PWHSocial wrote:

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Well it has been suggested. £7 for a activity package. I'll try and follow this up tomorrow.

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 Any updates on this ? any chance of new parrot show pic please ?

Well haven't I missed a lot over the past couple of days. Thanks for responding to the concerns Lawrence. I am very glad that the park is recognising their shortfalls at the moment and I really hope things are better for half term. We all wanna see PWH succeed and not end up like other parks of recent years and that is why some of us on here get a little heated when things are not right.

Anyway, another UPWH day! Woohoo!

As coolskin put any updates on the £7 activity package? I take it that means LL, Go-Karts and Zorbs?

I think that £7 package is too much for people to spend IMO. Each attraction may make a fair bit of money each day, but I doubt its the same people using each one. And the LL will require a lot of people to run, so one family may buy that pass for their child, but then what happens when he is the only one waiting for the LL?

All places charge them water walkers coolskin.

And they are bloody everywhere as well. I would have hoped by now that the fascination of them would have worn off, but no. Seems like I seem around every street corner!

Hi Guys

That quote from Martyn was mine...

I really do love PWH and have defended them many times.  I fully understand that this is a transistional year for them and its important that they build on what was promising to be a very good year.

However, we were very dissapointed having travelled from Nottingham to find out that 4 rides were down on Sunday. My fault I suppose for not checking on here, although this should have been on the main page on their website which when I checked, wasnt.

I did however pop into Guest Relations around lunch time and suggested to them that they update their Website as to ride closures.  You know like a ticker going across the top of the screen.  The Facebook plug in wasnt working on my mobile, so wasnt displaying any facebook feeds, neither was it working when I asked some of my friends to check it anything was closed.

This does appear to have now been fixed, but a simple ticker saying what rides are down would help customers who are making long journeys and act as a backup if the facebook feed stopped working.  The lady in customer services was also very very helpful, so hats off to her.

To give the park their dues, as I always try and look at both sides of the coin, they did manage to get Jolly Roger working by mid afternoon.  So well done for that.

However, word of mouth marketing is a huge killer for a place like PWH.  They need to be on top of their game all the time and offer a full day to guests.  If 4 rides are down, would it have hurt to take a quid off the entrance price?  No, and the response would have been positive.  People are very easy to criticise these days using facebook, but very rarely comment when they have had a good day. 

What was quite surprising though was how empty the place was. Queues were minimal all day.  The weather was ok, a little chilly when it was cloudy but T-Shirt weather in the sunshine, however the park was dead.  This is quite worrying...

Dont get me wrong we had a good day, but that was only because myself and my wife arent all about coasters and thrill rides.  We enjoy dark rides, shows and even some of the kiddie rides that we can squeeze onto, so after watching the Parrot Show, Sealions twice and then Sean Alexanders show and doing the other rides and attractions we managed a full day at the park.  If we had been all about the thrills, we would have struggled to stay there for more than a couple of hours.

Personally for me and I apologise for going off topic, but seeing as people from PWH are reading this topic it needs to be said in here, the critical aim for the park is to add another coaster to support the other 2 major ones (Wipeout and Enigma).  The basics are there... 2 decent dark rides, good shows, nice location, decent choice of kiddie rides and a decent selection of thrill rides.  Keep Jolly Roger as it is, dont worry about getting a bigger one, just have the courage to get an attraction which will put you on the map.  I must concur with AndyB about a GCI Big Fun.  Cheap, but I will categorically state that you would have your best attendance for years if you installed that. 

I know that people at parks must look at enthusiasts and let out a big sigh  However, we know what works at parks, we know what makes a park tick.  I have been travelling all over the World visiting theme parks and riding rides to know what is needed at certain parks and PWH urgently need a new coaster to support the foundation that they have.  People also ask us our opinions about parks and rides.  I wish I had a pound for everytime a work colleague said to me, "Were thinking of going xxxx, would you recommend that?" or "Wheres the best roller coaster".  Were back to the word of mouth marketing again.  Wouldnt it be great to turn round to people and say "This little park in Norfolk has just opened up this great new coaster.  Go and ride it!!"

Finally to summarise, I hope that this season improves for them, I sincerely do.  I will give them a second shot, but I wonder how many people wont???  Thats the danger.  Make people aware that two rides are down, dont rely on facebook or twitter as not everyone uses them and have the courage to build a decent coaster.

Sorry for the long post....

^^Completely agree with Pete. A few bucks off the entry fee might have helped prevent some of the negative feedback the park is getting. Its a jesture, and wouldn't really effect projections for the year i guess.

In terms of how empty the place has been, Pleasure Island claim they have had there WORST start to a season since they've been open, so perhaps its industry wide? But even if a few turn up, you need that few to return, so yes they need to be on top of their game regardless.

The weather hasn't exactly been onside so far this season. The only really warm days were back in March and the park wasn't open then.

A big saying at work at the moment is 10% of something is better than 100% of nothing and PWH need to be thinking this. A voucher in the local papers saying "Come and experience 5 brand new rides at PWH and bring this voucher for 2for1 entry!" is all it needs and people will be more inclined to visit. If people feel they have saved getting into the park they may be more inclined to spend a bit extra in the shops and P2P attractions. Nowadays it is all about value for money and if people feel like they are not getting it then they won't return.

This is the thing that frustrates me with theme parks. It isn't going to cost the park anything extra in running costsif say they let 10 people free one day. Their profits wouldn't be as high as if they had paid, but the actual park running costs would be the same, so with that in mind, they should be doing everything they can to get as many people in the park as possible. Would they rather 200 people in the park having £18, or 400 people in the having paid £9?

Even if they only paid £10, a full park, is a full park that would have a great atmosphere, and like Josh said, when people are in the park, chances are they would spend money, especially if they got in with a discounted voucher.

Anyway, I feel their advertising efforts have been quite poor this year. The material is good, but you just dont see it very often. If I wasn't on here, I would have only found about the new rides from when I visited Yarmouth after Easter - so had I not gone to Yarmouth, I still wouldn't have known about anything new.

I understand the thinking behind advertising in Yarmouth, but whats with all the adverts in the Lowestoft papers? I'm pretty sure everyone in the are already knows about PWH. They need to start advertising further a field, and bring back a tv ad.

^ totally agree, would be nice to target a wider audience, how about big posters downtown as well, people handing out discount flyers in the high street.

I agree Martyn. It just makes more sense having more people on park buying ice creams, food, gifts, photos etc. and I also agree that there just isn't enough advertising. A TV ad during Saturday night peak programming on the Saturday before half term would be ideal.

10 mins long for sealions..... cant see that being true. Still think all these comments online for the world to see are doing more damage than good

So why can't you comment on their page Martyn? Also agree with the more to do for teenagers/ young adults.

Alton towers should employ me to take over their fb: "we had a bad day because a ride broke down" my response: go away.

-- Edited by Martyn on Thursday 23rd of August 2012 09:28:31 PM

But anyway, its a public forum... so we will always get bad reviews written on there as well as good comments (which we seem to be getting quite a few of so far!). The good part/bad part of the Facebook is that is does show all these comments which can be good and can be bad, but it would be bias of us to delete the bad ones...

Don't get me wrong, if the person is not accepting an apology and just seems to be writing things for no good reason we will take appropriate action, but that rarely happens.