UK parks.

[Jrb1979]

I watch a lot of YouTube amusement park videos, especially Expedition Theme Park. He posts a lot about UK parks and always thought they looked pretty good to visit. Why do so many UK people travel across the world to visit Disney when you have some wonderful parks in your backyard?

 

[StageTek]

I'm not in the UK so i can't answer from that perspective. But I can answer from the perspective of someone in the US where there are some wonderful parks. I travel to other countries because I love to experience the wonderful parks that are not in my backyard.

Perhaps there are UK residents who enjoy the wonderful parks in their backyard and wish to experience the wonderful parks in the US.

 

[Thecrookedcap]

Another non-Brit here offering a few hypotheses:

• Climate: Colder and rainier most of the year
• Smaller country: the big parks are closer to most of the major population centers. Ex. Alton Towers is ~90 minutes from Birmingham and Manchester. Easier to treat as a day/weekend trip than a full vacation destination.

 

[Jangles]

When my children were small we used to visit Legoland in Windsor, Oakwood in Pembrokeshire , Thorpe Park, Chessington etc., but they don’t have a particular atmosphere and they are smaller. And ofcourse the weather. Now we do have Longleat, which is an amazing stately home and safari park. Longleat makes the animal exhibits and safari at AK and AKL look amateurish and, to be honest, not particularly good environments for the animals. https://www.longleat.co.uk/

 

[Ailsa]

I watch a lot of YouTube amusement park videos, especially Expedition Theme Park. He posts a lot about UK parks and always thought they looked pretty good to visit. Why do so many UK people travel across the world to visit Disney when you have some wonderful parks in your backyard?

We do UK parks too but it's cold here and it rains a lot. Try riding the river rapids when it's less than 50 degrees and raining in the summer. Or going on a hypercoaster when hailstone is hitting you in the face! I tried Disneyland Paris in July once. It was also cold there and it rained constantly for 3 days. I've just returned from Florida - when it rained there it was warm and didn't last very long.

Brits travel all over the world for the better weather, so we don't just visit Florida for the theme parks. We usually come over for 2 weeks which gives us long enough to chill out and do other things too. The theme parks are good to do if you have kids or don't like to lie on a sun lounger and Florida still gets nice weather outside Europe's summer season which is from the end of May to the beginning of September.

 

[Ronaldo17]

We live in Scotland and we go to WDW for the weather and the theming in the parks, these particular aspects are not so good here in the UK.
A lot of the rides at Pleasure Beach, , Thorpe Park. Alton Towers etc are just as good as WDW but they lack the theming.
The weather! Well we can't do much about that here I'm afraid

 

[MarkE83]

We do it in addition to, not instead of. We have annual passes for a group of the main theme parks, and do many weekends at those over the course of a year. But that’s not the same as completely switching off for two weeks in the Sun!

 

[ScotScroogeMcDuck]

Agree with everyone here, the other thing is most of the parks in UK are 1 or 2 days max. not comparable to easily spending 2 weeks in Disney!

 

[zavandor]

The Disney Parks experience is so different, for example in the UK parks only have paid line skipping, no free option, and they nickel and dime you to death... oh wait.

 

[ratherbeshiny]

Because it's Disney!

 

[Jrb1979]

Because it's Disney!

I get that. From someone who lives in Canada, Alton towers looks like an awesome park to visit. I know it's not UK but Efteling and Europa Park looks amazing too.