I can't help but notice the queue lengths at Chessington these days. I am going on Saturday (for the first time in 12 months) - and often keep tabs on the Queue Times website. There was a time when out of Alton Towers, Thorpe Park and Chessington - it was always Thorpe which had the worst queues. But now, it seems to be Chessington. Each weekend I have a little look and typically rides like Dragons Fury are 80 minutes, Vampire 90 minutes - and today, for example - it was stating that the pirate ship was 45 minutes, the dodgems 60 minutes and Bubbleworks 80 minutes too... Even the Seastorm is 1/2 hour most of the time...!!
I don't know if I have ever seen a dodgems with a 1hour wait. It's almost laughable.
Is Chessington just getting more and more popular or is there more to it than that? I also noticed that Rameses Revenge and Kobra are closed.
EDIT: Queues at 25.5.15, 15:30
Bubbleworks 60
Dragon Falls 45
Dragon's Fury 75
Safari Skyway 55
Scorpion Express 60
Vampire 90
Tuk Tuk Turmoil 45
Zufari 60
Monkey Swinger / Rameses Revenge / Kobra = Closed
For the record, The Smiler is currently 30 minutes at Alton Towers and, aside from Stealth and Saw, all rides at Thorpe Park are under 50 minutes.
Chessington is a fairly pleasant theme park to visit, but most of the rides aren't really worth waits of these lengths when at most parks they'd be considered 'support/back up'.