dragon2000

So you've been on it 3 times? 4?

From what I saw the other day, the bridge and the boiler shack staircase were still all in place. Whether it will stay this way or not we'll see! Will certainly be interesting to see what we end up with - and I have my fingers crossed it's ok...

Forgot to say - Yesterday none of the queue time boards were switched on. Perhaps they are going to be switching over to the new Thorpe Park style boards? Or perhaps the system was just broken...? Kinda frustrating when trying to work out what to ride.

My point was that on the same date (e.g Saturday 18th May) Thorpe's coasters will all be under 40mins, whereas Vampire & Fury will be at 60-90mins all day apart from the first hour.

This happened last week while we were in the Saw station - usually it's when they add another car onto the track. They say 'Saw has temporarily ceased operation', close the queue, send round a few empty cars so everyone currently on the ride can get off and some of the cars stop in the inside section of the ride. Then they re-open with the additional cars 'Pleased to announce we are back in operation!'. Reckon this happened with Saw? I know Slammer sometimes closes for a short while for inspections during the day.

Annoying hearing they have slowed right down. However on your last point - I would far rather have a member of staff 'tap' my harness than shove it down on me like some staff do! There's no need..

Just a tiny tiny fraction of mountain left when we looked today. Workers literally hand-sawing sections off. The ride now looks exactly like the Flying Fish with it's lack of themeing... now let's get on with building a new mine!

Queue up to 1.5 hours today! If only we still had that 3rd train Ride broke down and according to a member of staff the priority pass queue was 1 hour long at one point! It just seems crazy to me that here at Chessington you see hour-long queues on Vampire and Fury all the time, whereas down the road at Thorpe on the same days queues for the coasters never go above 40mins. Chessington is crying out for a high capacity rollercoaster to support Vampire and Fury... (I'd like to suggest a family woodie...but that's a discussion for elsewhere)

Got to say again, Bubbleworks was looking excellent again today on the inside. Queue line is very shabby and dark in places though (combination of a dark blue wall and broken lights). Lick of paint please...

Quite a few changes spotted today - I assume they are trying to respond to the feedback they've had so far this year: Pathway walls leading up to the ride from Rameses have had a couple of animals painted onto them. Explorer hats being handed out for picsolve photo (might have happened in past, but I'd never seen it) Approximately the right number of guests for the pre-show were batched into the last section of queueline (rather than outside the pre-show doors). For the pre-show there were 2 costumed members of 'ACRE' who would hold the pre-show doors open for you and introduce/interact with parts of the video inside. The lemur voice now gives an indication of which animals you are likely to see and warns that they can't guarantee seeing all the animals. The trucks all now have a simple lap bar that lowers down over the entire row. Pretty quick and no fuss! Plus the height restriction is dropped to 1.0m Positive improvements all round, well done Chessington! Though will try to avoid sitting on the front row on all future expeditions - 1. Can't see anything 2. Get soaked!! And please get rid of the silly jets that blast in your eyes...

At the park tomorrow, so will report back!

Don't know what is happening with Stealth this year too. It seems to shut down at least twice a day at the moment.

I know that they have to wait on Colossus for the train to be directly behind the station, but I don't think there is that 'rule' on Inferno & Swarm. Don't worry - what I mean is that the train in the station had left just a little while before the second train was entering the station, rather than sitting outside like you often do.

No lights or any mist on Inferno today Would just like to add how impressed I was by the team working on the ride today. While all the other coasters had 45min+ queues Inferno was chewing through the crowds, and was a 5min queue most of the afternoon! 99% of the trains were leaving before the other got onto the transfer track.

Samurai was open after about 11 today. It has been adjusted so that the pods no longer park in the same place they started. Still has major problems zero-ing, but hey I suppose at least it's open...

It has been having problems parking FOR YEARS. Why for the love of everyone have they not sorted it by now!? It just seems mad that last season they took the thing mostly/completely apart and it still didn't fix it! New model please. If Lightwater Valley can run one properly, Thorpe can find a way.

