Legoland Windsor

[Matt Creek]

Seems very expensive if they have introduced peak priced tickets for the park.

Does anyone know how much full price tickets to Legoland are these days? Last time I checked were March and they were around £51 then.

Maybe it's me, but Merlin seem to be hiding the full whack prices a lot more on there prices now.

 

[Rick]

2 for 1 blah blah blah.
Less than 1% pay full price blah blah blah.
Perception of value blah blah blah.

 

[Member]

Seems very expensive if they have introduced peak priced tickets for the park.

Does anyone know how much full price tickets to Legoland are these days? Last time I checked were March and they were around £51 then.

Maybe it's me, but Merlin seem to be hiding the full whack prices a lot more on there prices now.

Adult is now £55.40 and child is £51.20. As Rick says, there are 2 for 1 offers available, but you still have to pay something (unless you use Tesco Clubcard Deals etc.), so big increases are disappointing.

 

[Matt Creek]

£55 for an adult peak full whack? Ouch that sounds extortionate. I know there's numerous discounts (and a small minority now pay that) but for that money I'd expect Disney quality (which it certainly isn't).

As much as I love Legoland, that's just too much and it's inevitable prices will peak £60 this side of 2020 (I know Thorpe did).

 

[Rick]

@Matt Creek

Let me try one more time. Everything you outline above is all well and good and I don't disagree with it - but, you have to see the headline price as a line in the sand, rather than a price that people will pay to enter the park. The number of people that will pay it is negligible, not zero - but statistically irrelevant.

The headline price serves only to provide a perception of value that the customer is receiving - rather than something that will be rung up on the cash register. By the same token, if I go on the Dominos website right now, a Spanish Sizzler is £17.99 - however, if I click the deals button I can collect the exact same pizza for £9.99, a cash 'saving' of £8.00. So, I'm still spending a tenner on a pizza, which is nuts - but I'm getting deal so I buy it anyway. It's all about my perception in the transaction - I am saving money and that's what I want to do, who doesn't.

Annual passes are now £85, which sounds pretty reasonable against a day ticket price of £55, it must be a bargain says Mr Smith to Mrs Smith and they buy passes for their family and queue happily every after.

If you hit up the WDW website right now, you will see that a seven day pass for an adult is £324, whereby a fourteen day pass is £330. That's not a typo, my 8th - 14th days at Disney will cost me less than £1 each. Same principle.

I understand people's frustrations with this style of discounting because concerns about how far it can go are indeed valid, but we're in a society where people don't want to pay full price for anything, each and every time we open our wallets.

Drayton and Flamingo Land battled with this for ages, whereby their gate price was about half of Alton's (around £25 vs. £50). Alton offered half price tickets, Drayton had nowhere to move with their ticketing structure.

Full price ticket at £25 vs. half price ticket at £25 - there can only be one winner in terms of value.

 

[Leah]

As good a kids theme park legoland is*, it's not worth that much. I'd struggle to justify using a two for one at that price. Unless you go on the quietest of days, your unlikely to get on more than a few of the mediocre rides, and on top of that you have to a for food -which has drastically declined in quality/quantity recently (I had 5 wedges in a kids meal a few weeks ago, which counted as a portion), and also the lego that all families will inevitably end up buying. Sorry if this sounds a little too negative, and I know I'm not in the parks demographic, but it is far from worth that amount of money. Outside of disney or universal, im not sure any Park is.


*even if almost every kids theme park in the country surpasses it in terms of queues, rides, quality, theming, food, and everything else theme parks do

 

[Tim]

I also think it's worth noting that even if very few people pay full price it is not an insignificant number. Unlike the Dominos example where everyone can instantly access the same deal some people do turn up without any 2 for 1's. And most of them do still pay, because after driving all that way with kids in toe you're unlikely to drive straight back home.

Of course I think these people are mad for not planning ahead, (some of them even turn up to parks when they are closed) but they will make up a noticeable chunk of Merlin's ticket revenue.

I also can't blame the parks for charging so much when people are clearly still paying it.

