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Lightwater Valley

Matt N said:
Apparently Brighton Pier Group have made fairly drastic improvements to Brighton Pier in their time owning that place, so I’m fairly optimistic about Lightwater’s prospects under the company!
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That may well be the case but you're talking a whole other level to a theme park. LWV is a big big place and it's iconic ride isn't in particular good working order. They have sold nearly everything else that was good there. Only Eagle's Claw remains and even that is up for sale.
 
Benjsh said:
That may well be the case but you're talking a whole other level to a theme park. LWV is a big big place and it's iconic ride isn't in particular good working order. They have sold nearly everything else that was good there. Only Eagle's Claw remains and even that is up for sale.
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Interestingly, the group have expressed desire to do the necessary work to The Ultimate to get it back open, so at least the future could bode well for that ride!
 
If they get The Ultimate back open I think that they buy themselves another two years.

Nothing else changes without substantial investment. The park has been in sharp decline for over a decade.
 
At least they have form for doing things right, somebody fell through the pier it was in that bad a condition they bought it and they've steered it around. I'm unsure if they've got rides in storage from the pier but If they have they have a head start on having something to install
 
They clearly know how to run a selection of rides, this is just natural progression onto a large plot.

Im sure they have contacts in the business, even hiring out land for Showmen to pitch up for a season would be a ride lineup improvement
 
Interestingly, Lightwater Valley is now offering what it refers to as The Ultimate VR Coaster as an upcharge attraction, where you board a simulator and ride a virtual rollercoaster in VR: https://www.lightwatervalley.co.uk/...FCP0R2fmSPoxZkpX20IzRMQvRvyCLzoTC9MEgYz1WORkY

3 locations will be on offer to ride the rollercoaster in (Miami, London and LWV itself), and each ride costs £5.

An interesting addition, in my opinion, and while it's not my cup of tea, I hope it generates the park some much-needed extra income!
 
It's a very cheap, very quick emergency addition to generation cash for a small company that had just bought a failing theme park during a global pandemic. I hope they can tern it around however the situation looks dire.
 
Matt N said:
Interestingly, Lightwater Valley is now offering what it refers to as The Ultimate VR Coaster as an upcharge attraction, where you board a simulator and ride a virtual rollercoaster in VR: https://www.lightwatervalley.co.uk/...FCP0R2fmSPoxZkpX20IzRMQvRvyCLzoTC9MEgYz1WORkY

3 locations will be on offer to ride the rollercoaster in (Miami, London and LWV itself), and each ride costs £5.

An interesting addition, in my opinion, and while it's not my cup of tea, I hope it generates the park some much-needed extra income!
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At least they're acknowledging the Ultimate exists with this. At least signals there's some hope they're going to get it up and running again.
 
Fuct said:
At least they're acknowledging the Ultimate exists with this. At least signals there's some hope they're going to get it up and running again.
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The VR coaster isn't "The Ultimate" that's at the park, it's just a random CGI coaster. It's a poor attempt to link it to their former ride, which looking at their social media posts about it appears to have backfired spectacularly. 99% of the comments are negative, most raising the point that the park is going down the pan, especially with this being a £5 upcharge. It's all pretty much echoing their trip advisor reviews, which are similarly terrible.

I'm all for temporary attractions to pad things out while they get themselves sorted, as we've seen at towers this season. But when you're charging 27% of the standard holiday adult admission price for a few minutes in a simulator, you're just shamelessly money grabbing with no thought into any sort of overall guest experience. Such a shame :disrelieved:
 
Craig said:
The VR coaster isn't "The Ultimate" that's at the park, it's just a random CGI coaster. It's a poor attempt to link it to their former ride
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Well they fooled me! Must admit I don't see the attraction either, trekking to LWV to sit on a simulator instead of going on actual rides is a bit of a stretch and then for a £5 upcharge I don't see how they expect to get people to stump up.

Makes me think they picked up the park and then realised the ticket prices don't cover costs well enough so instead of gaining the bad PR of hiking the price mid-season they're grabbing at any sources of income they can.
 
I'll just clarify after a bit of research to say that whilst it isn't The Ultimate, it does appear to be themed to the area it's located to an extent. The trailer on the website shows that this is an Immotion VR coaster, which was put in a few years ago at Blackpool Tower (don't think it's there anymore as there's no longer a mention of it on the website):

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So the coaster is the exact same thing, however they overlay a background onto it. The Blackpool one was on the promenade, there was one designed for the London Eye, but I don't think it was installed due to the pandemic. The LWV one does seem to show the countryside, so there's a little bit of customisation there I guess.

Still, the Immotion website makes a big deal about them doing the customisation for free and no capex being needed for installation, so it's essentially cost LWV literally nothing to put in anyway
 
Poisson said:
Might be false hope but BPG have said they're keen to reopen Ulty in some form, standard or modified. I'll cling to that until I see it as matchsticks and razors.
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I could see Ulty being either fully re-tracked of just having the Valley Run removed. Either of those would make the ride smoother and more family friendly.
 
rob666 said:
...and very expensive!
Either of those options is beyond economic reality, how would you get the train back to the station without the valley run?
The ride is dead.
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I don't see a full retrack or a drastic layout change on the cards, but I think reprofiling the track out of the tunnel so it's less prone to stalling before reaching the station lift hill would be viable.
 
It is now an under twelves park, whole different market, and doing better overall by the sound of things than Mingo.
It cost a fortune to keep running, a real cost millstone round the parks neck, and the grounds through the second half will now be a complete jungle.
Dead, in my humble opinion.
 
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