Paultons Park: General Discussion

[Quantum]

Paultons on a weekday appears to be on another level in terms of quietness… I’m not sure if the rain is putting people off, but it is deserted. I’ve spent numerous moments being the only person within visible eyeshot in parts of the park!

I’ve already managed 22 rides in 2.5 hours… for context, my current daily record is 31 rides. Forbidding some sort of crisis, I can sense I’ll be comfortably beating that with very little effort!

Enjoy it but school trips season is fast approaching

 

[Enter Valhalla]

I’ve often wondered what Paultons is like on a weekday. I’ve only ever been at weekends and it’s quiet then, with most queues less than 15 mins. If it’s so quiet on a weekday that there’s almost nobody there, this is surely TOO quiet? 22 rides in 2.5 hours sounds like a park which would be too quiet for most people. No atmosphere and you’ve done everything before lunch.

I know that enthusiasts like to re-ride, but most people don’t, so will leave after a few hours feeling that they’ve not had a full day experience. We felt this at Walibi Rhone-Alpes, where everything was walk-on but we’d done all the rides by 1pm.

 

[Matt N]

It seems to have grown only marginally busier. It’s busier than earlier, but still very, very quiet.

I was told by a host on Velociraptor that it’s not normally this quiet during the week… I am being shadowed at points by a particularly annoying Year 6 school trip group, however!

I’m now up to 27 in 3.5 hours, including 3 on Ghostly Manor. It’s a really cool ride, and a very solid addition to the park!

 

[pluk]

It seems to have grown only marginally busier. It’s busier than earlier, but still very, very quiet

It's one of the first wet days in months.
You presumably aren't in Peppa Pig World.
There's your answer!

Have a spin on Windy Castle for me.

 

[NuttySquirrel]

Paultons outside of Peppa Pig World is never busy, even on Saturdays. I tend to visit in the autumn during their Halloween event and even then queues for the main coasters never go above 15 minutes.

It does seem that the high ticket prices compared with the relatively low profile of the non-Peppa Pig areas keep the park artificially quiet. One does wonder how much more revenue could be harnessed with a different pricing model.

 

[pluk]

It does seem that the high ticket prices compared with the relatively low profile of the non-Peppa Pig areas keep the park artificially quiet. One does wonder how much more revenue could be harnessed with a different pricing model.

Please, no! A fair premium price for a premium product, delivered in no small part by the lack of queues, fastrack and upselling required to fund a low headline price. Lower the price, devalue the product.

 

[Matt N]

51 was my final tally for the day, blowing my previous record of 31 to smithereens!

Queue-times.com said that crowd levels today were 2%. I can’t say I’m one bit surprised! It’s potentially in contention with Oakwood in May 2019 for the quietest theme park I’ve ever seen; there was one school trip group, but other than that, I didn’t see too many others, and I was seeing lots of the same faces repeat riding things. Certain areas were quieter than others; Tornado Springs was a little busier later in the day, but Lost Kingdom and the area by Cobra were like a ghost town at points; I was genuinely unsure if Cobra and Edge were open when I went over there!

Another thing I feel I should mention is that it would seem as though Paultons now operates staggered openings. At very least, Cobra, Cyclonator and Farmyard Flyer did not open until 12pm, and Edge and Magma did not open until 1pm, and I don’t think Lost Kingdom opened with the park at 10am either (none of the rides were open when I entered at 10:10-10:15 or so). On a day like today, I understand the reasoning for this, but with the low crowd levels, it did mean that I was kind of left waiting for things to open rather than being able to hit the ground running and do a lap of all the major things at the start of the day.

I wasn’t personally too bothered by this, as I just did rerides while I waited, but if you are less of a rerider than me, I thought it was something you might find useful to know.

It was an excellent day overall, though; Ghostly Manor is a really cool addition, and it was nice to reacquaint myself with some of Paultons’ excellent family coasters. I think Pterosaur might be my favourite; that thing is smooth, fun and packs surprising vigour for a family invert!

 

[Dave]

51 was my final tally for the day, blowing my previous record of 31 to smithereens!

Queue-times.com said that crowd levels today were 2%. I can’t say I’m one bit surprised! It’s potentially in contention with Oakwood in May 2019 for the quietest theme park I’ve ever seen; there was one school trip group, but other than that, I didn’t see too many others, and I was seeing lots of the same faces repeat riding things. Certain areas were quieter than others; Tornado Springs was a little busier later in the day, but Lost Kingdom and the area by Cobra were like a ghost town at points; I was genuinely unsure if Cobra and Edge were open when I went over there!

