Blackpool Pleasure Beach? Forget it!

If you’re tempted to go to Blackpool Pleasure Beach I’d suggest you forget it.

Earlier this week I booked for a family of five – three adults and two children – ‘just’ £167.50!

I was advised to download an app to my phone – which I did.

I assumed the app would link automatically to my phone number and account – but it didn’t.

Reminded by an email this morning, that I’d not completed the e-tickets, I tried to find my order number – but the email with it on had disappeared into the ether.

Sadly, Blackpool Pleasure Beach had declined to add my order number to their reminder to complete my order!

After an hour or so’s search I gave up and rang the Pleasure Beach – after a 15 minute wait I was told the call was costing 10p a minute. I was kept waiting online for nearly 30 minutes.

Finally someone answered, found my details and promised to re-email my booking confirmation – 24 hours later and I’m still waiting.

I did try phoning back mid afternoon – was kept hanging for nearly an hour – then gave up.

I’m guessing it’s common practice to keep you ‘phoning again and racking up their phone charges.

It’s outrageous that any business can get away with selling you tickets then charge you at premium rate for any queries.

Fortunately, I’d decided to register my details for an account (rather than as a guest) – hoping that I’d maybe get a discount voucher sometime in the future.

After another half hour or so I was able to track down how to access my account – and sure enough there were my e-tickets.

If I’d not registered an account I’m unsure what I could have done.

Having located the e-tickets I was advised I had to add a name and photo to each ticket.

Perhaps inevitably, the app refused to play ball and just refused to save any of the five images I was able to find within my computer system.

I tired for hours then gave up.

I returned later to try again, this time with a ‘new’ photo from my phone, which it accepted. I now had completed tickets my wife and I, but not my daughter or grandkids.

Thinking it may be the images I contacted my daughter and she took photos of herself and the children and sent them to me.

Unfortunately, the app still refused to accept the images.

Another several attempts and I was still unable to get the app to accept the images. Thinking it over I concluded it may be the size of the images – my daughter having a newer higher-resolution phone. Having reduced the sizes right down it worked. There was no warnings on the size limitations on the app or on the site. In fact, you’re given the option to use files you have stored or new ones. All of the images I had stored were too large!

So as things stand I’m unsure if we have everything sorted to get into the Pleasure Beach or gain access to any rides. We’re heading off tomorrow not knowing if we’re facing an argument with some jobsworth on every ride.

Oh yes, mid-afternoon I took a look at the status of the rides – the website tells me they’re all closed for maintenance!

I’m fairly relaxed though. Should it all go belly-up I’ll be claiming the whole lot back off my credit card and we’ll maybe do the Tower and get kiss-me-quick hats.

My experience with computers goes back to the 60’s with mainframes, minis and pc’s – how anyone without a smart phone or lacking in tech goes on I can only guess.

Next year we’ll just be doing the lights – and forgetting the Pleasure Beach.

For your own sanity I’d suggest you consider doing the same.

Update

We managed to get to Blackpool without incident. My 10-year-old grandaughter had to show us how to save a screenshot of the phone e-tickets – which were then shared to everyone else’s phones.

And, being with my daughter and grandchildren we made the most of the cold weather and had a great day – that’s the good news. The bad news is more than half the ‘big’ rides were closed – so the queues for the those that were open were horrendous. And, many of the smaller rides and food and drinks outlets were also closed!

A Fish ‘n’ chips dinner at Bispham Kitchen – followed by a tour of the illuminations brought to an end a stressful but highly enjoyable day.

Disability warning: there didn’t appear to be any facility for disabled visitors to ‘jump’ the long queues – making all the rides an impossibility for many.