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Coronavirus: Impact on Theme Parks

Professor

Previously AndrewRollercoaster
This Saturday could be quite busy at BPB with late night riding (first one this year) regardless of the weather. Just warning everyone. Several hotels sold out such as Premier Inn Blackpool airport, Premier Inn Blackpool beach and I think the Big Blue Hotel was near full too.
Was thinking of going after cancelling ideas of going further afield but I think it might just be a weekend at home mostly.

Sunday might be fine, that's what usually tends to happen after a busy late night riding Saturday from what I've seen and heard.
 
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rob666

Hyper Poster
Forgot about the late night...shame about the forecast.
Sundays are usually half the numbers on park compared to Saturdays, you can usually do three or four coasters in the first hour on a Sunday.
Nothing like the National with a hangover.
 

JammyH

Hyper Poster
Spain +2615 cases today.

For those thinking of going on holiday to Spain, definitely worth holding off. I guess it's possible that travellers from Spain will have to quarantine coming back into the uk in the near future too if rates continue to escalate.
 

rob666

Hyper Poster
Distancing in queues and mask use not as good in Blackpool today.
Security out for mask refusal on Icon, more bunching in the queues.
Lovely short queues in the rain though.
 

Smithy

Strata Poster
Spain +2615 cases today.

For those thinking of going on holiday to Spain, definitely worth holding off. I guess it's possible that travellers from Spain will have to quarantine coming back into the uk in the near future too if rates continue to escalate.

I think it's too soon to say hold off just yet - although the cases are climbing they're all in little clusters that can be contained and likely will reflect what happens in the UK in the coming weeks.
 

Matt N

CF Legend
Going to chessington tomorrow.

Anyone to know what to expect. Kinda expecting chaos.
I saw on Twitter somewhere that Chessington has now edited queue lines so that staff are enforcing social distancing, so you should be in for a good day!
 

JammyH

Hyper Poster
I think it's too soon to say hold off just yet - although the cases are climbing they're all in little clusters that can be contained and likely will reflect what happens in the UK in the coming weeks.

From tomorrow, anyone arriving into Britain from Spain has to go into a 14 day quarantine. Anyone coming back before midnight tonight can escape the quarantine.

Source:
 
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Smithy

Strata Poster
Bit mad that one - the Balearics and Canaries are doing fine, it's just the big spike in Catalonia that's caused it. And if we're being pedantic, the rate in Spain is still less than in the UK so you're still more likely to catch it here.

But yeah, bit of a kick in the teeth that.
 

JammyH

Hyper Poster
Bit mad that one - the Balearics and Canaries are doing fine, it's just the big spike in Catalonia that's caused it. And if we're being pedantic, the rate in Spain is still less than in the UK so you're still more likely to catch it here.

But yeah, bit of a kick in the teeth that.

Rate in Spain is NOT less than in the uk. They have just under over half of our population size and over 2000 positive cases a day. We have 700 positive a day and just under double their population.

Spain: population 46 mil, yesterday +2255 cases.

That would be an equivalent of over 3000 daily positive tests in the UK

Sensible decision for quarantine, it was needed urgently. You can argue it isn’t needed for certain islands e.g Canary Islands etc but it’s easier to implement a blanket quarantine than for specific areas, you don’t know where people have been travelling once they enter the country, and rates are increasing at an exponential rate.

I recommend this website to keep up to date on cases, bearing in mind you need to take population density and testing into account: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

In terms of Europe rates in Belgium and France and Luxembourg are significantly higher than in the UK as well, these could be the next countries added onto the quarantine list.

Respective countries power to introduce and remove quarantines at short notice is what could keep a major second wave at bay, if this action wasn’t taken now, we could see a massive spike in cases in the uk in 2 weeks from all of those tourists coming back from hotspot areas such as Barcelona.
 
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Professor

Previously AndrewRollercoaster
It was nonsense to add these southern European travel hotspots to this airbridge list so soon. Flying to and from these places was clearly the way how most of the virus entered the UK in the first place. Traveling to our neighbours should have been given a priority to work out first and see how that goes for a month or two. Ireland, France, Netherlands, Belgium and Germany.
 

JammyH

Hyper Poster
I’m not gonna bother to do a full on trip report of chessington, but for those of you who know me, I’m not the biggest merlin fan, in fact this is my first merlin park visit in 4 years.

Having said that, and having really low expectations for the day, I was positively surprised overall.

*Hand sanitiser stations at most ride entrance and exits, they don’t force you to put it on.
*The cleaning cycle every 30 mins is VERY thorough. They are all wearing goggles and from what I could see they were really cleaning high contact surfaces.

-Social distancing in queuelines... well, we just got lucky. I had to ask a family at the beginning of the day to stay on their markers in zufari queueline and then after that I had no issues... well actually I did, the bloody cattlepen was open, so it was impossible to keep distance sideways even if it is forwards. If you’re gonna have a cattlepen open then masks need to be compulsory.

-Mask enforcement was very hit and miss. Went on Kobra and the dodgems and scorpion express, everyone wearing masks, staff didn’t have to intervene at all.

