Pleasure Island has a “mixed bag” of a season in 2014 according to its owner Melanie Wood.
The Cleethorpes attraction lost a large amount of trade during the summer due to a motorway closure, she said.
“The first three weeks of the summer holidays were encouraging whilst the majority of August was a huge disappointment,” Wood told Ride Rater.
“Not only was the weather very cold and on most days wet, the Highways Agency decided to close the M180 which is the major road that brings our customers into Cleethorpes.
“Despite apologies from the Highways Agency and them recognising their obvious blunder, the damage was done and an enormous amount of business was lost during what should have been our busiest period.”
Wood did go on to say that Pleasure Island’s season “ended better” and that over 5,000 people attended the fireworks display on 1 November.
New addition ‘all being well’
“As you can imagine it was very much a roller coaster ride from start to finish in more ways than one,” she said.
“It is now full steam ahead for a winter of refurbishment, maintenance and improvements wherever possible, and of course a new addition all being well.”
The park ran an successful funding campaign to support the financing of a new attraction through people pledging to buy reduced-pass season passes.
Although the target was not reached, the park chose to honour those that pledged money by issuing them with the season passes anyway and still hopes to install a new addition regardless.
Wood said: “We were disappointed that the target for season passes was not reached – we felt it was a great offer, especially for local people who would be able to pop down to the park even for an hour or so if the fancy took them.
“Nevertheless we went ahead and honoured the promotion for the 2,500 plus people who did purchase a pass. Hopefully they will get many days of enjoyment out of it next year.”