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Blackpool Pleasure Beach: General Discussion

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If you're going to run one train on something when it's very quiet and the ride has no queue that's fine.

But you have to then be very quick to respond and add another vehicle as soon as a queue forms. It can then be removed again quite easily if the queue quietens down again.

20 minutes is not acceptable when that queue is totally artificial.
 
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Rick said:
If you stuck two trains on it within a short period you'd have no queue and you would be waiting for guests - so end up sending half full trains or stacking like crazy.
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They could send a train empty until enough people arrive to fill it, I've seen it done in Infusion a lot.

Running one train on your newest coaster when two other major coasters are closed just isn't good enough frankly.
 
Could/should they have built an unloading platform for Icon where the patio area is for Coasters?
Then it could run on one train and just sit in the station until full
 
Can't complain today.
Three goes on Icon.
Walk on Big One.
Two more goes on Icon.
Two pints with the charming staff at Crevettes.
Five more goes on Icon.
Front and back seats galore.
Couldn't do the woodies due to a dodgy knee.
Not bad for just over two hours.
 
If they've been inspected and signed off as serviceable. You can end up in a constant one on, one off, one on working which kills your capacity in the end.

Does someone in addition to the ride crew need to be on site when they switch trains? Some crews were self sufficient back in the day, others not.

shakey said:
Guessing Wild Mouse is still shut.
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NSNO
 
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It isn't just signing it off after inspection, it is also putting the correct train numbers on the daily service sheet, before it gets signed off for the day.
Possibly.
Good fun today, just missing the usual suspects, who deserved to miss out.
Lots of rumours that the Halloween ride package would feature Icon.
But the Icon staff looked at me like I'm stupid when I mentioned it.
Because I am.
 
Coaster said:
They could send a train empty until enough people arrive to fill it, I've seen it done in Infusion a lot.

Running one train on your newest coaster when two other major coasters are closed just isn't good enough frankly.
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To be mildly fair, a chain lift has a very linear energy consumption, as usually the lift motor runs constantly and just changes speed and load when a train engages.

Launch coasters are a different breed, when you launch the ride a significant energy cost is taken. You wouldn’t really want empty trains being sent out if you can help it. I don’t have anything to prove this but it’s often quoted that intamin accelerator coasters cost £2 per launch (obviously Icon is LSM, but I have never heard a cost per launch quoted for those).
 
Don't all large scale energy users pay an agreed flat rate these days instead of metered units?
Chain lifts take much more power under load than they do just cycling the chain.
Back to Icon specifically.
One train service was perfectly acceptable yesterday.
The queue was never more than ten minutes, walk on for the couple of hours I was there.
One train service the day before, with a half hour queue, wasn't good service...in fact, it was crap service.
 
Will be there tomorrow for my first visit this season, have to visit all uk parks at least once a season, so tomorrow is Blackpool. Expecting a relatively busy day with nice weather on a Saturday! But hopefully wait times are kept down .
 
I'm off to Blackpool next Sunday, the website states there's staggered openings but gives no further details. Is anyone able to shed some light on this?

Cheers!
 
Blackpool Pleasure Beach was fun today after a 5 month break, I enjoyed getting back on the rides with The Big One being the highlight.

Even after riding many coasters elsewhere, The Big One is still very special and one of my favourite rides ever. I am still yet to find a better first drop and the ride was flying round, absolutely incredible coaster and I'll never tire of it. It was running two full trains all day, excellent.

Speedy Pass unfortunately continues to destroy the ride's operations by causing the trains to stack and making extra work for the platform staff which then causes the throughput to plummet. The Speedy Passes had been massively oversold today with the queue down to the bottom of the exit path from midday onwards, I saw two full trains of Speedy Passes sent as well as multiple rows in the others.

The new outlet in the Sky Force shop is being used to upsell Big One Speedy Passes at the expense of guest experience, it's worse than ever now. It was noticeable that on the occasions where there was a break in SP users, dispatches were much better. Disgraceful that they allow fast pass to slow down the rate at which trains are dispatched whilst also blocking the exit path. The ride isn't designed for it, total mess!

On the plus side, the new Big One soundtrack is excellent and the retro feel of it suits the ride perfectly. It adds a great atmosphere around the ride's queueline/station and is a brilliant improvement IMO.

I rode Icon once today and didn't enjoy it at all, the layout is good but it's taken much too slowly IMO. I appreciate why a lot of people enjoy the smooth nature of the ride but it's not for me, there are other far better examples of smooth coasters elsewhere.

