Merlin Annual Pass Reviews 

Fabulous , so many wonderful days out with the children never a day with nothing to do!!!

We love our platinum annual passes, they are great value considering how many attractions you can access. Our local park is Alton Towers which is such a fun day out for everyone, however we also love visiting Thorpe Park and Chessington! We've got a visit to Blackpool coming up so will be making use of our passes at Blackpool Tower, Madame Tussauds and Sea Life, it just means there's always something different to do and new places to discover. The range of attractions means the passes are perfect for families. We chose platinum in order to access the parks on restricted dates, particularly fireworks at Alton Towers as we usually spend all 3 days there, it's been great value for us because we'd have ended up spending more money by purchasing the upgrade tickets for each restricted date we wanted to visit.

Regarding the perks included with the passes they are good value, however I would like to see some improvements on the discounts offered or see more of a variety of what's offered. Personally, I'd like to see more than a 20% discount on food/drink as the food options in the theme parks can be quite expensive. I prefer that the family and friends tickets now offers a 25% discount off the online price rather than the 50% off gate price as this now works out much cheaper and better value. I really like that the platinum passes include the vouchers for the freestyle cup and refills, I'd love to see more of this sort of perk- even a potential upgrade available on the passes to include an annual drinks cup for all parks with unlimited refills on every visit and an annual photo pass, as I'd love to collect the ride photos from each visit but paying for the photo pass each day gets very expensive. I love entering the competitions that Merlin run and would love to see more of these for annual pass holders, such as creative or photography competitions.

I've only had to contact customer service a handful of times and each time there's always been a prompt and helpful response which has resolved any queries.

Overall, we love our passes and find them to be amazing value as we enjoy visiting all the different attractions. However, would love to see there be a bit of a improvement to the perks offered as I feel that these don't always provide good value. I would also like to see an improvement between the prebooking of attractions and ride access passes, it would make it easier and enjoyable if the portal also included RAP bookings, to make managing/amending bookings better. I find the portal very easy to use and book attractions, would like to see this turned in to an actual app with more functionalities such as checking perks or finding more out about attractions.

I'd definitely recommend getting annual passes, they are great value and allow you to always have an enjoyable day out making memories with friends and family.

While at first glance the annual pass seems expensive as long as you take time out in the year to use it, it’s great value for money. It’s also encouraged us to visit places we wouldn’t ordinarily have travel to, so I feel we have experience far more than we would’ve if we didn’t have the pass.

A simple example is a recent trip to London when we had plans on the Saturday to visit London Zoo. On the Sunday we visited the Shrek experience, London dungeons and then finally the London Eye. These were a wonderful experience all really close to each other, but something we would never have done if we had paid for these individually.

Another benefit which we have appreciated is the fact that our daughter is neurodivergent. Sometimes she can feel overwhelmed. Because we know we can return another day we don’t feel guilty leaving early. Knowing this takes the pressure of the whole day.

Easy to gain entry and book in advance

We have Discovery Annual passes for all the family and have found them to be of great value for off-peak days out when the queues are much smaller. They cover a lot of Sundays too and are great for weekdays, taking advantage of teacher-training days or days out if you don't have any school-age children. You only need a couple of days out for the passes to pay for themselves! I have found the online booking process and website simple to use and you can book for the full range of Merlin attractions incuding Alton Towers, Warwick Castle and the Blackpool attractions. If you love to enjoy cheap and fun family days out, the Discovey Pass is definitely the way to go.

All good so far, easy and simple to book and use tickets. Discounted food and merchandise comes in very handy in the restaurants and shops.

I am very much looking forward to my trip to Chessington in a couple of weeks.

I have been a Merlin member for 12 years and never had a break. We love the memories and days out as a family. Good value for what we pay. Easy to plan trips in advance. Can be quite tricky this year with having a disabled daughter and not being able to plan that’s only downside we have found.

we always have a lot of fun

It's amazing and well worth it, aslong as you use it at least once a month (which we do). We have had great days out with gold.

