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Car Parking

You cant really compare paying to park at a shopping centre though - you have the option in the places usually, in terms of getting the bus in. Most people who drive into city centres and park are locals, and could if they wanted leave the car at home and find an alternative method to get there. I guess my gripe with Alton is (1) its in the middle of nowhere so 95% of people I would guess have no alternative but to use the car, and (2) the money was supposed to go on the relief road, which is now dead in the water.

I guess if the old railway re-opened and was accessible from most of the main lines so people could have the option of taking the train instead of driving, then fair enough with regards the parking charge.
 
Just to point out that we're forgetting families here, who cannot split between 4 people! I wouldn't say "most" people can split it, most single people visiting the park yes, although families no - and I'd assume there are a far more families than single people that visit the park.

Although everyone knows theme parks are expensive, you would be a fool to go to one and think it will be a cheap and cheerful day out! I don't think many people expect anything to be cheap these days.

On the whole though it is expensive, but that's the cost of things really, it's not like any of these high prices are sudden... prices have been rising considerably for a decade.
 
Just to add to that - yeah people dont go to theme parks and expect a cheap day out, I totally agree, though I think the whole £6 to park added on to your day is a bit sneeky as its not very well advertised on their website. If you read a lot of TripAdvisor reports, you'll find plenty of people who mention it in disgust and how they were not aware of it until they drove into the park.

For example, if you go onto their website, look at the Tickets and Prices page.... no mention of it there. Go to buy tickets.... no mention of it.

The only place it is mentioned is if you go to "Useful Information", then "Facilities" and its mentioned under "Car Parking".

Once you've driven 150 miles or so, and turn into the entrance, then sign the sign stuck on the lamp post "Car Parking Token £6.00" - to me.... thats a tad sneaky!!
 
I'm surprised they haven't created a ticket + parking offer on the website tbh. They could create an offer where you have to buy a minimum of 2 theme park tickets online and you can buy a car park ticket online at a discount of £4. Or even better market it that you have to buy a minimum of 2-3 theme park tickets and you get a FREE car park ticket. When you work it out compared to on-the-day (based on BOGOFs) it would cost more online, but then Towers have the benefit of fooling people with marketing it as free.

It would make Towers more £££s, guests feel like they're getting something for free and guests don't have to leave with a sour taste in their mouths at the end of the day as parking is already paid for.
 
GaryH said:
Just to add to that - yeah people dont go to theme parks and expect a cheap day out, I totally agree, though I think the whole £6 to park added on to your day is a bit sneeky as its not very well advertised on their website. If you read a lot of TripAdvisor reports, you'll find plenty of people who mention it in disgust and how they were not aware of it until they drove into the park.

For example, if you go onto their website, look at the Tickets and Prices page.... no mention of it there. Go to buy tickets.... no mention of it.

The only place it is mentioned is if you go to "Useful Information", then "Facilities" and its mentioned under "Car Parking".

Once you've driven 150 miles or so, and turn into the entrance, then sign the sign stuck on the lamp post "Car Parking Token £6.00" - to me.... thats a tad sneaky!!
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Once again, this is not just Towers, it is the same for most theme parks. I have recently booked tickets online for Toverland, Holiday Park, Nigloland and Europa Park. None of their websites clearly advertise a parking charge. None of them mention it at any stage of the booking process. However I'm pretty sure they all charge for parking. I'd imagine that I'd have to go hunting on their websites to find the price.

I agree though that it would be a good idea if you were able to purchase your car parking token online in advance.

:)
 
In a perfect world no theme park would charge for parking and they would all have first class transport links.

However it's not. Theme parks are an expensive business and an easy way to extract money out of guests. It's not like Alton is alone in charging for parking. I'm somewhat surprise the charge has stuck at £6 lately anyway!
 
Whilst I don't agree with it, parking charges are simply a common place in the more major theme parks these days. £6 is steep for parking I think, but it's still cheaper than some places! As Pixie has said above, Disney have redicously high charges.

