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Paultons Park: General Discussion

Enter Valhalla said:
Paultons are at it again with the making digs at Merlin on their socials.

They’ve done a 10 reasons to visit Paultons, and the first two reasons, clearly both a dig at Merlin are: Short queues with no need for fastrack, and Free Parking.

I like Paultons and I’m by no means a Merlin fan, but I really dislike this style of marketing. It’s deplorable.

It’s also short sighted. Now that’s they’ve said this, they’ll never be able to bring in fastrack or charge for parking. I think it’s very unwise for any theme park to make such a bold statement.
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Why? What a crazy response to a social media post.

Pointing out they don't charge for the exact things which a lot of general public dislike about Merlin Parks is not deplorable... its actually sensible.
 
Enter Valhalla said:
Paultons are at it again with the making digs at Merlin on their socials.

They’ve done a 10 reasons to visit Paultons, and the first two reasons, clearly both a dig at Merlin are: Short queues with no need for fastrack, and Free Parking.

I like Paultons and I’m by no means a Merlin fan, but I really dislike this style of marketing. It’s deplorable.

It’s also short sighted. Now that’s they’ve said this, they’ll never be able to bring in fastrack or charge for parking. I think it’s very unwise for any theme park to make such a bold statement.
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In what world is that deplorable?

It's good marketing to highlight your strongest areas and the things that make you different to your competitors, that is literally just good business sense.
 
Enter Valhalla said:
It’s also short sighted. Now that’s they’ve said this, they’ll never be able to bring in fastrack or charge for parking. I think it’s very unwise for any theme park to make such a bold statement.
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Sorry for bringing Drayton Manor into this.
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15 months later for the Christmas event the barriers were in place so saying things don’t get mean they won’t bring it in the future.
 
Pretty sure when Towers first bought in parking charges a few parks pushed the "we offer free parking" line in response.

To call such marketing "deplorable" is weird considering pretty much every single brand product has some form of "Better than other leading competitors" mentioned in adverts. Supermarket marketing is built on this style and doesn't stop prices fluctuating after claiming certain prices.

Paultons pushing things like this where many complain about the over selling of Fastrack and additional charges is sensible. If the future means a change in this then that's what happens and I'm sure they'll be criticised for it.
 
Benzin said:
Pretty sure when Towers first bought in parking charges a few parks pushed the "we offer free parking" line in response.

To call such marketing "deplorable" is weird considering pretty much every single brand product has some form of "Better than other leading competitors" mentioned in adverts. Supermarket marketing is built on this style and doesn't stop prices fluctuating after claiming certain prices.

Paultons pushing things like this where many complain about the over selling of Fastrack and additional charges is sensible. If the future means a change in this then that's what happens and I'm sure they'll be criticised for it.
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Well even years before that Drayton use to charge for parking but it was hard to enforce as at the end of day lots of staff use to stand in the entrance plaza asking guests if they had paid for there parking and if you said yes they wouldn’t even question you but if you said no then they pointed you to the ticket kiosks. It was very rare that staff would be in the booths that were roughly where the barriers are now to collect your ticket so many got away by not paying.

Anyway going back on to the subject it’s been 2 years since I been to Paulton’s park and I’m not sure if queuing into the park has improved and getting out at the end of the day but it be so much worse if they added pay barriers.
Also with Paulton’s cause they have a good agreement with neighbouring hotels and the offer of 2 days in the park they know that most of the profits that the park make goes back into the park and it shows with how fresh Peppa pig world still looks when you compare it to Thomas land and CBeebies land.
 
People probably do t realise you actually pay business rates on every individual parking space. It's not a huge amount per space but given the size of the car parks it soon adds up.

Paultons obviously factor this onto thier tickets prices but it's probably the reason why other parks pass the charge directly to the customer.
 
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Paultons has short queues so people don’t feel the need to spend extra money on fastrack, Paultons also have free parking. This is all true.

However, unlike Merlin, BPB and Oakwood… Paultons offer no 2-for-1s, are not on the Tesco Clubcard scheme, and have barely any discounted ticket options except booking in advance. Therefore you have little option other than to pay the full ticket prices, so is Paultons *that* much better value than the other parks mentioned. At least fastrack is optional, and you can visit Merlin parks with lower ticket prices than Paultons, thanks to the discounts.

