April 14, 201312 yr comment_156824 I'll give them a teeny-weeny bit of credit. Most of today (when it wasn't broken), the team were getting one train dispatched as soon as the other was hitting the brakes. This is at least consistent, compared to last year when sometimes trains would be sat in the dark stacked up for 3minutes... However, negative points : Queue line is a mess - 'themeing' is tatty (has been for years...) and the paint on the railings looks terrible. Seriously, can Merlin not afford a tin of paint? Attendant at the batch gate outside the station was letting in exactly 20 people at a time. This is fine if there are 2 rows of exit riders, but sometimes there isn't, so rows go empty. Plus some of the 20 want to wait for the front, so even more rows end up going empty . Let through slightly more, to cover this situation. The attendant assigning people rows inside the station is usually way too slow. The air gates are opening to let people on and they had barely batched half the station's rows. This slow work seems to be a common theme across the park. Operators still love their own voices far too much. Ouch my ears... Operator almost managed to shut me in the air gates. For the love of everyone please watch the CCTV camera positioned exactly so that this doesn't happen... Plus there is no point in saying 'the gates are closing' if you pressed the button 3 seconds ago and they are already half shut... New staff - on Vampire, Fury, and Rattlesnake are currently in a nasty period of slamming restraints down. My goodness, I thought the attendant on Fury was trying to rugby tackle me into my seat. There is just no need for it. Please management send Chessington staff on a trip to Thorpe Park to see how they manage to run their coasters. If Chessington workers were employed at Thorpe Park I think they would have a heart attack for having to work at such a faster pace.
April 14, 201312 yr comment_156832 Thorpe's staff aren't THAT great at sending trains out... If there's ANY park in the world people should be trained at, it's Europa... Simple as...
April 14, 201312 yr comment_156839 Yes that would be great, but they don't have to do the checks on the restraints with exception of a few of the newer coasters. Was hilarious when the runaway train equivalent there unloaded, loaded and dispatched in just over 20 seconds.
April 15, 201312 yr comment_156869 I reckon if Europa Park had to check the restraints on all its rides, it would still whack out those trains at a fair old speed. They certainly are capable on Blue Fire with its four/five trains. New staff - on Vampire, Fury, and Rattlesnake are currently in a nasty period of slamming restraints down. My goodness, I thought the attendant on Fury was trying to rugby tackle me into my seat. There is just no need for it. I noticed that problem at Thorpe as well last month.
April 20, 201312 yr comment_157325 Had one member of staff slam down the bar on Rattlesnake today, but the rest were very good, I'd say their A team as they were all on top form and the guest interaction was very good. Maybe its due to the sun coming out. Also Vampire, the train was leaving the station as the other one was hitting the brake run....
May 11, 201312 yr comment_158851 Well Chessington had not the B team on the Vampire today. We got there first thing. 1st train went out full 2nd train one empty row 3rd train one empty row They were letting enough people into the station, but the person at the end of the ramp was so painfully slow to get people to the air gates, that the train was sat in the station with only 6 or 7 rows filled and then the train was waiting on batching.... Common sense would be that if this is happening, let more people through and aim for 4 people per air gate so any delay in batching does not hold up the train. We got to the air gates and the ride went down people had to be released from the ride. They really need to take the microphone away from the staff, the guy in the control booth, Craig was stressy and in my opinion took away the atmosphere. Give me a pre-recorded message any day.
May 12, 201312 yr comment_158860 They need to improve operations on Vampire, it's not acceptable to have it this awful when it is one of two coasters trying to support a high amount of guests on some days. (I didn't count Rattlesnake because it's height restriction is quite high so families can't ride it - they go straight for Fury or Vampire in terms of coasters).
May 12, 201312 yr comment_158864 Tbh, I don't think Vampire has had a decent ride team for at least five years. Although for a brief period the staff were operating quite well (where one train would dispatch as the 2nd arrived), it seems to have gone down hill again. It frustrates me so much that operations on this ride are so poor these days when its one of the most popular rides on park and also staff not managing two trains (let alone three).
May 12, 201312 yr comment_158894 Tbh, I don't think Vampire has had a decent ride team for at least five years. Thanks (Last worked there 5yrs ago!)
