark.
Steeplechase was very good as always.
It was nice to be back on some of my favourite rides and seeing people, but I’m not in any rush to return to the park. My enthusiasm for the place is gone.
The new pre-opening show is a good idea to keep people entertained whilst waiting for the gates to open.
Areas of the park look and feel dismal at the moment. The entire FY4 from the back of Alice in Wonderland’s warehouse, empty Mouse site and the monstrosity that is the newly reopened arcade feels like you’re walking through an abandoned theme park that closed 20 years ago. It’s very sad considering the area looked mostly fine up until 2018 and with Icon tidying up south park considerably, they’ve now let north park get worse than south park ever was. It leaves a horrendous first impression on guests entering the park that way, too.
The place was fairly busy over Easter, with moderate crowds (and then very busy on the Saturday). Ride availability seemed pretty good (aside from Sunday morning) with Icon and Valhalla being the only rides having significant downtime, even then it wasn't too bad. Extension to 6pm on Monday was nice.
Sunday morning was poor with The Big One, Big Dipper and Revolution on (very) late opening whilst Infusion also broke down. Icon also took 25 minutes to transfer a third train on?
We managed a ride-count of 17 on Saturday with the park open 10am - 10pm, however this was with us making sure to do the low capacity rides first. For first-time visitors trying to get on Nickelodeon Streak or Avalanche in the middle of the day it would have been miserable.
The fireworks were great but I wasn’t keen on the music choices… they’re missing a trick by not using Icon’s score for at least part of the display. The new location was much better from a viewpoint perspective as they weren’t blocked by Icon’s station, but I still disagree with closing rides over an hour early on a “late night riding” event to put on some fireworks.
Operations were very mixed. Big Dipper and Grand National were running very well, or in the case of Nash, as well as the system will allow it to. On Saturday we queued 20 minutes for Dipper from outside the queue entrance, and 25 for National from well past the entrance to the steps. Very impressed! Valhalla’s queue shifted very fast on Saturday, but was extremely slow every other day despite having the same number of boats on… weird.
Continuing from the end of last year, The Big One’s operations remain dreadful. Dispatch times were very slow, largely caused by Speedy Pass but also the lack of management watching the operations. There were instances when they took 10 minutes to load a full Speedy Pass train, and out of every 10 trains I’d say that 7/8 of them stacked for a considerable amount of time. For a ride that lasts over 2 minutes, that’s just not acceptable.
The staff were holding the queue outside the station which I assume was to prevent it from getting too hot, which I thought was a good idea. On Monday however, a quieter day, they were running one of the trains with only two carriages open until late afternoon. With the queue being held outside the station in the morning (meaning it’s more visible on the ramp) and then not in the afternoon, it definitely felt as if this was being done to increase Speedy Pass sales. With crowds on this level it would have previously taken 10 minutes to wait, as by lunch time it’d have shifted the queue to the final two switchbacks. It took us 40 minutes purely down to slow operations, it’s just a complete and utter mess.
Pleasure Beach have really taken their eye off the rest of the park since Icon opened and The Big One has suffered hugely, operations have got to rock bottom and Speedy Pass continues to make queueing in the main queue a misery. It isn’t the ride staff’s fault; they try their best. It’s poor management and upselling of a fast pass system which the park knows will have an adverse effect on the operations of their signature ride.
On a positive note, PMBO was absolutely flying on Friday and Saturday, reaffirming why I love it so much and still regard it as my absolute favourite coaster by quite some distance. Amazing.
Valhalla continues to be an absolute mess. Here’s a brief status report of effects from 3 rides over Easter.
- Water curtain over skull entrance worked for 1/3 rides
- Trommels not working
- Projection audio (Odin voice) on lift 1 slightly louder but still not audible
- Projection looks like it needs a new filter/replacing (wire hanging down, picture not clear)
- Green popup face not working
- Waterfall corridor not working
- Blackout doors after backwards drop not closing meaning light leaks in and exposes the workings
- Lots of torn and/or missing blackout curtains throughout entire ride exposing maintenance areas
- Ice room half-frozen, no ceiling misters
- Water vortex soaking the boat
- Light on waterfall following vortex switching off too early so effect is missed
- Water geysers on either side of the track after water vortex not working
- Light leaking into this area as fire exit left open
- Maintenance lights left on
- Chandelier not swinging
- Crow animatronics not fully functioning
- No ring of fire
- Fireballs in first room following final drop not working (room in pitch darkness)
- Only one small explosion in final room
- Ride soundtrack loop cutting out and jumping
River Caves has also had CCTV put in thoughtlessly over elements of theming as well as awfully implemented emergency lighting. Dark rides are supposed to provide seamless experiences with the back-end hardware hidden away, so it’s a disgrace that Pleasure Beach are so careless and clumsy with implementing these things. They did the same with new CCTV cameras in Valhalla last year.