I’m sure that if Merlin went with the “unlike some theme parks, we actually offer discounts” line in their marketing, people wouldn’t be defending them. This too would be the type of marketing I’d not be a fan of.
 
The lack of special offers means the park isn’t often flooded with guests though which helps keeps queue times lower. They still turn a profit with less guests on park so they don’t necessarily need the park to be rammed and it means in general guests have a much better experience at their park.

I’d rather pay slightly more for entry if it means I’m not going to spend most of the day standing in one hour queues.

Interestingly I’ve just done a comparison of ticket prices between Paultons and Legoland for next Saturday and Paultons is actually coming out cheaper at £41.75pp (£167 for a family of 4) vs £43pp (£172 for a family of 4) for LLW and that’s before you factor in the parking charge for LLW. Using two 2for1 or a half price tickets offer based on these prices you’d pay £132 for a family of 4, as the discount is based on the ‘gate’ price rather than the already ‘discounted’ online price. Whilst that is still a fair saving, it’s still not necessarily a cheap day out and with the queues Legoland can get people might be tempted to pay out for reserve and ride on top of that, and the £8(if paid in advance) or £10 on the day parking charge, it soon adds up. Ultimately a day at Paultons isn’t really THAT much more expensive in my opinion.


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Edit: Chessington, another comparable park to Paultons, comes out slightly cheaper than both of the above at £148 for a family of 4 or £128 using a 2 for 1/half price tickets offer. But again… there’s the parking charge and the fact that ride capacity and queue times aren’t great at peak times, so guests are more likely to spend extra on reserve and ride/fast track. For £20/£40 more a family can go to Paulton’s and avoid all that.
 
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That's really interesting, I thought the gap would be wider. A reserve and ride would soon swallow up any savings... although I guess legoland can be cheaper off-peak.

Another note is that legoland is full price for 90cm children, paultons is free until 1m. I know only 10cm, but that could be a factor for the average family with toddlers.
 
I dunno, I guess this is why I’d never be a success working in the world of marketing. I hate the idea of making others look bad to make yourself look good. But I do get that’s how a lot of companies do their marketing.

Like I say though, I do think that if it was the other way round, people would be less sympathetic to Merlin.
 
Well, free parking aside, the last time we did Paultons (with 2 toddlers and a teen), it was a brilliant couple of days with zero stress - I mean seriously, 2 days in a theme park with 3 kids and zero stress. Zero. If they doubled the ticket price we’d go back. Our Merlin passes on the other hand, cancelled, why? Because going to Merlin parks is always a stressful endeavour.
 
Dannyski said:
Well, free parking aside, the last time we did Paultons (with 2 toddlers and a teen), it was a brilliant couple of days with zero stress - I mean seriously, 2 days in a theme park with 3 kids and zero stress. Zero. If they doubled the ticket price we’d go back. Our Merlin passes on the other hand, cancelled, why? Because going to Merlin parks is always a stressful endeavour.
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I get that, but a lot of the reason for Paultons being a less stressful experience is because they have low attendance. This is how they can talk about having no fastrack because they have short queues.

If Paultons was as popular as, Chessington for example, there’d be demand for things like fastrack and the queues would be long even without a fast stack system. It wouldn’t be a thing to boast about. Like it or not, people in the UK like the idea of being able to pay a bit extra to get shorter queues. The fact that Paultons can boldly say “we have short queues so you don’t need fastrack here” is literally only because they happen to have lower attendance.

I visited Chessington and Thorpe in the late 90s before fastrack was a thing and the queues were still pretty long.
 
Again it isn't just queue length, it's the perception of movement. Paultons do occasionally suffer with this, especially Pterosaur, where the lack of ride vehicles means the queue is stationary for the entire cycle and then only allows a handful on.
 
Enter Valhalla said:
The fact that Paultons can boldly say “we have short queues so you don’t need fastrack here” is literally only because they happen to have lower attendance
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They don't 'happen' to have shorter queues, they have a completely different operating model which creates shorter queues by design.

They don't sell a huge number of anual passes, the passes are expensive and limited in number. They have made it quite clear that they do not want to fill the park up with people paying next to nothing pro rata per visit. That all those AP holders aren't filling the place and queuelines up means that the overall product can be seen as a premium one with very little queuing, so they can charge a premium but fair price for day visitors.
 
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