dragon2000

On Sunday they were not loading people until the end of the previous cycle. Looked like they really needed one extra staff member to load up while the others have to stay in their control booths. Once people finally get on the ride there always seems to be quite a lot of time until the restraints can be locked and then the ride seems to be quite fussy with recognising that all the harnesses are locked down properly. Staff members peering through the floor to see if lights are on etc! 3 cycles in 40mins was painful.

Slammer opened up late on Sunday - speaker issue. Was taking them 15mins to load each cycle so not surprised to hear it got a 70min queue during school trip season... speed it up please!

The Flow Rider side of the beach was closed all day today - broken already?

As ThorpeAddict said, it is typical that this happens every year as soon as the hot weather arrives! Get well soon Tidal Wave...

Past couple of visits the section of targets past the caged wolf, past the axe-throwers and into the 'dog statue pit' scene have been off/broken. How long does it take to fix the main part of Tomb Blaster - the targets!

Some CCTVs would be nice for the 25th anniversary then. At the moment it's a case of us having to sort queue jumpers out with no support. Maybe the person in the snack shack could help keep an eye out.

Thought so. Guest services lied then when I reminded them that queue jumping is a massive issue in the Vampire queue and they said it was monitored on CCTV. Great stuff...

I've found the station quite tolerable this year compared to last. Now that you have the pre-recorded announcements, you don't get deafened as often by obnoxiously loud operators shouting down their microphone via the speaker at the front of the station. By the way, I know some people have worked on Vampire before on here, so I pose a question: Are there any speakers in the outdoor queueline or CCTV cameras monitoring the outside queue? Never noticed any.

I was there on Sunday. Had such a poor visit (in many ways) that I couldn't face writing a trip report yet... Anyway, it broke down at least once that day, we had just got into the station and everything ground to a halt. 15mins later with no progress and they started to give everyone in the queue priority passes. Only for it to start working about 10mins later. Maybe related? When it was working, operations on Vampire were terrible again. Seem to be bad everytime I visit. I really would like to go on a day when they are supposedly cranking trains out. They were getting cars on Fury out at a great pace all day. Car left the lift hill and then the next hit the chain within 10secs.

Last time your reservation would just sit on your phone until you used it. I believe if you make a reservation this time and it 'flashes' it means you can ride it immediately and your reservation will expire within 15mins (e.g. Coasters first thing in the morning, Flying Fish all day (when all the rides get added at least)).

The confusion on facebook has begun...

Some kind of solution that can get rid of the cage-like wire roof to the queue pen. Plus sort the queue drainage...

We visited this past week and did RMT, Duel and then Nemesis. By the time we had got two rides on Nemesis (had to wait at one point for them to add the other train) it was 9.40 and we wanted to be at The Smiler for opening. We went as quickly as possible via the diagonal lakeside/garden path to X Sector and just arrived at The Smiler queue as everyone else (who didn't have ERT) was coming into X Sector from the park entrance. Had to wait 30mins for it with a breakdown. If you are athletic and don't mind some good exercise in the morning you could try what we did, or perhaps better would be to go straight to Oblivion, get lots of rides on it between 9.10-9.45 and then be one of the first in The Smiler's queue. Go to Rita & Thirteen straight after The Smiler and they will have no queue, then hopefully the Skyride is working and you can get on Air and Nemesis with no queues too.

One of the cycles Samurai has been running this year has been far better than in previous years (usually get this one first thing in the morning). The trouble is the other settings it can run on are terrible. It's the inconsistency of sometimes getting a decent ride and other times not which sucks.

Out of curiosity: does Stealth suffer with the hot weather? It seemed to be taking longer to 'recharge', almost like it had to cool down between launches yesterday.

It looked terrible on Sunday. Was sat watching it as I ate a rather nice chocolate Ben and Jerry's. Barely got to 90 degrees.

^Ah, never seen that as an annual pass holder. Guessing they are trialling early rider over the next few weeks like they have been at Thorpe. I visit about once very two weeks and yes, usually it's only the hotel guests who get to use the Wild Asia rides between 9-10am. Vampire gets an hour queue at 10am because everyone is usually let into the park at 9.40, and immediately queues outside the entrance to Vampire while it does its last few test runs. Boom, instant queue upon opening. Plus the hotel guests all get to use the fastrack ride entrance between 10-11am.

Colossus was absolutely flying today. So, so fast, probably the fastest I've ever experienced it.

There is no early rider at Chessington. The only thing that happens is hotel guests can use the fastrack queues for the first hour of the day.

Vampire, Fury, Kobra, Scorpion Express, Rattlesnake, Zufari, Tomb Blaster, Dragon Falls - would be the order I'd advise. After this, you can find most of the other rides at a quieter point some point in the day. Fury and Vampire as the last two rides of the day too.

Fury down for the day yesterday, anyone know what's up?

Last visit, the backwards queue was 10mins and forwards ended up being 20. I told a staff member that we had seen people abusing the system by joining the backwards queue and then choosing to go forwards on the ride. Saving themselves 10mins and queue jumping everyone in the forwards queue. Did she care, of course not... Rudeness. No apology, nothing. Needs sorting asap...

Blimey, please tell me when this was so I can visit when they are working like that... Past two visits, one this past Wednesday, one two weeks beforehand on the Sunday the Vampire queue immediately went to 40mins after opening and then remained at an hour+ for the rest of the day. This past Wednesday the Vampire queue was 90mins-120mins all day. I even ended up waiting 70mins after joining the queue at 7pm... Anyway, back on topic, what seems to have sparked this whole debate was my comment that the Bubbleworks fountains were off. What I needed to say alongside this was how disappointing it is that they have been broken or off so much this year. It's more vital than the fire on Swarm. It is *essential* to the finale of the ride. It's the fountain finale! Other little things like the moving head light beams being flipped 180 degrees so they point down takes about 5 button presses - assuming it's similar to my ones at home...

Fountains were off again on Wednesday. Not very reliable this year. Gave me a chance to notice the nice moving head lights they have installed near the roof - they were pointing up at the ceiling which is 2ft away, when really they need to be pointed down at the ride!

^Yes, Colossus thankfully has had it's second train back for about a week now! In fact when I visited last Wednesday thanks to the second train and some decent operations Colossus actually was dispatching faster than Inferno. Colossus was walk on whilst Inferno was 45mins and Saw was 60mins. Inferno staff have been *terrible* so far this year in my experience...