Another thing I feel I should mention is that it would seem as though Paultons now operates staggered openings. At very least, Cobra, Cyclonator and Farmyard Flyer did not open until 12pm, and Edge and Magma did not open until 1pm, and I don’t think Lost Kingdom opened with the park at 10am either (none of the rides were open when I entered at 10:10-10:15 or so). On a day like today, I understand the reasoning for this, but with the low crowd levels, it did mean that I was kind of left waiting for things to open rather than being able to hit the ground running and do a lap of all the major things at the start of the day.

I wasn’t personally too bothered by this, as I just did rerides while I waited, but if you are less of a rerider than me, I thought it was something you might find useful to know.

It was an excellent day overall, though; Ghostly Manor is a really cool addition, and it was nice to reacquaint myself with some of Paultons’ excellent family coasters. I think Pterosaur might be my favourite; that thing is smooth, fun and packs surprising vigour for a family invert!

Staggered openings at the holy of holys

Lordy I await all the negative comments

 

[GooseOnTheLoose]

Staggered openings at the holy of holys

Lordy I await all the negative comments

Dave, the staggered opening times are there to encourage you to experience the park's other excellently operating rides. Staggered opening times enhance the experience, as you get to truly appreciate the beauty of your surroundings.

Walking around a deserted theme park, more or less entirely to yourself, is a privilege many thoosies would beg for. Be grateful that the perfectly manicured ghost town, devoid of life and atmosphere, is yours to behold entirely alone.

The premium pricing allows for a limited and cultivated cohort of fellow visitors, allowing you to enjoy your day in solitude and surrounded by good people, with good morals, who just want to have a jolly good time and be unimpeded.

Let us not forget that fast track isn't a requirement here, which has nothing to do with the less than record breaking visitor numbers and everything to do with the magical (mostly) single train operations.

Praise be to Paulton's. Praise be to Lawrence Mancey, our Lord and Saviour.

 

[Matt N]

To be fair, I can see the justification. Paultons are a small park, so their resources may not warrant opening everything at opening time, particularly on a day like today.

I won't lie, it was a bit irritating, as someone whose typical strategy in a quiet park is to do a quick victory lap of all of the major stuff early on before settling into back-to-back reriding. And I do think 2 hours late for a major coaster like Cobra and a major flat ride like Cyclonator, and 3 hours late for rides like Magma and Edge, is not ideal. I did feel like I was sort of waiting for major stuff to open, having done much of the open major stuff multiple times already. I didn't see this in a park like Drayton Manor on a weekday, for example, and even Alton Towers and the Merlin parks do not open major attractions 2+ hours late in the week.

However, I can see the business justification for staggered openings in Paultons' case, on a day like today was at least. My day was not impeded by staggered openings in any meaningful way, and I can't exactly claim that the staggered openings caused high queues or impeded my ride count given that I did 51 rides! For me to complain about them today would be the most finicky of finicky pet peeves; it wouldn't be particularly fair on the park for me to moan about them given the day I had. The only thing I can say is that they stopped me from ordering my rides in the way that I would typically like, which would be phenomenally picky for me to complain about!

 

[GooseOnTheLoose]

To be fair, I can see the justification. Paultons are a small park, so their resources may not warrant opening everything at opening time, particularly on a day like today.

I won't lie, it was a bit irritating, as someone whose typical strategy in a quiet park is to do a quick victory lap of all of the major stuff early on before settling into back-to-back reriding. And I do think 2 hours late for a major coaster like Cobra and a major flat ride like Cyclonator, and 3 hours late for rides like Magma and Edge, is not ideal. I did feel like I was sort of waiting for major stuff to open, having done much of the open major stuff multiple times already. I didn't see this in a park like Drayton Manor on a weekday, for example, and even Alton Towers and the Merlin parks do not open major attractions 2+ hours late in the week.

However, I can see the business justification for staggered openings in Paultons' case, on a day like today was at least. My day was not impeded by staggered openings in any meaningful way, and I can't exactly claim that the staggered openings caused high queues or impeded my ride count given that I did 51 rides! For me to complain about them today would be the most finicky of finicky pet peeves; it wouldn't be particularly fair on the park for me to moan about them given the day I had. The only thing I can say is that they stopped me from ordering my rides in the way that I would typically like, which would be phenomenally picky for me to complain about!

However, if the park had a sudden surge in last minute visitors those delayed opening times would have had a detrimental affect. You only had the benefit because the place was deserted.

If these are planned delayed opening times, because the park has forecast itself to not be busy, they are not advertised. We would crucify a Merlin park for this (and do). Communication is key.

 

[Bowser]

All ride availability including delayed opening times are advertised on the app.

For example this Sunday:



(I’m in another country so the times are adjusted)

 

[pluk]

They've done staggered openings since forever, the whole left side of the park has opened at midday on off peak school days for as long as I remeber. This is nothing new at all. They use the same staff who run the entrance turnstiles to run an area of the park once the entrance is no longer busy. Pretty smart and efficient use of resources.

