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Merlin Reducing Capex Spending 2018-2021

Sorry to bump this thread, but I was just reading through this topic and a couple of others and I thought about just how much the tune on here has changed in 5 years regarding hotels at Alton Towers. For example, a typical member in 2012 would have said when the first lodge plans were unveiled: "Thank god Merlin are finally building a hotel at Towers!". Whereas a typical member now would be saying upon the announcement of accommodation "Not more hotels! They should be investing in the park!"

Sorry to go off topic, but this was just a stray observation I had when it was said that Merlin would be reinvesting the £100m into accommodation.
 
Matt N said:
Sorry to bump this thread, but I was just reading through this topic and a couple of others and I thought about just how much the tune on here has changed in 5 years regarding hotels at Alton Towers. For example, a typical member in 2012 would have said when the first lodge plans were unveiled: "Thank god Merlin are finally building a hotel at Towers!". Whereas a typical member now would be saying upon the announcement of accommodation "Not more hotels! They should be investing in the park!"

Sorry to go off topic, but this was just a stray observation I had when it was said that Merlin would be reinvesting the £100m into accommodation.
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I think everyone had been longing for the 3rd hotel and a waterpark extension at that point. Given the 7 year gap between the 2 existing hotels I think there was an expectation that the 3rd one would appear around 2010/2011.

What we got instead was a bunch of shoddy garden sheds posing as "high quality" accomodation. These recent additions along with CBeebies Hotel (just an extension) have not only been poor quality and overpriced but they go off in a different direction to what the resort accommodation had been like previously, and also offer little to no excitement.

Combine that with the ever shrinking and tatty theme park which is supposed to be the reason for staying over, and its not hard to see why the tone has changed. Enthusiasts are quite bitter about it all.
 
PeteB said:
I think everyone had been longing for the 3rd hotel and a waterpark extension at that point. Given the 7 year gap between the 2 existing hotels I think there was an expectation that the 3rd one would appear around 2010/2011.

What we got instead was a bunch of shoddy garden sheds posing as "high quality" accomodation. These recent additions along with CBeebies Hotel (just an extension) have not only been poor quality and overpriced but they go off in a different direction to what the resort accommodation had been like previously, and also offer little to no excitement.

Combine that with the ever shrinking and tatty theme park which is supposed to be the reason for staying over, and its not hard to see why the tone has changed. Enthusiasts are quite bitter about it all.
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I wouldn't personally call EV a bad accommodation option during the summer months and CBeebies looks nice from what I've seen of it, but I do agree with you that the hotels are too expensive and that the park should be their priority in terms of investment (or at least that's what I think you were implying, anyway.) They need to either replace or reopen all the rides they closed in order to recoup the losses after the Smiler crash, because I'd say that the park is close to recovery financially.
 
Matt N said:
I wouldn't personally call EV a bad accommodation option during the summer months and CBeebies looks nice from what I've seen of it, but I do agree with you that the hotels are too expensive and that the park should be their priority in terms of investment (or at least that's what I think you were implying, anyway.) They need to either replace or reopen all the rides they closed in order to recoup the losses after the Smiler crash, because I'd say that the park is close to recovery financially.
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Me and my partner stayed in the Enchanted Villiage lodges summer 2016 and it was the worst accommodation we've ever paid for, and we go away a lot. So much to the point that after being moved lodges twice, on the second night I demanded they move us to the AT Hotel instead.

It may be a bit old but at least the equipment works, plug sockets not hanging off the walls, bed wasn't falling to bits. I didn't care much for the layout either, putting the bathroom right next to the bed with toilet just inches away.

The AT Hotel actually had some thought put into it and its still a nice place to stay despite Merlin trying everything they can to destroy it.
 
PeteB said:
It may be a bit old but at least the equipment works, plug sockets not hanging off the walls, bed wasn't falling to bits.
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My family and I have stayed in EV twice; once in August 2015 and once in July 2017. We have never had those sorts of problems in our lodge.
 
