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Blackpool Pleasure Beach: General Discussion

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Really hope they put some work into the big one over the next few years I know they want to re paint the ride would be nice to see Morgan come over and replace some rough sections work on the rides system getting working as best as it can for a near 30 year old ride now it’s such a integral part of pleasure beach be hard to imagine it not being there one day


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On busy days they just need to block off a couple of air gates on the big one just for speedy pass. Then they can open the air gates straight away and speedy pass people can then get on whilst other guests are getting on. Rather than holding the gates for speedy pass to get on.

It also wouldn’t annoy people who are stood in gates waiting for their place, only to have it taken by speedy pass.
 
Excellent to hear that the park have improved since last weekend.

In my opinion, there is one key issue with PB that needs resolving now.

Speedy Pass needs to be removed from PMBO, it's absolutely ludicrous that PB have allowed it to drag the throughput of their signature ride down for so long, on 2 trains without stacking it can shift a queue well but once you factor in an additional 2 minutes to load Speedy Pass holders and stacking on the brake run it becomes a complete farce.

Instead of being able to open the airgates as people start to leave the train, therefore being able to fill and check a train in a minute, they have to wait until everyone has passed the exit rope (30 - 45 seconds), then scan and load the speedy pass holders (I've seen this take over 2 minutes but I'd suggest on average it probably takes 60 seconds), then open the airgates and load the rest of the train from the main queue (another 60 seconds), then get onto the belt checks. By this point the second train will have got back, stacked and the riders probably fallen asleep waiting.

This has been an issue for years now and I've never seen other parks allow their fast pass system to jeapordise the physical operations of their coasters to such an extent, it's insane that it's allowed to happen at PB to be frank. They either need to adjust the station to run the system properly or scrap it from the ride, IMO. Footage on Saturday showed the queue past the cans (outside the extension), yet they allow the operations to be dragged down by a fast pass system?

Avalanche is much the same, though arguably even worse considering the ride already has a low throughput on 2 trains even when it doesn't stack.

The park could choose not to run Speedy Pass on these rides and improve guest experience for everyone. Instead they prioritise short-term money and allow their main queues to become unbearable. They simply do not care.
 
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Pleasure Beach was indeed fine yesterday. The park wans't too busy and operations were better than my visit in October although with Icon's queue to the entrance for most of the day it would have been nice to see in on 3 trains. On the topic of Icon, it is still somewhat underwhelming and feels awkward in so many places due to space constraints.

It was also lovely to get in to the park and on to the rides free of charge, thank you Roland!
 
Problem is that most rides don't have a seperate Speedy Pass entrance. Look at Avalanche for example, both Speedy Pass and EvE guests enter via the exit, and wait on the wooden platform next to the station gate. It gets very crowded and staff have to shout guests to move out of the way so people can exit.
 
Rob said:
Pleasure Beach was indeed fine yesterday. The park wans't too busy and operations were better than my visit in October although with Icon's queue to the entrance for most of the day it would have been nice to see in on 3 trains. On the topic of Icon, it is still somewhat underwhelming and feels awkward in so many places due to space constraints.

It was also lovely to get in to the park and on to the rides free of charge, thank you Roland!
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Glad to hear you had a nice day!

When did you ride Icon, out of interest? It apparently warms up to be quite good by the end of the day; by the time I rode it (about 2pm for the first ride and about 4pm for the second), it was absolutely flying! Quite a bit of solid ejector airtime, obscene pacing in the second half and just generally a great ride all round! Admittedly, I would have liked some slightly more sustained airtime, and I wouldn't say it was the strongest airtime I've ever felt, but it was solid! Certainly contributed to my ranking of it as my favourite UK coaster and my overall #2!
 
Only rode it once yesterday, and it was at 5pm! It was by no means the worst ride that I have had on Icon, and some parts of the ride are good. Just as on overall package it is a bit of a disappointment for me, there are too many spots where it just doesn't do much.
 
Rob said:
Only rode it once yesterday, and it was at 5pm! It was by no means the worst ride that I have had on Icon, and some parts of the ride are good. Just as on overall package it is a bit of a disappointment for me, there are too many spots where it just doesn't do much.
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Ah right. Thanks @Rob!
 
skyscraper said:
Problem is that most rides don't have a seperate Speedy Pass entrance. Look at Avalanche for example, both Speedy Pass and EvE guests enter via the exit, and wait on the wooden platform next to the station gate. It gets very crowded and staff have to shout guests to move out of the way so people can exit.
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I thought Avalanche issue of queuing on the exit steps had improved a lot last year since they got rid of it from all bar the top package.
 
Coaster said:
Today's confusing PB mystery;

Pleasure Beach advertise a free day at Efteling with their season pass, however upon contacting Efteling they said that they don't offer this.

https://www.blackpoolpleasurebeach.com/season-pass
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It is quite possible that the person at Efteling was not aware of this... The times that I visited Merlin attractions abroad when I had a MAP and they didn't know about the 50% off entry at either...