And I'll bite. The 'you can't criticise Paultons' joke is boring and dumb. If you can't see the difference in a small family park opening a compete section of the park later when the are literally zero queues, the park is so small it takes a coupe of minutes to cross, to parks where the closed rides are scattered among the others to have to return to in physically massive park that takes ages to traverse, and where they are doing it while queues are significant and increased by paid queue jump, then you ain't the sharpest.

Staggered openings at Paultons make complete sense and do not impact your day.

 

[Themeparksandy1981]

Paulton’s is the most efficient uk theme park I ever seen.
Every member of staff is equally important. It’s also the only theme park that’s free for kids under 1m.
You can tell straight away that over 50% of visitors have kids under that size and the biggest queues are rides that families with kids under 1m can go on.

 

[Enter Valhalla]

I know that enthusiasts praise Paultons for its premium pricing which does definitely work on weekends. The place is quiet but has enough people in that there is a nice atmosphere.

Weekdays however, I’m really not sure it works. From my (purely anecdotal) experience, the GP don’t enjoy visiting a dead park, they enjoy visiting a quiet park but not a dead one.

We saw this with Oakwood, they’d get on all rides by 11:30 and moan that it was bad value for money and that they’d not had a full day experience. In fact I’ve noticed that a lot of quieter parks do actually end up taking trains off coasters in the middle of the day when the parks are dead so that guests have to queue a little bit and end up staying in the park for longer.

Enthusiasts think of value in terms of ride count. The GP don’t. Your average guest only wants to go on each ride once or maybe twice in a day. They’re not bothered about getting crazy ride counts. Also if Paultons are opening certain rides at 1pm, yes ok the park is dead, but it’s still not a good look.

I dunno, just my thoughts, I know that it’s blasphemy to say anything negative about Paultons, and I would reiterate that this approach works on weekends and holidays. Most of us have only visited on weekends and holidays so perhaps I’d say that we’re seeing it at its best.

 

[Matt N]

If we’re playing devil’s advocate, I’d argue that Paultons’ quietness and size make staggered openings equally suboptimal if you are someone who doesn’t like to reride things.

They didn’t massively bother me personally, as I just did rerides until things opened, but if you’re not a big rerider, I think the crowd levels yesterday were such that you’d have been left twiddling your thumbs waiting for things to open, having probably already worked your way through everything major that was open very quickly.

Edge and Magma did not open until 1pm, which I’d argue is very late for attractions that aren’t phenomenally wet water rides (with things like Valhalla, I can maybe understand the logic of opening later, as many people ride them towards the end of the day so as not to be dripping wet for the bulk of the day), Cobra, Farmyard Flyer and Cyclonator did not open until 12pm either, and I also don’t think the Lost Kingdom rides opened at 10am. That is quite a considerable bulk of the major non-Peppa lineup opening late, and I should also add that the staggering was not confined to the left side of the park as some imply, with Cyclonator and Farmyard Flyer also opening 2 hours late.

I get why Paultons does staggered openings, as the crowd levels yesterday were very low, but I would struggle to argue that keeping major attractions closed until 12pm or later is a positive thing. People may moan about staggered openings in the Merlin parks, but as of right now, it is only a select few water rides and more minor attractions that open late, to my knowledge, and nothing opens later than 12pm. Yes, it is great that Paultons was quiet yesterday, and I can definitely understand why they do staggered openings of some description on days like yesterday, but if you’re not a big rerider, I can see how you may have been left twiddling your thumbs waiting for certain major attractions to open.

 

[Quantum]

School exams finish in the next couple of weeks and that when school trips start so I'd say enjoy those quiet weekdays while you can.

Even if Paultons lowered weekday prices if kids are in school and parents at work there is a limit to who can go and the same for most UK parks

 

[Dave]

They've done staggered openings since forever, the whole left side of the park has opened at midday on off peak school days for as long as I remeber. This is nothing new at all. They use the same staff who run the entrance turnstiles to run an area of the park once the entrance is no longer busy. Pretty smart and efficient use of resources.

And I'll bite. The 'you can't criticise Paultons' joke is boring and dumb. If you can't see the difference in a small family park opening a compete section of the park later when the are literally zero queues, the park is so small it takes a coupe of minutes to cross, to parks where the closed rides are scattered among the others to have to return to in physically massive park that takes ages to traverse, and where they are doing it while queues are significant and increased by paid queue jump, then you ain't the sharpest.

Staggered openings at Paultons make complete sense and do not impact your day.

Sorry but I don’t think the size of the park is relevant, it’s either sensible and efficient to do staggered openings or it isn’t. You can’t pick and choose the principle based on the park.

