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  • I imagine it's a portal into the fifth dimension. 

  • Sure!Herman was part of the team who were installing the ride system for 5th Dimension. It is believed that whilst working on the top of the "ramp" section, where the rolling ball now is, he fell trag

  • I quite literally don't even know if I'm being serious or taking the piss anymore.      You crack me up CJ.      I hope you all enjoyed my 5000th post. It was an invaluable contribution to TPM.

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comment_139720

Quite surprised some people are more worried about how a fence looks than the safety of children. In my opinion it doesn't even look that bad, at the end of the day, it's just a fence and it will prevent any accidents like this happening again.

But if that was how all design was thought of everything would be on ground level and not move. The theme park would then not exist.

We've not seen the full investigation reports but one or more thing (in terms of design, build, maintenance and use) must have failed for the accident to have happened in the first place, and could have been changed to avoid repeat. I would also strongly query whether this is safer, it looks like a great big climbing frame now, how long till one goes over the top? Other less intrusive, probably cheaper and probably safer options could have and should have happened.

Safety does not has to be at the expense of aesthetics. They are not mutually exclusive, both can happen in harmony. Who wants to queue in a prison? The people that allow things like this to happen are clearly not 'show' men in any way and should not be in a position to ruin things like this.

comment_139725

The bars have only been added to tombblasters queue, don't panic as they will be themed during the closed season, the first priority was to reopen the ride.

The ride itself has completely new lighting and all the old effect work! It was a great job from the chessington maintenance team.

comment_139726

The bars have only been added to tombblasters queue, don't panic as they will be themed during the closed season, the first priority was to reopen the ride.

The bolded section is the main reason here...

What makes more sense to the park? Fulfilling the basic H&S requirements that are a result of the investigations from both the park and the executive is of course the first priority, but do they desperately need to theme it right now, or reopen the ride considering the 'summer' period has turned up...

Whilst I don't hold my breath that it will later be rethemed, at least it looks better than Saw's god-awful random chainlink prison queueline... More Punjabi prison than Guantanamo Bay...

The park priorities change these days... Aesthetics cost a lot and would take longer to install... Is that worth keeping a popular ride shut for even longer over summer? Safety SHOULD be the priority over everything else, otherwise who would want to go to an unsafe park? Especially a family based park...

It doesn't look great, but it's a necessary evil for the park to operate the ride... And knowing enthusiasts if they were spending longer to sort this out we'd be complaining that the ride isn't open...

comment_139728

It doesn't look great, but it's a necessary evil for the park to operate the ride...

I disagree, that fence is not necessary. It is a sledgehammer to a nut. There are many more aesthetically pleasing solutions that I'm sure would cost less, I can't imagine would have taken more time and I'd say would be safer than such a climbing frame like structure, the obvious one being cross bracing on the outside of the queue line.

It has been done without any thought or consideration for what the experience of being there will be like, the whole point of a theme park is to be somewhere it is nice to be.

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comment_139796

This is something that has been blown out of proportion I feel. I believe the engineers have used this time to get ahead of winter maintainence. The "themeing and effects" team (one dedicated woman with help from the onsite engineers) have continued their ongoing refresh of the park's scenic elements with Tomb Blaster. However, rumours that they've had a large sum of money is purely untrue. What I love about Chessington is the genuine passion that the staff members have about their theme park. A lot of time has been dedicated to improving what they can with the limited funds that they have. This is more akin to the way Duel's refresh came about- just pure passion from a team of people who love what they do.

comment_139829

You can definitely tell Chessington has a real passionate team behind the scenes; harking back to the days when Vampire got a low budget spruce up, wasn't that purely down to some employees who wanted to atleast have an attempt at reviving it to how it used to/ should be?

Whether they had a budget or no budget at all, the fact that they took the time to look at the thematic aspect of the ride is admirable. If every ride that was in a Merlin park was given that same treatment during downtime, we would see some much less sour enthusiasts.

comment_139855

I was speaking to one one the engineers involved with Frazzle the Dragon today. He said that the Dragon was completely removed for 6 weeks, completely rebuilt. Repainted and additional parts remade in-house. Brand new control system and air system, with additional audio coming shortly. Speaking to the engineer, he and his team are pasionate about getting all the effetcs working around the park. And if Merlin are willing to send the money as they have with Frazzle, the park is going to look fantastic. Well Done!! to the small team that can make all this possible. they are a credit to Chessington and to Merlin. Other Merlin parks should learn from them.

comment_139868

Very good point. Chessington do seem to be very on the effects at the moment. Tomb is one example, but I can think of many like Dragon Falls, Rattlesnake, Runaway Train and even Vampire where effects are working when for a long time they were broken or off. Runaway Trains boiler for example was off for years and now is back and working. It's impressive for a park that gets little to no investment, that the park does try where it can.

  • 8 months later...
  • 1 month later...
comment_160897

my hands get well tired by the end of this atraction!. hahaha!. I always wonder.. how can anyone hold a gun for all that time?. I like it though despite my constant low scores.. best part is the snakes

Better get used to it if you're someone like me: Always sits in the middle seat brandishing two blasters like a lone badass for the whole ride!

  • 1 month later...
comment_164860

I love this ride its my fave one in the whole park, special effects that are mostly working make the rides for me. The queue was moving very fast today, we arrived at the 60 minute mark and the queue turned out to be only 15 minutes long! I must say I try hard on this ride XD I'm proud of my score.

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