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Blackpool Pleasure Beach: General Discussion

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I admire the enthusiasm but even the most dedicated fanboy wouldn't be able to put that thing back together! It's not knex, it's loads of random bits of wood and metal!


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The lack of care for what BPB stood for was already becoming more and more apparent last year. World class dark rides left to rot, terrible presentation of rides, stations & facades, rides running on low(er than usual) capacity on a more regular basis, closing the park early whenever they feel like it. Where's the pride gone? Where's the sense of fun, happiness and enjoyment that BPB used to be famed for? The park has become a bland, corporate entity and this is epitomised in the corporate "it's progress" statement which was released by them on Saturday.

As someone who has been avid fan of Blackpool Pleasure Beach for as long as I can remember, I don't think I will ever forgive them for demolishing the Wild Mouse. The act of destroying a national treasure is a disgrace and the lack of communication, lies (maintenance?!) and subsequent faceless response is an absolute insult. Wild Mouse was a heritage ride which has brought happiness & laughter as well as holding special memories for so many generations of people, who deserved better than seeing it demolished without any farewell event, or even a proper, human statement made.

I fully understand and support theme parks moving with the times; additions such as Nickelodeon Land, Skyforce and now Icon have shown that Pleasure Beach can keep up, and as a family park, an investment like Icon is quite something. With that said, this pales into insignificance when they remove one of the world's most unique and historic roller coasters. New developments are great, but ultimately there are plenty of launched coasters out there in the world - whereas Wild Mouse was truly one of a kind. It was rides like Mouse which made the Pleasure Beach stand about above other parks; any park (within their constraints of course) can build a new coaster, but no other park could claim to have a working collection of rides from across the last 120 years.

They have ripped the heart out of BPB.
 
Bit dramatic IMO.

This has been handled very very poorly by the park, that's obvious, but the ride was never going to be able to operate ever again anyway, they weren't exactly going to leave it SBNO forever.

PS: I loved the 2017 season, thought it was great fun, visited 9 times, more than ever before for me.
 
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MakoMania said:
Bit dramatic IMO.

This has been handled very very poorly by the park, that's obvious, but the ride was never going to be able to operate ever again anyway, they weren't exactly going to leave it SBNO forever.

PS: I loved the 2017 season, thought it was great fun, visited 9 times, more than ever before for me.
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The ride could have continued to operate but the park decided that it wasn't worth the costs and the constant litigation claims.

They could have also modified it further to tame it. Some may not have liked that of course but I would have preferred that than no mouse at all.

What's done is done and we have to move on but I am in no doubt that the mouse could have been running this year in some capacity if the park were prepared to spend the money to keep it open.

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What's the point in keeping the Wild Mouse if it's no longer Wild?

I agree with the decision to remove it, I just don't agree with the way they've gone about it.

As an owner of a financially vulnerable park, it would be irresponsible to not keep costs and risk exposure under control.
 
MakoMania said:
What's the point in keeping the Wild Mouse if it's no longer Wild?
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Exactley! thats just as bad as removel or SBNO.

At the end of the day it's not PB's fault! it's the HSE/ ADIPS/ insurance company ect!
If anybody should be getting hate for this it should be them!

PB must of had there hands tied near the end.

It's obvos that PB really cared about the mouse and tried! to keep it going, if they did't they would't have spent a lot of money on the mag brakes last winter and the extra seat belt in September.
 
Spin-Ride-Lover said:
At the end of the day it's not PB's fault! it's the HSE/ ADIPS/ insurance company ect!
If anybody should be getting hate for this it should be them!
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Surely the wild mouse is not the most dangerous ride at the pleasure beach.

I can name at least four current rides that have had incidents

Avalanche
The Big One
The Big dipper
Grand National

Even the water fountains haven't gone without incidcent :eek:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/a...ool-Pleasure-Beach-fears-sex-life-ruined.html
 
Spin-Ride-Lover said:
it's the HSE/ ADIPS/ insurance company ect!
If anybody should be getting hate for this it should be them!
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How dare they work towards making people safer? Damn them to hell!

As an aside, I'm sure I've seen somewhere that it might have been damaged in the recent storm? If that's the case, the damage might have made the structure unsafe and not economically repairable, which might explain how quick they did it and why they couldn't have left it for the season as a monument.
 
rob666 said:
Nice one RoyJess.
I have estate car and roof rack.
Sure we can drag spinny, dippy and shakey in as well as diogo.
Maybe bring IanSR and a flask of hot dogs.
And tell next door it is only for six months, as a temporary structure, that way you don't need permission.
All sorted now then.
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Somebody once told me I can weld pretty good, I've got a hot glue gun too, should be fine to glue it all together.

