How to get cheap theme park tickets

Generally speaking, you can save money by booking online in advance. For example, at Chessington World of Adventures, if you book more than five days in advance, early bird tickets are available from £27.

If you book between one and four days ahead it’s £32 per ticket, and if you show up on the day it’s £47. So a bit of forward planning could save you up to £20 on each visitor at this park.

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Don’t jump straight in and book without taking a look around for two-for-one vouchers and other discounts. Search engines are your friend here. A quick search as I wrote this piece revealed a deal on Groupon offering tickets for Alton Towers at £27 each, £52 for a pair or £99.95 for a group of four.

This could save you around a tenner on the advance ticket price, normally set at £37.80, or a saving of more than £23 on the £50.40 on-the-gate price. There are then extra savings to be made as a pair or part of a larger group, and you get some free digital photos thrown in.

Deals like this come up a fair amount, but also expire regularly too. There’s no definitive source for discounts, so if you’re planning a day out, be sure to search for vouchers and promo codes when you book to make the most of seasonal offers.

One website you might like to keep an eye on is myfamilyclub.co.uk which catalogues some decent theme park deals. But do your own research and see what else is out there too.

Also remember to check for cashback offers before you commit. Quidco is currently offering £5 cashback on annual passes for Legoland Windsor, while TopCashback is offering £5.25. These sites also offer percentage-based cashback on various attractions including the London Eye, Chessington World of Adventures and the London Dungeon.

Various theme parks allow small children to attend for free. The cut-off age for this free admission varies from park to park, and at Chessington World of Adventures free entry is offered to visitors under 90cm in height, rather than being age-defined.

But if you’re looking to cut the cost of a family visit and are taking children over the respective ‘infant’ age for your chosen theme park, you might want to take a look at some promotional offers going around this summer.

Birds Eye

Birds Eye is running an on-pack promotion until the end of October, where you can snip out a coupon and present it at a Merlin Entertainment operated attraction (excluding the London Eye) to gain free entry for a child who is accompanied by a full-paying adult. The voucher can be used until the end of 2016.

However, the Birds Eye vouchers can only be used to buy tickets at the entrance, meaning that you might be better off using other vouchers. To take the example of Alton Towers, an on-the-gate ticket costs £50.40 for an adult and £45.60 for a child, a total of £96. With the Birds Eye voucher, it’ll be just £50.40.

A family of four (two adults, two children) would pay £100.80 for entry at Alton Towers using two of the Birds Eye vouchers, but with the Groupon deal mentioned earlier, they would pay £99.95.

An 85p saving (plus the cost of a box of fish fingers and a bag of frozen peas) is not worth scrabbling around for, but it does highlight the fact that some deals are better than others, even if they have a lower public profile.

This example is only relevant to Alton Towers, so it would be wise to take a look around and calculate if you stand to make a decent saving with the other vouchers out there for different parks.

Immediate Media

Elsewhere Immediate Media is running a ‘Kids go Free’ promotion with its range of youth and children magazines.

The offer gets a child free entry to a range of UK attractions, including Sea Life, Thorpe Park, Chessington World of Adventures and Legoland, when an adult ticket is purchased. The discount vouchers are available in 25 Immediate Media titles including Cbeebies, Top of the Pops, Horrible Histories and Girl Talk, on sale now until 31st August.

With this deal you could save up to £45 at Legoland, up to £49.99 at Thorpe Park, and up to £43 at Chessington World of Adventures.

For more information on the attractions and where the discount vouchers will feature visit the Kids Go Free website.

Kellogg's

Alternatively, you could take an adult free. Kellogg's is running a promotion with a range of theme parks which offer the chance for one free adult entry for every child or adult ticket purchases. All you have to do is cut out the voucher from one of the promotional cereal boxes.

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Merlin is the largest operator of theme parks and other attractions in the UK, and if you’re an adrenaline junkie it might be worth considering an annual pass. You can buy these for individual parks, but there’s also a pass which will get you into all Merlin attractions.

Merlin passes are currently being offered at a discount. The Standard pass is priced at £129 for an individual (down from £169) or £109 per person for a family pass. There are also Premium passes priced at £179 each or £159 per person for a family pass. If you’re likely to make quite a few visits to theme parks in a year, this is a pretty good deal.

Aside from twelve months’ entry to Merlin attractions, passholders benefit from discounts on food and beverages and reduced price stays at Merlin hotels. Premium passholders can also bring three friends along on their trips for £10 each, and get priority entrance to attractions and free parking among other perks.

Prices on Merlin passes will revert to normal on 1st September 2016.

You can spend Nectar points and Tesco Clubcard points to get money off certain parks and attractions. 500 Nectar points are worth £5.00 at quite a few attractions.

One of the best theme park offers from Tesco right now is the chance to pay£9.50 in Clubcard vouchers to receive entry to Blackpool Pleasure Beach, which has a regular gate price of £30.

It’s worth noting that all park prices vary. While Thorpe Park charges £49.99 on the gate and £24.99 online, Blackpool Pleasure Beach costs £30 on the gate and as little as £18 online.

Whether this type of price comparison really pays off for you will depend on where you live and how much you have to spend on fuel or transport, but it’s worth bearing in mind that prices for each park are different from the very start, before you start investigating vouchers and special offers.

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This isn't applicable in all cases but if you sign up to a park’s mailing list they may send you discount codes or vouchers to use.