Ian-S

Oh dam forgot Saturday was MOS, Friday it is then lol.

Was the stuff walk on during the concert? If my hand is better I plan on dragging the ferrel ones along next Friday & Sat.

Yeah I was looking at the site but we both know that can be innacurate sometimes, just wondered what it was like from someone with boots on the ground.

So how were the queues after 9 then? 10? 15 mins?

Sounds like a plan, I can just hear the Great Escape music playing while we tunnel our way in, just make sure you measure things correctly, we don't want to come up under Tomb Blaster and inadvertantly cause them to have to do more fixing on that instead, we need to arrive precisely under Falls big drop.

So did anybody go tonight? If so how were the queues? We had planned to go but I don't think broken hand + rollercoaster would be a good combination.

Don't forget this year there are the additional concert goers, it'll be interesting to see how the queues are Saturday.

You're right of course yes. When we arrived at towers everything was on full capacity, it was quiet impressive how everything was chugging along with no queues, perhaps I've just had my eyes opened to the shocking operations at Thorpe and Chessington now lol.

I believe the Summer Night ticket covers entry to the park from 4pm to 10pm, think of it as a off-peak ticket, if you are not turning up until after 4, there shouldn't need to be a need for a day ticket. Quiet how they are going to police 'day' visitors is anybody's guess, probably wristbands, and yes, summer nights ticket = entry to park and use of rides between 4-10pm.

Half the guns don't work on Tomb (or didn't) so it needs a lot of TLC.

It was 90 minutes on a Friday in April, so 80 today is to be expected considering it's been closed for a while.

Does anybody know if you get the discounted wristband rate from the park on the gate the day before, or whether you have to always book online? For example, we will be going to Blackpool on a Monday to Friday, we intend going to BPB on Wednesday, can we buy the wristbands on the Monday for the Wednesday from the box office/entrance and get the discounted rate, or do we have to do it online?

Well I'll be damned, good job Merlin.

Facing? Does that imply it's been sent to the naughty step? Just kidding

Can't see it, what did it say? BTW, Swarm is presently a two hour queue, on a Thursday, during School term.... Stealth on the other hand, is on a speedy 20 minute walk through...

I think there's some stuff being lost in translation about 'queue time boards' and 'queue length', I wasn't saying that the person responsible for updating the queue time board at the entrance was being deliberately misleading or was working to a management led agenda, more that the natural running (and throughput) of a ride can be used to control the length of the queue, which in turn management can take advantage of to sell more fast track when the queue get's too long (all the time knowing that by bringing the second train on would alleviate the long queue, and negate the demand for fast track). No business in their right mind is going to put every attraction on maximum capacity at opening time on a week day, they're going to open with the minimum possible and add to that as demand increases, while in the meantime, hard selling fast track at the entrance to anybody with more money than sense. As pluk said it's being incredibly naive to believe some sort of supply and demand manipulation doesn't go on, companies as big as Merlin employ people to sit there and work out how to maximise profts through any means possible, if Merlin was only interested in the experience rather than profit, they wouldn't sell fast track at all.

Based on the small concerts I've been to in the past, you'll have no trouble hearing it in the car park Seriously it all depends what system they use and which direction everything faces, a good producer would have the stage facing out over the lake, so sound travels away from the park and makes the additional cost worth it, but that's no practical to do. The photos someone posted indicate the stage faces towards Colossus, so you might get a free concert sitting on the hill if they let you up there.

Well I am talking theoretically, but on a serious note, if you think parks don't actively look into and operate in ways to maximise profits from punters, then that's just being a tad naive on how businesses operate. I also didn't say anything about making up fake queue times, I suggested they could in theory run on one train to artificially extend the queue length in order to boost fast track sales, which is something someone else mentioned they looked like they were doing up thread.

Hmmm, 'in theory' if management said don't put a second train on until the queue hit's 90 minutes, but also tell fast track sellers to go stand at the entrance once it reaches 60 minutes, there wouldn't be nothing the boots on the ground could do to change it. In theory of course.

It wouldn't surprise me if there was a genuine reason, but the park don't do themselves any favours by some of the things they say. Anyway, from a business standpoint it is in theory good business practice to artificially inflate the queue length (by running only one train) in order to bump up fast track ticket sales for the day, although I'm not sure of the logic in doing that on a school trip day when most of the kids won't have any money on them.

Isn't there supposed to be party games on the beach, weather permitting?

LOL I'm as thick as shyte, it was the 15th not 19th, so a premium trip day too at £12pp officially. She wouldn't tell me what they actually paid, bu she had an uncomfortable look when I asked was it £3. You're school ripped you off Zach, but don't feel bad, they all do it my son's secondary just sent a letter home with my niece saying the New York trip in 2016 (3 days) will cost £1800 per child, no way I'm paying that when the time comes.

LOL yes that's what the website says, anybody ordering school trip tickets from there deserves to pay that price. http://www.chessington.com/plan/chessington-school-visits.aspx?tabnum=1 Click on Bookings, we went 19th May, 105 kids, I can assure you there is no way our school paid £8 a kid. The tickets I handed out (because the 'teacher' had to hand them to the kids, who then handed them to the man on the gate with a box ) had £7 face value, mine was marked as complimentary teacher at £0. I know this because of a long conversation I had with the head the day before, there were some issues and because me and sonny have MAP's I said we would use these to enter if it made things easier (they hadn't ordered enough tickets) as for the sake of a fiver (that they'd charged) I didn't want any kids missing out when we could solve the problem easily, it wasn't needed but she said to me it doesn't matter as it's not a fiver we pay and if they had to pay full whack they would as there was enough left over to cover it and the school just would buy less playground equipment that year.

I don't know of any schools round here that have cancelled trips to Chessie or Thorpe.

Yeah, the schools get a massive discount, much more than the price printed on the ticket (£7 for Chessington, £9 Alton from what I saw), the local secondary offered parents a refund if they're kids didn't want to go, don't know many that tookup the offer (as it meant the kids would still have to goto school, not stay at home). My sons school charged £5 for the Chessington trip and they made money from that.