Lots of effects broken in Ghost Train.
Alice and W&G were in decent condition overall.
Overall, I had an enjoyable time at Pleasure Beach.
Some areas had a nice atmosphere on Saturday, with the live music and busy crowds. With that said, the park has lost its buzz for me and the overall impression I got was that it feels like it’s missing something. The vibrance, the classic PB feel, it’s all gone.
The park still houses some of my favourite coasters, but on reflection I don’t rate Icon very highly at all. The ride has lost its “new factor” and I’m already growing tired of it. It just feels too sluggish and there are so many places where you *nearly* get force or airtime, but it doesn’t quite have the speed to deliver. A shame.
Two of the best assets at the park are still missing for me… Wild Mouse, and Valhalla. I include the latter because with the ride experience offered at the moment, it may as well just be a log flume in the dark.
Steeplechase was very good as always.
It was nice to be back on some of my favourite rides and seeing people, but I’m not in any rush to return to the park. My enthusiasm for the place is gone.
Dipper_Dave
TS Member
You'll be back within a month or so! Sorry to have to tell you this, but the Wild Mouse (I loved it too) will be 'still missing' forevermore. Just like Log Flume is for me and the Reel is for @rob666. That's a 'brief' status report on Valhalla? Can we see the detailed one?
Please enlighten us, you either have an incredible photographic memory or you take onto the boat one of those all-weather clipboards, put your pen under the cover and tick off which effects aren't working as you pass them?!Meanwhile locals have been emailed by BPB with offers for anyone with an FY or PR postcode, allowing them, as many times as they want in a season, to get up to 4 wristbands on the gate at the online price. They're also now allowing anyone to book an open dated wristband for £30 which gives you the flexibility people have said they wanted for some time now. Fair play to them!
I still weep for the Reel.
The whole of north park...speedboats, fun house, monster, dodgems, maze with a cafe on stilts, monorail, cableway, Noahs ark...where did they all go?
No wonder the north end of the park is often dead through the middle of the day, there is nowt left, barring Bernard and his golden shovel.
And the dodgy billiards stall and bazookas.
Oh the good old days.
The whole of north park...speedboats, fun house, monster, dodgems, maze with a cafe on stilts, monorail, cableway, Noahs ark...where did they all go?
No wonder the north end of the park is often dead through the middle of the day, there is nowt left, barring Bernard and his golden shovel.
And the dodgy billiards stall and bazookas.
Oh the good old days.
Coaster
TS Member
It's unlikely that we'll visit again within a month in all honesty.You'll be back within a month or so! Sorry to have to tell you this, but the Wild Mouse (I loved it too) will be 'still missing' forevermore. Just like Log Flume is for me and the Reel is for @rob666. That's a 'brief' status report on Valhalla? Can we see the detailed one?
I find it fairly easy to remember what was and wasn't working and a slow one-train queue on Dipper gave me time to type it. Sad, but it passed the time I suppose.
ChristmasPud
TS Member
These two things seem to be a real problem with dark rides in this country at the moment. Parks are just not managing their installation. They let their subcontractors do it like they would for a conventional venue, rather than instructing how to be discrete so it doesnt affect the ride experience. Come on, this is basic theme park stuff. Not as bad as Tomb Blaster or Dragon at Legoland Windsor, which both have some of their E-lights wired permanently on (hopefully by mistake!)
The rest of Valhall sounds sad that its gotten like that. I went last year and it felt complete enough with lots of explosions, effects working (Im sure it wasnt 100% but enough was happening, effects timed well) and didnt see any backstage areas/ doors left open.
Isn't this just because they are due to redevelop that area now?
