After visiting the park last weekend, I am really worried about the state of the place.
Firstly, the hotels are in a shocking state. ATH looks dirty and tatty. The Secret Garden restaurant has seen its prices increase but the quality of the food and service really go downhill. The Dragon bar is always filthy, and no one is ever seen going around collecting empty glasses or cleaning up. I remember the day it was table service! The bar still has queues out to the door. Granted the entertainment has improved however. Noted as well the small arcade in the hotel is now card only payment, so you must buy a "games card" and top it up whenever you want to use one of the machines. Seems a little pointless to me!
CBebbies hotel just across the way looks awful and has spoilt the outlook from the hotel over the "once" garden area. The spa has also been wrecked by turning it into a dark, gloomy space, with no conservatory anymore, no outside sauna and no window area by the whirlpool to sit and enjoy the scenery. Not to mention how tatty it is inside.
Then we have Splash Landings hotel, which is open when it feels like and closed most of the time. The water-park is too small to accommodate guests from all 4 hotels, and the public, to such extent that Annual passes will no longer be available as they cannot guarantee entry. The hot bubbly wubbly pool outside has now been made into a cool pool like the others because they were worried about kids going into it (even though parents arent supposed to if under 5). The outside bit is open as randomly as the hotel, and the water temperature has definitely been turned down a notch.
Flambos was utterly shocking on Saturday night with a £15.95 pizza and pasta buffet with burnt pizzas, left overs, and chocolate fountain sweet dips with no chocolate fountain. As with ATH, service was non existent. Didnt venture over to Enchanted Village, but last time I stayed there we had to move lodges due to dirt and things not working in there.
Whoever reads the tripadvisor reviews as well needs to take stock, with reviews in most areas of the park and hotels being mostly negative. However, most responses are met with the usual cut and paste reply from the resort. With the hotels charging premium prices, and people not getting the experience they expect, less and less people will stay over again in the future. I certainaly would not pay more than £99 for a night in any of the hotels now.
As for the park, it looks very run down in places. Cloud Cuckoo land really needs some investment with CaTCF now laying closed for years. All the closed up shops and guest services outlets around the park (next to Rita for example), and the gardens are a state. As for Scarefest, the only effort was made on Towers Street, the rest of the park saw little if none, with Nemesis illuminated in bright white flood lights, nothing around X Sector, Rapids etc.
One thing I also noticed which I havent seen for a while now, is that the staff are noticeably looking fed up. Speaking to one of them in the hotels, they mentioned how morale is at an all time low, the cleaners are fed up working under this new company, many AT staff are employed now on zero hours contracts, and they feel the place is being run into the ground with the main emphasis on making profits.
How much of this is true I dont know, but you do feel it when you visit, and this weekend I felt was quite an eye opener and made me feel very "down" about the future of the park. I really hope SW8 breathes a bit of life into the park else I think the park will be in trouble going forward.
