Best and Worst Value Parks

[gavin]

Since I’m bored at work, and I recently noticed that Hong Kong Disney have just put their prices up, I thought I’d kill some time by comparing a few parks.

Disney’s prices have been compared before, in terms of actual cost, but I thought I’d look it in terms of value for money. I’ve taken the on-the-gate price of some parks and looked at the opening hours to give a per-hour price.

Obviously, this is problematic since it doesn’t take into account any multi-day tickets, the parks aren’t equal in terms of number of attractions, prebooking/selected dates can make a difference, and park opening hours can vary depending on the time of year, though not really by a lot in the case of most of the Disney parks. With that in mind though, this is what you’d get if you showed up at the gate today, arriving at opening time and staying until closing, meaning that the price you see is a best-case scenario.

Disney (Magic Kingdom parks)

Paris - £60 for 10 hours = £6 per hour
Florida - £69 for 15 hours = £4.60 per hour
Hong Kong - £45 for 10 hours = £4.50 per hour
California - £65 for 16 hours = £4.10 per hour
Tokyo - £37 for 14 hours = £2.60 per hour

Tokyo is clearly the best value of the Disney parks. The actual ticket price is the lowest, pretty much half of the most expensive (Florida’s), for a very, very similar park. Taking into account the long opening hours, the per-hour price is incredible value.

Although it looks like Paris offers the worst deal, I’d argue that Hong Kong, despite a reasonable gate price, is actually the worst value given that the park is a lot smaller, with a lot less to do. People are less likely to actually need the whole 10 hours, whereas in Paris, they probably would. Paris also has cheaper tickets for online booking, and longer opening hours depending on the season, whereas Hong Kong doesn’t.

Another big chain then:

Universal

This gets more difficult since there are big difference in opening hours depending on the day. For the sake of this argument, I’m going to look at the shortest operating hours for each park, which would basically mean, again, showing up today rather than at a weekend.

Hollywood - £63 for 7 hours = £9 per hour (best would be 12 hours at £5.30)
Florida - £67 for 10 hours = £6.70 per hour (best would be 15 hours at £4.50)
Osaka - £36 for 10 hours - £3.60 per hour (best would be 12 hours at £3)
Singapore - £35 for 11 hours - £3.20 per hour (same every day)

So yeah, on top of being, in my opinion, the ginger stepchild of the Universal family, California is also the worst value by a considerable margin.

Happy Valley and Fantawild

The Happy Valley parks are priced between £20 and £23 each, so let’s use £22 as a figure. Fantawild are priced at about the same.

Although the Happy Valley parks are open for around 12 hours a day, a lot of the major rides close around 3-4 hours before park closing. So, looking at both of these chains as having a realistic 8-hour day, they come in at £2.75 an hour.

Merlin

I’m not going to look at every park, but let’s look at the two major UK ones.

Thorpe Park - £50 for 8 hours = £6.25 per hour
Alton Towers - £47 for 8.5 hours = £5.50 per hour

Realistically, unlike the parks listed above, most people would be paying a lot less due to online prices begin a lot lower than the gate prices. Also, a large number of people use two-for-one offers, which then actually brings the hourly rate down to Happy Valley levels.

The biggest piss-take I could think of, again imagining that I rocked up at the gate today, was this:

Legoland Florida - £58 for 7 hours = £8.30 an hour (best would be 10 hours at £5.80)

Considering what an absolute s**thole the park is, that’s absolutely obscene.

Anyway, I’ve rambled on enough. Which parks do you consider to be the best, and worst, value for money, taking into consideration an hourly rate as well as what you actually get for your money?

 

[SaiyanHajime]

Does Lego Florida saturate the market with bogofs like the UK Merlin parks do? Because, if that's the case, it muddies the water a bit.

That said, I hate Legoland. I really do. The most awful thing about Legoland parks is that they serve as evidence that brand > everything when it comes to getting the general public to cough up money, and that I find really, really upsetting. There's more to it than that and I think Legoland could be a lot more successful if they only invested more than the bare, half arsed minimum, but their attendance is high... And people revisit. WHY? And I feel like people misunderstand my criticism, as if I'm being unfair and judging the place by it's lack of coasters or some rubbish, but I'm not. I'm judging it by the fact that, as a child, I thought it was crap too. It's a low-capacity poop-show, where visiting on even a quiet day leads to disgustingly long lines for incredibly mediocre experiences. Time moves slower for kids than adults - if you're making child attractions, the most important thing in the world is not having the queue be an hour. Their attractions are great for their audience once you get on them, but until then it's just ... crap. Everything is dirty or sparsely placed, animations don't work, food is higher priced than at other Merlin parks, queues are stagnant masses. It's so anti-family it's actually painful.

