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NuttySquirrel
TS Member
They've said "Spring" so I think we can safely assume 31st May.
Bowser
TS Member
I think it will be open for Easter. Its pretty much finished so we’ll likely see testing as soon as this month and those rides wont require too much.
Here is a mock up picture
There are a couple more pictures here:
www.themeparks-uk.com
There are a couple more pictures here:
First Look: Chessington Reveals New £15m World of PAW Patrol for 2026
Chessington World of Adventures has officially unveiled first look images and key details for World of PAW Patrol, the UK’s first and only dedicated PAW Patrol-themed land, ahead of the opening in spring 2026.
Matt N
TS Member
£15m?! That seems like a huge amount of money for the size of area they’re building and calibre of rides, particularly when we consider that Hyperia supposedly cost around £17m and Minecraft is supposedly costing £20m!
Is Paw Patrol a particularly expensive IP or something? I find a land of this size costing only £2m less than the UK’s tallest and fastest coaster hard to believe otherwise.
Is Paw Patrol a particularly expensive IP or something? I find a land of this size costing only £2m less than the UK’s tallest and fastest coaster hard to believe otherwise.
Bowser
TS Member
I would guess it's due to the extensive theming whereas Hyperia has..... none. I believe there are also facilities in the area as well as the rides.
For comparison, Peppa Pig World cost approximately £6m back in 2011, which inflation puts at around £9.5m. Now Peppa has more rides but Paw Patrol looks like it has much larger scale theming from what we've seen. And as you say, there are licensing fees to consider whereas Hyperia had none.
I think you're right to question it though, £15m does seem a lot so where has that figure come from? Could simply be a hyped up figure for the press to make it sound more impressive.
GooseOnTheLoose
TS Member
It's worth keeping in mind that when Merlin issues a press release about "investment", they are rarely talking about the invoice from the hardware manufacturer alone.
The £15 million figure will almost certainly include the marketing budget for the launch. It will cover the TV spots, the billboards, the influencer events and the licensing fees paid to Paramount Global for the privilege of using the IP.
When you strip out the marketing spend, the IP costs, the groundwork (which is always expensive at Chessington due to the clay soil) and the infrastructure, the amount spent on the actual physical rides is likely significantly lower.
Comparing it to Hyperia is a bit of an apples and oranges situation. Hyperia is a record holding coaster, yes, but it sits on an island of dirt with a shop and a desert van. It has virtually no theming and arguably half a layout. The cost was almost entirely in the steel and the engineering (and it shows).
World of Paw Patrol, conversely, requires extensive scenic construction. Facades, paved areas, planting, animatronics (or at least static figures) and immersive environments cost a fortune to build and install. Theming is expensive. Concrete is expensive. A steel support column is relatively cheap, but making that column look like the Lookout Tower is where the money goes. They're also definitely including the hotel room rethemes and character costumes in the investment amount.
It's also worth noting that construction inflation has vastly outpaced general inflation (CPI) since 2011. The cost of materials and labour in the UK construction sector has skyrocketed post 2020. The £6 million Paultons spent on Peppa Pig World in 2011 would probably cost close to £12 - 13 million to replicate today, purely on materials and labour costs, before you even factor in the "Merlin Premium" / corporate bloat.
GooseOnTheLoose
TS Member
Yes...
And no...
Transfer pricing is absolutely a tool used by multinationals to shift profits to low tax jurisdictions (like charging a UK park a fortune for IP rights held in Luxembourg), but it doesn't really work for an internal transaction between two UK entities.
Merlin Magic Making and Chessington are both subject to UK Corporation Tax. If MMM "overcharges" Chessington by £5 million, Chessington pays less tax, but MMM pays more. The net result for the Group's bill to HMRC is zero.
The only efficiency found in inflating the cost would be capitalisation. If Merlin book the ride as a £15 million asset, rather than a £10 million one, it strengthens the balance sheet's Net Asset Value, which keeps the lenders happy regarding debt covenants. It's a game played for the benefit of the banks, but offers no tax benefit.
The only reason you would artificially inflate the cost of a CapEx project internally is for Capitalisation, not tax, which keeps the lenders, banks and Blackstone happy... which is practically standard operating procedure for a private equity backed vehicle looking to dress itself up for a future sale or refinance.
When you're carrying a debt pile the size of Merlin's, your lenders watch your Loan to Value covenants like my cousins watching your sandwich on the lawns at Towers. If the value of your assets drops too low relative to your debt, the banks get nervous and expensive.
Merlin can convert operational cash flow (which disappears) into a fixed asset on the balance sheet (which stays), by capitalising as much as possible (including hefty internal recharges from MMM for creative design, project management and consultancy). A £15 million asset looks much better to a bondholder than a £10 million asset, even if the difference is mostly internal paper pushing.
CapEx sits below the line when calculating EBITDA too, which is the primary metric private equity uses to value a business. If you can classify a cost as Capital Investment rather than OpEx, your EBITDA looks higher, and your company looks more valuable.
There's almost certainly an element of financial alchemy involved. However, never underestimate the sheer, eye watering cost of buying a licence from Paramount. The finance team might be massaging the figures, but the IP lawyers are definitely taking a massive bite out of the budget first.
Benzin
TS Member
Do you get licked by the various pups in a secret tunnel?
