New theme park: Universal Studios… Bedford!

So it looks like this will be going ahead. The edge of it will be about 1 mile from me.

We were thinking about moving in the next year, but might keep the house and airBNB it or rent it out. Could be a nice side husstle.

platypus said:
How will this work given the problems Eurostar trains have going to London? Just slow down from ashford (is it?) all the way to bedford I assume, ie no high speed service?

Overall I'm supportive of the park and it'll be great for the economy of both the local area and wider country. But these sound like it will be an utter nightmare for the locals. 9PM finish on normal days? AT shuts at what is it 6PM normally? I know a lot of locals were supportive of the application but I doubt they were aware of half of these things before proper the planning application was done.
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I'm guessing most people will be arriving by train. There will be 2 stations to serve both lines it seems. But the entrance will be far enough from the town road traffic shouldn't affect it much, unless 1000s of people decide to all turn up at the same time (probably on the first day).
 
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Nasher said:
So it looks like this will be going ahead. The edge of it will be about 1 mile from me.

We were thinking about moving in the next year, but might keep the house and airBNB it or rent it out. Could be a nice side husstle.



I'm guessing most people will be arriving by train. There will be 2 stations to serve both lines it seems. But the entrance will be far enough from the town road traffic shouldn't affect it much, unless 1000s of people decide to all turn up at the same time (probably on the first day).
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With an expected 10-55k people a day and only 500 hotel rooms... Could be worth keeping for the summer holidays. May also get a discount/cheap annual pass for being so close too.

I think they're looking at Wixams being the main station to use, big expansion and the Eurostar connection, but also looks like the A421 is getting a dedicated junction too and a decent road arrangement once off the A421.

They're also saying it's only 30 minutes from Luton Airport to the park by train as well. They're going to try to double Luton Airports capacity over the next few years, they really are aiming for international visitors.

Given they had a pre tax loss of £492 million last year, I wonder what the management at Merlin Entertainment are doing right now? Other than soiling themselves. ;)
 
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Nasher said:
We were thinking about moving in the next year, but might keep the house and airBNB it or rent it out. Could be a nice side husstle.
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Absolutely. The first place I bought was a flat in Stewartby, literally a 2 minute walk from the site of the old brickworks this is going to be built on. God knows what that will end up being worth now.
 
Flibster said:
Another theme park int he UK? Don't mind if we do. :D

www.bbc.co.uk

Puy du Fou Bicester theme park: £600m plans submitted

The site near Bicester would include four period villages and 13 live shows.
www.bbc.co.uk www.bbc.co.uk
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For some unholy reason Bicester is a common stop for bus tours of the UK by foreign tourists. They do Oxfrord and Bicester Village (outlet stores). Oxford I get, but Bicester Village, and it ridiculously popular :confused:
 
PlacidCasual said:
For some unholy reason Bicester is a common stop for bus tours of the UK by foreign tourists. They do Oxfrord and Bicester Village (outlet stores). Oxford I get, but Bicester Village, and it ridiculously popular :confused:
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Oxford, Blenheim Palace, then Bicester Village. Chinese Tour companies get paid to take them there.

www.bbc.co.uk

Why do the Chinese love Bicester Village?

What's the appeal of a discount shopping centre in the middle of the British countryside?
www.bbc.co.uk www.bbc.co.uk
 
Reminds me of this tour we went on in Turkey. Lovely sites, cultural stuff, then this massive warehouse where they were producing the world's "highest quality synthetic diamonds". They sold it to us as part of the tour, like an actual attraction. We were walked around this "workshop" where they had one solitary dude making stuff with these "famous diamonds", followed by what was just a massive shop.

At first we fell for it, thinking this might actually be interesting, until we got back on the coach and we both burst out laughing as the penny dropped. We were literally "those tourists" that day :cry:
 
This park surely is going to have to be mostly indoors? Look at all of merlins parks and how they close for 5 months of the year.

