Pleasurewood Hills

[Khanage]

Re: Pleasurewood Hills 2013: Hobs Pit Dark Ride / Pleasurewood Chills!

Yeah the sunglasses thing is great and really shows that this park is changing for the better in terms of customer service. This season has been the best for customer satisfaction judging by the positivity on Facebook comments that just hasn't been there is recent years.

One thing that really is missing from PWH is filler attractions for the kids. Things like indoor play areas, splash zones and the like. I look forward to the future as it is looking very promising.

 

[IanB]

Re: Pleasurewood Hills 2013: Hobs Pit Dark Ride / Pleasurewood Chills!

A great act of customer service, and a fantastic way or promoting the park for next to nothing.

They will have more people visiting this weekend, due to this then any TV or Radio ads they publish I reckon.

Great to see the little parks fighting back, against Merlin, and one of the reasons, why I would love to visit some of the smaller parks throughout the UK.

Ian

 

[Sam]

Re: Pleasurewood Hills 2013: Hobs Pit Dark Ride / Pleasurewood Chills!

New autobiography coming soon from the man who founded the park, Joe Larter.

Joe Larter born at Martham in Norfolk July 1939 at the very start of World War II, has seen a remarkable 74 years of changes. An original East Anglian entrepreneur (a word he hates) he takes you through his very interesting life and times. His business interests have not always been successful and he almost got demolished by a fraud against him.

He is best known for creating the Pleasurewood Hills American Theme Park in 1983 which at its peak had 552,000 visitors a year as the No1 tourist attraction in East Anglia. He then created the Norfolk Sealife Centres, the Bure Valley Railway, Ripleys Believe it or Not!, a Sealife Centre in Holland and made various other attempted rescues of attractions in the UK and abroad.

With a home and business associates in the USA, at one time a share in a vineyard in New Zealand, and travel all over the world with his wife Betty, he says “Did we have a Ball? Yes I think we did, but maybe sometimes it should have been a Masked Ball!”. As he says at the end “How could I go to so many places, meet so many interesting people and get into such strange business situations and still come out sane and solvent”.

 

[Scott]

Re: Pleasurewood Hills 2013: Hobs Pit Dark Ride / Pleasurewood Chills!

Could be an interesting insight into the 'glory days' of the park - 500,000 visitors a year is huge for the size it is and was!

It's nice that there are people out there from the industry willing to share their stories.


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[Tim]

Re: Pleasurewood Hills 2013: Hobs Pit Dark Ride / Pleasurewood Chills!

I'm trying to remember if he was also the person responsible for The Village?
another popular yet now gone Norfolk attraction you'll often hear me harp on about when given the chance.

 

[Scott]

Re: Pleasurewood Hills 2013: Hobs Pit Dark Ride / Pleasurewood Chills!

The Village <3

Had many happy visits there with relatives that are sadly no longer with us. A really unique and fun family attraction - sold for housing


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[Scott]

Re: Pleasurewood Hills 2013: Hobs Pit Dark Ride / Pleasurewood Chills!

Exciting news today from Pleasurewood that they have surpassed their total number of 2012 visitors already and that this year could well be their best in a decade (including the year Wipeout opened!)

Source: https://www.facebook.com/PleasurewoodHills/posts/531637556907513

Also, this is great news for 2014 investment as the money available will be based on this years visitor numbers!

-------

In other news from the park, Knightmare was looked at as a possible 2014 ride and the park even visualised locations and themes. However, it was rumoured to have a massive 7-figure price tag and thus will not be coming to the park.

 

[Sam]

Re: Pleasurewood Hills 2013: Hobs Pit Dark Ride / Pleasurewood Chills!

In other news from the park, Knightmare was looked at as a possible 2014 ride and the park even visualised locations and themes. However, it was rumoured to have a massive 7-figure price tag and thus will not be coming to the park.

That's ridiculous. It'll just end up rusting until it's only useful as scrap at this rate. That ride shouldn't be on the market for anymore than £1m.

Another interesting article on Pleasurewood's turnaround.

Pleasurewood Hills ‘overhaul’ targets brighter future after coming close to closure

The top boss at Pleasurewood Hills has hailed an “overhaul” of the theme park which has transformed its profits and brought it back from the brink of closure.

Woody bear and Alexis Camelin from Pleasurewood Hills outside the new scare attraction 'Hobs Pit' at the Lowestoft theme park.

Alexis Camelin, director and general manager, has described the “painful” process of cutting wages and making redundancies in order to get the site on a firmer financial footing.

And he confirmed that the theme park, which celebrated its 30th anniversary this year, had even come close to closure after becoming dogged by bad weather and negative reviews on consumer travel website TripAdvisor.

But in the last year, he has completed a remarkable turn around of the theme park’s finances from £660,480 loss to £67,222 profit as it looks to capture a new market of 15 to 25 year olds.