Ok sorry, tangent there, but for certain the winner is Legoland.

I dunno about anyone else here, but people always ask me how I can afford theme parks... People have this idea in their head that they are super expensive. I think a lot of that comes from, when you're growing up and visiting with family once ever few years, your parents make sure you realise it's a treat and a big financial deal, because it is when you're taking and funding an entire family trip. What with paying for multiple tickets and everyone's food, that's what's pricey. And thats why Legoland wins this, because it's target is families, and it rips them off with out the arse food costs that are a good couple of £'s more than the other Merlin parks.

One really, really scummy thing about Legoland is how they dodge the annual pass discount. Unlike how things are at the true Merlin theme parks, at Legoland most small food outlets won't take the discount, you can only get it in shops. But when you go to a shop, you find that same item is more expensive by the coincidental amount of approximately 20%... Ya know, the same as the annual pass discount.

Disney is expensive, but it's also Disney, and you get a LOT for your money. Long opening hours, quality maintained attractions and experiences, good staff, outstanding operations and varied food both in price and taste. You can definitely eat for cheaper at Disney parks than Legoland, that's for sure, and well, that's ridiculous.

**** Legoland.

 

[Ian]

I've never considered an hourly rate for judging the value of a park. I typically judge it by

Price I paid to get in​

Number of rides I went on​

to work out how much money I paid per ride. For example, if I paid £50 to get and had 10 rides, I would have paid a £5 a ride. In my head, a fiver a ride is acceptable. I'd guess that most members of the public think in this way, too. "We paid £200 to come to Legoland today and have only been on two rides! I want to see a manager!" "Yes, that's because your child spent too much time looking in the shops."

But we know that it's not all about the rides. It's also about the experience and the atmosphere, which has a value of it's own.

When it boils down to it, an hourly rate is probably the best way to judge value.

 

[Hixee]

I'm actually going to say that I think all of the Six Flags parks are really good value - if you get a season ticket and especially if you plan on doing multiple parks.

I should preface this by saying that they may have changed their system, but I've done this twice (once in 2010 and once in 2013) to great success.

In 2010 I picked up a season ticket for Six Flags Great Adventure, which covered all Six Flags parks. I can't remember how much it was, but the website lists the current price as $70, which does sound about right. On that two week trip alone, I used it for:
SF Great Adventure
SF St. Louis
SF New England

In 2013 I did a similar thing and picked up a season ticket for Six Flags Great America, which again covered all Six Flags parks. Again, I can't remember what I paid, but the website lists the current price as $70 again. This time, I used the pass at:
SF Great America
SF Magic Mountain (twice)
SF America
SF St. Louis
SF Over Texas
SF Fiesta Texas
SF Discovery Kingdom

Say what you like about the quality of the Six Flags parks, but the value for money on their season passes is fantastic.

 

[DelPiero]

Season passes are a totally separate discussion though Hixee, although Six Flags probably would win that discussion.

On a daily rate, I think SF entrance fees are around $45 per day + tax, they are quite a bit cheaper than UK Merlin but don't offer BOGOFs. Although they have much longer operating hours so the value is around £3 per hour, getting close to Fantawild/Happy Valley Territory.

Considering the price per hour and the fact you could easily spend the whole 12 hours odd in a lot of the SF parks, it's great value, and that's without looking at their APs.

Yes Gavin, I did read the post fully

 

[owentaylor121]

Alton towers is by far the worst in the UK, it's around £55 to get in now, the park shuts at 4 on some days what is just completely unacceptable, Merlin have destroyed that park and it's such a shame!
The only time I've visited Towers and thought that was well worth the money is at Scarefest due to the longer opening hours.

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

 

[Zac]

Alton towers is by far the worst in the UK, it's around £55 to get in now, the park shuts at 4 on some days what is just completely unacceptable, Merlin have destroyed that park and it's such a shame!
The only time I've visited Towers and thought that was well worth the money is at Scarefest due to the longer opening hours.

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

If you pay £55 to get into Alton Towers, then you an idiot.

 

[owentaylor121]

Alton towers is by far the worst in the UK, it's around £55 to get in now, the park shuts at 4 on some days what is just completely unacceptable, Merlin have destroyed that park and it's such a shame!
The only time I've visited Towers and thought that was well worth the money is at Scarefest due to the longer opening hours.

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

If you pay £55 to get into Alton Towers, then you an idiot.

