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The Alton Towers Dungeon

Croftybaby said:
Stand corrected. Thats only 10 different ticket options. ;) :) (for one crap attraction)
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Really its only three options for the crap attraction, £5 or £7.50, or included in your pass ;)

But there are at least six options for the ticket to the main theme park. and that is a problem with the whole theme park industry. Should you book online or look for a voucher, but some vouchers only valid at the gate. What are the blackout dates on an annual pass, do I need a platinum pass or not?
Its not the Dungeon that has added a huge amount of confusion, its the different Annual Pass, Season Pass and voucher types.
 
Towers seem to be maintaining that Dungeon entry will not be valid with a Merlin Annual Pass, regardless of the tier of said pass.

I find it strange that entry would be included on the Premium Towers Season Pass and not the Premium Merlin Annual Pass. I can only assume they forsee too much revnue loss by allowing Premium MAP holders free entry.

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Ah, excellent. Nice to see the guest experience for MAP holders is prioritised over cost as always. Now if you'd excuse me, I'm off to grab some popcorn and watch the MAP Community Group on Facebook explode.

Edit: It's begun
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The premium Merlin pass should have all the perks of the premium Alton Towers pass. People will buy this and quite rightly be pissed off when they realise Dungeons aren't included.

Unrelated: They should really make it more obvious that it's UK ONLY, I was under the impression that pass got you into ALL Merlin attractions... Am glad I'm not in the market for one of these.

On second thought, most people who buy these will probably have already done the Dungeons so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 
Notice how they say at present.
I wouldn't be surprised if it's a marketing ploy by Towers to get more season pass holders and then when that sale is done map will get it.

Sent from my Swift 2 X using Tapatalk
 
I can only assume the following:
  • Dungeons are included on Premium Alton Towers Season Pass to entice people who would not otherwise have bought such a pass to buy one
  • Alton Towers know full well that a lot of Premium Merlin Annual Pass holders will want to give the new Dungeons a go at the start of the season
  • Therefore they can, in theory, maximise revenue by charging these people at the start of the season and let them have it for free later in the season
No doubt they'll be some sort of Towers u-turn with enough negative feedback.
 
There are of course other fundamental differences between the Premium Season pass and Premium MAPs - including car parking, ERT, merch and food/drink discounts so the Dungeons entry is just another difference.

I can see why it would be annoying to premium MAP holders but as it was never promised its not the end of the world. Plus once you have done one Dungeons you have done them all anyway.
 
There is a limit to the number of punters a day though, if all premium pass holders got in for free, there wouldn't be enough cash payers to cover the actors.
 
It sounds similar to what they did with the likes of Shrek for the first few months...

It's a mixture of miscommunication and the MAP privilege that is causing the issue here really...
 
It really should be included though shouldn’t it? I’ve already paid my £400 up for my family, it’s kind of like screw you we’ve got your money we don’t care.

It’s the removal of things that are included and addition of up charge attractions that really grate me, the mini golf at Blackpool is another example of this
 
Premium MAP or Standard MAP, at the end of the day, it should be free to all MAP users. That's the whole point of paying all that money (and the MAP's are not cheap) so that you can have unlimited access to all Merlin's attractions.

Allowing Premium season pass holders access to the attraction and not to MAP's is a real kick in the teeth and I'm sure that it won't go down too well with MAP holders. I really don't think that Merlin really thought this through properly when they first came up with the idea of Alton Dungeons. I'm sure that lining their own pockets as well as keeping the share holders happy were the only thing on their minds.
 
It's just about the biggest finger up they could possibly give to their own customers, I do feel sorry for them.
I think it should be the duty of every person on here to not visit any Merlin park for the entirety of the season or buy anything (MAP, season ticket, whatever) from them.
 
As has been indicated, this will be a Shrek-type policy where it becomes part of the pass after a time.

They know that a lot of Premium MAP people will pay it anyway, and it's about maximising revenue. You cannot seriously expect less from a publicly-owned company.
 
RicketyCricket said:
Incredible stuff.

They've removed a family ride which had a lot of potential, and replaced it with something you have to pay for, which takes over an hour to do, in a park which regularly closes at 4pm:tearsofjoy:
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Haven't we been here before? In the eyes of Merlin, it certainly worked when Ripsaw was replaced by the paid for leg chopper attraction thingy :rolleyes:
 
I renewed our map's on Sunday at a price of £556 for 2 adults and 2 children

I was in 2 minds as to carry on with premium or downgrade to standard as we don't live in london and we don't really use theme parks during August due to the queues

I assumed the dungeons would be included in the premium as it was included with the Alton towers premium so that swung me to keeping them.... mainly because my kids love the dungeons

Not happy at the monent I could have saved myself £160
 
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