December 8, 20195 yr comment_267761 Pleasure Beach's website appears to show that Wild Mouse is coming back next year! Yay! It's not really.
December 8, 20195 yr comment_267763 OMG Noah's Ark is on the photo too! False adverting Pleasure Beach! When I next visit I'm going straight to guest services.
December 8, 20195 yr comment_267764 Now where was that photo taken? The monorail? OMG, that’s so many attractions coming back to Blackpool next year, I’m so excited! Yep. Clearly.
December 20, 20195 yr comment_267909 Maybe they'll make it rideable and not akin to jumping off South Pier into the Irish Sea?
December 20, 20195 yr comment_267911 I can't wait to see it reopen in 2021 with all the groundbreaking effects replaced with cheaper and unimpressive alternatives. Whoops, I never said that!
December 20, 20195 yr comment_267913 This news just shows how cruel enthusiast twitter can sometimes be.
December 20, 20195 yr comment_267916 Well my 2020 just became even less interesting now. Guess I might just to have to settle for the Flume on South Pier now. Oh, wait.
December 20, 20195 yr comment_267917 17 minutes ago, Wicker Matt said: Well my 2020 just became even less interesting now. Guess I might just to have to settle for the Flume on South Pier now. Oh, wait. Did you even ride it last time we were there?
December 21, 20195 yr comment_267918 “Valhalla to make a splashback soon!!” *massive wooden fence put up in front of Valhalla Seriously, Valhalla does desperately need some work and lots of it to restore it to the levels of its former self as so much is broken now. So here’s hoping the next year is put to good use.
December 21, 20195 yr comment_267920 11 hours ago, Martin Doyle said: “Valhalla to make a splashback soon!!” *massive wooden fence put up in front of Valhalla Seriously, Valhalla does desperately need some work and lots of it to restore it to the levels of its former self as so much is broken now. So here’s hoping the next year is put to good use. Will it return to its former self though? Isn't a lot of it to cut running costs? If that's the case it'll be stripped of many expensive effects surely. I just hope it becomes a bit less wet. I'd be happy for the vortex to go TBH as that destroys you. Boats need to drain better as well.
December 21, 20195 yr comment_267924 Honestly I'm not surprised, Valhalla is a nightmare to run and maintain, it must cost the park a fortune. Pleasure Beach are independent too, they probably don't have that spare cash to burn. It also seems to have a decent amount of downtime and honestly I've always wondered how long it would last, this isn't your average water ride, its a full blown dark ride with pretty much every effect in the book. I hope the park can redesign it in a way where it is sustainable in the long-term but also fun. Agreed with getting rid of some of the water effects, nobody wants to get that soaked while in Blackpool..
January 6, 20205 yr comment_268068 The main things I want sorted with Valhalla when it "makes a splashback soon" is the boats and the level of how wet it gets. I get the idea of a water ride is to get you wet and I know they have signs warning you about how wet the ride is, but right now you might as well just chuck yourself off the end of the pier and into the sea and you wouldn't get as wet as what Valhalla can get you. It's all fair and good soaking riders if the climate the ride is in allows it. Florida being the prime example. Popeye is also a ride that soaks riders excessively, but this is no issue as the heat in Florida drys you near enough instantly. Valhalla delivers the same level of soaking but you are in the damn north of England. So that's the main thing that I feel needs sorting and that's before they deal with any of the rides effects.
January 10, 20205 yr comment_268158 Attendance was down 5.8% in Icon's first season, however the loss was 1.2 million compared with 1.6 million the previous year. https://www.blackpoolgazette.co.uk/business/losses-fall-at-blackpool-pleasure-beach-as-poor-weather-reduces-visitor-numbers-1-10189718 In my opinion, it's very concerning that after such a long wait for a new coaster, it didn't draw in any more guests. Improved turnover could be attributed to things like all the new merchandise, increased fees etc - but if the overall gate figures are down in the year a 16 million pound coaster opens... I don't think things will improve until the park stop blaming external factors and start focusing on what they can actually do to improve.
January 11, 20205 yr comment_268168 As much as I hate Merlin's marketing led approach to any investment, this just goes to show that marketing at least needs to be considered and attempted alongside building something decent. If I weren't active around these places I'd have had no idea Icon existed, that's just not good enough for such a major new coaster.
January 11, 20205 yr comment_268173 /\ likewise, I only knew it existed from online forums and never saw any adverts for it.
January 31, 20205 yr comment_268491 British Theme Park Archive has uploaded an incredible documentary about Valhalla from 2000! It's incredible and definitely worth watching through to the end.
February 2, 20205 yr comment_268529 Given the pleasure beach financial figures coupled with how expensive Valhalla is to run, I honestly would not have blamed them if they just cut their losses and did away with it altogether. It would be a shame to lose it but buisness wise it would make sense. Lower ridership for it goes against it too considering it only ever gets major queues on baking hot days which is hardly ever taken into account this is Blackpool we are dealing with.
February 2, 20205 yr comment_268532 7 hours ago, Martin Doyle said: Given the pleasure beach financial figures coupled with how expensive Valhalla is to run, I honestly would not have blamed them if they just cut their losses and did away with it altogether. It would be a shame to lose it but buisness wise it would make sense. Lower ridership for it goes against it too considering it only ever gets major queues on baking hot days which is hardly ever taken into account this is Blackpool we are dealing with. Seconded. Valhalla was/is a brilliant attraction though a huge liability to a park that probably cannot keep up with the high running costs that Valhalla demands.
February 2, 20205 yr comment_268533 2 hours ago, JoshuaA said: Seconded. Valhalla was/is a brilliant attraction though a huge liability to a park that probably cannot keep up with the high running costs that Valhalla demands. While the ride wristband is good value for money, pleasure beach really shot themself in the foot when they introduced it the year after Valhalla opened. The ride would have near enough paid for itself had they had stuck to tokens a little longer given it cost the same to ride Valhalla as it did the big one although I could be mistaken on that last part.
February 2, 20205 yr comment_268534 I think the gas is very expensive for the fire effecst but in general it's quite overstated how expensive Valhalla's situation is. I dont think removing it is on the cards. Amanda's tweet about "making it more sustainable" was probably just a nice sounding excuse, they had to close it for maintenance rather than to stop the park going bankrupt
February 2, 20205 yr comment_268535 4 minutes ago, SteveJ said: I think the gas is very expensive for the fire effecst but in general it's quite overstated how expensive Valhalla's situation is. I dont think removing it is on the cards. Amanda's tweet about "making it more sustainable" was probably just a nice sounding excuse, they had to close it for maintenance rather than to stop the park going bankrupt Apparently it costs up to quarter of a million a month to run and takes up a third of the parks power supply. Don't know exactly how accurate that is though. I do hope when it does reopen, it somehow can achieve both being more financially reasonable on the park whilst also not overly diluting the experience. Not that it can get much worse given Valhalla has gone to the dogs in recent times sadly.
February 3, 20205 yr comment_268537 Water rides use a lot of electricity- big pumps to keep them going are pretty power hungry without the expensive effects in there.
February 3, 20205 yr comment_268538 Not to mention water rides cost a lot to keep the water clean too (especially stuff like Valhalla where so much is dumped on you). Tidal Wave is like the most or second-most expensive ride to run at Thorpe for example. Actually figures of how much Valhalla costs to run are pretty meaningless as we don't know a scale of the numbers. If £250k per month is accurate, how does that compare to a roller coaster? Or to Tidal Wave? Or anything else? We don't know - it's just a number.
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