jom222

Weird, I visited today too and having lots of 30/45 minute queues (although obviously not as busy as the summer days - I only ever tend to visit mid-week and typically most rides are only ever 5-10 minute queue times at most... maybe I just get lucky), I would definitely not say the park was 'quiet' by any means 😂 I saw lots of schoolkids running about, but the last hour of the park was extremely quiet and was nice to get a few re-rides in before heading home.
 
DBGT seemed to be operating inconsistently throughout the day (I managed to get two rides on it... I hate how that ride gets worse and worse with every re-ride. I'll write a more thorough review on that in the topic shortly).
 
The way they were batching people at SAW was interesting to say the least. Bit of a free-for-all in the queueline (nobody on the actual door batching people into the building) and only directed up the fast-pass stairs. No doubt about it being reduced capacity, it was ridiculously tedious.
 
TWD had no actors in, but then again that's totally to be expected on a mid-week day in the very off-peak season.
 
The SAW audio was very, very nice. They seem to have gotten rid of the constant, blaring SAW theme playing 24/7 and only playing the snippet on dispatch. Means that the Billy pre-show can be heard pretty much perfectly, which is an absolute bonus.
 
Detonator was operating very, very well today to be fair. The operator seemed to absolutely love his job, and was holding people at the top for multiple minutes at a time!
 
Definitely agree that the park needs quite a bit of TLC over closed season, lots of areas of the park are in dire need of a bit of loving.

Agree with the above - it’s nice for parks to pay tribute to their past with merchandise and Easter eggs in theming but overall they need to move onto the next new thing.
 
Sometimes rethemes or other changes to rides don’t go down well but I don’t think the solution is to try to go back in time.
 
It’s looking to the future that brings innovation and makes the parks more exciting!

Just seen a tweet from Chessington Buzz saying that all of the Capybara’s have died. Does anyone know what happened?
 
They were one of my favourite animals there so very sad to hear this news. 
 
 

Visited Busch Gardens a couple of days ago, mixed opinions on the place. 
 
The rollercoasters there were really good and a nice mix of different styles and each had their own stand out features. Bit of a toss up between Iron Gwazi and Cheetah Hunt for the top spot here.
 
What seemed to let the park down though was its overall presentation/condition and staff. A lot of the park needs quite a bit of TLC as it was generally grubby and tired looking. As for the staff, almost everyone we spoke to came across rude or weren’t able to help as they’d been moved to Busch Gardens temporarily from the water park opposite so couldn’t point us to simple things like the closest toilets. 
 
Still had a good day though as the max we queued was 10 minutes for Tigris, just hope they take a look at their overall guest experience soon as it’s quite a noticeable difference to somewhere like Magic Kingdom.
 
 

Potential Spoiler Alert

Went to EPCOT today and took a ride on Guardians Of The Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind. Towards the end of the coaster it did an e-stop (engineer said it was to do with the sensor detecting the train before it was expecting to) and we had to evacuate through the show building.
 
Took some photos with the lights on, thought might be interesting to see. 

Potential Spoiler Alert

Went to EPCOT today and took a ride on Guardians Of The Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind. Towards the end of the coaster it did an e-stop (engineer said it was to do with the sensor detecting the train before it was expecting to) and we had to evacuate through the show building.
 
Took some photos with the lights on, thought might be interesting to see. 

Potential Spoiler Alert

Went to EPCOT today and took a ride on Guardians Of The Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind. Towards the end of the coaster it did an e-stop (engineer said it was to do with the sensor detecting the train before it was expecting to) and we had to evacuate through the show building.
 
Took some photos with the lights on, thought might be interesting to see. 

Potential Spoiler Alert

Went to EPCOT today and took a ride on Guardians Of The Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind. Towards the end of the coaster it did an e-stop (engineer said it was to do with the sensor detecting the train before it was expecting to) and we had to evacuate through the show building.
 
Took some photos with the lights on, thought might be interesting to see. 

I went to Paultons Park on Friday for the first time in a few years and it really makes you realise how strong they are as competition to Chessington.
 
We started over at Cobra and then gradually moved our way around to the right hand side of the park. Doing this you could see so easily how the park has evolved over time to get more and more detailed with their theming going from Cobra and Edge which are essentially completely plain, to Lost Kingdom and finally Tornado Springs.
 
It’s not just themeing though that’s impressive for a relatively small park, it’s the fact that everything is immaculate that stood out the most. You could tell they work hard on repainting, cleaning, gardening, etc. It’s probably this that makes the biggest difference between here and some of the Merlin parks, like Chessington, where many elements just look tired now.
 
I’m looking forward to see what Paultons have to bring in the future as they’ve got so much potential. I think Chessington have started to see them as a threat and have been gradually improving over the past couple of years but I still feel that if I was recommending a park to a family with younger children then Paultons would be the top suggestion.

I went to Paultons Park on Friday for the first time in a few years and it really makes you realise how strong they are as competition to Chessington.
 
We started over at Cobra and then gradually moved our way around to the right hand side of the park. Doing this you could see so easily how the park has evolved over time to get more and more detailed with their theming going from Cobra and Edge which are essentially completely plain, to Lost Kingdom and finally Tornado Springs.
 
It’s not just themeing though that’s impressive for a relatively small park, it’s the fact that everything is immaculate that stood out the most. You could tell they work hard on repainting, cleaning, gardening, etc. It’s probably this that makes the biggest difference between here and some of the Merlin parks, like Chessington, where many elements just look tired now.
 