 

[Benzin]

The main question is however, "Is LEGOLAND (or Thorpe, or Towers) actually worth £55"?

People will still expect the product to be worth that money, even if they've got in on a BOGOF... People do not instantly change their perception of these parks because they got in cheap, and we all know that the most popular complaint usually has something to do with the cost of visiting...

No park in the world is worth £50+... Even €45 for Phantasialand is way too much for the park...

 

[Maelstrom]

Unfortunately the pricing structure that Merlin use is generally working for them, so can't see them changing it any time soon.

Ticket prices are getting ridiculous yet people still seem happy to pay the prices- Disney World now charge the following gate prices for 1 day (similar in California)

Magic Kingdom $124 (£95)
Other parks $102 (£78)
If you want to visit more than 1 park in a day a park hop ticket is $160 (£123)

Universal are similar-

$105 (£155)
Park hop which you need to ride hogwarts express- $155 (£119)

Yes you can get multi day tickets which work out cheaper they still are expensive- if you want to visit Disney, universal and the seaworld parks, we have paid £524 each for this year, the 2017 version of the tickets will cost you over £600, even more if you want to add on volcano bay at universal. that's close to £2.5k for a family of four.

 

[Altonadvocate1]

I'm probably in a minority, but in my view ALL of the Merlin parks represent excellent value for money with a 2 for 1 voucher.

There are many things to dislike about Merlin's approach and direction, but I have never had a bad day at any of their parks and never felt short changed.

Compared to cinemas, bowling alleys, indoor ski slopes, etc, they represent excellent value for money and despite a number of poor decisions in recent years, AT makes me feel like a kid again on every visit, and at my age, 45, that is priceless.

 

[RyanY]

I'm probably in a minority, but in my view ALL of the Merlin parks represent excellent value for money with a 2 for 1 voucher.

I agree, £25 is good value for a park of AT's size. Also the return for £15 deal means that if you plan on visiting twice in the same year then each visit only costs £20 each. Which is very good value if you compare it to the likes of Flamingo Land where it's hard to come across 2 for deals.

 

[CGM]

I also think it's worth noting that even if very few people pay full price it is not an insignificant number. Unlike the Dominos example where everyone can instantly access the same deal some people do turn up without any 2 for 1's. And most of them do still pay, because after driving all that way with kids in toe you're unlikely to drive straight back home.

Of course I think these people are mad for not planning ahead, (some of them even turn up to parks when they are closed) but they will make up a noticeable chunk of Merlin's ticket revenue.

I also can't blame the parks for charging so much when people are clearly still paying it.

I don't think people are at all mad for not planning ahead. A day out at a theme park should be something you can decide to do on a whim.

If I'm visiting any other sort of attraction, whether it be an aquarium, zoo, museum, country house, steam railway or whatever, I don't spend weeks scouring my local Tesco for discount vouchers or booking online months in advance to secure the best deals. I just decide on the day that I'd like to go there and turn up.

In some cases, I might expect to pay a little more than people who booked ahead or have vouchers but nowhere near twice as much.

The idea of planning every aspect of a theme park visit weeks in advance saps a lot of the fun out of it for me. I think it's a shame that this level of organisation is needed in order to get anything like good value out of a Merlin park.

 

[jon81uk]

If I'm visiting any other sort of attraction, whether it be an aquarium, zoo, museum, country house, steam railway or whatever, I don't spend weeks scouring my local Tesco for discount vouchers or booking online months in advance to secure the best deals. I just decide on the day that I'd like to go there and turn up.

I do though. We went to Hampton Court Palace last year, would have been £20 each on the gate but by checking Tesco Clubcard we got in using point vouchers I had to pre-order. If we are planning to go out to anywhere like that I always check for the cheapest price, there are very few places I would turn up and pay full price for.

 

[CGM]

I do though. We went to Hampton Court Palace last year, would have been £20 each on the gate but by checking Tesco Clubcard we got in using point vouchers I had to pre-order. If we are planning to go out to anywhere like that I always check for the cheapest price, there are very few places I would turn up and pay full price for.

