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Oakwood Discussion

They seem to want to concentrate on smaller attractions being created at the moment to bring in guests. This worked incredibly well with Neverland last year so they no doubt want to continue down that path.

There are continuous rumours that they want to build a roller coaster of some description within the next 5 years though.

Strange that there is no news of this new attraction for 2014. I've looked around and can't find out any information about what's happening. Either they've come across a problem and postponed it, or finances have brought the project to a halt.
 
The park only gets around 400,000-500,000 guests per year so i wouldnt go expecting massive investments, its not going to happen as not economically viable, plus not big enough catchment area to get that over 1m per year. We should see some more new rides and developments, but wouldn't expect anything on scale of hydro or speed anytime soon. they did a good job last season with Neverland and had good intentions this year but looks like something has happened and been delayed a year. The previous owners who added all the big rides in the past sold the park and apparently the park had a fair amount of debt.
 
The first few pages on tripadvisor dont make good reading either. Most complain of the park being run down, overpriced, and worryingly, so short staffed that rides are being opened on a rota basis - i.e. staff run one ride for an hour, close it, go to another it, run that one for an hour, close it, go back to the other one, reopen it, etc etc.

A lot of visitors also complaining about the new attraction for 2014 still being a construction site with no further development or work taking place.

Cant believe they are having to run the park on a rota basis though, what a shoddy way to run a theme park....
 
I don't get what's going on at Oakwood at the minute. They got a great new addition last year and they've said that they were going to have "something very exciting" this summer. Yet it's now the middle of July and there's seemingly been nothing? A "series of major attractions" was also mentioned. It all seems very strange and it doesn't look good for the future.

:)
 
GaryH said:
Cant believe they are having to run the park on a rota basis though, what a shoddy way to run a theme park....
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Thorpe used to do this with the Octopus Garden kiddy ride area. Also on a weekday when there isn't many guests in the park it does make sense. The staff could probably follow a family around the area! On weekends and school ho,lidays then need 100% staffing though.
 
GaryH said:
so short staffed that rides are being opened on a rota basis - i.e. staff run one ride for an hour, close it, go to another it, run that one for an hour, close it, go back to the other one, reopen it, etc etc.
Click to expand...
They've run the theme park like that for years - it's only in the holidays and weekends that they generally run with all rides open continuously. It's been an Aspro development that.
 
Fantasy Island in Skeggy was being run like that when me and Sammy went a few weeks back, but it was a weekday in low season, so there was no need to have staff stood around doing nothing. Does mean you have to plan a bit better and stay longer if you want to do everything!
 
Rota staff makes sense for a small park like Oakwood, I've been there when it's quiet and it is literally dead. No point in wasting money on paying staff to stand there all day.

On a lighter note, Oakwood have announced later park closures... from now through to August they have announced they will close at 6pm (minimum time for most nights). Wednesdays throughout July the park will close at 10pm (no fireworks show). Then Wednesdays and Saturdays in August they will have their annual 'After Dark' nights, with the park closing at 10pm.
 
A friend of mine who is at Oakwood today has mentioned on Facebook that there was an almightly bang from Hydro and apparently the chain snapped while a car was being pulled up the lift hill. People were stuck there waiting to be taken off the ride, thankfully from what I hear no injuries though. But.... given the state of Oakwood and the apparent lack of maintenance the past few years, it does make you wonder how much maintenance is taking place on their rides. Especially this one given its past history!
 
Was on the park yesterday, didn't hear anything about Hydro/Drenched but did notice it wasn't open and that the car was about a quarter of the way up the lift hill. Was wondering what had gone on but glad no one was hurt.

Have to say that on the whole the park dissapointed me compared to my last visits a couple of years ago. A lot of the staff seemed a bit grumpy and one member of staff in the car park who was particularly condescending which wasn't a good start. The queues to get in the park were very disorganised with no information as to which queue was for what.

Speed only had one car running when there was almost probably a 2 hour queue at the time and cars were often going around half full which was annoying. It was very rare that a car went round full which as a single rider was annoying.

If I'm honest the highlight of my day was the Treetops coaster, fun little thing and I do love a good throughput, especially after just queuing for Speed. On a positive note, Neverland did seem very popular which is good to see and Megafobia continues to be a gem.
 
Oakwood seems to be recycling 2013 Neverland adverts at the moment, saw a few on ITV Wales this morning. Looks like nothing new for 2014!

The Hydro incident above doesn't sound good! Glad to hear no one got hurt.
 
Oakwood do seem really, really bad for running rides on reduced capacity.

I've frequently visited when queues have exceeded 40 minutes for Speed and Megafobia and only one car/ train will be in operation. I've been told that Engineers refuse to add second trains unless the visitor count is extremely high (bit of a joke realy since one ride could be alot busier than another regardless of gate figure) and then they remove the second trains later int he day at the earliest possible opportunity. Seems like a very poor way to do business.
 
When I visited a few months back with @Russ we ended up waiting 90 minutes due to dire operations on Speed - offering guests a choice of front row, sending cars half full, not batching guests and not moving guests along the row who sat in the middle seats really didn't help, as well as the seemingly unlimited fastrack system.

A ride host mentioned that the new investment will be a coaster and should be a Schwarzkopf but again, this is only word of mouth so I have no idea if there is any truth to it.
 
Just seen on facebook Oakwood's been given the Visit Wales visitor attraction quality status award with positive feedback. Many commenters expressing how their experiences differ from quality with many rides not open and few staff over the summer period.

One of my favourites is "Oakwood, more like Oakwouldn't". Oh dear...
 
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It's not a true award though is it? Would be pretty bad of Visit Wales if they didn't back one of their biggest attractions - no matter how poorly it is run.
 
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