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The Chessington Adventure Tree


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:o None of you even know what it is yet. Don't call it disappointing before knowing what will happen. For all you know it could be a rollercoaster with high capacity and strong reliability. That seems to be what everybody wants these days.

Maybe that's too good to be true. :P

If anything of any note was happening planning would be in. Disappointment incoming...

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If anything of any note was happening planning would be in. Disappointment incoming...

In fairness, Zufari's plans weren't submitted until February 2012, and Swarm's were in February 2011. So there's still plenty of time for planning to be submitted for something noteworthy.

That, and any new ride at Chessington would be something of note.

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I would class Zufari as a major investment and with it being something different to the UK and with their zoo/ theme park model and that attraction combining the two - I personally think that was a very good move for a large investment :)

Zufari was a great idea and concept in helping bring the theme park and zoo together instead of just being two separate entities. Was also a great way to use the green belt space. But it was a hugely wasted opportunity with all the budget cuts thanks to Smiler. Like many Merlin things, great idea, poor execution.

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I'm not even sure they're getting anything.

2017 could just be a continuation of improved TLC like what we're seeing on Vampire & Tombs for this season.

I can't even see what they could build anyway, unless something finally replaces Skyway.

Okay, you can't really say "finally" because the season it has closed hasn't even started yet. It's not like it's a certain ride's theming...

Sent from my SM-G361F using Tapatalk

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Zufari was a great idea and concept in helping bring the theme park and zoo together instead of just being two separate entities. Was also a great way to use the green belt space. But it was a hugely wasted opportunity with all the budget cuts thanks to Smiler. Like many Merlin things, great idea, poor execution.

I understand there were budget cuts but as I don't know what was cut for a UK attraction I think it was done bloody well alright :) after all I don't expect universal/ Disney standards over here. In terms of what is offered in the UK then we'll done chessington for a budget cut ride ^_^

Just looking back on some people comments it appears from my point of view that people class a major investment as a roller coaster...

Yes they are nice but there are other things which can be used more creatively with a major budget too in my eyes :D

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Budget cuts are always blamed on Zufari being poor, I know for certain that actually the budget was cut well in advance and that the remaining budget was certainly adequate for what they were planning. It was the most shockingly poorly managed project in the entire world and most guests come off pretty disappointed.

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The cave was actually over-speced and some (most) equipment wasn't suitable for the space. The fans alone for example, were so loud, it sounded like an aircraft taking off and so were not used, yet still hang there as a reminder of the enormous missed opportunity. The original design of foreboding African masks and air effects were great on paper, but as already touched upon were totally mismanaged.

Additionally, none of the wood around Zufari has been treated properly and will all need replacing sooner rather than later. Typical do tnings for gate figures now, pick up the peices later attitude that sadly floods every MMM project.

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I'm hopeful for 2017, but not optimistic! It is rapidly dropping down the list of top UK themeparks.

They need to do something or Paultons especially will overtake them.

 

 

IMHO Paultons already has.

 

People I know with kids of the ideal age for Chessington and Paultons all tell me how much better a day out Paultons is. A good part of that is that the place is clean and tidy, not falling apart and with no blanket penny-pinching.

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Additionally, none of the wood around Zufari has been treated properly and will all need replacing sooner rather than later. Typical do tnings for gate figures now, pick up the peices later attitude that sadly floods every MMM project.

 

Chessington and wood fences just don't seem to go together do they?  <_<

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  • 3 weeks later...

To be fair, Wild Asia was quite a big investment to the park - but 12 years without a new coaster is too long.

 

You're absolutely right in saying that, but Chessie are a theme park and their last major "ride" (Rollercoaster/water ride) was 2004 and that was Dragon's Fury. 

 

So the problem with Chessington and the council is what? Sound and height restrictions?

In that case, if they really, really wanted to, they could have dug into the ground and give us a rollercoaster that is of a good, reasonable height. And then there's options they could take to reducing sound issues and keeping things quiet I.e. Duelling Dragons (will always call it that name).

 

I think their current approach is very short-term and will stop the park from truly reaching it's full potential. You can't just rely on what you already have, you need to freshen things up, introduce new experiences, and the ride line-up is very stale. Most of the rides have been here for at least 20 years and approaching 30 years, next year, 2017.

 

It would be truly awesome if Chessington for their 30th anniversary, had a new rollercoaster to celebrate their success and history, but I'm not going to bother stay optimistic.

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Chessie's ground isn't the most stable, look at the state of some of the pathways and you can see it... Slip sliding away, so digging is pretty much out of the question...

 

Can only imagine what might have been if Tussauds hadn't hit the brick wall of the council prior to purchasing Towers...

 

Thing is as well, much like Lego's issues, there's the traffic issue to consider, which is bloody awful at the best of times... It's not simply down to height and noise, and probably not helped with the relationships our parks seem to have with councils (as in, everyone hates each other)... But Chessie simply doesn't have the sufficient infrastructure available to it to support a major modern park at the current time, which is evidence of it's bad treatment under DIC...

 

Merlin's stuff is short term at more than just Chessie... That much is clear...

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The traffic issue has nothing to do with the park, anybody who's driven past on any day the park is closed can affirm that, I went to a friends a few weeks ago and they live about a mile from the park London side, at 4pm on a Wednesday afternoon, it took me 40 minutes to get from Merlin's regional office to their place which should really be a journey of 5 mins max, the week before I went at 8am and it took over and hour to do the same journey, both times the park was closed.

Like most things nowdays this and 'environmental issues' are grabbed by a small minority and blamed for all the areas problems, when in reality you could add two coasters to chessie and it wouldn't make a jot of difference to the locals.

On any normal day it takes me 30 minutes to drive from my house to the center of our town, takes 3 minutes at night and during the day it's quicker to walk than drive, we have nothing here but a park and lake, traffic issues are due to the huge level of cars on the road and traffic light phasing / road design, not what attraction is in a particular town.

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The unfortunate thing is, the location of most of our parks prevents them having a super [Disneysque] style motorway or traffic road, which is purely there just to specfically cater for theme park goers.

 

Instead we've pretty much got single carriage roads towards all the parks. Towers is based through long windy countryside roads,  aproximately over 10 miles from any main road. For newbies, they could almost argue whether the Uk's 'supposed' biggest theme park is located there. Legoland suffers from being in the middle of a residential area, natural area and also being close distance to Ascot and Windsor castle too. If the park could receive similar lane infastructure to their park drive [2 lanes each way], the road would flow significantly better.

 

Chessington is positioned slapbang in the middle between the motorway and another large residential area and like the other two above, road expansion doesn't look much of an option, unless all those pubs, houses and businesses decided to sell up. 

 

Thorpe has the lesser problems here, with it using slightly better infrastructure on the roads, but there is still room for improvement and from time to time, traffic still builds up.

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