The idea of a perfect theme park trip?Awesome people to spend the day with?Good weather?Low queue times?Yeah that was today in a nut shell and the meet for me was a complete success of fun times and excellence. The park itself were excellent hosts with full ride availability, no visible (or seen) ride breakdowns and moderate queue lengths (about 30 minutes max for Vampire). Chessington is for me the perfect park for meet ups. So many rides there are designed for interactivity and groups to enjoy themselves. Monkey Swinger, Dodgems, Tomb Blaster, Buccaneer, Kobra, Runaway Train are all perfect group rides.I just enjoyed the whole trip. My best theme park since Europa Park I'd say. Thanks to Mikey for organizing the meet and on the day itself and Ian for his team leading skills.
The idea of a perfect theme park trip?Awesome people to spend the day with?Good weather?Low queue times?Yeah that was today in a nut shell and the meet for me was a complete success of fun times and excellence. The park itself were excellent hosts with full ride availability, no visible (or seen) ride breakdowns and moderate queue lengths (about 30 minutes max for Vampire). Chessington is for me the perfect park for meet ups. So many rides there are designed for interactivity and groups to enjoy themselves. Monkey Swinger, Dodgems, Tomb Blaster, Buccaneer, Kobra, Runaway Train are all perfect group rides.I just enjoyed the whole trip. My best theme park since Europa Park I'd say. Thanks to Mikey for organizing the meet and on the day itself and Ian for his team leading skills.
This post is a continuation of my report in the Meet topic, so this goes from 11am!So having done Vampire and the meet it was time to meet up with John and the rest (after seeing them in the hotel briefly earlier), and this was done at Rattlesnack, where I waited for them to appear whilst taking some area photos, taking full advantage of the beautiful weather the park was being provided by...Once off, we headed to Runaway Train, and after a brief wait went straight onto our 3 lap goodness, usual fun and tree-grabbing did occur... Awesome sauce...It was next decided for Tomb Blaster times, which is where the day really began to take a turn for the awesome... As it was John's birthday, he had brought hats, blowers and a banner for various ORP times and general amusement... TOY STORY 3 <3After a long queue (how many trains on atm, it's definitely NOT 4...), we eventually got off and were informed of the arrival of the remaining people who had been stuck on the M25... As Fury was relatively busy at this point, we elected for Wild Asia, and Kobra, but were denied by a minor breakdown (10 minutes tops perhaps?), so went to enjoy the Tuk Tuks, our hats useful for easy targeting by us and the rest... The operator here was relatively entertaining, giving targets and the like, as well as singing Happy Birthday over the PA...Kobra had reopened, so we went on it... Short queue, no issues, Kobra is ok... Done...Lorikeets (and the rest of the zoo) were probably the least awesome parts of the day, as they had just come off lunch so weren't really up to much... It was a right struggle to get them to us and eventually bored us to go to Dragon Falls...Again, the 1.2m situation provided crying children, but undeterred we went on and high-fived the excitable batcher... With my broken blower I proceeded to make lots of noise on the ride, taking full advantage of one of Wardley's many tunnels to create a loud noise of death... Slightly damp and moist was a great thing to be today, and was glad of it...Lunch was called, and as we headed to Pizza Pasta we passed IanNem and Rich, who recieved much horn blowing from me (and looked extremely bemused by it), and we settled down for lunch... Where the girl at the front wanted a hat, so she got one... She loved it... And she wasn't the only one to join our lunchtime fun...Later on, as I returned from gaining pizza, my arrival was joined with a young disabled girl (the wristband guys) who stood silently as the awkward turtle raised his head up... Naturally I said hello to her, and the reponse was a noise that truly cannot be described on a forum... Her dad turned up to depart with her and we proceeded to giggle about the sheer randomness of it all, if you think it's bad... Go to hell... We were certainly not being nasty about it and it was just completely random and unexpected...THEN, and small boy and his dad arrived at our table, questioning the location of the Toy Story hats of JOY, so we answered, and gave him another spare hat... This caused great joy in the shy boy's face and he wore it with pride whilst his sister wore a look of rather displeasured anger at the lack of hat for her... Two really random moments that just provided the lunch with excessive lols... Absolutely amazing...We then proceeded to the zoo which wasn't THAT great to be fair... Oh wells, after some faff and Meerkat times we wandered back to Translyvania and the NEW Twilight Zone walkthrough, full details spoilered below...