You can take issue with the implementation however, for instance I think the two issues I have with the implementation at Towers is the skyride should be open at park opening and no ride should open more than 1hr late (for the reasons of geography you mention, 1hr is enough for people to have ridden the major rides in an area and be ready for a fuller attraction before moving on).

But the principle of having staggered openings has to be good for everyone or for no one, then by all means we can debate different strategies for different parks:

 

[pluk]

Sorry but I don’t think the size of the park is relevant, it’s either sensible and efficient to do staggered openings or it isn’t. You can’t pick and choose the principle based on the park.

I don't see how it can't be relevant? .

Say Towers shut the rapids, Hex and NST until 12:00. At the start of the day you head to one of those areas of the park and ride everything else before moving on. To get back there later you can have easily a 20 to 30 minute journey to get back there.

Somewhere the size of Paultons does the same you are probably looking at a maximum of 5 minutes out of your way to get back there.

And to be fair to Merlin, Thorpe is similar in that regard. If you ride Inferno and Stealth first thing but have to come back later for the rapids it's no great hardship.

 

[Matt N]

On a slightly more positive note, I’d like to talk in slightly more depth about Ghostly Manor, if nobody minds! As you are probably aware based on my posts in this thread, I rode it for the first time yesterday.

Overall, I have to say that I think it’s a really cool addition!

To start things off, first impressions are very good! The facade is lovely, as is the outdoor queue line; every time I walked through it, I was noticing new details, and there are some cool pieces of theming! I particularly liked the swing that moved on its own and the painting; I thought these were cool items!

The indoor queue line is also really nice! There are some nice smell pods (I think they emit a lavender-type smell?), and there are lots more nice thematic details! I thought the tubes with ghosts captured and moving around in them were a nice touch in particular!

In terms of the ride itself, I’ll keep it spoiler-free and say that I think it’s overall really good fun. I had 5 rides in total, and in terms of a few good points, I’d say the following:

• For the Paultons Park audience, I think it strikes the perfect balance between cartoony fun and scares. There are some moments of what I would call mild scariness that might scare a young child, but it’s not an all-out horror fest and the cartoony visual style keeps things fun and jovial!
• Some of the scenes are really nicely executed, with a good blend of screens and physical set pieces. There are a couple of nice animatronics in the ride, and things like projection mapping are also used effectively.
• While the ride is more shooting gallery-like in style, I think it works here, and the scenes aren’t long enough for it to feel monotonous. Each mini game isn’t particularly long (maybe 30 seconds at most?), so you do quickly get moving rather than feeling like you’re shooting at the same scene for ages on end.
• I found the gun system relatively comfortable to hold and easy to use. It did take a bit of getting used to and learning, but I think that is more down to my dreadfulness at interactive dark rides rather than any issue with the software!
• The Gameplay Theatre ride system is very clever, and it gets a lot of ride duration out of very little space. When you consider that Ghostly Manor replaced a 4D cinema, I think Paultons have done tremendously well!

I do have a couple of small critiques and points for improvement, however. These are:

• I think some of the screen-based scenes (namely the ones facing outwards) lack physical scenery or any kind of bounding to try and hide the screen edges. I know that they are constrained with what they can do to some extent in these scenes, and you aren’t going to see physical scenery as elaborate as that in the inner scenes, but I think something to try and keep the immersion going would be nice, even if it was just some themed bounding for the screen edges. As it stands, these scenes basically just consist of a screen and some black floors and black walls; there’s no physical theming there at all.
• For the ride to flow seamlessly, it is very reliant on there being no hold-ups at the boarding and exiting stages. The mini games in each scene run for a predetermined duration, so if the boarding or exiting process is held up in any way, the mini game just ends and the ride sits still in a scene for a while with “the ride has stopped and will resume shortly” projected on the scene or onto the screen. To make the ride more flexible against disruptions in boarding and exiting flow, I think it would be nice if they were able to make the mini games continue running for the entire length of time the ride was stopped in a scene for, regardless of how long it is, for so that people’s attention isn’t drawn to the delay.
• If I’m being really picky, I think it would be nice if they were able to make the transition between scenes a bit more dramatic in some way and distract from visibility of some of the other scenes while you transition. Maybe a blast of smoke or something would work?

But overall, I think Ghostly Manor is great fun and a brilliant addition to Paultons Park! It’s not the world’s most elaborate dark ride, but given that it replaced a 4D cinema, I think they’ve done very well with the space, and as a first dark ride for the park, I think it works excellently. They’re onto a winner with it, in my view, and it plugs a gap in their lineup!

If you’re interested, here are a few photos I took:

In terms of the rest of the park, I had an excellent, and very quiet, day! If you’d like to read more about it, my trip report is here: https://towersstreet.com/talk/threads/paultons-park-5th-june-2025.7588/#post-513759