Coaster
TS Member
I'm not sure how long it'll take though, if it takes them a while to build something new (or whatever they're planning) then it could potentially look horrendous for years.
Going back to Valhalla, in the interest of being fair, one positive was that the lift 1 soundtrack (which accompanies the projection voice) had been fixed/switched back on after being silent most of last year. It still wasn't loud enough though.
I refer back to this video for an acceptable audio level for "Odin", it hasn't been anywhere near this standard for at least 5 years. They do. not. care.
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venny
TS Member
I think I said this last year and it didn’t happen (perhaps because they were preoccupied with opening ICON), but Valhalla traditionally receives a bit of love in the Spring (May-ish).
Now that ICON is no longer a distraction, hopefully the regular spruce-up will happen again this year. It certainly sounds like it’s required.
Now that ICON is no longer a distraction, hopefully the regular spruce-up will happen again this year. It certainly sounds like it’s required.
Yup, shed flume love usually comes just before spring bank, then again just before the summer holidays.
Would be better if they reduced operating costs by only opening for the last couple of hours each day, and spent the money saved on repairs to the rotten, rusting beast.
Or drain it, turn the flume drops into slides, and convert it back to the fun house.
Or just convert it into another 'spoons.
Would be better if they reduced operating costs by only opening for the last couple of hours each day, and spent the money saved on repairs to the rotten, rusting beast.
Or drain it, turn the flume drops into slides, and convert it back to the fun house.
Or just convert it into another 'spoons.
shakey
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Wild Mouse - Blackpool - :(
Valhalla is living on borrowed time i reckon and I can't say I'd be bothered if it goes sooner rather than later.
Remove nash and ice blast too, then you could fit 2 or 3 shiny new coasters in there and a few flats as well.
North park really needs some new development and hopefully it won't be long before it gets it.
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Remove nash and ice blast too, then you could fit 2 or 3 shiny new coasters in there and a few flats as well.
North park really needs some new development and hopefully it won't be long before it gets it.
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It’s a shame there isn’t a closed season where they could do such things then!
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ScottishChris
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Legend
I'm not a fan of Valhalla either - if it didn't have the 'effects solely designed to soak you (the vortex) I may like it more. I agree that it wouldn't be a huge loss, and the running costs are extreme anyway. BPB needs to be careful though, not to just go down the route of coasters - it has to be a family park to survive.. Just going by the demographics of tourists.
I would love to see BPB be a coaster Park, but I don't know if it would survive.
My priorities would be...
Year 1: remove Iceblast and replace it with an Intamin GyroDrop (higher capacity & a more unique ride)
Year 2: re-theme the back section of PB express. A general tidy-up and some proper anamatronics, sound effects etc. Make it a real attraction
Year 3: a high capacity indoor attraction. Something like Duel... But with omnimover system like Buzz Lightyear at WDW
Year 4: general tidy-up. Repainting and groundwork for Y5. Perhaps a budget hotel offering.
Year 5: a new B&M giga
Coaster
TS Member
We have already lost a major ride in north park recently and a considerable amount of overall attractions over the last 10 years or so, why remove more rides (including one of the park's staple coasters) when they already have the space to build new rides?
Dave
TS Founding Member
Blackpool don’t have that sort of money, they depended a lot on council grants in the past. Don’t know if the last few seasons have improved the cash flow but I doubt it has to that extent.
John_P
TS Member
Pleasure Beach opening a budget hotel seems pointless when the park is surrounded by B and Bs plus Travelodges and Premier Inns.
They've rightly gone the other way with the big blue and the boulevard hotel in offering a premium product in an area severely lacking in that option.
They've rightly gone the other way with the big blue and the boulevard hotel in offering a premium product in an area severely lacking in that option.
ScottishChris
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Legend
I disagree with you. Two premium products seems rather like them putting all their eggs in one basket.
Right at the front door is a travel-lodge which is booked out pretty much solidly throughout the season. Same with the Hampton by Hilton right behind the park. In Blackpool, budget and mid-market chains seem to be on the up. I can't see why somewhere like BPB wouldn't want their own version that could be bundled with tickets etc.
D4n
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Zadra
I totally agree with @ScottishChris in that one of the relatively low budget things that would massively benefit the park would be replacing Ice Blast with a proper Intamin drop tower. Higher throughput, better ride, more permanent feeling.
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