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Blackpool Pleasure Beach: General Discussion

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venny said:
On a slightly different note, here are some pictures of the wierd white cladding they’ve applied to either side of the bridge by the South Gate, so you now no longer have a view of either Big Dipper or PBE through the glass. A strange decision, which couldn’t be blander.

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Reminds me of those smoking shelters
 
venny said:
On a slightly different note, here are some pictures of the wierd white cladding they’ve applied to either side of the bridge by the South Gate, so you now no longer have a view of either Big Dipper or PBE through the glass. A strange decision, which couldn’t be blander.

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Progress... probably for the same reason that they boarded up the window displaying the workings of and information about the historic Flying Machines.

Pleasure Beach is becoming very bland and stale with decisions like this, in my opinion.
 
Temleh said:
Just to cover up any demolition and the temporarily non-accessible PBE South station.
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How come they covered up the other side. No demolition or station to be seen there? They’ve not even got any green scrim around the Heras fencing anywhere else so you can see straight into the demolition area.

And if they were going to cover anything over to disguise the fact there is a station there, would it not be the sign saying that there’s a station there? Or the other signage in the main station?

Everything points towards this being a little more permanent and as @Coaster says yet another example of sanitising the park.
 
Right, let's call this one now.
Saturday's earliest closing time is 7pm.
It is due to rain right through the day, so the park will shut at 5pm.
The rain is due to stop at 5pm, so the park will be closed by then.
Ha bloody ha.
Twice this week my late day coaster plans have been thwarted by false advertising.
Someone set up a ugov. petition.
 
Opening times for Mon-Fri next week have all been reduced to 6pm;

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So this must be the "progress" they talk about. Very sad :(
 
Coaster said:
Opening times for Mon-Fri next week have all been reduced to 6pm. So this must be the "progress" they talk about. Very sad :(
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I understand the suggestion that the park has a responsibility to uphold the 'promise' made to their customers to provide them with the x hours of entertainment that they have been promised and in some cases, paid for. That said, the park/family also have a responsibility to their staff, suppliers and the evil bankers to ensure that the company remains stable in terms of their financial affairs. Merlin does the same, in different ways, for their shareholders.

I think some people forget exactly where the park has been in the past decade or so, some pretty dark places and they have made some tough decisions on the back of that and have not been working to 'thrive', merely to survive during some seasons.

You can dismiss that as not caring, but I think it runs a little deeper than that.
 
I think they need to go towards an EP-style of opening hours; under promise and over deliver, that helps more subconsciously with guests thinking they've got more than they bargained for, rather than over promising and under delivering like they are now, which leads people to feel cheated out of what they've paid for.
 
Coaster said:
Opening times for Mon-Fri next week have all been reduced to 6pm;

41282323181_2ebb7b06fa_z.jpg


So this must be the "progress" they talk about. Very sad :(
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Actually I disagree, this is a better plan for the park. They have the option to extend if needed but haven’t promised a product they can’t deliver.

I don’t expect them to operate at a loss.
 
The new hours look fine, I think the majority of schools are back next week, so they make sense.
They should still reword the website opening times...they are misleading, and borderline legal, not very professional at all.Typical BPB head in the sand response though..."We do as we like."
Will be entertaining seeing what time they do actually close next week now though, I am planning two late afternoon visits to the coast in the next week on other matters
 
Dar said:
I think they need to go towards an EP-style of opening hours; under promise and over deliver, that helps more subconsciously with guests thinking they've got more than they bargained for, rather than over promising and under delivering like they are now, which leads people to feel cheated out of what they've paid for.
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Good point, but I thought that the introduction of last season’s ‘Earliest ride closing time’ was based on the ‘under promise and over deliver’ principle, in that the rides would never close before the parks stated ERCT, but that on a busy day they may extend those hours. To my knowledge they didn’t actually extend the hours last season. Please correct me if you were there and the park decided to stay open for another hour or two as the park was busy and they were feeling generous, but I would be very surprised if this was the case.

rob666 said:
The new hours look fine, I think the majority of schools are back next week, so they make sense.
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This is true, but school holiday dates for each area are made public a long time in advance so somebody at BPB should be noting these and setting the opening hours accordingly. Altering them at a few days notice is not great really.

The whole thing is very ambiguous: they have an ‘earliest closing time’ but not a ‘latest closing time’, the wording makes it appear that they may extend their opening hours but it seems that they never choose to do that, they can bring forward this ‘earliest closing time’ at the drop of a hat without giving reason it would seem, and it appears going forward that visitors may be cheated out of an hour or two at random on the parks whim.

I wish it could go back to the simplicity of before the ‘earliest close time’ of 2017 when it was just ‘Open at 10, close at 6’ for example, and everyone knew where they stood. It’s not asking a lot really. As someone pointed out earlier I think, such tactics will result in lost revenue for the park, in that short notice changes to the hours may make some guests decide not to attend at all, and also those just thinking of going for a few hours in the afternoon think twice. I know they make more money on park entry from people who pay on the day / online than season pass holders, but even we throw money at the park through food, merch, etc. Which we aren’t doing if we’re not there.
 
Dave said:
Actually I disagree, this is a better plan for the park. They have the option to extend if needed but haven’t promised a product they can’t deliver.

I don’t expect them to operate at a loss.
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I agree with that, but altering them at two days' notice (when people will have already arranged holidays, visits, bought wristbands etc) is still unacceptable.

BPB need to manage expectations of their customers better, whether that means advertising like Adventure Island do ("closing between 5pm - 7pm - decision made by such-and-such a time") or honouring the stated hours is for the park to decide.

Currently they advertise an earliest possible ride closing time but don't stand by it, which is an absoloute disgrace.
 
They did, on a few occasions, last year extend park opening by an hour. When I say a few, I think I recall it happening at least twice I know of. Generally it was moved from 7pm to 8pm. Ironically that was the original opening time they advertised prior to slashing the hour off and relabelling it ‘earliest closing time’.
 
A very good point - it's worth mentioning that the park used to be open until 8pm as standard closing time every day of the holidays and Saturdays, it was only once they started slashing hours in 2016 that it changed to the "earliest ride close time" of 7pm.

I remember being at BPB in the summer of 2015 in torrential rain with next to nobody on park, and they still honoured the 8pm closing time.
 
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