Theme Park Rip-Offs

BorassicLint

My Daughter has visited Chessington today with my Grand-daughter, these places are an enormous rip-off! Not only is the entrance fee extortionate but after queueing for 1 &1/2 hours to get on one ride, she was told that she had to put her handbag in a locker for which there was a charge of £1 - NON REFUNDABLE!!!! Even with just the 2 of them she has come away from there today having spent in excess of £120 and that wasn't even being generous with what she spent. To top it all they close at 6pm but start shutting the rides and putting the animals away around 5pm, now considering they don't open until 10am, this is really very poor value for money when you only get to go on 4 rides during the whole day. Never again even with BOGOF. Why can't they stay open later, it is still light until at least 8.30 at the moment.

Give me Southend anytime - great value.

superflygal

How much is it to get in???? Alton Towers is £36 for adult and £20 ish for child. I have visited AT using free sun tickets and taken a picnic and only spent £5 on parking. I am totally amazed your daughter got through so much cash!! Even buying a decent lunch for 2 wouldn't be much more than £30! I know Chessington is a different park but AT is probably the best in england, and so I would imagine the dearest!

The best thing to do is plan ahead, take a picnic (with stuff you already have so no extra cost-kids love this) and check out website for T&Cs before going. As you feel so strongly you might want to make a written complaint and see if the park are prepared to help.

SFG x

forever.insane

£30 per ride, that's a pretty bad day. At least a lesson learnt I spose.

McKneff

These places are all the same, lots of other places to.
Last week My OH and me went to Llandudno, went up the great Orme, cup o tea at the top and decided to have a scone.

The Scone was a whopping £1.85 and the chuffing butter was sold seperately at 35p, now thats a rip off. So folk,
if your going up the Orme, take your own picnic or your own butte at least.
Shame on them

Empty_pockets

Would never go in kids holiday time. Guaranteed to be queeing all day.

pitkin2020

Empty_pockets wrote: »

Would never go in kids holiday time. Guaranteed to be queeing all day.

deffo avoid at all costs.

As for spending £120 i think that may be an exaggeration, if she only went on 4 rides thats £4 for the lockers, entrance is less than £40 and food/drinks another £30 tops.....not quite £120.

marywooyeah

oh dear I was considering taking my son here, don't think I'll bother now! sorry your daughter didnt enjoy it, I've been a few times when I was younger and loved it, shame its turned this way.

greenface

BorassicLint wrote: »

QUOTE]
theme park rip off

Says it all really once you have paid alot they want alot more from you. Paying huge amounts for parking and lockers is amazing . Food is expensive and not very good drinks are overpriced. IMO for Mr & Mrs Average its a step too far to be able to afford these or will go once instaed of more times per year.There loss truly their loss and if these theme park keep on this way i can see huge closedowns or changes ahead.
One exception we have found was Oakwood (2003 & 2007) you are encouraged to wait for the Fireworks at the end of the day. (there not free there included in the price IMO)dont know if they still have a display at half nine (closes at 10)

PompeyPete

McKneff wrote: »

So folk, if your going up the Orme, take your own picnic or your own butte at least.
Shame on them

Free views though;)

mandragora_2

I have to say that I've just taken a group of 40+ kids to Alton Towers and thought it was fantastic value - we had a long drive, so set off at 6am, getting there at about 10.45. Yes, the queues were long, but they died down about 4.30, then the kids had time to get the feel of the layout and have a couple of goes on the rides they most wanted by the time we left at just after 6pm. We stayed overnight at a nearby youth hostel, got in the next day on 'bounceback' tickets (£10.20 each) and most kids managed to get on three of the 'big five' within their first half hour that day. They had a great time, total cost of EVERYTHING (including travel, overnight accomodation, dinner, breakfast and packed lunch, and theme park entry for two days) was £80 a head. Of that, theme park fees accounted for just under £25 p/h - so the answer might be to get a group of you all together. You can get group discounts for groups of ten or more. Even at full price, bounceback and stay over makes for better value. HTH

warehouse

It's the time of year. The price isn't so bad if you manage to get on all the rides, but because of the holidays and a sunny day you're stuffed. What makes it even worse is knowing that the length of queue is made a lot worse by all the people who have fast track passes and other reasons to queue jump. Until these are removed I'll never go back.