Yes, but that's just me in a costume. The big money's going on the other secret element.
flyingguitar
TS Member
I think this is acctually quite low for the whole package,
what 3 new rides and a transfered ride all requiring foundations, electrical, etc
add on the theming and I am suprised it is so low.
with rides you have to remember there are a lot of parts, often they cost similar amounts if you are building a similar ish coaster (a lift hill, break run and station) no matter if it is a small kiddy rollercoaster or a record breaking coaster,
it may seem like the smaller coaster uses significantly less meterial so should be way more expensive, but this is only a factor in the cost of a ride there is also design, programming, electrical wiring, training, etc.
Islander
TS Member
This is barely true lol. The cost of a coaster is definitely loosely tied to it's size - the cost of the likes of Hyperia, or a Nemesis retrack are definitely vastly greater than that of a Paw Patrol or Bluey.
Matt N
TS Member
I get that construction costs have gone up a lot in recent years, but surely they haven’t increased that much in 2 years?
One thing I admittedly didn’t consider is that unlike with previous Merlin children’s areas, they have put a wrecking ball through the entirety of Mexicana and rebuilt from the ground up (unlike, say, CBeebies Land or Walliams, which were predominantly retheme/repaints of existing buildings).
But even still; I find £15m a hard price to believe for a relatively small children’s area, no matter how well themed. Paw Patrol is not looking to be a particularly big area; it only has a few rides, and it certainly looks smaller in scale than Peppa, CBeebies or Thomas.
I know I cited Hyperia, but also consider that Jumanji also only cost £17m in 2023. That was also a ground-up land, was themed to a Hollywood film IP that can’t have been cheap to acquire, had some significant theming, and also had a considerably larger scale headline attraction than this upcoming area!
I’d be surprised if Paw Patrol was overly expensive to acquire given that parks like Blackpool and Parque de Atracciones in Spain, which I can’t imagine are overly cash-rich, managed to get Nickelodeon lands with some degree of Paw Patrol in them. Unless the licensing fee has absolutely skyrocketed in recent years?
I get that Paw Patrol is ground up and looks fairly well themed, and that inflation has driven prices higher, but even still, I’m really struggling to see how they’ve reached an 8-figure budget for this area, let alone £15m!
One thing I admittedly didn’t consider is that unlike with previous Merlin children’s areas, they have put a wrecking ball through the entirety of Mexicana and rebuilt from the ground up (unlike, say, CBeebies Land or Walliams, which were predominantly retheme/repaints of existing buildings).
But even still; I find £15m a hard price to believe for a relatively small children’s area, no matter how well themed. Paw Patrol is not looking to be a particularly big area; it only has a few rides, and it certainly looks smaller in scale than Peppa, CBeebies or Thomas.
I know I cited Hyperia, but also consider that Jumanji also only cost £17m in 2023. That was also a ground-up land, was themed to a Hollywood film IP that can’t have been cheap to acquire, had some significant theming, and also had a considerably larger scale headline attraction than this upcoming area!
I’d be surprised if Paw Patrol was overly expensive to acquire given that parks like Blackpool and Parque de Atracciones in Spain, which I can’t imagine are overly cash-rich, managed to get Nickelodeon lands with some degree of Paw Patrol in them. Unless the licensing fee has absolutely skyrocketed in recent years?
I get that Paw Patrol is ground up and looks fairly well themed, and that inflation has driven prices higher, but even still, I’m really struggling to see how they’ve reached an 8-figure budget for this area, let alone £15m!
flyingguitar
TS Member
I wasn't really trying to say it wasn't tied to its size, as I said it's size a factor.
with rides that only cost £15-£17 million (that is cheap, consider inflation on the older rides) a sizable part of that budget is the design, programming, of the ride, these whilst not fixed (programming of complex rides, etc) are more constant than size, etc.
there are other factors for instance complexity, hagrids isn't the longest, tallest, etc ride but it is extremely complex (7 launches, designed for 12 simultainious moving trains (although it can only run with like 10 reliably) and that cost over $100 million, also I wouldn't have said nemesis was that big of a coaster, but it probably cost so much due to the terrain, having to work arround it to install footers, or reinstall track likely added a lot to the cost.
GooseOnTheLoose
TS Member
I am afraid to tell you, Matt, that yes, they really have. Labour costs, materials, and logistics in the construction sector have remained stubbornly high even as general inflation has cooled.
However, the main flaw in your comparison regarding the IP cost is timing and context.
You mention Blackpool Pleasure Beach having Paw Patrol. Blackpool's Nickelodeon Land opened in 2011. Paw Patrol didn't even premiere on TV until 2013. Blackpool operates under a legacy umbrella agreement with Nickelodeon that likely allows them to utilise characters for a fraction of the current market rate.
Merlin is negotiating a fresh, bespoke licence with Paramount Global in 2025 / 26 for a dedicated "World". Paw Patrol is currently the single most valuable pre-school property on the planet. Paramount knows this. They are not going to license the "World of..." rights for the same price Blackpool pays to have a guy in a Marshall suit wave at kids on a log flume. Merlin is likely paying a massive premium for exclusivity in the UK market.
World of Jumanji consists of a shuttle coaster (expensive hardware, minimal footprint), two flat rides, and a lot of planting. The "theming" is largely a big jaguar head and some nice paving.
World of Paw Patrol replaces the entire Mexicana. The demolition costs alone are significant and building "cute" is expensive. You can't just slap up a steel shed, you have to build immersive, child scale environments, intricate facades, play areas, and safe landscaping.
Also, never underestimate the "Merlin Premium" of internal recharges. A significant chunk of that £15 million will be fees paid to Merlin Magic Making for the creative design and project management. It moves money from one Merlin pocket to another, inflating the CapEx figure on the balance sheet to keep the asset value high for the investors.
£15 million gets you a lot less today than it did in 2023 and infinitely less than it did in 2011.