  • Efteling - €10 (Around £8 odd)
  • Asterix - €10
  • Plopsa De Panne - €9 (And they're arguably one of the smaller parks in the grand scheme of things!)
  • Walibi Holland - €8
  • Walibi Belgium - €7
  • Holiday Park - €6
  • Plopsa Coo - €6
  • Europa - €5
  • Phantasialand - €4

And they're the parks who actually tell you in advance. Some of them, like Rob points out, don't even give you that information beforehand!

So many parks do it that it really doesn't come as a surprise to me anymore. I don't agree with it, but it's just something I've sort of come to expect these days.

I'm actually surprised Alton don't charge more to be honest, as when you compare their car parks to a lot of others around Europe they're certainly at the better end of the scale (Though still not perfect). I think £5 is the ideal figure really. A round number which is still at the cheaper end of the scale by comparison. If they want to charge over that I'd expect to see the car parks in immaculate condition, with no potholes or anything.

As others have said though, Alton's policy is very loosely enforced, and can easily be avoided if you aren't rushing out of the park bang on closing time. Compared to say Phantasialand where you pay on the machine at the barrier, meaning that charges can be enforced 24/7 (Yes, we've been stung with it before)
 
Definitely don't think towers can push it further than £6, and I think they know that.

Tis interesting though, they should really push the buying carparking in advance thing. It'd make lives so much easier for those on the day, even if it's just that "eurgh extra cost" thing.
 
thefatone said:
Tis interesting though, they should really push the buying carparking in advance thing. It'd make lives so much easier for those on the day, even if it's just that "eurgh extra cost" thing.
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Yes, many other parks do this, so it would be a good move I think. The only other thing I would suggest too would be to integrate it into the app so you can purchase a parking ticket anywhere, at any time (Not even necessarily on the day of the visit), which displays are barcode on screen when opened, valid for one scan on the barriers. It would really help reduce the queues buying a ticket, and help make it easier to purchase in advance.

Obviously this would be reliant on them installing the new style Skidata barriers that Chessington and Thorpe have, which use barcoding. But if they were to do this it would also solve the issue of Annual Passes, and could drastically reduce the number of staff needed to man the barriers at the end of the day just to keep things in check and help with any problems (They could have one person managing the ones up near Air and Nemesis, and another on the road from the hotel. That's all they'd need I think.).
 
It's all well and good if you visit once a year but I don't I properly go about 10 times a year, sometimes just for an hour or two.
That's going to cost me another £60 over the year so one has to decide if it's worth keeping the annual pass any longer.
It was so handy parking there as like has been said it's right next to the entrance, you turn up scan your pass and your in, now it's an extra hour getting to the entrance as well.

Out of interest is there any bike racks or storage lockers at the entrance? Although they probably would be a fiver as well knowing AT.
 
thefatone said:
Definitely don't think towers can push it further than £6, and I think they know that.

Tis interesting though, they should really push the buying carparking in advance thing. It'd make lives so much easier for those on the day, even if it's just that "eurgh extra cost" thing.
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I think Alton are limited as their barriers need a specific sort of ticket.

Thorpe Park's car park barriers use the same scanners as the turnstyles, this means it should be easy to print out an extra ticket when collecting pre-booked tickets and it will work at the barrier. Whereas at Alton Towers you have to buy car park from the car park machine.


EDIT - Just looked on ticket booking and there is the option to purchase Car Parking when booking Thorpe Park online. But on Alton Towers site you can only pre-book express parking at £18.

Further Edit - Chessington allow pre-purchase of Car Park online (only £2, is this due to most of their car park being grass). Also Chessington have the option to pre-purchase meals at £6 including pizza/pasta.
 
BigT said:
It's all well and good if you visit once a year but I don't I properly go about 10 times a year, sometimes just for an hour or two.
That's going to cost me another £60 over the year so one has to decide if it's worth keeping the annual pass any longer.
It was so handy parking there as like has been said it's right next to the entrance, you turn up scan your pass and your in, now it's an extra hour getting to the entrance as well.