So after that experience, it was time for Vampire herself... Having done it already earlier in the day, I had already seen the two new tombstones, but I didn't realise the second one spoke to the queue... That's a bloody good addition and I just hope they can maybe add a few more to the queue in future...In the queue we bumped into the TPM group and some exchanges were made between myself and Mark9, Skunky, Sheepie and Holly9... All good fun really between us all and a bit of BANTA never hurt anyone However, breaking glass in the queueline to prevent us going through is NOT good sport chaps ¬¬Eventually let in, we pestered Keith and enjoyed a relatively rough experience on the ride... She's still a classic though, and certainly still one of the UK's most important and iconic rides... I'll miss it when it goes whenever that is, but hopefully Chessie will do as much as possible to delay that inevitably... 21 years is a fantastic age for any coaster, and I would love it to be going still in 9 more years...As we left the ride, we decided to buy MERCHANDISE! Including the brand new Vampire Bear <3, 21st Anniversary Bear <3, 21st Anniversary Pin <3, and a pen... :(We then did Bubbleworks, which is still crap... But we got another epic photo of joy <3After Bubbles, it was about 5:30, so a quick dash to Mexicana to pick up photos followed the run to Fury for one last ride... Top Trumps happened in the queue but I have no idea who won as the batcher decided to steal the show by singing Happy Birthday to John Christina Aguilara style... It was amazing, and Zoe my dear you are fab... Tom, tell her that :DFury then proceeded to top off our day but not only being awesome, but stealing John's hat on the Horseshoe Turn... It floated away so slowly and really finished the day off extremely well...After goodbyes were said, I met up with Holly and Ciaran once more, and as we couldn't (unfortunately ) faff and wait for the next train, we got the 6:40 train home very tired and achey... But BOY was it worth it...Today was such a stark difference between opening day, where there were a LOT more niggles in the park... BUT today was completely different, with Kobra being the only ride I saw break down, but the staff being generally fun and excitable all day with not as many "What's your favourite ride?" questions being plumped at me...Quite simply an awesome day with awesome people with an awesome park, maybe next time I'll stay with the TPM meet and think up something that can be yelled on Pirate Ships :DRide CountVampire - 2Bubbles - 1Fury - 1Tomb - 1Runaway Train - 1Kobra - 1Tuk Tuk - 1Twilight Zone - 1Lorikeet Lagoon - 1Falls - 1
The idea of a perfect theme park trip?Awesome people to spend the day with?Good weather?Low queue times?Yeah that was today in a nut shell and the meet for me was a complete success of fun times and excellence. The park itself were excellent hosts with full ride availability, no visible (or seen) ride breakdowns and moderate queue lengths (about 30 minutes max for Vampire). Chessington is for me the perfect park for meet ups. So many rides there are designed for interactivity and groups to enjoy themselves. Monkey Swinger, Dodgems, Tomb Blaster, Buccaneer, Kobra, Runaway Train are all perfect group rides.I just enjoyed the whole trip. My best theme park since Europa Park I'd say. Thanks to Mikey for organizing the meet and on the day itself and Ian for his team leading skills.
People who post "I'm so hungover" THREE times on Facebook, obviously no-one cares. You only have yourself to blame, piss off spamming my feed with your rubbish.
Mark9 got a reaction from Cornflakes in Introduce Yourself
Mark9 got a reaction from Fred in Introduce Yourself
Mark9 got a reaction from Mer in Introduce Yourself
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Mark9 got a reaction from Sidders in Disabled Queuing Rules