I remember hearing the star wars rise of resistance rice in Hollywood studios costing over a billion dollars to create.

How is universal going to spend that sort of money in a location that may have to close for 4/5 months per year, and impossible to have any where near the number of tourists that even Disney Paris has.

Making it indoors, or feel like indoors, you know those roofs that just stop the rain but still feel like you're kind of outdoors, will help allow the place be open for longer and not worry as much from rain, but then when it's sunny, it's a bad day out because you're just hidden from the little sun we have in this country.

I hope it succeeds but i fear the park will be very low key to anyone that has experienced florida for the simple fact that the weather doesn't allow companies to get a great return on their investment for outdoor activities, and so they don't invest as much
 
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unwashed potato! said:
This park surely is going to have to be mostly indoors? Look at all of merlins parks and how they close for 5 months of the year.

I remember hearing the star wars rise of resistance rice in Hollywood studios costing over a billion dollars to create.

How is universal going to spend that sort of money in a location that may have to close for 4/5 months per year, and impossible to have any where near the number of tourists that even Disney Paris has.

Making it indoors, or feel like indoors, you know those roofs that just stop the rain but still feel like you're kind of outdoors, will help allow the place be open for longer and not worry as much from rain, but then when it's sunny, it's a bad day out because you're just hidden from the little sun we have in this country.

I hope it succeeds but i fear the park will be very low key to anyone that has experienced florida for the simple fact that the weather doesn't allow companies to get a great return on their investment for outdoor activities, and so they don't invest as much
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A lot of the attractions at Universal Studios Florida are indoors, including some coasters, but I can’t see how it could be feasible to get every large coaster indoors.

A couple of the big German theme parks open year round and have can very wet winters but I have my doubts about the U.K. winters.
 
Mark M said:
A lot of the attractions at Universal Studios Florida are indoors, including some coasters, but I can’t see how it could be feasible to get every large coaster indoors.

A couple of the big German theme parks open year round and have can very wet winters but I have my doubts about the U.K. winters.
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I'm more thinking the walk between rides. It's miserable in from November until March in this country. Dark very early. Cold. Wet. Even summers can be wet for long periods as seen over this September.

I'm sure if merlin could open their park all year round they would, but aren't they essentially closed after Halloween and all the way until April? That's a long time to not earn money.
 
unwashed potato! said:
This park surely is going to have to be mostly indoors? Look at all of merlins parks and how they close for 5 months of the year.

I remember hearing the star wars rise of resistance rice in Hollywood studios costing over a billion dollars to create.

How is universal going to spend that sort of money in a location that may have to close for 4/5 months per year, and impossible to have any where near the number of tourists that even Disney Paris has.

Making it indoors, or feel like indoors, you know those roofs that just drop the rain but still feel like you're outdoors, will help allow the place open more and not worry as much from rain, but then when it's sunny, it's a bad day out because you're just hidden from the little sun we have in this country.

I hope it succeeds but i fear the park will be very low key to anyone that has experienced florida
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Doesn't look all that indoors from the concept art they've shown. Some will have to be, but the majority won't be.

The entirety of each Galaxy's Edge park cost something like $1 billion, not just Rise of the Resistance. They pretty much both of them 2 at the same time, one at Anaheim and one at Hollywood studios. So duplicating some elements would have brought the total price down over building one then the other.

Size wise, Galaxy's edge is about 14 acres in size. Universal UK is in a 476 acre site. That's the park, lake, hotel, shopping area, and car park They are only going to active develop around half of the site, with the park itself taking up 82 acres. So that's pretty much the same size as Disney Land in Anaheim.

So just doing a 1:1 translation with inflation, that's abut that's $7.5billion (£5.5billion) I would not be surprised if this is a £7.5-10billion investment for Universal overall.

