Merlin Entertainments plc Reviews 

Simply do not buy. Once they have your money they don't care that you can't actually use the passes to get in anywhere. There must be a very limited amount of pass holders allowed in each day whilst they have endless tickets available for those paying again. I am not sure what they are doing is legal however it certainly isn't ethical.

I have planned my holidays and decided to purchase the Premium Annual pass £756. After the purchase we found out that dispite availability of day tickets, there were nothing available for premium pass holders for the whole month of August. I have requested a refund within the statutory cool down period, but they were trying to convince me that the law does not apply to them because they are on the entertainment industry and their T&Cs says otherwise.

ABSOLUTELY FUMING.

Buy an annual pass and use our attractions. WAIT you can’t book as there’s no availability.

But if I pay full price for a ticket I can book? Watch out merlin, Karen’s calling and she wants a full refund on both her premium passes.

£300 on a Merlin Pass no or very limited availability on my days off but people who pay on day can get in. Waste of Money

I like many others purchased an annual pass, which I’m sure helped Merlin through the pandemic, they are hardly cheap. Yet when the park’s reopened due to “limitations” you have to book and annual pass holders are just not considered. If you manage to find availability then you pay an additional £1 for every person. We are a group of 3 but larger families can get very expensive.

Going back to my reason for leaving the review though is the fact we have annual passes which now can’t be used and frankly are pointless. Yet if we were to pay again, full price, there is lots of availability.

We won’t be renewing and would urge others to think very carefully

Disappointed that we brought a set of family premium passes (first time customer), and have not been able to book Thorpe Park from the 15th of September! (a window of 6 weeks), for an annual pass. The reply from customer services is unacceptable - 'tough - first come first serve'. We brought these in good intention and motivation that we could take my son to primarily to Thorp Park for his Halloween day birthday - Halloween. boooo Merlin!!!! What a fraud! Call me to rectify

Bought two x merlin premium passes for me and my son and we are npw unable to use them due to MERLIN having only allocated a small number to pass holders BUT the general public still have loads of allocation? so now i cant go in the school holidays but everyone who hasnt paid over £300 for 2 passes can go! WRONG MERLIN! i will not be renewing!

Absolutely disgusted at our experience in the park yesterday. My partner and I travelled over 170 miles and booked to stay in a local hotel for 2 nights to avoid a long drive home after a busy day. We arrived in the park early as advised. After queuing to get in for over 40 minutes we headed straight over to the SAW ride. After queuing for around 20 minutes we were told that that ride was closed and we should head over to other rides and return. We decided to take our chances and continue queuing, after another 30 minutes and realising that none of the rides were open (after checking the app) my partner asked what was happening. We were told that there had been a power cut and they did not know how long it would be. The heat was almost unbearable and very few drinks stations open. After queueing for over 90 minutes the ride was finally open. However we were still waiting until gone 12pm for everything else to open. The long delay meant that queue times for everything else was between 80-120 minutes! In 5 hours, we were able to get on 3 rides! We spoke with the manager who stated that we could take advantage of the return guarantee, however this in my opinion is not an acceptable alternative. My partner works Monday-Friday and myself most weekends. As stated we travelled over 170 miles, meaning returning on an alternative day is not something we can do so easily. When we asked for a refund we were told this was not possible and only a return ticket could be offered. Whilst I appreciate the power cut is not the resorts fault, it also is not ours and should not have to cost us any more than it already has! We were offered a return to alton towers as it is closer, however again, we still have to pay for travel, which is not acceptable. 350 mile round trip, the cost of 2 nights in a hotel all for the sake of 3 rides, absolutely disgusting and the way it was handled by the staff was completely unacceptable!

Can only re-iterate what's been written by others, just purchased Premium Passes for our family of 5, yes the £1's will add up over the year (which should IMO be refunded when you actually show up, which if the increased it to a higher amount would fix the issue they proclaim to be facing) BUT the main issue is the fact they won't let you visit without paying full price when the pass-holder capacity is reached.

I can actually see why they're doing it, they're in a situation where limited capacity means all they'll have in their parks is pass-holders and not the lucrative flow of full rate paying customers.