Matt N said:
Sorry to bump this thread, but I was just reading through this topic and a couple of others and I thought about just how much the tune on here has changed in 5 years regarding hotels at Alton Towers. For example, a typical member in 2012 would have said when the first lodge plans were unveiled: "Thank god Merlin are finally building a hotel at Towers!". Whereas a typical member now would be saying upon the announcement of accommodation "Not more hotels! They should be investing in the park!"

Sorry to go off topic, but this was just a stray observation I had when it was said that Merlin would be reinvesting the £100m into accommodation.
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Indeed, look back at that time and look at now. Only 2 years before Thirteen had drawn massive crowds to the park which was not sustained over the following seasons. The park was still shoddy and cuts where starting to bite but I think there was still some sort of faith around that Merlin had genuine long term ambitions for the place. Who knows, they may well still have had at the time?

After all, they hadn't had the park for that long, Mutiny Bay was well received, they had what looked like an exiting Long term development plan and although Thirteen faced heavy critism it was a decent attraction that was innovative and rekindled a sense of purpose that Towers had lost over the course of the proceeding decade. Merlin had also shown great promise having just expanded the line up at Thorpe by building a heavily themed brand spanking new B&M!

Towers at the time had a better mix of attractions and was a far more rounded experience than now. There was a superior whole family offering too. Attendance levels where far higher than they are today and Secret Weapon 7 was being built, finally revitalising the empty site in X sector. Yet the park still had just the 2 hotels it had since 2003.

With all that in mind, I think any talk of new accommodation being built at that time would have been seen as complimenting the resort. It would have sent out a message that Merlin had faith in the long term growth prospects of the park and that it would have added to the experience of the resort as a whole. No one would have thought back then that anyone would be mad enough to increase hotel capacity AT THE EXPENSE of the anchor that is the park itself.

Fast forward to 2017 and we know where the park is at now.
 
On a side note, this Blooloop article states that Merlin is creating areas based on Peppa Pig within its RTPs and we should expect the first two to open in 2018, with them opening a stand-alone attraction in 2019. Here's the link to the article:https://blooloop.com/news/merlin-entertainments-peppa-pig-attractions/

So, where could we see the two areas go? Could one of them potentially replace CCL at Alton? What do you guys think?

P.S. I tried to do the paperclip thingy for embedding links within your text that another member told me how to do in another thread, but I couldn't.
 
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Matt N said:
On a side note, this Blooloop article states that Merlin is creating areas within its RTPs and we should expect the first two to open in 2018, with them opening a stand-alone attraction in 2019. Here's the link to the article:https://blooloop.com/news/merlin-entertainments-peppa-pig-attractions/

So, where could we see the two areas go? Could one of them potentially replace CCL at Alton? What do you guys think?

P.S. I tried to do the paperclip thingy for embedding links within your text that another member told me how to do in another thread, but I couldn't.
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They don't have the licence for Peppa Pig in the UK, Paultons do. So it won't be Alton. Considering they only have two stand alone RTPs outside of the UK, I would say it's a given that they will be in Heide and Gardaland. Can't see it fitting into any LegoLand.
 
CSLKenny said:
They don't have the licence for Peppa Pig in the UK, Paultons do. So it won't be Alton. Considering they only have two stand alone RTPs outside of the UK, I would say it's a given that they will be in Heide and Gardaland. Can't see it fitting into any LegoLand.
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Heide? But they already have an IP themed kids land! Gardaland does as well, and they also have Leolandia elsewhere in Italy with a Peppa Pig World!
 
Matt N said:
My family and I have stayed in EV twice; once in August 2015 and once in July 2017. We have never had those sorts of problems in our lodge.
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PeteB has a special skill that any fault that could go wrong at Alton Towers does so for him and everything is 30 times worse than it is for every other visitor. Which considering the general poor couple of seasons we have had it’s a miracle he survived his stay at all, and wasn’t electrocuted by a dodgy power outlet whilst being simultaneously strangled by a fallen curtain as he was struggling out of the collapsed bed...