Well each to their own. I think in most cases I would pay the premium just to avoid all that hassle. I like having the freedom to just go somewhere without thinking about it too much.

I think that discounts and offers should exist but they shouldn't be a necessity in order to not feel you're being ripped off.

£20 per person for Hampton Court seems about right to me. I would be happy to pay it on the day. They might even be undervaluing it a smidge. £55 for Legoland though is way out of whack.

The perception of value argument doesn't really hold up because there's no one on Earth who would happily pay that price. No one thinks they are getting £55 worth of value whether they arive with a 2-for-1 voucher or 'naively' turn up at the gate with just cash.

 

[Rick]

The perception of value argument doesn't really hold up because there's no one on Earth who would happily pay that price. No one thinks they are getting £55 worth of value whether they arive with a 2-for-1 voucher or 'naively' turn up at the gate with just cash.

If it didn't hold up, no one would visit. Plus, the two things go hand in hand - "Wow, I wouldn't pay £55, thank goodness we have got a half price voucher" - that's perception of value at work. It's just a continuation of a packet of biscuits on offer in Asda. Merlin have access to all the data, it's working.

If the gate price was £27.50 you have nowhere to move on the price, so everyone pays 'full' price. As per my earlier post.

 

[Tim]

Just to confirm I was saying people are mad for not doing any planning. For example a quick Google search to see what the price is and if in fact the park is open. By doing this they will at least get the online price.

But I agree that searching for 2 for 1's is more planning than necessary, hence my reference to the Dominos example.

 

[jon81uk]

If the gate price was £27.50 you have nowhere to move on the price, so everyone pays 'full' price. As per my earlier post.

I would expect if they didn't rely on 2for1s it would be something like £30 on the gate and £27 (10% off) online. Or £35 and £28 online.

 

[Rick]

^ @jon81uk - potentially so, I think those prices represent pretty good value, to be honest. For comparison, four of us at the cinema last week (plus film food + parking) cost almost £60.

 

[CGM]

If it didn't hold up, no one would visit. Plus, the two things go hand in hand - "Wow, I wouldn't pay £55, thank goodness we have got a half price voucher" - that's perception of value at work. It's just a continuation of a packet of biscuits on offer in Asda. Merlin have access to all the data, it's working.

If the gate price was £27.50 you have nowhere to move on the price, so everyone pays 'full' price. As per my earlier post.

But the biscuits in Asda are usually priced at a point where people who are looking for biscuits would happily pay it.

If there's an offer, it typically lasts for a limited time and it's there to tempt people who may not have planned to buy biscuits. Everyone's happy because they got a pack of biscuits that they perceive to be worth £2.70 for £2.50 and they've taken advantage of the limited time offer.

What you never see is biscuits that are overpriced to a ridiculous degree on a 2-for-1 offer all the time. What's the point in that? Everyone knows that a pack of digestives is not worth £5. If the offer was for a limited time, it might make sense but they can't do that because no one's going to pay £5 the rest of the time. They might as well just make the price £2.50.

I tend to think that full ticket price for a major theme park should be worth about 5 - 6 hour's work at minimum wage. At the moment that would be £36 - £43.20.

I think if Merlin priced their parks towards the lower end of that range, there are a good number who would pay it. Many more than currently pay full gate price.

 

[Rick]

@CGM - a continuation of the biscuit example, not exactly the same as a limited time retail offer, of course.

I don't disagree with you, but your approach is too simplistic. You can't look at gate expenditure in a vacuum, there is a formula whereby you have to provide value at the gate, to keep per cap spending as high as it is. Merlin thrives on merchandise and other auxiliary spending. If your gate price is too high, auxiliary spending takes a hit because people don't spend as liberally when they're through the gate.

Some people (not all) have a certain amount of money available to them when they visit - you have to find the best way to compartmentalise it and extend the revenue opportunities across various income streams/times of day.

There is a magic number and Merlin and other operators continually try and find what that magic number is by experimenting with different pricing, often using different pricing at their different properties. If it's too low, you run the risk of becoming the cheapest babysitter in town, if it's too high your supplementary income will nosedive.