• ℹ️ Heads up...

    This is a popular topic that is fast moving Guest - before posting, please ensure that you check out the first post in the topic for a quick reminder of guidelines, and importantly a summary of the known facts and information so far. Thanks.

Blackpool Pleasure Beach: General Discussion

Status
This topic has been locked. No further replies can be posted.
Not a fan of those queue times. Valhalla shut on a warm summers day? Last week Flying Machines were closed. Wasn’t windy. That’s a good queue muncher too. Streak is a disgrace on busy days especially factoring in paid queue jumping, but I doubt they will ever put the second train back on. Skyforce must have a terrible throughput. Infusion 2 hours? I wouldn’t wait 2 seconds for it
 
Went to Blackpool last week and Valhalla was open however for some reason the Fasttrack/Disabled Pass website said it was closed.
(This meant that guests using the disabled pass didn't need to reserve the ride and could just turn up and ride).
 
Thameslink Rail said:
Use the Fasttrack website
https://www.speedypassmobile.co.uk
Edit: doesn't seem to work properly outside the park
Also use www.queue-times.com
Click to expand...

I thought speedypassmobile will only show queue times if you purchased a speedypass ?

As for queue-times.com I doubt those times are even close to being accurate.

Currently saying Grand Prix 30mins ??? It's rarely less than that on a quiet day !!
And Ghost train 5 mins - Highly unlikely unless there only a few hundred on the park !!
 
Maybe the park is genuinely busy; Icon has a brilliant throughput, so to see it at 90 minutes is quite unusual!
 
...and I have seen six classes from one primary school all queue up for the streak at once, together with about thirty teachers and parent volunteers...instant gridlock!
Today is the last main school groups day, there will be fewer on Friday.
Some local schools are still attending until the middle of next week.
 
The trouble with Nickelodeon Streak is that the ride could achieve a much higher throughput on one train. Watching the Cyclone at Coney Island run single train operation, it literally took them 20 seconds to load and send the train and the queue stayed short all evening despite the park being relatively busy.

Nickelodeon Streak usually takes well over two minutes between the train parking and being sent again, likely due to a combination of a poorly designed station setup, having to let Speedy Pass people on and a lack of urgency from the staff. Anyone remember the dispatch timer that lasted all of about a week?

It's a joke really, they could do so much more to improve the throughput.
 
Coaster said:
Watching the Cyclone at Coney Island run single train operation, it literally took them 20 seconds to load and send the train and the queue stayed short all evening despite the park being relatively busy.
Click to expand...

Never been, though it’s a classic coaster I’ve always been intrigued by. I am presuming they shift the queue as some (many?) people have paid specifically to ride it, like at BPB back in the day, when they couldn’t send trains out quick enough?
 
Going back to Blackpool visitor numbers, I think the raw figures of number of visitors don’t tell the full story. It’s really people days you need to count and that has certainly seen a decline, from people in the past staying a few days or a week, to just day or overnight trips now.

That means that whilst visitor numbers may have increased by one metric, the amount of aggregate time in days people spend in Blackpool could have (and in all probability has) decreased.

I’m not sure I trust the statistics in any case, as there are too many interested parties who publish them, plus how do you really measure?
 
Dipper_Dave said:
Never been, though it’s a classic coaster I’ve always been intrigued by. I am presuming they shift the queue as some (many?) people have paid specifically to ride it, like at BPB back in the day, when they couldn’t send trains out quick enough?
Click to expand...
Yeah the park ran very similar to old-style BPB, we had the wristband but they also had a token system and were charging 10 dollars for 1 ride on it, so the faster they work the more money the ride makes essentially.

That said, there were other parks which also ran much more efficiently than BPB despite being pay-on-entry.
 
The Streak, back in the days of the Rollercoaster in the seventies and eighties, ran perfectly well, with few queues, on two trains.
It still could with a bit of effort.
But that wouldn't sell speedypasses to families with young kids then would it.
Second train has been promised to return more than once.
Similar to getting in at the east gate on a regular basis...we will let you in here if we feel like it.
 
shakey said:
Right some figures I have found from a number of articles published on line....

Visitor figures for Blackpool apparently peaked at 17 million in 1992 ( I cannot find any other details of visitor numbers from the 90's but a number of articles claim that 17 million was the peak during the 90s).

2017 saw 18 million people visit Blackpool (according to the Blackpool Gazette) and numbers have been increasing steadily over the last few years.

Regarding on-line booking. Of course most people book on line because almost every UK attraction is cheaper if you pre-book. Even if it's just a couple of quid saving I will still book online (because I am a tight Yorkshireman - as rob666 knows).

But the point I was trying to make is that Pleasure Beach is by far the worst park in the country for disparity between online and gate price, which in PB's case is £25 - 7 days in advance, £28 the night before and a whopping £39 on the day. That is almost 60% more than the 7 day advance price.