We don't need the original parts though, just a local Builders Merchant and three photos should be enough lol.
 
I don't think any of us realistically expected it to last forever. However a fitting send-off would have eased the loss of such a unique ride.
The heritage aspect of PB does make it very special and I have wonderful memories of many rides and attractions there. Unfortunately money means that some rides are in a woeful state of repair and instead of making people appreciate the history most new guests will just see an old, tatty, run-down lawsuit waiting to happen! I mean just look at the state of the River Caves and Haunted Swing!
Hopefully new investment and new rides can create a new heritage and new memories for people. Really don't like Amanda's style of polished chrome and cheap chic personally but hats off to her and the family for keeping the park going in private ownership in today's climate.


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What I find saddest (well, along with the way it was torn down so quickly without warning) is the whole complaint culture which has no doubt led to supposedly sky high insurance costs for the ride and ultimately the insurers allegedly refusing to insure it. Well, who knows for sure, either they did refuse, or simply made the cost so astronomical that BPB decided enough was enough.

I don't get the arguments of 'it was only a matter of time before something happened' on the ride. Why was it? It was perfectly safe as far I as have seen and experienced. The track got checked, parts got replaced and the whole thing was maintained as necessary. I've had far rougher rides on Nash. But I guess since some of the rides got listed status, the Mouse was an easy target for the park to choose to remove.

Come the opening of Icon there will be excitement and a buzz around the park, which is great, but the gaping void left by Wild Mouse will be felt for some time.
 
My reading between the lines is that Wild Mouse was seen as something that the park knew was reaching end of life; but was seen as an issue for some point in the future.
This year, the costs to retain the ride unexpectedly increased, forcing BPB to make that decision they had believed was some way off.

As ever, the issue is really around communication. The lack of any honest and open information about the rationale for discarding an iconic place in secret leaves an impression the removal was all about progress and greed.
Hopefully (?) the removal was more mundane than the conspiracy theories would like to believe.

So far, all we've heard is that they made the right decision, which just comes across as arrogance. I appreciate that BPB is a private company, so their decisions don't have to be made in public. However, BPB is of the same sort of significance as the Houses of Parliment and Stonehenge to the DNA of Enland, particularly Northern England, and these changes matter to people more than say Alton Towers.
 
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MakoMania said:
What's the point in keeping the Wild Mouse if it's no longer Wild?
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Taming it was only one of several options available to them. They could have modified the restraints further (e.g lap bars or even over shoulder restrains) or increased the height restrictions or put an age limit on the ride. And has previously been said, they could have simply left it SBNO for the time being and re-assesed at a later date.

I don't believe that they couldn't get insurance. After all it has never had a serious accident (that I am aware of), unlike other coasters I could mention (at PB and towers) that still manage to be insured.

They were clearly throwing quite a lot of money at the ride in recent years so they probably just thought that it was no longer financially viable to keep it maintained.

The question is, should the park be a custodian of historically important rides, despite the additional cost ? I would of course answer yes and I think Amanda made the wrong choice on this occasion.

But we can debate the closure for weeks to come and like it or not, the ride has gone. Venting anger at Amanda won't bring it back so we will just have to live with the decision the park took and hope that a worthy replacement will be built in a few years time.

I am looking forward to the opening of Icon but with some sadness at the passing of my favourite roller coaster. One think I am pretty sure of is that however good Icon is you won't get people walking off the ride laughing. Only the wild mouse could do that.

Any chance of a Wild Mouse appreciation thread on here ? (not sure what the rules are about starting new threads). It would be nice if people could have somewhere to post their memories and photos of the ride in a separate thread.
 
shakey, good point that other rides (not necessarily just BPB) HAVE had serious incidents, even deaths and still manage to get insurance. Obviously such instances are taken incredibly seriously and rightly so, fully investigated and where necessary modifications are made to the ride before it reopens, but after all these things have happened, some of these rides continue to operate. I would much rather certain mods have been made to Wild Mouse (not sure about OTSR's though!) to have kept it open but the deed has been done now however we all feel about it.

Oh and there is a 'Wild Mouse Obituary' topic in Courtyard Tavern now for pics, memories, etc. I'll dig some photos out myself
 
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