Only way to know for certain is to contact the other parks on there and see, but I can't help but feel you're jumping at the chance to moan about the park again...
 
skyscraper said:
Problem is that most rides don't have a seperate Speedy Pass entrance.
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It would be good to see BPB make the big investment one year be purely around smoothing off the issues like this.
Improve the queues, build dedicated speedy pass entrances, rework the park entrance process for efficiency, better wait time info., look at seating particularly around takeaway food areas, signage for toilets, a better way to dry out Valhalla boats, retrack/new-cars/springy-seats for the woodies and maybe add a few fountains ;-) etc.
 
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Benzin said:
Only way to know for certain is to contact the other parks on there and see, but I can't help but feel you're jumping at the chance to moan about the park again...
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I agree. I used the free Portaventura entry promised with the BPB season pass in 2017. Though a couple of staff members there looked at me as if I had two heads when I tried to acquire said free entry, one of them went into another room with the paperwork I’d given them, then reappeared a few mins later and duly arranged said free entry.

I agree that it shouldn’t be rocket science for all the associated parks to brief out offers like this clearly to their staff, but certainly in this case BPB promised something and then delivered it
 
Benzin said:
It is quite possible that the person at Efteling was not aware of this... The times that I visited Merlin attractions abroad when I had a MAP and they didn't know about the 50% off entry at either...

Only way to know for certain is to contact the other parks on there and see, but I can't help but feel you're jumping at the chance to moan about the park again...
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On what grounds?

I haven't moaned about the park in my post, I've written an intro and a sentence detailing the issue and haven't pointed the finger at BPB or Efteling.

The reasons I have brought this up are, firstly, I am planning to use this perk later on in the year and therefore was looking for any information (thank you to those who have, much appreciated). Secondly, I wished to make anyone else who may be planning to utilise this perk aware, hence me posting it here.

The season pass perk is clearly advertised on Pleasure Beach's website (https://www.blackpoolpleasurebeach.com/season-pass/), however I received the below response from Efteling;
Efteling said:
Thank you for getting in touch again. We are sorry you did not receive an answer yet. We have now received feedback from the right department and our colleagues found out that we have no cooperation with Blackpool Pleasure Beach. We will contact them about the information on their website. We are sorry for the inconvenience. Nevertheless we hope to welcome you real soon!
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Coaster said:
Thank you, so just to confirm you do not offer the free day with a Pleasure Beach season pass at all?
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Efteling said:
Unfortunately we indeed do not offer free entrance with a Pleasure Beach season pass. We are sorry for the inconvenience.
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I'd suggest as this is advertised as a perk, it shouldn't need me to go around contacting each park to see what they say, there should be a straightforward way of utilising the perk and it should be communicated accordingly.

I'm not blaming PB or Efteling here, but it isn't right to advertise a perk when selling the passes if it either doesn't exist or isn't communicated well enough.
 
kurtis.99 said:
Can the big one run on 3 trains in technical terms and they don’t for safety or has it been changed so they physically can’t


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It can still run three trains but currently they limit it to 2 trains when the park is open - sometimes it tests on three. I think one of the main reasons is staffing required - look at how many staff there are on the 90s videos, think there's 3 either side of the platform checking one side of 1/3 of a train each, whereas now there's one person either side. They had to despatch a train every 60 seconds to prevent trains stacking.

In order to do this in the 90s they only allowed disabled guests on in a 2 train service, and of course speedy pass didn't exist.

There's also the fact that it has had a few bumps many years ago where a train has slipped through the brake and hit the one in front - I believe this is why rain ponchos are banned as they could fly off and become wrapped round the brake fin.

Last reason will be wheel compounds to get the trains the correct speed for the weather conditions - pay per ride they were willing to spend the money on people changing wheels as maintaining a 3 train service directly impacted revenue, wristbands they're not as it makes no difference. (If the trains go round too slow or too fast the ride e-stops)
 
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kurtis.99 said:
Really hope they put some work into the big one over the next few years I know they want to re paint the ride
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???? :confused:

Painting the Big One is a bit like painting the Forth Bridge, they never stop painting it, they paint a section every morning before the park opens to the public and it takes a year to paint the whole thing, and when they finish painting it, they just start all over again. They need to keep on painting the Big One because of the sea salt in the air, otherwise the ride will simply rust.
 
Does anyone know why the steep little red ramp by the PMBO station is gated off at both ends? Perhaps in case it was slippy in winter weekends? Even though last weekend was almost like a Summer one! Just to prove that you can’t account for people’s stupidity, I did see one couple climb over the gate, walk the ramp and climb over the other gate
 
Dipper_Dave said:
Does anyone know why the steep little red ramp by the PMBO station is gated off at both ends? Perhaps in case it was slippy in winter weekends? Even though last weekend was almost like a Summer one!
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Health and safety gone mad again at a guess. Maybe we will see a new bridge at some point.



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