Merlin Pass Help

[aaronfarny]

Hi everyone, long time lurker first time poster! (Under this user name anyway!) So sorry if this is in the wrong place.

I'm wondering if I can seek some advice from some of you all

I'm wondering wether buying a Merlin pass (silver) this year would be worth it for me due to my quite unique circumstances

I know that I am planning to do Alton Towers 3 times this year, Thorpe Park twice, Warrick and Sealife a few times so I know that I will get my money worth in terms of visits ...BUT

I am also a carer for my father, and so my visits to places like AT, TP etc can sometimes be very spontaneous because I don't always know when somebody will be able to look after my dad sometimes it can as little as 2 days notice for example. Now I've never had an annual pass before but I know years ago you just used to turn up on the day and thats now changed to a online booking system type thing - but speaking to a few friends and looking online apparently people are struggling with dates, some people have said they've had to book weeks and weeks in advance because the passholder tickets sell out and dates are never available

So I'm not sure if this is worth it? I can get a call Thursday to say I'm dad free on Saturday, but if these slots fill up months in advance then the pass would be useless and I may as well just turn up on pay gate price / night before booking if you catch my drift?

Any ideas guys?

Many thanks

 

[Alix]

I’ve just had a very quick unscientific look for you on the pass holder website. For Towers, Chessington, Legoland and Thorpe all dates appear to be available - even tomorrow. Can’t guarantee that it’ll stay like that once the season is fully underway though. This is my second year of having a pass and I’ve never yet not been able to book a slot.

 

[Katy]

I've had a pass for a few years and never found that I can't pre-book, a lot of visits I've decided the night before. It'll sell out for things like Nemesis opening weekend, I'd expect Hyperia opening to also sell out. But random dates with nothing significant happening are unlikely to.

 

[yoursilentface]

I have a gold pass but the mrs and kids have silver

The only time i've known towers sell out was this opening weekend...you can struggle for london midways unless booked in advance but everything else is fine and i've never known gold be available and silver not

We go down to the southern parks a couple of times a year and have left thorpe and booked legoland same day on the way to it(just to go on flight of the sea lion)

 

[jibbsie]

I have had gold for a few years, I live close enough where I typically end up deciding the night before wether to go, the only time I had any problems was one bank holiday saturday when it sold out, and I probably would have been able to book it if I booked a couple days earlier, but that is just once out of the many times I ended up going and it only happens on the VERY busy days where most rides are at 2+ hour queues.

 

[Bowser]

I’m in somewhat similar circumstances as my sons disability means we often don’t know if we are visiting till on the day.

The past 2 years I’ve never failed to get a theme park booking. As others say, the only days that sell out tend to be very rare, namely the opening of new rides or special events like fireworks.

 

[Steve74]

I agree with what everyone has said. I generally only do Towers and I've never had an issue getting passholder reservations. This whole thing of passholder reservations running out before paid tickets is rubbish; it stems from Covid - during the country-wide restrictions they limited passholder spaces in favour of paid guests but since all that was lifted and everything got back to normal the rule now is: if paid tickets are available, passholder reservations will be too. The Merlin/MAP team actually confirmed this not long after the Covid restrictions were lifted.

As others have said, they only times you could struggle is events - Scarefest/Frightnights/Towers Fireworks etc. But as a passholder you'll struggle equally as much as someone trying to buy a ticket!

 

[Bowser]

The Merlin/MAP team actually confirmed this not long after the Covid restrictions were lifted

This changed again about a year ago iirc and they no longer guarantee pass holder places depending on tier. There’s no transparency on how this actually works in practice though and I’ve yet to hear of anyone being impacted.

 

[Steve74]

This changed again about a year ago iirc and they no longer guarantee pass holder places depending on tier. There’s no transparency on how this actually works in practice though and I’ve yet to hear of anyone being impacted.

They're treading on thin ice with that though - the moment passholders can't book yet paid tickets are still available, it'll kick off big time. It did when it happened during Covid, but you could almost understand that as they needed to bring in money quickly during the restrictions.

 

[Tom]

The first real test of this could be Hyperia’s opening weekend. The Friday itself is even available to Discovery passes as it stands.

Realistically, they would be risking it allowing in any more than 10,000 per day, in terms of the PR blunder potential.