Recovered from my trip to Chessington on Monday (6/5/13) enough to write a report... One line summary: I've never seen so many people at Chessington! The combination of bank holiday plus the gorgeous weather meant everyone was there. We had a fun day out, mainly as we visit a couple of times each month, but if this was your one visit of the year you'd be pretty frustrated with the lack of rides you could manage in the day due to queues... Our day started off with being turned away from the main car park at 9.20am due to it already being 'full' Luckily we managed to park in the gravel car park fairly with few issues, however we could already see the beginnings of a large queue forming down the main road. We later heard from another guest that when they arrived at 10.10am it took them an hour to park - wow! Got in the park by 9.30 and Fury was still just running for hotel guests. Rushed down to Transylvania (where people for some reason were queueing outside the entrance of Bubbleworks - it didn't open until past 10). Thankfully Vampire was already open and we were into the station within 15mins. I have to say, in 20 years of riding Vampire I had never seen such poor operations as I did on Monday. Such a shame as only a couple of weeks ago things seemed bearable. The batcher at the outside of the station was letting in too few people, and not often enough. This meant trains were sitting half-empty in the station waiting for riders. Four attendants on the platform just hanging around waiting for riders, despite a queue outside the station. Then there was the batcher inside the station. This member of staff was slower than a geriatric snail. Seriously, guests have already been height checked twice - once at the entrance to the ride and once outside the station, there is no need to check again! Now the group of people sent through to the station were backing up on the station ramp, waiting to be told where to sit. SO FRUSTRATING! I jokingly told the member of staff politely that if he didn't go faster the ride would end up with a 2 hour queue... Guess what was on the queue board for the remainder of the day after 10.30? 110 minute queue. Well done Vampire team... The rest of the day was really a case of trying to avoid the worst of the queues. We ended up doing: Zufari x2 - Once after Vampire (20min queue) and once as our penultimate ride (40min queue despite advertised as 90mins...) Safari Skyway - In the morning (20min queue). Batcher could not be bothered to call for 2s so we ended up waiting longer than necessary. Sealion presentation - Got to praise the animal care team, they are fantastic and very passionate. All the zoo - All the animals were out and about. Crowds were loving the baby gorillas. Also love the petting zoo - goats Lorikeet Lagoon - Lots of the birds hiding in the bushes to get some shade. Cool animals. Animal Antics - Again, well done to the team! Love Esmerelda. Bubbleworks - Afternoon (40min queue). Needed a relax after lunch. It looks like some work has been done to improve the lighting (station, scenes, finale) and the majority of effects are now working, so we were impressed. Dragon's Fury - Got in the queue at 5.45pm and ended up riding at 6.40pm. Ride broke down for around 15mins - luckily the mechanic had already come to the ride ready shut it down for the day so he was nearby to fix it! It ended up with both the engineer and one of the ride's managers working on the unload platform which was quite amusing to see. Unfortunately before this happened there was some real slow loading was happening on Fury. All 7 cars were on the track, one was running empty all day, and most of the time at least 2 cars were stacked up outside the station . Staff wished us a safe journey home after riding though which was nice. Average queue ranges seen for the day: Vampire - 110mins Fury - 60-90mins Zufari - 60-90mins Rameses - 20mins Kobra - 60mins Dragon Falls - 60mins Tomb Blaster - 45mins+ Bubbleworks - 40mins+ Rattlesnake - 20mins+ Sealife - queueing down the path to the main park entrance. Even smaller attractions (Monkey Swinger, Griffin's, Bus etc) were getting some hefty queues. Breakdowns: Fury (10mins), Rattlesnake (1 hour). Ate at Pizza Pasta, delicious as always. I always have the pasta which there was plenty of, but pizza was running short quite often. Garlic bread always seems to be in short supply too... Were seated outside but were then ignored by all staff for 10mins. We asked one of the table cleaners if he could get someone to serve us, and it still took over 5mins for someone to come. Basically I think Chessington were pretty unprepared for so many people! Massive queue for guest services too. Wouldn't have liked to be working in there on Monday. Lots of management walking around the park. Shame they so often seem to be unable to see the little 'niggles' with the park. The park has a lot going for it, if only it's looked after and starts/continues to get some decent investment. -------------------------------------------------------- If you've read the lot above, well done, and thanks. I know it sounds like a big old moan, but really we did have a nice day out in the fresh air. I only 'nit pick' bits of the day because Chessington is a place that I am so passionate about and care about. I hate to see it being run to less than its full potential. I'll slink back into the shadows now

In case anyone's forgotten what the obelisk should look like:

There is a distinct difference in the reactions to the pre-show from audiences you can observe. In the morning - people (with children) laughing, kids having fun. In the afternoon - dead silence. People have come for a re-ride and are pretty annoyed to have to sit through the same childish lemur act again...

^ There is a short bit on this video at 4.10:

This noise just sounds like they are trying to get rid of guests as quickly as possible. Although the nice cheery guy on the jingle says 'we hope you have enjoyed your day at Thorpe Park...' etc etc It sounds to me more like 'Get the F out of Thorpe Park, our staff want to go home'. Not a nice, chilled end to the day.

I'll give them a teeny-weeny bit of credit. Most of today (when it wasn't broken), the team were getting one train dispatched as soon as the other was hitting the brakes. This is at least consistent, compared to last year when sometimes trains would be sat in the dark stacked up for 3minutes... However, negative points : Queue line is a mess - 'themeing' is tatty (has been for years...) and the paint on the railings looks terrible. Seriously, can Merlin not afford a tin of paint? Attendant at the batch gate outside the station was letting in exactly 20 people at a time. This is fine if there are 2 rows of exit riders, but sometimes there isn't, so rows go empty. Plus some of the 20 want to wait for the front, so even more rows end up going empty . Let through slightly more, to cover this situation. The attendant assigning people rows inside the station is usually way too slow. The air gates are opening to let people on and they had barely batched half the station's rows. This slow work seems to be a common theme across the park. Operators still love their own voices far too much. Ouch my ears... Operator almost managed to shut me in the air gates. For the love of everyone please watch the CCTV camera positioned exactly so that this doesn't happen... Plus there is no point in saying 'the gates are closing' if you pressed the button 3 seconds ago and they are already half shut... New staff - on Vampire, Fury, and Rattlesnake are currently in a nasty period of slamming restraints down. My goodness, I thought the attendant on Fury was trying to rugby tackle me into my seat. There is just no need for it. Please management send Chessington staff on a trip to Thorpe Park to see how they manage to run their coasters. If Chessington workers were employed at Thorpe Park I think they would have a heart attack for having to work at such a faster pace.

You know what I mean! When was the last time you saw a lemur on the mainland?

Chessington's car parking is the worst I've seen at any park. The fact they still only have one barrier to exit the main car park is terrible, do management actually try improve their park or do they just want to see it fall apart? Seriously it still took 20mins to get out of the car park at 7pm when most people had already gone! The grass car park, don't get me started. Last year we could've called the situation pot-hole-gate, this year it sounds like we might have to add on a new drama: quagmire-gate.

Sitting there doing nothing all day. Lots and lots of people saying they were going to ride it today, only to discover it closed - clearly it's a much loved attraction by visitors. Shame the park seem to have abandoned it for now!