In the interests of saying something positive about it, the soundtrack was nice and loud!

Valhalla remains dreadful, however River Caves (interior) was looking fantastic with audio levels good, scenes looking great and most of the animations working. There was some lovely new timed lighting in the first scene as well as a new sound effect and the inside felt refreshed in general whilst retaining the classic feel of the ride. Brilliant!

Grand National was noticeably bumpier than on my last ride in April, but I still really enjoyed it. Sat in the back row.

Park hours were very stingy, 6pm close on a relatively busy sunny Saturday is no good. Big Dipper and Infusion went down to one train towards the end of the day.

The Noah's Ark park exit is looking very tired and could do with some TLC!

We had a look at Boulevard Hotel and the staff were willing to take us for a look into one of the rooms, I have to say the entire hotel looks incredible.

The park looks and feels worse than it ever has done in my opinion, devoid of any of the character, charm and colour it used to have and many of the rides/areas look in need of TLC.

Whilst the staff were fantastic throughout the park, unfortunately Speedy Pass made queueing for The Big One a misery and reiterated to me why I spent 5 months away from the place. It's not good enough when an older Arrow hypercoaster runs 3 trains with 30 second dispatches, the SP system on Big One is an absolute joke.

Overall I had a good day at Pleasure Beach and it was great to get back on some of my favourite rides, but IMO there are still many issues which detract from the overall enjoyment of the park.
 
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Glad to hear you had a nice day @Coaster!

Out of interest, did you give Icon a bit of time to warm up before you rode it? As when I rode it 3 weeks ago after it had warmed up, it was absolutely flying around the track with absolutely buckets of ejector airtime!

Also, I'd be intrigued to know what you mean by Valhalla being "awful"; did you find it too wet for you or something? Or were the effects not working?

On an unrelated note, how does Valhalla manage to be so wet? Is it due to all of the water effects or something? Or is it down to some subtle element of the ride's design? Only asking because the only other 2-across log flume of a similar style I've ridden is Splash Mountain at Magic Kingdom, and that was nowhere near as wet as Valhalla despite being in Florida! And I wouldn't say that Splash Mountain is exactly short of opportunities to get you wet! I suppose I have also ridden Journey to Atlantis at SeaWorld Orlando, a Mack water coaster, with 2-across boats, and again, that was nowhere even remotely close to Valhalla levels of wetness while still having some rather large drops!
 
Some of the wetness is inherent in the design of the ride system. Skull Mountain was like that too, but unlike Valhalla it operated in the open air and the splash was able to disperse much more freely.

Also, the really wet bits where the water comes over the sides of the boat are seemingly caused by quite tight turns as the boats enter the water into a high sided trough where the water displaced can only realistically go into the boat - I can't recall many other rides designed in that way. This ends up being self perpetuating as the boats then ride lower in the water due to the weight of the water.

A number of the effects create additional wetness, the vortex doesn't help, that's for sure...

Also, Intamin.
 
Rick said:
Some of the wetness is inherent in the design of the ride system. Skull Mountain was like that too, but unlike Valhalla it operated in the open air and the splash was able to disperse much more freely.

Also, the really wet bits where the water comes over the sides of the boat are seemingly caused by quite tight turns as the boats enter the water into a high sided trough where the water displaced can only realistically go into the boat - I can't recall many other rides designed in that way. This ends up being self perpetuating as the boats then ride lower in the water due to the weight of the water.

A number of the effects create additional wetness, the vortex doesn't help, that's for sure...

Also, Intamin.
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Thanks very much for the info @Rick!

Out of interest, which Skull Mountain are you referring to? The only one coming up for me when I search it into Google is Six Flags Great Adventure's enclosed Intamin roller coaster.

Is the tightness of some of these turns also why the boat seems to bump against the sides of the trough when it tries to turn?
 
Matt N said:
Out of interest, which Skull Mountain are you referring to? The only one coming up for me when I search it into Google is Six Flags Great Adventure's enclosed Intamin roller coaster.
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Nice video, gives you a good understanding of what Valhalla looks like if you haven't wandered around it.

Matt N said:
Is the tightness of some of these turns also why the boat seems to bump against the sides of the trough when it tries to turn?
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I think that's just the clumsy way the boats navigate the trough, in part due to the width but also because the flow is comparatively fast.
 
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