And the building blocks are already being put in place for the park’s transformation with £500,000 investment in the horror attraction Hobbs Pit - which has opened earlier to positive reviews – and further plans to add new attractions to the park over the next two years, as its targets a £2m pre-tax profit.

Mr Camelin said: “We have gone through a massive restructure including redundancies, reducing wages and cutting costs. We also had to reduce some of our offers to customers. The change has been painful but necessary.

“The park has not been looked after for the past 10 years. It needed a different process on recruitment.

“We wanted to bring back a client which has gone from Pleasurewood Hills,” he said. “We have been a family park for a long time and we are not trying to compete with Alton Towers, but the idea is to offer a great experience whatever the age.

“We will be investing again this winter, and we are preparing for a bigger project in two year’s time.”

According to its latest accounts, the firm’s turnover had fallen from £2.8m in January 2012 to £2.4m in September last year.

But it was on course to surpass its visitor numbers for August and had seen an upsurge of positive reviews on Tripadvisor this month.

The firm, which employs 150 people, is currently recruiting for new Halloween attractions this autumn.

"But in the last year, he has completed a remarkable turn around of the theme park’s finances from £660,480 loss to £67,222 profit as it looks to capture a new market of 15 to 25 year olds."

I love parks being open about the cold facts like that!

 

[thefatone]

Re: Pleasurewood Hills 2013: Hobs Pit Dark Ride / Pleasurewood Chills!

According to its latest accounts, the firm’s turnover had fallen from £2.8m in January 2012 to £2.4m in September last year.

Bit of a weird one, presumably showing the full 2011 season, and not the entire 2012 season (though can they make up 400k revenue in a few weekends and october half term?).

However, ace news. Love hard facts also. Brilliant!

 

[Scott]

Re: Pleasurewood Hills 2013: Hobs Pit Dark Ride / Pleasurewood Chills!

According to the park, their season in terms of guest figures ends on Septenber 29th. Halloween counts in next years numbers. Not sure how that affects things though anyway.

 

[Sazzle]

Re: Pleasurewood Hills 2013: Hobs Pit Dark Ride / Pleasurewood Chills!

Yep.

Kinda interests me!!

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[MattyH]

Re: Pleasurewood Hills 2013: Hobs Pit Dark Ride / Pleasurewood Chills!

Anyone fancy paying for me to get to PWH again?

 

[Sam]

Re: Pleasurewood Hills 2013: Hobs Pit Dark Ride / Pleasurewood Chills!

Pleasurewood Hills
No secrets here! We're getting a 4th coaster for 2014. The first time in our 30 years that PWH will have FOUR coasters. ‪#‎mouseisback‬ ‪#‎ilovepwh‬

The reference is to a Reverchon mouse they had between 2000 and 2005 called Mouse Trap.

Great to hear of a UK park getting a new cred!

 

[Scott]

Re: Pleasurewood Hills 2013: Hobs Pit Dark Ride / Pleasurewood Chills!

...But more colloquially known in the local area as 'Magic Mouse' - the name it had between 2000 and 2004 before everything was given a pointless name change in '05

It's an interesting route for the park to take, presumably bringing back an old ride type to please local fans. Hopefully it will work and bring back some of the old feel to the place - but it just seems like a bit of an odd decision to me.

 

[PeteA]

Re: Pleasurewood Hills 2013: Hobs Pit Dark Ride / Pleasurewood Chills!

If this is a standard mouse or spinning mouse this is an extremely odd decision. It almost seems like a backwards step rather a "little park thinking big" as they have been saying recently. I am sure it will keep the credit whores happy to pick up a new +1, but for me, its not the right decision, if indeed a ride like that comes in.

 

[Scott]

Re: Pleasurewood Hills 2013: Hobs Pit Dark Ride / Pleasurewood Chills!

According to recent discussion on Unofficial Pleasurewood the mouse in question is rumoured to be the old one from Flamingoland. Oh. :/


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[John]

Re: Pleasurewood Hills 2013: Hobs Pit Dark Ride / Pleasurewood Chills!

Oh dear, that thing was absolutely terrible even for a steel mouse :/

 

[BigAl]

Re: Pleasurewood Hills 2013: Hobs Pit Dark Ride / Pleasurewood Chills!

Maybe they'll enclose the whole thing and turn it into something like Lightwater Valley's Raptor Attack? That's the only way they could really make anything from it. :S

 

[Scott]

Re: Pleasurewood Hills 2013: Hobs Pit Dark Ride / Pleasurewood Chills!

Maybe they'll enclose the whole thing and turn it into something like Lightwater Valley's Raptor Attack? That's the only way they could really make anything from it. :S

We can only hope - but I wouldn't think it all that likely.

I'm happy to be proved pleasantly wrong though!


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[DiogoJ42]

Re: Pleasurewood Hills 2013: Hobs Pit Dark Ride / Pleasurewood Chills!

Well that's disapointing. A lame ride, and it's not even a new credit? :'(