Out of interest is there any bike racks or storage lockers at the entrance? Although they probably would be a fiver as well knowing AT.
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Spend the extra £40 and get a premium pass, as many others have already said, if you visit the park by car regularly the premium pass is worth the extra, even if only one person in the car has it you get free parking. The Alton Towers only pass also includes parking.
 
You see the thing for me is that I dont mind parking charges, IF the park is worth it.

On my recent visit to California and Nevada, this is what I paid to park at the places I visited

$20 - Magic Mountain
$15 - Knotts
$16 - Disney
$6 - Castle Park
Free - Scandia
Free - Adventuredome
Free - Buffalo Bills

So $20 for Magic Mountain may seem steep, however a season pass for Magic Mountain and indeed all Six Flags parks only cost me $67.99, plus I had all of those coasters at my disposal. Even if I had paid full price at the gate $67.99 (£40.80) thats still better value than the full gate price of Alton and Thorpe etc.

I resent paying £6 ($10) for Alton and £5 ($8) for Thorpe

Merlin seem to have looked at US parks and implemented everything they have been doing, without thinking if the prices they charge are actually worth it.
 
jon81uk said:
thefatone said:
Definitely don't think towers can push it further than £6, and I think they know that.

Tis interesting though, they should really push the buying carparking in advance thing. It'd make lives so much easier for those on the day, even if it's just that "eurgh extra cost" thing.
Click to expand...

I think Alton are limited as their barriers need a specific sort of ticket.
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Alton's barriers are limited, but that doesn't stop them. You can buy carparking tickets almost anywhere on park, and these come as admission style tickets. They don't work in the barrier, they just need showing on exit and a staff member releases you. Same as with annual passes.

They were gonna get some new barriers this year I believe, but budgets did not allow. Rather use outdated barrier systems which require staffing constantly it seems.
 
PeteA said:
You see the thing for me is that I dont mind parking charges, IF the park is worth it.
Click to expand...

Except I don't think this is related. Disney charges $99 on the gate for Magic Kingdom (I know most people book multi-day which is cheaper), which although expenseive is fairly worthwhile as there is a lot of rides plus fireworks and the park is open long hours. But I don't feel the $17 parking charge on top of that is worthwhile even at Disney.
 
I think one of the worst things about car parking charges at AT is the fact that everyone goes to buy their exit token at the end of the day. This means another extremely long queue as everyone is leaving at the same time (ish), and at the end of the day, you just wanna be going home, not waiting for longer.
 
With Disney you have to bear in mind that there are four parks as well... It's fine if you're staying on property as you get a parking pass, but if you stay off property and visit all four parks, that's nearly $70 on parking alone. Plus if you park hop a few times that's even more. I was recently speaking to an Orlando Taxi driver who told me said parking charge even applies to them for pick ups from within the Magic Kingdom area. So if you want a taxi from the Contemporary or Grand Floridian, expect an extra $17 whacked on said bill. Disney magic eh ;)

As for Alton - nobody likes paying for parking, but it's hardly the most heinous crime in the world. I was having this very discussion with some guys at work and we all agreed - it's frustrating but it's also the norm at theme parks. Others have rightfully pointed out that Alton's is far from the worst offender, so I don't see why said discussion is anything more than whinging/an excuse for Merlin Bashing.
 
I think the magic kingdom area must mean the park - I got a taxi from Grand Floridian to Epcot (monorail was proper borked and it was approaching closing on our last day) and it cost $11.
 
Its not a case of Merlin bashing from me re the car parks, there are a lot of other things that Merlin can be bashed about. :)

As mentioned, I look at a day out and can either feel conned, or dont mind parking charges. UK parks which charge for car parking are simply not good enough and dont compare to other parks where I have had to pay. Hell, even the parking charge I paid at Holiday Park last year, I didnt mind as they had Expedition GeForce. :D

$16 (£9.60) for Disney California compared to £6 ($10) at Alton. Even Disneys car park is better than Altons and has more staff in it / running transport ;)

As mentioned, its not just Merlin for me, I resented paying $6 to park at Castle Park.

However, I may as well end this post by having a good old Merlin bash and say what we all know, the parking charge was supposed to be for the bypass... So wheres that exactly !!! :D
 
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