Shame you had a poor-ish Saturday CrashCoaster.
I've found the GP to be quite varied in Blackpool. When busy (and only on Saturdays it seems) it can be the worst out of all the parks I've done. Bad operations are then truly a disaster. I've witnessed vandalism myself. Little girls peeling off the gold of the Icon queue line everywhere they could get their nails under. "So that's how that sort of stuff disappears" I was thinking. Smoking, queue jumping. I've found it immensely frustrating when it's like that. Most other days in the week however it has always seemed an acceptable experience crowd wise, and often usually good.
Last year on re-opening day (Saturday 4th of July) Pleasure Beach was actually quiet but the weather that weekend wasn't great. It seemed a good amount of people there to get the measures going but I heard much complaining later in the year when it was too busy also. I did a Thursday - Friday - Saturday morning stint in September last year as well, with again Saturday starting to be a bit too frustrating from what I could see but I was planning on leaving midday anyway so didn't see the worst of it probably.
I can understand the parks trying things here and there with these Covid measures but in the end I don't think theme parks can ever be fully proper Covid measure compliant. There are just too many people, that is the whole point to make multi million pound ride installations worthwhile. And either the measures cause endless delays or have to sort of be skipped or not enforced to keep things going if it's busy. Also with the case rate we are now seeing in the likes of India (and is not on the red list! - they are having more cases per day than the likes of Zimbabwe has registered in total and is on that list!) does all of this matter what one park in one of the 50,000 towns in the UK actually does? I don't know. The loopholes with the travel stuff I think is a far bigger worry - considering that is how Covid got here in the UK and probably how other strains might arrive (inaccurate tests, or Covid might not show up on these yet, no quarantine from several countries, can travel because of work or various other reasons etc). It would be nice if the rules were enforced and followed as well as I witnessed on re-opening last year in Blackpool, but it probably will never happen again. Part of it is probably psychological with low case numbers and low death rates and even the availability of the vaccines meaning the GP will just care less as they are less afraid. The park will also try to maximise their Saturday takings as Rob said nowhere else to go at the moment and all considering the closures they have had in the last year.
It's a shame Icon, even with 3 trains can be frustrating. Speedypass and Covid measures are just not a good idea combined at all. I can understand the park needs to maximise profits but I'd rather see Speedypass just didn't exist at Blackpool. Perhaps another increase in prices could compensate for that, I know people will moan but the people who will go would have a better experience overall, not just the affluent few, then more likely return and give good word of mouth. Win win surely. There is not enough good speedy pass merge infrastructure in place to help this nonsense along. It's probably actually one of the reasons why ride scans are back I assume as it's done at the same place as the merge points for some of the rides. Also at the Merlin parks and in Walibi Holland I've found it frustrating with the amount of fasttrack people that can come along in one go, often indeed an entire train or most of it gone and the general queue grinding to a complete halt for minutes.
Good points from Rob. I just noticed all late evenings are pretty pricey at the likes of The Big Blue Hotel already. No doubt all hotels in the area will be crammed on especially those days. Might have to avoid Saturdays in general completely this year.
Getting back to the Big One retrack:
I wish they could tackle the entire thing in one go. I've heard the ruckus sound in the tunnel is somewhat gone, hard to tell from that video. I actually liked that part as it seemed to freak people out.
Good to hear it was running fast. The best rides I had were at Easter 2019 when it was like that and have never quite experienced it since. Hopefully will catch it on a good day this year.
With the bit by bit retracking, it is a good indication that maintenance of the Big One in the most troublesome spots is in good hands in the mean time though.
