Matt N
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Shambhala (PortAventura Park)
I think your feeling on price point may partly depend on demographic.
If you’re a young family going to Paultons, I imagine you get a lot of value out of it. The park is tailored most towards young families, and if you have kids below 1.2m in height, I dare say there isn’t anywhere better suited to your demographic in the UK than Paultons. Peppa Pig World is expansive, and the likes of Storm Chaser, Cobra and Pterosaur provide what is likely the strongest UK lineup of family coasters below a 1.2m height restriction. For that young family demographic, Paultons is incredibly solid.
But if you’re an older family with kids above 1.2m or 1.4m, I think the park is quite expensive for what it offers compared to others in the UK. People can talk all they like about low queue times and such, but I think Paultons is currently somewhat lacking for older families in comparison to some other parks in the UK. I think the cries of “90+ minute queues” at Merlin parks is an exaggeration, as the number of days on which this actually occurs is very, very small and limited to an isolated number of super peak days (e.g. October half term during the Halloween events). The queues at Merlin parks are mostly a lot more manageable than some make out, in my view; outside of peak periods, queues much above an hour are quite rare, from my experience. And if you’re an older family, I’d argue that the likes of Alton and Thorpe have more to offer than Paultons.
There are a lot of advocates of Paultons’ pricing style on here, but I do wonder if it may serve as a barrier to their growth in the years to come. There’s a very fine line between “paying for quality” and “expensive rip off”, and I think there’s only so much people will tolerate Paultons raising the prices to maintain low crowds before they start to crack. Eventually, I think the park will have to accept that some days will need to be a bit busier if they wish to grow.
I’m not saying that the “sell them cheap, pile them high” model is one for the park to aspire towards, but I do feel that they could be pricing some people out at present, and there could be potential for them to grow more into the older family demographic if they were a tad less expensive.
If you’re a young family going to Paultons, I imagine you get a lot of value out of it. The park is tailored most towards young families, and if you have kids below 1.2m in height, I dare say there isn’t anywhere better suited to your demographic in the UK than Paultons. Peppa Pig World is expansive, and the likes of Storm Chaser, Cobra and Pterosaur provide what is likely the strongest UK lineup of family coasters below a 1.2m height restriction. For that young family demographic, Paultons is incredibly solid.
But if you’re an older family with kids above 1.2m or 1.4m, I think the park is quite expensive for what it offers compared to others in the UK. People can talk all they like about low queue times and such, but I think Paultons is currently somewhat lacking for older families in comparison to some other parks in the UK. I think the cries of “90+ minute queues” at Merlin parks is an exaggeration, as the number of days on which this actually occurs is very, very small and limited to an isolated number of super peak days (e.g. October half term during the Halloween events). The queues at Merlin parks are mostly a lot more manageable than some make out, in my view; outside of peak periods, queues much above an hour are quite rare, from my experience. And if you’re an older family, I’d argue that the likes of Alton and Thorpe have more to offer than Paultons.
There are a lot of advocates of Paultons’ pricing style on here, but I do wonder if it may serve as a barrier to their growth in the years to come. There’s a very fine line between “paying for quality” and “expensive rip off”, and I think there’s only so much people will tolerate Paultons raising the prices to maintain low crowds before they start to crack. Eventually, I think the park will have to accept that some days will need to be a bit busier if they wish to grow.
I’m not saying that the “sell them cheap, pile them high” model is one for the park to aspire towards, but I do feel that they could be pricing some people out at present, and there could be potential for them to grow more into the older family demographic if they were a tad less expensive.
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