Interview with Nick Varney - Director of Merlin.

[furie]

From the Financial Mail yesterday (thanks to TTF for the link):

Not much, but some idea of the growth of Merlin and what they're looking at doing (not much) :lol:

http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/markets/ar ... topstories

Sadly, Alton Towers is now a complete dive.

'I was a big admirer of Disney and used to go a lot,' he says. 'Luckily, I think our theme parks are better.'

It's well known that once a director of a park says they're better than Disney, the truth of the matter is that the parks are hideous, ugly, badly staffed, full of chuff and generally worse than Camelot!

 

[marc]

"Not much, but some idea of the growth of Merlin and what they're looking at doing "

Make as much money as possible and not care.

What Disney parks has he been to to say Merlin parks are better. This guy is on another planet.

Merlin dont even own the land that Alton and Thorpe are built on. They had to sell the freehold so they had money to invest in the parks (sorry I mean Legoland).

The reason why there is a fall off of people going to the USA is not just due to the $, its also due to people waiting for Harry Potter Land. I know a number of people at work that have already booked for next year. Ok yes people are cutting back, but Orlando still offers some of the best value for money deals.

They keep on saying they are the 2nd largest, look how many parks they have and attractions. With that many they should be the largest but they are not, and the gap to Disney is millions and millions. They are not even close, they can dream.

Disney built their parks from scratch, how many parks have Merlin built. How many rides have they put into Thorpe, Alton Towers and Chessington? Please remember if its true Saw was already ordered before they took the parks over.

They took over well established parks and done **** all to them, apart from make them worse.

Sorry it really bugs me when people start saying they are better than Disney when they are not even close. Even Plopsaland has a better ride line up than Chessington and better theming on one coaster than the whole of Thorpe.

 

[Screaming Coasters]

I've met Nick Varney and took him around Chessington. He complained the whole way through and left unimpressed with the place, so to say Merlin has the best parks is a contradiction to his thoughts.

 

[marc]

Well I suppose he has to talk the parks up to the press after the massive fail when memebers of the press and famous people got stuck on Saw