The only fair solution would be a discount on the pass itself as it can't be utilised as it's intended.

Do not buy a season pass! Bought 4 passes for my family in November for Christmas gifts. Then Covid happened and we can't use them. Where we live we are in a further local lockdown and still can't use them. I have asked for a refund or exchange for next year but customer service said no and will only extend them to next July! I will still be missing out on 1 month paid for up to now. I emailed the CEO for help and got no reply. They don't care once they have your money!!! Do not waste your money xxx

Absolutely disgusting purchased 4 passes this week for just under £600 only to find out that I have to pay £1 booking fee for each person each time I want to visit. Tried booking Chessington today and there is a 2 week wait for pass holders. I then tried Legoland and the closest date available is 15th August but hey you can go today if you want to pay again!!! Just taken 2 weeks off work to use the passes and wont be able to.WHAT A RIP OFF and scam. Guess what there is no refund - hope you choke on my money

Paid £600 for family premium annual passes and after lockdown Merlin is charging £1pp for a booking you can't get in 10 days in advance and if sunny weather changes on the day and rains then we loose the £1pp we paid! Wherein standard tickets are sold on the day! I'm requesting to get a full refund. Also reporting this to trading standard authority with all evidence.

Disgraceful that I pay £500 per year for a family pass and find that tickets for this week are available for people paying full price, but not for annual passholders. That is not only dishonest, but a breach of Merlin's contract with passholders.

Once they have you tied in with the passes, they will tell you the attractions don’t have capacity- so you can’t visit. BUT THEY WILL STILL SELL YOU A DAY TICKET. absolutely outrageous, shockingly poor customer service. We’ve been premium pass holders for over 10 years- never again.

Purchased premium merlin passes...family of 4 so not cheap at £159 per pass, no Early Ride Time, cant use fast pass vouchers that comes with the packs, now have to pay £1 per person per pass for everytime you want to visit an attraction....this has to be planned way in advance as only reserve so many places for passholders....but ooh if you want to buy a full price ticket when all the passholder tickets have gone you can....as if! Total rip off and merlin just are not interested once they got your cash.....yes extended passes but over winter period when theme parks are shut! A total an utter waste of money....wished I'd not bothered and really not feeling that merlin magic with 2hr+queues....save your money folks

The pass is a rip off at the moment. You have to book and they don’t have tickets for the attractions for a week so you can’t decide to go with less than a week or more notice. You can still buy day tickets online so they have capacity but they save it for their paying customers. Greedy Merlin.

I think its ridiculous you are charging a £1 fee per a Merlin pass when we have already paid for the year but have missed out on minimum 3 months due to covid. The whole point of this pass is to come back as many times as you want in a year so if I come back 16 times in a year and pay your £1 fee every time then that means I've nearly bought another annual pass in paying fees. Talk about milking the situation. So what are you going to do about the 3 month pluss that we paid for in the annual pass? Your quick enough to charge people a booking fee what about giving somthing back to those that have not been able to use their yearly pass.

Working at logolqnd Windsor showed me how bad the management is that run the park
No departments talk to each other so simple jobs often overlap and cause chaos and delays where management haven't bothered to take the time to talk and then blam us for it all going wrong when its out of our hands
If a manager doesn't like you they will go out of their way to get you out despite their own lack of competence
The higher ups look after one thing and thats their monthly bonus and give nothing to the workers

Absolutely terrible experience! Ordered passes on the 31st of January, by the 14th of February still nothing. No emails no phone call nothing. Phoned on the 14th they said they sent an email because of photo rejection which is a blatant lie as I have recieved no emails other than the original confirmation! Do not bother wasting your money!

What a disgraceful experience.
Ordered premium passes on 2nd December and yet to receive them.
Have called 8 times and every time a different story.
I have been lied to so many times i have had enough.
Management refuse to speak to people hiding behind their front desk staff whom i feel really sorry for as the mishaps are above their pay grade yet management who should look after their staff refuse to speak to us people and instead the poor front desk staff are getting hammered on calls.
Merlin, wheres my pass