Went on the Gruffalo early afternoon and staff VERY strict on masks, telling people they had to wear them at all times inside the building or there would be consequences. Went back later and rode again on a 5 min wait and they were letting people in with no masks or masks under their chins and couldn’t care less that people were taking them off throughout the duration of the ride- made me very uncomfortable.

-Tomb blaster was the best set up ride of the day. Very good social distancing markers in the queue, and strict mask enforcement. 2 people weren’t let into the building as they didn’t have masks and got kicked out of the line instead.

-Vampire Mask enforcement was really crap. They announced on the tannoy that you needed masks at all times in the building but when it came to it no one gave a crap. Barely anyone was wearing masks in there and no social distancing either. What was worse was the ride broke down just before we were going to get on so we were stuck in the station for a good 30 mins while the engineer came along, and at that point everyone’s masks came off, which really p****d me off.

@Matt N there were no staff in queuelines enforcing social distancing, it was down to common sense, and most people weren’t following markers and just couldn’t have cared less. I was lucky with the people behind me in the queues.

-Single riders are permitted on the dragons fury.

-Queue times were so inaccurate it was hilarious. Dragons fury advertised 40 mins, waited 20. Gruffalo advertised 45, waited 10 mins, vampire advertised 40 but was out of the entrance....

On the flip side of that zufari was advertised to open at 11 and didn’t open until almost half 11, so we were stuck in that line for ages. Operations on the whole were pretty crap, but to be expected. But I didn’t appreciate zufari opening late without any announcement of what the hell was going on.

Final thing: Food in this park is a joke. They had a few takeaway outlets open and that was it. We brought sandwiches, but no where to sit!! In the vampire area they had people sitting on the steps, leaning against the arcade machines eating, sitting on the fences, and couldn’t get past to the vampire because the area was so crowded. It was beyond a joke, just invest in some b****y benches, they have a picnic area, but there were only about 5 benches, and they were all full. Investment needed.

Park capacity was definitely lower given some rides were 100% capacity but some (zufari in particular) had capacity 25-30%. I would say they are probably operating on 60% of normal summer capacity. Park is looking a bit tired but no where near as run down as Thorpe park looks these days.

Anyway, had a good day overall and I was pleasantly surprised with the social distancing measures in the park, and the park itself was more enjoyable than I was expecting it to be, although I feel like I’ve outgrown chessington a bit.

All the staff members anywhere around the park had masks on, which was great. Made me feel so comfortable when boarding onto the rides, so thanks merlin so much for keeping your employees and guests safe in that respect!
 
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Nicky Borrill

Strata Poster
Speaking of Spain... Back in March many scientists were predicting that those countries who implemented the strictest measures too early would be the most likely to see second peaks soon after easing. Spain definitely attacked this hard back then, are we now starting to see that these scientists were right after all?

It’s a simple theory really, if you lock down before the virus has taken hold in a certain area, then ease whilst the virus is still in circulation, even in small numbers, it will take hold in those areas again as there is no resistance to it. It clearly seems to be a factor in the USA

For this reason I was very nervous about Germany. Thankfully their test and trace system seems to be robust enough to handle this, but without that system they’d almost certainly be seeing a rise in rates as their initial measures were so successful at suppressing the virus.

There’s a recent Panorama episode on the BBC about the UK’s initial Herd Immunity tactic. It’s filmed from the “this was a bad idea” angle... But is balanced and offers a good insight into the science behind that tactic, and why it could yet still prove to have helped the UK in the long run.

Of course that’s only half the story... What it doesn’t take into account is that the longer you surpress a large number of cases or a second peak, the further along advancements in medicine and treatment are, potentially saving countless lives. For example if we’d locked down early march in the UK, suppressed it successfully and kept case numbers low... A second peak in August may have led to much less loss of life due to new treatments being available.

Anyway, I’m rambling now, the good news is that so far, in the UK most of the country still has an R0 below 1 with just some small pockets with an R0 slightly above 1 (according to tracker app scientists) and overall infection numbers are only marginally higher... Despite so much being closer to normal now. Some pubs for example (NOT us) are ‘business as normal.’

Also, some more good news, our takings are UP!!! And we’re only open weekends. Taking more money over fewer days should hopefully equate to profitability improvement. At first I thought it was the initial excitement of pubs being open... But then each weekend got better. Then the messages of thanks started flooding in. One message genuinely had me in tears, (not sure if I’ve already mentioned it here and can’t be bothered to check) from somebody who’d lost his sister, he said he thought he’d never go ‘out’ again, but saw our measures, tried us, felt really safe and enjoyed his visit... And there are many other messages too, it’s been a very humbling but uplifting last few weeks (and very busy, hence my inactivity here) But the takeout from all of this is that our decision to be as cautious and careful as possible has not hurt the business as some predicted, it actually seems to have benefited us from a business perspective too, as people WANT to feel safe!!!
 
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Hyde

Matt SR
Staff member
Moderator
Social Media Team
Anyone planning a trip to Cedar Point next month might want to reconsider since the park will be switching to weekend only operations.

Upside is no pre-reservations; will be curious to see if they have a higher throughput of daily park guests as result.
 
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