pluk

I think it's safe to say it didn't come about how it should; by someone who knows what they are doing designing an excellent ride and the theming and marketing evolving around that. The tail wags the dog at Merlin. And this is the real crux of it, why I'm negative on the project overall rather than indifferent. However good this ride actually is that throughput is absolutely not good enough. Regardless of any other consideration, the whole thing should be back to the drawing board on that point alone.

Considering enthusiasts have been crying out for investment in Chessington for decades, does it not say something that there might be something off with these plans that the response has been muted at best? There's going to be differences of opinion but collectively we do kind of know what we are talking about, don't we? Should we have been happy for a new dark ride, something else we have been crying out for for decades, when we were given DBGT? Other than it is something, I'm intrigued to know what particular positives people find in these plans. They literally have an empty field to work with, a completely blank canvas, quite a rarity in UK developments. Is this really the best thing they could do with that and a pile of cash?

There's sooo much this park needs, but I'm at a loss to understand why they think that includes a (relatively) low capacity 1.4m coaster with another vaguely jungle theme. Everything about it is so odd.

My first thoughts (from POV, I'm no VIP) is that if this sort of set up was used as the entrance and exit of X, with effects of comparable quality during the ride, that would make one complete, excellent attraction rather than two slightly lacking ones we now have.

Agreed about the middle section. I don't understand why they couldn't get that effect to work reliably? It really was simple, surely they could have put the effort they did into reconfiguring that section into the effect instead and kept it going. That's such a non event now, something spectacular needs to happen there to make the journey feel worthwhile. The obvious answer would be some nice close up real fire effects, but I imagine that would increase the running costs too much.

So Thorpe suffered the indignity of falling below Chessington for the first time in a long time just before the pandemic hit. Shocking really considering the state Chessingron is in.

Changing the uniforms and adding a line of text to DBGTROTD is akin to giving a man a bucket on the titanic. Got to be time for a WWH style electrical fault some time soon so we can get three more thrill flats instead of whatever this is.

I can't believe for a second they'd go for a B&M wineries, it just feels all wrong. I'm sticking my money on a variant of that S&S prototype with the flicking out seats that looked a lot like it could be developed into a winged coaster. Not much money mind, because it probobly won't actually be anything that exciting.

You mean they didn't already?! 😄😄 I wonder if they could use something where guests slot their own phones into a disposable cardboard holder? With an app to run the VR? Wouldn't be as effective but might word for now.

No, I am quite a lump! But I watched a couple of cycles from truckers and my elephant was just not much of a flyer regardless of who was on it.

Hello last spring. Surprised it wasn't mentioned after this post, but the theming element is no longer missing although you'd be hard pressed to notice it wasn't. Really, it is tiny sitting atop this ride, the scale is all wrong. It just looks bizarre, with some big sort of padding thing below it and a relatively tiny motif on top. The base has colourful stones in sections, but this is full of detritus from the trees so just looks messy. The ride itself is also quite broken, with a couple of elephants (including the yellow one I found myself on) very obviously not able to make it more than a couple of feet off the ground. When small but IP led retheme investments are this bad you know something is deeply wrong at the heart of what is happening here.

Walk on Vampire fun times!

How is Chessington coping off peak midweek these days? Thinking of visiting fir the first time in a couple of years but don't fancy a day of explaining to a 2 year old why we have to wait hours for everything!

It went to Holiday Park, so I had unknowingly ridden the same ride a couple if decades apart!

I was there that opening day, IIRC it was hit heavily by powercuts and something of a nightmare.