The initial outlay for the gold passes is a bit pricey but we've found that they're worth it as long as you go frequently enough!
The range of venues are great as long as you can travel. There's enough for 6 and 8 year old to do and we haven't been to all the venue's yet.
The portal could be a bit more user friendly (having the option to show which venues are available to choose from for particular dates/times would be handy) but it's a big improvement to the web page process before the portal!
Family and friends tickets don't work out to be that special when there's BOGOFs on most Carex/Cadbury packaging; we'd use that option more if it were cheaper.
We're on our 4th renewal year and plan to renew next year too as long as they don't increase the prices; the renewal price is at discount to if you're buying for the first time so we don't really want to lose that option.

I've held Merlin platinum passes for the whole family since 2009 but this year has been quite poor value. The main reason being disabled access. It used to be that you could turn up to the parks with your merlin pass and then queue to get a ride access pass - simple. Now I must pre-book the ride access pass and then pre-book the merlin pass also. Unfortunately the ride access passes are limited each day so I have to book on average 6 weeks in advance of any day trip. With 2 children with severe autism, it just isn't possible to know how they will be on the day. Twice I have had to cancel going simply because they would not have tolerated it on that day. The main aim of having a merlin pass is to go more often and systems like this take away all spontaneity and flexibility. They state that they have done this to reduce queues for the disabled, but when I have attended, it's actually been worst than ever before. I have bought several one shots just to combat meltdowns and even they seem to have queue delays, which is shocking when you are charged up to £20 per person, per ride. My other reasons for stating a lack of value is how busy this has become. Quite often I can't pre-book the merlin passes on the dates I would like to. When I can book, the parks are often so overwhelming busy that we are leaving within a few hours. Queue times have increased massively and the queue running at each park seems to vary hugely in quality. I have not had a single day where one of the larger rides has not shut down at least once. It's like a constant closure and open system and you have to continously app watch to try and make the best of it (when it's updated correctly!) It's just not as enjoyable as it once was, everything is designed to keep you in the parks for as long as possible and wring the maximum amount of money from you, for minimum effort from them. In addition to this the food and beverage costs on site have soared but the quality has reduced dramatically. The queues at some of the food areas are often slower than the ride queues, which mostly seems to be down to complete ineffectiveness from the facilities - poor process, undertrained and likely underpaid staff and lack of resources. All in all, I'm well versed in getting the best out of these days under difficult circumstances but even I'm starting to find that hard.

We absolutely love our Merlin passes! So far this year we’ve been to London and used them at all the attractions, Warwick Castle, all the attractions at Blackpool, Trafford centre sea life and Lego! And as we’re only a stones throw from Alton Towers we go at least once a month!

So much value for money, great days out

I dont like the fact that Annual pass holders have to pre book tickets when you have paid so much money for the passes.

Paid for merlin gold passes and still had to pre book visits to Alton Towers and on more than one occasion there was no availability on line via Portal but when went on Towers Web site I could book visits if I paid makes a mockery of paying for expensive passes
Priority should be given to people who have paid for passes. Also prices of refreshments have rocketed over the last twelve months. And quality and value for money have fallen.

After visiting Thorpe Park and Alton Towers last year thought I'd bite the bullet and purchase an annual pass for the first time and boy have I been making the full use of it.
I've lost count the number of times I've been to both TP and AT this year plus used at the London Eye which I've not been on for 15 years.
For this year, its well worth the money I paid and will be renewing next year when the time comes.

Really love the value for money and communication from the team - obviously the attractions - my only issue is how difficult it is to access your member portal at times, hardly any of the links work on the website unfortunately.

Amazing as always. Like my second home

Had passes on and off since I was a child myself just makes sense if you go more then once or twice a year

Great price, great times. Saved over £600 last year before discounts.

Goodbye Merlin😭Your pre-booking system for children with disabilities and special needs has made it impossible for us to go. Always booked up months in advance. Gutted 😞