Overpriced is correct but the accommodation at Towers isn’t that different to the offering at Centreparcs and people pay through the nose for that. Think there is an overarching problem with the cost of UK holiday resorts which is beyond just Merlin, but this coupled with Merlins poor theme park offering is frustrating to say the least.
 
Dave said:
PeteB has a special skill that any fault that could go wrong at Alton Towers does so for him and everything is 30 times worse than it is for every other visitor. Which considering the general poor couple of seasons we have had it’s a miracle he survived his stay at all, and wasn’t electrocuted by a dodgy power outlet whilst being simultaneously strangled by a fallen curtain as he was struggling out of the collapsed bed....
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LOL! I couldn't even make this stuff up. It just happens.

My last ever stay at Splash Landings during Scarefest 2016 will go down as the worst hotel stay and customer service of all time. Being given a freezing cold room with no working heater, not being able to get it fixed, not being able to move room, and the best the hotel staff could offer us was 'an extra blanket'.
 
Also in contrast to my posts from 10-12 years ago when everybody was moaning that hotel prices were too high, I was the one who would argue that the quality and service was worth it.
 
Dave said:
Overpriced is correct but the accommodation at Towers isn’t that different to the offering at Centreparcs and people pay through the nose for that. Think there is an overarching problem with the cost of UK holiday resorts which is beyond just Merlin, but this coupled with Merlins poor theme park offering is frustrating to say the least.
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Indeed, from Haven camps to Butlins the embattled British tourist industry has tried to defend itself from the onslaught of cheap foreign holidays of the last 2 decades by taking the short term solution of protecting it's margins in the immediate future rather than its product offer, and therfore the volumes, for its long term future. Remind you anyone?

The result has been overpriced and uncompetitive accommodation that has led to profit warnings, consolidation, long term decline and a struggle to find an identity and place in the modern world.

There's clearly a market in the UK for quality short breaks and overnight stays and it's clearly very lucrative. But when you visit somewhere like centre parks, you know what sort of experience you're seeking. If you book a Merlin hotel, you're more than likely going to be drawn in first and foremost by park that it's attached to.
 
I agree that Centre Parcs can be pricey, but would argue that they are good value off peak. What the likes of them and Butlins provide for the price outside of silly season pricing aligns with the price you pay.

Merlin resorts follow a not too dissimilar pricing for silly season. In contrast however Merlin continue to deplete the value offered with the perpetual cuts to everything possible. There is very little I can think of which has been a positive change to their hotel offerings. A lot of the value offered is based in the hotel’s original designs and they continue to trade off of these, such as the beauty of ATH’s atrium. I’m not sure how long you can continue to do so without making decent investments. When you compare that position to the likes of Centre Parcs and Butlins which do see at least semi-regular investments in their pools, entertainment and F&B offerings, it becomes more striking how little investment for the sake of ‘plussing’ the resorts has actually take place across Merlin’s accommodation.

With the lack of imagination and value engineering applied to the newer accommodation offerings I do wonder whether these will have the same longevity and enduring appeal of the likes of ATH.
 
Dave said:
PeteB has a special skill that any fault that could go wrong at Alton Towers does so for him and everything is 30 times worse than it is for every other visitor. Which considering the general poor couple of seasons we have had it’s a miracle he survived his stay at all, and wasn’t electrocuted by a dodgy power outlet whilst being simultaneously strangled by a fallen curtain as he was struggling out of the collapsed bed...
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So either PeteB is our Victor Meldrew or Merlin just keep screwing things up for our enjoyment :p
 
Well, a month after this announcement, Merlin have now been relegated from the top 100 companies on the stock exchange.
 
Not really surprising as they were hovering above the relegation zone at the start of q3. There's clearly been an investor reaction to their unsatisfactory/detail light explanation of their terrible RTP performance.
 
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