Britain's 'rip-off' Theme Parks

[Lonan3]

INDEPENDENT LINK

 

A report published today by Holiday Which? magazine shows that amusement parks are increasingly bad value for money, with a family ticket for two adults and two children costing as much as £89.

Every year, 10 million Britons visit theme parks, but excessive queues are making the experience stressful, the report said. With half-hour waits for ordinary rides and up to 90-minute queues for more popular attractions becoming the norm, most of the £89 entrance charge is spent on standing still.

And if high prices and fast rides are not enough to make visitors queasy, the food should make sure of it. The study found that few parks in the survey offered an alternative to fatty fast food choices such as burgers and fried chicken.

The magazine sent a team of investigators to the six most popular theme parks in the UK: Alton Towers in Staffordshire, Chessington World of Adventures in Surrey, Drayton Manor in Staffordshire, Flamingoland in North Yorkshire, Legoland at Windsor and Thorpe Park in Surrey.

Holiday Which? editor Lorna Cowan said: "The whole family will have a great day out at a theme park, but if you've got teenagers, a family of four could end up spending almost £130 - and that's just to get in. Very long queues were the biggest downfall of our visits, and we felt there were some missed opportunities when it came to keeping everyone occupied during the dull wait for popular rides."

 

I've only been to 2 of the 5 on the list, but I'd agree with the comments and having visited Efteling Park in Holland I'd have to say that, although the price wasn't all that different, the facilities were much better, the place was a good deal cleaner and it provided for all ages to make it a really good day out.

So, are the British parks really that bad?

[John Wright]

JUst try Port Aventura at Salou in Spain.Universal Studios Europe.

 

Fast Food, the Spanish just cannot do it

 

Rides, queued out

 

Smelly

 

Over rated

 

But Disney has hour long queues as well.

 

Why did no one try out the Pleasure Beach, at Blackpool, is that because entrance is free

[Static]

Blackpool pleasure beach is great fun BUT you say entrance is free? It might be but the rides all cost money. The Big One was £7 a go last time I was there. A family ticket a few years ago was about £80 for the day. Now I counted up how much we would have spent if we hadn't got the family ticket and by 1pm had got to £100 so I stopped. The family ticket was well worth the money if you didn't have to queue. We were lucky that we went mid-week, slightly out of season, so there were no queues. We went on the big dipper 5 times on the trot, just got off, walked round and got back on before it set off again. I doubt very much that we would be able to do that on a day in August.

 

So Blackpool is no differnet to the theme parks on cost though you can walk away from the pleasure beach and get something better to ear than fast food (though you have to look for it!!)

[Gladys]

JUst try Port Aventura at Salou in Spain.Universal Studios Europe.

 

Fast Food, the Spanish just cannot do it

 

Rides, queued out

 

Smelly

 

Over rated

 

But Disney has hour long queues as well.

 

Why did no one try out the Pleasure Beach, at Blackpool, is that because entrance is free

We have been to Chessington (used to live very close by), Alton Towers, Thorpe Park and Legoland in England, as well as Orlando (did just about all of the parks there; best was Discovery Cove which isn't a rides theme park, where we swam with dolphins and rays, ace!), Port Aventura and Disneyland Paris. Of all of them, we liked Alton Towers the best. The queues weren't as heavy as many of the others, and, I think, is a much more attractive park. Definite no, nos are Disneyland Paris, a 40 minute queue to ride on an old-fashione carousel, and Port Aventura where we bought a three day pass but never went back after one day of queuing for broken down rides in the sweltering heat.

 

The kids are growing out of the theme park age and although we have just booked to go back to the same part of Spain later this year, neither wanted to visit Port Aventura again. They would much rather go to a water park, and so would I!

[hannahsmummy1]

I have been to a fair few of the theme parks in britain We used to live 20 mins away from Drayton Manor Park, (they do a special ticket for parents with toddlers which used to cost me 10 pounds to get in with my 3 year old for all day (brought a picnic and thats all i spent!) - with thorpe park being the most recent that i have visited, i got an extra 20% off (from work) and an extra 20 pounds off because we booked online and were prepared to go a few days later tan we had planned! . The best 'theme' park i have visited in recent months is place called Paultons Park, near to Southampton, brilliant for small kids (and not so small kids too!) It was just under 20 pounds to get in,kids under 1m are free, but we brought a picnic and that was all we spent all day- the entrance price. Everything else was free, even the kiddies rides that you get outside the likes of supermarkets etc-everything in that place was just value for money, it was brilliant & most of all my daughter loved it! I dont think much of Alton Towers- its far too over priced, not many rides for smaller children, and a lot of the bigger rides are always breaking down- i still had a great time there though! The entry prices are what pay for the newer rides the following season, and although they are expensive they are a treat- we dont go all the time, so we dont mind paying extra.