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Oakwood Discussion

KolonelKlink said:
Aspro donā€™t seem to spend any capex on any of their theme parks - last big investment at any of them was more than a decade ago. The focus is entirely on the water parks.
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Thatā€™s why I wonder if it is being shipped off to one of their water parks. It seems to be being dismantled rather than torn down.
 
I just don't see how this park survives beyond the next could of years. The biggest issue is one they can't change.... It's location. It's probably the worst positioned Theme park in the whole of the UK. Throw in the lack of investment and cost of getting there plus tickets, it's looking bleak.
 
Quantum said:
I just don't see how this park survives beyond the next could of years. The biggest issue is one they can't change.... It's location. It's probably the worst positioned Theme park in the whole of the UK. Throw in the lack of investment and cost of getting there plus tickets, it's looking bleak.
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I think there's a few simple changes they could do to fix it.
  • Have a local bus service stop at Oakwood even if it's a couple of times a day
  • Explore bringing in rides and attractions from reputable manufacturers and remove the likes of Creepy Crawler. We don't need 30+ year old travelling Pinfaris.
  • Follow the approach of the 90s and early 00s and bring in more unique attractions. Headliners and rides that puts the park on the map. Even coasters from Vekoma could bring it back up to what it needs.
  • Focus on fixing up the experience and aesthetics at the park
  • Bring in an IP for the kids area. Fireman Sam is a Welsh IP and could work
I'm hoping that someone like Looping Group buys out Oakwood. With Oakwood being unique with it's line up in the 90s and 00s, it seemed similar to Drayton Manor with it's approach in that era.
 
Whatā€™s happened to Oakwood is a crying shame. At one point before the McNamaras sold, the park was an exciting, well kept, unique, charming and innovative park. It is now none of those.

Quite how Asproā€™s model of running these parks into the ground works is a mystery.
 
Hydro was a really strange investment which made little to no sense, even back in the early 00's.

It's a shame the park seems to be in terminal decline under Aspro, especially when it had such charm and character under the McNamaras.
 
Oakwood is great for its heritage, I think the troubles with the relationships they have between the public and the theme park is the backlash the theme park gets from media blowing situations out of proportion. 99% of the time you visit Oakwood, its not overall that great but its not bad either, the prices were even lowered to Ā£20 towards last year when the season hit to Halloween Spooktacular with the extra offerings being the mazes.

As with Drenched, i'd suggest waiting for the park to release some sort of statement before jumping to conclusions, no one knows if the park is going to close, no one knows what is going on with Drenched, i'd suggest keeping your conclusions to yourselves or you may look very stupid in the future.

I am not sure if the park will be closed due to its withstanding and recent investments such as the gravity group retrack and speeds repaints but time will tell I suppose.

Aspro Parks isn't the greatest of companies to be owning a theme park with so much potential, since Aspro have owned Oakwood Theme Park, the only newest ride that has been added and that was Dizzy Disk in 2019.

Bounce probably shouldn't have ever reopened due to the modifications made by a third party company rather than the manufacturer, so anyone who disagrees with Bounce im here and I agree with you totally.
 
TimedInversions said:
As with Drenched, i'd suggest waiting for the park to release some sort of statement before jumping to conclusions, no one knows if the park is going to close, no one knows what is going on with Drenched, i'd suggest keeping your conclusions to yourselves or you may look very stupid in the future.
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The ride appears to be being removed and this is a discussion forum. I'd be surprised if people weren't discussing the most likely outcome?
 
Quantum said:
I just don't see how this park survives beyond the next could have years. The biggest issue is one they can't change.... It's location. It's probably the worst positioned Theme park in the whole of the UK. Throw in the lack of investment and cost of getting there plus tickets, it's looking bleak.
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Exactly this, you could put Universal Great Britain there and it probably wouldnā€™t be particularly successful. Itā€™d be a shame but itā€™s almost more of a shame seeing a place limp on through a slow death spiral.
 
MaxPower said:
Hydro was a really strange investment which made little to no sense, even back in the early 00's.

It's a shame the park seems to be in terminal decline under Aspro, especially when it had such charm and character under the McNamaras.
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How is it a "strange investment" do you even know how good Oakwood was doing when McNamara was owning it? Back in the early 00's that would be seen as the next new big ride for a theme park in the UK even more than what It would be seen as nowadays, people travel for new additions like that, it was a good summer offering aswell.
 
venny said:
I donā€™t buy that the park is doomed to failure due to its location. Both Folly Farm currently and Oakwoodā€™s previous success demonstrates that you can make a park work in that location.
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Completely agree, it used to get the numbers and Folly Farm down the road gets 500,000 people a year. It also now has an enormous holiday village with a captive audience literally next door. Iā€™ve also found in yearly holidays to the region that there seem to be more visitors to Pembrokeshire and more of an offering for the holiday crowd. Itā€™s never going to compete with the ā€˜accessibleā€™ parks but it should be aiming to be the must visit destination for visitors in Pembrokeshire, like it once was.

The McNamaras made it a friendly family park with really unique attractions. It was talked about as a top uk park in the early 00ā€™s and was seen as a top Welsh attraction. Continued investment would get visitors back, but there is a fair amount of bad press to overcome from falling standards.
 
I feel the rideā€™s permanent closure has been a long time coming. Not just from the accident but an operational perspective. Perilous Plunge at Knotts, a similar attraction suffered a similar fate in many retrospects.

Unfortunately I feel the park never properly recovered after the 2004 accident . The original owners sold the park to Aspro where the real decline begun. Weirdly there was some false dawn around 2013, when the park did some investments such as the Never Land area. However not much else seeing attractions and upkeep deteriorate on the whole.

One just needs to look at Asproā€™s. Other park portfolio such as Walygator and Boudewijan Sea Park. I have heard some bad things especially with the latter, with rides broken or removed and condemned infrastructure. They are certainly running their parks into the ground.
 
I think I might have to make this year the year I finally go and ride post-retrack Megafobiaā€¦ every time this thread gets bumped, Iā€™m never certain that it wonā€™t be a closure announcement these daysā€¦
KolonelKlink said:
Even if you wanted to plan your summer trip to Oakwood now, you canā€™t - ticket sales arenā€™t currently available for any dates this season!

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Did they release season dates and/or tickets before? Perhaps they just arenā€™t up yet?
 
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