Have you not read any posts in this thread? The whole point in it is value for money at walk up price, so I think you will find your the idiot.

 

[Zac]

Alton towers is by far the worst in the UK, it's around £55 to get in now, the park shuts at 4 on some days what is just completely unacceptable, Merlin have destroyed that park and it's such a shame!
The only time I've visited Towers and thought that was well worth the money is at Scarefest due to the longer opening hours.

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

If you pay £55 to get into Alton Towers, then you an idiot.

Have you not read any posts in this thread? The whole point in it is value for money at walk up price, so I think you will find your the idiot.

If the statistic posted ages ago about only 1% of visitors paying the full price still holds true, then surely it can't be fair to compare the worst case scenario if no one actually pays it. Take a park like Paultons, who charge £30 per adult/child ticket, with no reductions or offers available. You can't tell me that that is better value than Alton, where you can almost always get 50% off.

 

[cjbrandy]

Wow. Many are fairly critical of certain aspects of Six Flags like theming and at times, operations but they offer some serious value for money, I respect that!

And yeah Merlin value if you pay full price is awful! My reason why? The opening hours- they want you to **** right off before tea time, forcing everyone to rush around to get **** done. If opening hours were half decent I could do stuff like seeing the Towers gardens and riding flats at Thorpe. I consider opening until at least 8pm at the height of summer to be the minimum of what I consider acceptable.

 

[SaiyanHajime]

Six Flags seems like a bargain on the face of it, but on top of that entrance fee you've gotta pay for parking and their food costs are pretty high.

With Six Flags you're getting a lot of rides for your money on paper sure, but the operations often means you won't actually be able to do everything you want to, and they are prone to docking their operating hours after a bad turn out or the weather. I've witnessed them also close rides that get long lines early, so the park can close at the specified hour. That's gross.

Their season pass though is a bargain, no questions asked. I have a 2016 season pass at the moment and it was like $70 from Magic Mountain, valid at every park in the chain. I've had even cheaper ones in the past, if you get them from the crappier parks.

Cedar Fair are worth talking about here because, they're weird. I dunno how they're competing with Six Flags because as a general rule, they are more expensive with less to do. How the hell does Knott's get away with charging $70 for a day ticket? What. The. ****. I'm particularly sour about that, because when we went I had planned to use the bring a friend rate they do for season pass holders, but it wasn't valid on the date we went, which is a crock of turds, because I checked a few months prior and there were no exclusions at the time, which is why I didn't get a season pass as this worked out cheaper. (Don't worry, they got an angry email.) Their all park pass is like $200 or so, which is absurd when compared to Six Flags.

No one pays full price for Merlins parks. Well, some people do, but those people are clearly so rich they don't care, so whatever. It's so easy to get a discount with them.

Other parks worth mentioning...

Knoebles and their pay per ride prices are definitely the best value in the industry. Yes, their all day wristband is kinda steep at like $40, but no one needs an entire day there. I've paid per ride at Knoebles and spent like $15 and been perfectly happy. Their food is also outstanding in price and quality. They do cool partial day wristbands that say, end at 4 or 6 instead of until close, and they also do evening only ones. There's SO MUCH CHOICE!

Hersheypark and Dollywood are both on the pricey side, but they do a thing where if you go for the evening you get the next day free... That's really cool. Hershey is also pretty easy to get vouchers for (local supermarket chains) and they can be used in conjunction with the next day free offer AND you get parking the next day free too. Legit. Dollywood is super expensive, but it's a high quality park, I guess... Still, I don't think the entry price reflects whats on offer. Busch gardens arguably the same, and it makes me laugh how expensive Williamsburg's waterpark is.

 

[andrus]

Disneyland at $99/day is by far the most expensive park I've been to! Sure it's a high quality park with beautiful theming, efficient staff etc, but it doesn't motivate such a steep pricing. Especially since the whole park is designed to rip off as much money from visitors as possible (like eg there are barely any benches to rest on outside of the restaurants).

I love Disneyland, don't get me wrong. It is a very pretty park with some substantial rides, like eg Indiana Jones and Pirates. But a lot of the rides on offer are sub-par (big Thunder Mountain, most of the older dark rides etc). To be good value I would expect higher quality rides and better guest service! And cheaper entrance fee...


Best value then, hmm? An immersive and beautifully landscaped park like Europa Park, with a lot higher ride quality than Disneyland only cost 45 euros, half of Disney.. Sure that's got to be a bargain? Also there's a lot of parks like Mirabilandia that are even cheaper and offers a second day free of charge, that's good value! If we don't consider quality though, there's no contest; Six Flags season passes wins it.