Blackpool Pleasure Beach: General Discussion

[Mr Pearse]

I think you can’t get fairer then that. Fair play to them,

 

[venny]

Here here. A really decent response.

Now if only I get the email.

 

[siralgenon]

I second Rick’s recommendation for the ‘A Century of Fun book by Peter Bennett. A great read full of excellent photos

Is it worth the £35 price tag on eBay though?

 

[Rick]

Is it worth the £35 price tag on eBay though?

I'd say it's worth £35 to me, can't speak for anyone else. Dave's recommendation was predicated on me posting a link to it for sale for £15, which a forum member duly bought.

Re: the season pass

Nice to see them trying to get on the front foot. Does that suggest season passes will be £100 next season, or that they will match your 2021 price if you're taking them up on the pro-rata offer? % of closure off the £185 headline price in 2021 is not very interesting if you paid £80 this year.

What a gorgeous day it would have been at the Plesh today.

 

[Dipper_Dave]

Fair play to them for addressing the season pass issue. For me, its too soon to make a decision, as we simply don't know how big a chunk of the season will have been wiped out yet. I'm glad I got a February visit in though. Its a shame though, that the post Easter, pre school trip off peak Spring days are gone. Chances are the park will reopen slap bang into school trips (if they still do them) leading right into summer hols, leaving just a few weeks of quiet Wed-Fri off peak days then another long closed season. I can't really see this happening, but it was be nice if they extended the season thru' Nov & Dec.

 

[Mr Pearse]

I still can’t see them opening till mid June early July at the earliest, so I think they will lose like all theme parks, the school trip season and big chuck of the summer holiday season.

 

[Funcone]

Here's a question for the older members on here. It sounds like the Pleasure Beach got a lot more visitors back in the 80s and 90s, but did it get long queues? I can think of four reasons why it might not have done:

-At least by the end of the 90s there were a lot more rides and shows to absorb the crowds

-Before wristbands were introduced the paths might have been busy, but people would have presumably spaced out their rides more, like they do at Winter Wonderland.

-Throughputs seem to have generally gone down at the UK parks as safety’s got more stringent.

-They didn’t have Speedy Pass

In general, I’m interested in whether long queues are a fairly new thing at theme parks. Corkscrew famously got a six hour queue on opening day (at least it was six hours according to official reports), but is queuing a relatively modern thing? How much worse have the queues got over time? Did Disney get much in the way of queues when it was tickets and pay per ride? Before the 90s Disney didn't seem to bother much with themed queue lines.

 

[Dipper_Dave]

Here's a question for the older members on here. It sounds like the Pleasure Beach got a lot more visitors back in the 80s and 90s, but did it get long queues? I can think of four reasons why it might not have done:

-At least by the end of the 90s there were a lot more rides and shows to absorb the crowds

-Before wristbands were introduced the paths might have been busy, but people would have presumably spaced out their rides more, like they do at Winter Wonderland.

-Throughputs seem to have generally gone down at the UK parks as safety’s got more stringent.

-They didn’t have Speedy Pass

In general, I’m interested in whether long queues are a fairly new thing at theme parks. Corkscrew famously got a six hour queue on opening day (at least it was six hours according to official reports), but is queuing a relatively modern thing? How much worse have the queues got over time? Did Disney get much in the way of queues when it was tickets and pay per ride? Before the 90s Disney didn't seem to bother much with themed queue lines.

I personally don't recall colossal queues. I suppose The Big One would have got some, but I turned 15 in its opening season and was no doubt so excited about the ride, I didn't care how long I had to wait. To take it at the most basic level, throughput was efficient as they were taking money with every single person through each ride turnstile. Watch the 90s TV series (if you haven't already) and see how much importance was placed by park managers / supervisors on getting rides reopened ASAP when they had broken down. Now with wristbands, they have your money whether you have 3 rides or 27 rides. I remember rides like Log Flume being pretty good at dispatch, I don't ever recall enormous queues that barely moved.

 

[shakey]

I remember a trip to towers in 1984 with my mates and we got on about 5 rides all day. This was in the days before fast track or disability entrances. Scorching hot day too.

So i would assume towers has always had big queues on busy days. I think that's largely down to not enough attractions in relation to the amount of people they can let in.

Obviously pleasure beach was a different animal in pay per ride days. More attractions and the cost per ride would severely limit the number of rides people would fork out for. It also cost the park money if there was a ride queue so good throughput would have been a priority for the park. Big new rides would inevitably attract queues but apart from that I don't recall many queues in the pay per ride days.

Unfortunately, POP and Fasttrack/Speedypass means that parks are not really bothered about queues any more, (and probably encourage them) as it just drives sales in the queue jumping system.