I’m looking forward to see what Paultons have to bring in the future as they’ve got so much potential. I think Chessington have started to see them as a threat and have been gradually improving over the past couple of years but I still feel that if I was recommending a park to a family with younger children then Paultons would be the top suggestion.

I went to Paultons Park on Friday for the first time in a few years and it really makes you realise how strong they are as competition to Chessington.
 
We started over at Cobra and then gradually moved our way around to the right hand side of the park. Doing this you could see so easily how the park has evolved over time to get more and more detailed with their theming going from Cobra and Edge which are essentially completely plain, to Lost Kingdom and finally Tornado Springs.
 
It’s not just themeing though that’s impressive for a relatively small park, it’s the fact that everything is immaculate that stood out the most. You could tell they work hard on repainting, cleaning, gardening, etc. It’s probably this that makes the biggest difference between here and some of the Merlin parks, like Chessington, where many elements just look tired now.
 
I’m looking forward to see what Paultons have to bring in the future as they’ve got so much potential. I think Chessington have started to see them as a threat and have been gradually improving over the past couple of years but I still feel that if I was recommending a park to a family with younger children then Paultons would be the top suggestion.

I went to Paultons Park on Friday for the first time in a few years and it really makes you realise how strong they are as competition to Chessington.
 
We started over at Cobra and then gradually moved our way around to the right hand side of the park. Doing this you could see so easily how the park has evolved over time to get more and more detailed with their theming going from Cobra and Edge which are essentially completely plain, to Lost Kingdom and finally Tornado Springs.
 
It’s not just themeing though that’s impressive for a relatively small park, it’s the fact that everything is immaculate that stood out the most. You could tell they work hard on repainting, cleaning, gardening, etc. It’s probably this that makes the biggest difference between here and some of the Merlin parks, like Chessington, where many elements just look tired now.
 
I’m looking forward to see what Paultons have to bring in the future as they’ve got so much potential. I think Chessington have started to see them as a threat and have been gradually improving over the past couple of years but I still feel that if I was recommending a park to a family with younger children then Paultons would be the top suggestion.

I agree - I think grab and go is still what people want but they don’t just want a normal hot dog. People want gourmet hotdogs or topped chips rather than just the standard options. Think you can see this by the popularity of the food stalls that have been outsourcing or just any event that you go to where people want basically food that looks good in photos.

Looking forward to this, think it’s going to be a great addition and gives something for the older members of families. 
 
 

Although it may be low throughout, it will still be great to finally have another rollercoaster at Chessington after over 15 years! 
 
It is a shame it couldn’t be something a bit more exciting though...

It's a pretty small park. if you don't get on Buffalo straight away then don't bother with it. Other stand out rides are Shockwave (best pun ever), Maelstrom and Apocalypse. If you have kids, then Thomas Land is a must. if you don't then at the very least go in to ride Troublesome Trucks and the Toby the tram's spinning flat ride.
 
it's far from being an all day park these days but it still has something worth doing.

Thought I might as well introduce myself as I’ve been sort of a lurker on the site for years and now thought I should try and be a bit more of an active member. - so hello!
 
I’m Jordan from Dorset, I used to live in Addlestone, just down the road from Thorpe Park and have been to there countless amounts of times. For 18 years in a row I held a MAP so have spent most of my time going to Merlin theme parks. A couple of years ago I decided not to renew it and try out some different places, since then I’ve been to Europa Park, Blackpool Pleasure Beach, Paultons Park and plan on going to Drayton Manor and Flamingo Land later this year - been so nice to go to some new places!

Thought I might as well introduce myself as I’ve been sort of a lurker on the site for years and now thought I should try and be a bit more of an active member. - so hello!
 
I’m Jordan from Dorset, I used to live in Addlestone, just down the road from Thorpe Park and have been to there countless amounts of times. For 18 years in a row I held a MAP so have spent most of my time going to Merlin theme parks. A couple of years ago I decided not to renew it and try out some different places, since then I’ve been to Europa Park, Blackpool Pleasure Beach, Paultons Park and plan on going to Drayton Manor and Flamingo Land later this year - been so nice to go to some new places!

The good thing is that I'm A Celebrity fits in will with Calypso Quay and what's left of Ranger County as its a jungle theme.

For a while now there hasn't been a separate backwards queue and both go into the main queue. They still put times up for forwards and backwards but they are always the same time due to the mixed queue.

A whole year of speculation! If only we could time travel.

They have always said that you need to pull the top bar down so it just touches your shoulder but, the other week when I was there the host and operator were insisting it had to be pulled down firmly on you because of 'new rules' which then made the ride really painful. The hosts were going along leaning on everybody's to get them down as far as they could go.

Business Studies  = A
Religious Studies = A
Physics = A
Chemistry = A
Biology = A
 
ICT = B
English Lit = B
English Lang = B
Geography = B
Food Tech = B
Maths = B
 
German = E
 
Happy with everything, I don't mind that much about German because I only took it to fill in a gap but wish I could've done better in it.

Business Studies  = A
Religious Studies = A
Physics = A
Chemistry = A
Biology = A
 
ICT = B
English Lit = B
English Lang = B
Geography = B
Food Tech = B
Maths = B
 
German = E
 
Happy with everything, I don't mind that much about German because I only took it to fill in a gap but wish I could've done better in it.

I like it when the park is empty because its different to how it normally is and you feel like you have the place all to yourself.