Just for info, Disney World is 26'000 acres and only about 1/3 of that is developed. The entire owned area is about the same size as San Francisco. :eek:
 
unwashed potato! said:
I'm more thinking the walk between rides. It's miserable in from November until March in this country. Dark very early. Cold. Wet. Even summers can be wet for long periods as seen over this September.

I'm sure if merlin could open their park all year round they would, but aren't they essentially closed after Halloween and all the way until April? That's a long time to not earn money.
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No, Merlin don't close their parks for 5 months of the year. They are closed for "general attractions" for 3 months but still open for special events over fireworks evenings and Christmas.

In effect, they are only shut for January and February and presumably because nobody actually wants to visit in the snow / ice and they use that time to refurb or renovate the parks.
 
ci_newman said:
No, Merlin don't close their parks for 5 months of the year. They are closed for "general attractions" for 3 months but still open for special events over fireworks evenings and Christmas.

In effect, they are only shut for January and February and presumably because nobody actually wants to visit in the snow / ice and they use that time to refurb or renovate the parks.
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Which is I suspect something they quite like, as it means they can do a lot of maintenance work without anyone rushing them, or the need to put up a load of temporary fencing to stop people getting near the work, and can bring anything they need in via whatever route is best, not by whatever route causes the least disruption to the customers.
I'd hope they also use the time to do things like train up/refresh training of staff before they re-open for the year.

Similar to why so much railwork is done on bank holidays, it's when the rail network has it's use at a lower level and causes far less disruption to businesses.
 
the theme park in Dubai is half inside as well and its fine.... i think a theme park indoors can look really good if done properly.

the park is being built 35 minutes away from my house, they have already started doing the ground works a few weeks ago. The access to the park will be decent from St Pancras for Euro visitors, they are also in the process of building a train line from cambridge to oxford (West to East rail or something), and the Black Cat roundabout on the A1 is finally being converted as a flyover, and another runway at luton airport to accommodate it... I am hoping that universal studios will do shuttle buses from the airport to the park.

The whole project will benefit Bedfordshire and milton keynes hugely, and even Northamptonshire. Realistically UK citizens will probably goto the park no more than three times in their life, its more for tourists in my opinion.
 
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ci_newman said:
they use that time to refurb or renovate the parks.
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why is it then that thorpe park always looks run down **** :p

FishThrower said:
The whole project will benefit Bedfordshire and milton keynes hugely, and even Northamptonshire. Realistically UK citizens will probably goto the park no more than three times in their life, its more for tourists in my opinion.
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i doubt that. as a kid we'd go to thorpe park/chessington at least once a year. granted both were 30 minutes away, but i can't see how locals wouldn't be jumping on this. i know i'll be going when possible, especially as they no doubt will be going all on in harry potter area. the amount they must make from merch alone is incredible.
 
ci_newman said:
No, Merlin don't close their parks for 5 months of the year. They are closed for "general attractions" for 3 months but still open for special events over fireworks evenings and Christmas.
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I imagine it'll be similar to Orlando and they'll keep it open as much as possible and only close it for H&S, ie - weather.

unwashed potato! said:
i doubt that. as a kid we'd go to thorpe park/chessington at least once a year. granted both were 30 minutes away, but i can't see how locals wouldn't be jumping on this.
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If it's anything like Universal Orlando prices, which i had the pleasure of experiencing a few weeks back, then i doubt most of us locals will be going that often, not unless they offer us decent discounts :cry:

unwashed potato! said:
...no doubt will be going all on in harry potter area.
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Have they proposed Harry Potter rides/experiences for Bedford?
I'd be surprised if Warner will licence that for Bedford given the studios are down the road (less than an hours drive a way).

Mark M said:
A lot of the attractions at Universal Studios Florida are indoors, including some coasters, but I can’t see how it could be feasible to get every large coaster indoors.
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A lot of Studios is but most of Islands of Adventure is outdoors and Epic seems to be a 50/50 mixture which seems to be the case with the current proposed plans for Bedford.
 
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