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[Plastic Person]

Alton's queues were worse in the nineties than they are now. You could easily expect to wait a couple of hours for Nemesis or Oblivion on an average Saturday.

I can't recall waiting more than about twenty or thirty minutes for The Big One until fairly recently. I think I spent thirty minutes in the queue for Valhalla in it's opening season.

 

[venny]

There definitely were queues at busy times back in the day, the biggest difference is the speedway which they move. If you take a look at the queue lines which date back to that time it gives you an idea of what queues could be expected on a busy day. Undoubtedly though, the queues at Pleasure Beach were shorter than those at say Towers.

 

[rob666]

Here we go.
No.
The Beach rarely got big queues "back in the day", because it was pay per ride, so the rides ran at maximum capacity.
Big crowds, ten minute queues for most of the big rides, only about twenty second waits in the station to fill a train on the National...no belts remember.
Only on the Bank Holidays and Illumination weekends, and maybe the first hot weekends if the weather had been bad for a while, were the queues more than ten minutes.
Most kids only got two or three rides and that was it, an hour in the Fun House as well if you were lucky.
The Beach was something you did for a couple of hours, as it was so bloody expensive to stay for hours.
Imagine nearly Winter Wonderland prices in Hyde Park, to give a comparison.
Exceptions were the "big new ride"...Log Flume as a first for me, could be an hours queue.
Big One...four hours opening weekend, off the park south gate and well past the pub.
Space Invader, about two hours for most weekends in the first season, and always at least an hour when it rained!
Spin Doctor...two hours most days due to capacity issues.
Back in the day of tickets, you could often do all the coasters in an hour, and blow a sheet of tickets in two.
Back in the day, a pint was 30p, a coaster usually about 50p...20p cheap early season rides.
Showing my age again.

 

[Coaster]

I'd say it's worth £35 to me, can't speak for anyone else. Dave's recommendation was predicated on me posting a link to it for sale for £15, which a forum member duly bought.

Re: the season pass

Nice to see them trying to get on the front foot. Does that suggest season passes will be £100 next season, or that they will match your 2021 price if you're taking them up on the pro-rata offer? % of closure off the £185 headline price in 2021 is not very interesting if you paid £80 this year.

What a gorgeous day it would have been at the Plesh today.

I think it meant that they are reducing the cost based on what you paid this year - for example, we paid £80 this year so the discount is taken from £80?

"For ease and explanation; if you paid £100 for your 2020 Season Pass, and the park is unable to open for 20% of the days you could have used your 2020 Season Pass. Then we will enable you to purchase a 2021 Season Pass for £80, which is the £100 you paid minus the 20% discount. This is on top of being able to experience the park for every day of the remaining 2020 Season."

 

[Rick]

I think it meant that they are reducing the cost based on what you paid this year - for example, we paid £80 this year so the discount is taken from £80?

"For ease and explanation; if you paid £100 for your 2020 Season Pass, and the park is unable to open for 20% of the days you could have used your 2020 Season Pass. Then we will enable you to purchase a 2021 Season Pass for £80, which is the £100 you paid minus the 20% discount. This is on top of being able to experience the park for every day of the remaining 2020 Season."

Indeed, was trying to work out if the example was badly worded or was demonstrating more than what it said in the text.

For example, if they had said this ...

"If you paid £100 for your 2020 Season Pass, and the park is unable to open for 20% of the days you could have used your 2020 Season Pass. Then we will enable you to purchase a 2021 Season Pass with a discount of £20".

... and then charged a flat £130 - your season pass would be £110.

Not splitting hairs, just wondering what they are doing.

 

[John_P]

Regarding how busy the park used to be when I visited in the mid 90s I can only remember there being big queues for the big one, ice blast (then PlayStation the ride), and the log flume.
The 50p weekends were busier though.
First time I went when they had wristbands in early 2001 I remember it being really busy and don't think I got value for money due to how busy it was compared to the ppr price at the time.

 

[Poopoohead]

I emailed them today about an upcoming reservation I have at the big blue, got a reply saying the very earliest they were hoping to open the hotels was 28th June, maybe the park will be the same time

 

[Matt N]

I emailed them today about an upcoming reservation I have at the big blue, got a reply saying the very earliest they were hoping to open the hotels was 28th June, maybe the park will be the same time

That sounds like quite a plausible date to me, if lockdown starts gradually being lifted from either 8th May or 26th May (the government is said to be torn between these two dates, with them eventually picking either one or the other dependant on how our curve is looking).

 

[Poopoohead]

I think August is more likely for generally crowded places such as theme parks to be allowed to open in any fashion, and this will most likely be totally different to how we have enjoyed them previously. Just a gut feeling

 

[Rick]

More stuff here.

 

[Skyscraper]

Interesting how it was supposed to have a tunnel on the first drop. Wonder why that got changed?