So yes almost all of pleasure beaches guests will book online - they have no real choice if they don't want to be fleeced. But it is a seaside park and it will always have potential for walk up trade which it is completely ignoring with the ludicrous gate price, early closing and pay per ride prices that are so crazy that they may as well just scrap them altogether because hardly anyone will use them - especially as it is now £10 just to go through the gate !!

Compare that to every other seaside park - who offer reasonable pay per ride options and in most cases a gate price that will still attract punters, later opening and an online discount that can be booked the night before for no more than if they booked weeks in advance.

With Blackpool's overall visitor numbers apparently on the increase there has to be a reason that pleasure beach are seemingly (from observations at least) losing visitors, despite a shiny new coaster. So what is the reason if it is not a poor business model for a seaside park ?
Click to expand...

You make some interesting points here.

In terms of online booking, most theme parks, from my experience, incentivise pre-booking. I know that Thorpe for example, have a very similar model to BPB for booking more than 7 days in advance.

It’s no bad thing in my opinion. It allows the parks to gauge a rough idea of how busy they’re likely to be and know how many guests to expect, how many trains to run etc and it also means that the parks aren’t ghost towns on rainy days. It works well for guests as they get discounted rates and BPB make it so easy to pre-book that you may as well. I really don’t see any issue with it and I think that these days, most people prefer to go online to look for discounted rates for everything- not just Yorkshire folk- purely because it’s just so super easy to do these days. I’d say that even at the more traditionally operated seaside parks, you still probably get a fair few wristbands booked online. It’s just the way the world’s going.

As for other seaside parks, I agree that they operate differently to BPB but they are completely different types of parks. BPB is by far the largest and most well known and they want to maintain a good reputation.

Rightly or wrongly, seaside amusement parks have a reputation for being tacky, dated and more funfair-esque than theme parks. BPB is in the sort of awkward stage between being an amusement and theme park, but certainly in recent years they’ve leant far more towards the theme park model and I think that this is the right direction for them to be taking.

Whilst I agree with Ash that a lot of people turn up at BPB and then don’t go in, you have to think long term. Yes, I’m the short term, they lose money from those people. But in the long term, the entrance fee keeps trouble makers away, makes the park feel a lot safer and gives it a more pleasant reputation.

This links to my previous point about why BPB are different to other seaside parks. They not only work to keep the trouble makers away by having the entrance fee and security checks, they also care a lot more about the aesthetics of the park which, again, has seen BPB move away from the old tacky seaside funfair image of precious years. So long term, I’d say that the decision to distance themselves from other smaller and less successful seaside parks is a wise business move.

I don’t think that the figures about visitor numbers to the town which you got from the Gazette are entirely accurate anyway. It’s been well documented that the U.K. seaside is struggling and, whilst some of the other seaside parks struggle under the old free entry model, BPB have re-invented themselves to remain relevant in the 21st century.

Look at how many seaside parks have stuck to their old ways and ended up closing down. The U.K. seaside industry is in trouble and has been for a fair few years. BPB has a responsibility to react to that to protect their business and I’d say they have a tough job but do it pretty well.
 
rob666 said:
The Streak, back in the days of the Rollercoaster in the seventies and eighties, ran perfectly well, with few queues, on two trains.
It still could with a bit of effort.
But that wouldn't sell speedypasses to families with young kids then would it.
Second train has been promised to return more than once.
Similar to getting in at the east gate on a regular basis...we will let you in here if we feel like it.
Click to expand...
I really can't see them doing anything about ride capacities while they are pushing speedypass. Especially now they seem to have finally killed off ride tickets with the increase in the walk round price.

And in the last couple of years they've started selling speedypass while leaving coasters on one train, which is not a good sign.

Looks like we may have to join the queue jumpers on sunday rob if it's a busy one.





Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk
 
Why are tickets still an option?
If you just want 1 ride on Icon then you have to pay £10 entry then buy 15 tickets at £1 each, at which point you have paid £25 which is the price of one wristband. Surely it would make more sense to either halve the number of tickets required at each attraction making tickets worthwhile or just ditch the tickets system altogether.
 
Thameslink Rail said:
Why are tickets still an option?
If you just want 1 ride on Icon then you have to pay £10 entry then buy 15 tickets at £1 each, at which point you have paid £25 which is the price of one wristband. Surely it would make more sense to either halve the number of tickets required at each attraction making tickets worthwhile or just ditch the tickets system altogether.
Click to expand...
I've always found the ticket system quite amusing with how expensive each ride ends up being! Surely no one goes and buys tickets for the major rides? I can somewhat understand if you're not going to go on anything but fancy a ride on a gentle ride or something.
 
Compare the ticket prices with Dreamland for example, entry is free and rides cost maximum £5 each. (I know that the rides at Dreamland are not as good but I don't think Icon should cost three times more than the Scenic Railway)
 
Status
This topic has been locked. No further replies can be posted.
Top