May 30, 201312 yr comment_159745 Queue up to 1.5 hours today! If only we still had that 3rd train Ride broke down and according to a member of staff the priority pass queue was 1 hour long at one point! It just seems crazy to me that here at Chessington you see hour-long queues on Vampire and Fury all the time, whereas down the road at Thorpe on the same days queues for the coasters never go above 40mins. Chessington is crying out for a high capacity rollercoaster to support Vampire and Fury... (I'd like to suggest a family woodie...but that's a discussion for elsewhere)
May 30, 201312 yr comment_159762 I agree with Vampire and Dragon's having the longest queues, but down the road Thorpe can easily manage queues of 60-90 mins on many of their rides.
May 31, 201312 yr comment_159766 Ride broke down and according to a member of staff the priority pass queue was 1 hour long at one point! Which is why they really need to stop dishing out fastrack tickets like confetti whenever anyone complains about anything. That situation is not going to have made anyone happy.
May 31, 201312 yr comment_159767 Indeed. Also actually trying to achieve throughputs would be a good idea as well, who would've thought the quicker you send the train, the shorter the queue and the easier their jobs actually end up being..
May 31, 201312 yr comment_159770 I agree with Vampire and Dragon's having the longest queues, but down the road Thorpe can easily manage queues of 60-90 mins on many of their rides. My point was that on the same date (e.g Saturday 18th May) Thorpe's coasters will all be under 40mins, whereas Vampire & Fury will be at 60-90mins all day apart from the first hour.
May 31, 201312 yr comment_159800 In an ideal world, Fury and Vampire would be support roller coasters to a larger coaster in the same way that Inferno and Colossus support Swarm, Saw and Stealth. Never going to happen at Chessington though (although I would love to be proven wrong)
May 31, 201312 yr comment_159801 Chessington badly need a roller coaster or two that exceed a 1000 throughput but with apparent lack of room and planning issues, this sadly won't happen for a while or ever. They should at the least bring back train 3 on Vampire as then the ride would often eat queues at a quite fast pace.
May 31, 201312 yr comment_159829 Matt they need to be able to manage two trains before we can even think about a 3rd again, currently they can not work with two trains.
June 15, 201312 yr comment_160888 If they're gonna have those Abdab animatronic in the queueline, they can possibly bring him back to life by making him a grave robber and having one of the animatronics standing next do a dug up grave. Every few minutes, you'll hear him saying his former line: "Here it is! I've found it! Erm...nearly! Come to Abdab my beauty! Ahh! AHHHHHHhhhhhh!" (At this point, he could probably fall into the grave or something, like he did with the chest in Terror Tomb)
June 15, 201312 yr comment_160892 ...And then see the whole animation awkwardly reset in broad daylight, then repeat over and over... It's a funny idea, but please, Chessington, just put the Abdabs back in storage (or sell them to me!)... Vampire's entire queueline is quite shocking! Proper money clearly hasn't been spent on it for years. At least they tidied up the graves a few years ago, rather than having them fallen over on the ground most of the time. But then they went and pointlessly emptied the "crypt" area of its tomb plaques. There are even moments in the queue where the floor is cracked and uneven, and the paths have no edges - the tarmac looks like it was haphazardly poured straight onto the ground. ?? All this just leads visitors to think that Chessington is one of those embarrassing low budget parks that can't afford to maintain itself - which is such a shame.
June 15, 201312 yr comment_160895 It's also shocking how nearly all the rustic themeing was scrapped when Vampire was redone. These were replaced by the ugly purple fences you see today! Remember those coffins they had in the station to separate the air gates?
June 15, 201312 yr comment_160904 The coffins were the strongest vampire related theming in the station, yet they ended up removing them. Shame they decided to replace them with those disgusting purple bars which clash with the rest of the station. What the hell is with all this purple coloring anyway? What does purple have to do with vampires?The queue line is in worse shape now than it was 6 years ago. In 2007 it actually looked like the queue was recovering, but now it seems like they've messed it up again.
June 15, 201312 yr comment_160905 From what I remember the coffins in the station never had air gates which is why the whole lot got re-done. Don't get me wrong ugly as it gets!
June 16, 201312 yr comment_160908 They should either replace the fences to wooden, rickety ones, or just repaint the metal ones to make them look really rusty
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