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Chessington General Discussion


Ash

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Chessie are restricted on what they can do with the grass car parks. It is green belt and they aren't allowed to Tarmac them. A few years ago they redid the drainage on them, but seemingly it wasnt effective.

What about those little stones, they're environmental, kinda? Would sure be better then letting it turn into the bog of eternal stench every summer.

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Chessington are trialing a new meal deal.
Try our great NEW food package and save up to £6.95*
Our Family Meal Deal allows you to grab a meal (including drinks) for each member of your family for just £5 per person.
Offer only available when booked in advance
Valid for one use 30th March – 27th April
Only available to families of 2 - 6 people
PLUS 5 free donuts per transaction.
Sounds like a good idea if you want to budget your trip!

Going back to this if I may, the T+Cs have been update since the original post, they are...

  1. Child meal deal £5 per child (ages 0 - 11 years)
  2. Adult meal deal £5 per adult (ages 12+)
  3. Minimum family size of 2 people, maximum size of 6 people.
  4. All family members must eat in the same restaurant.
  5. The customer must show and surrender the meal voucher before ordering.
  6. Strictly one meal deal per voucher. Please ask a member of Staff if you are unsure what is included in the offer.
  7. Family Meal Deal is valid at Mexican Cantina, Fried Chicken Co., Noodle Noodle, Oriental Express, Creaky Café and Vampire’s Burger Kitchen.
  8. If you lose your voucher, it will not be replaced.
  9. Not to be used in conjunction with any other offer or discount
  10. Canned/bottled drinks (excluding bottled water), alcoholic drinks and Innocent products are not included.
  11. Subject to availability and restaurant opening hours.
  12. The service is strictly non-refundable.
  13. The family meal deal is only valid on the date booked.
  14. The Chessington Resort will not accept liability if you feel that you have not made satisfactory use of the Family Meal Deal offer. No refunds or compensation will be available.

All seems good, in fact too good. Am I missing something? I read it that it can be used for a group comprising exclusively of adults as they are the same price and it doesn't state otherwise. I presume it includes the standard meal deals from each location?

Has anyone actually used it? Would like to know how it went.

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Chessington are trialing a new meal deal.
Try our great NEW food package and save up to £6.95*
Our Family Meal Deal allows you to grab a meal (including drinks) for each member of your family for just £5 per person.
Offer only available when booked in advance
Valid for one use 30th March – 27th April
Only available to families of 2 - 6 people
PLUS 5 free donuts per transaction.
Sounds like a good idea if you want to budget your trip!

Going back to this if I may, the T+Cs have been update since the original post, they are...

All seems good, in fact too good. Am I missing something? I read it that it can be used for a group comprising exclusively of adults as they are the same price and it doesn't state otherwise. I presume it includes the standard meal deals from each location?

Has anyone actually used it? Would like to know how it went.

To answer my own questions, in case it helps anyone else:

I used the vouchers for all adult meals with no problems.

They are the standard meal deals (usually c£7).

It is 5 free doughnuts per transaction. There were 4 of us, we booked as two twos and got 10 free doughnuts. Don't book a family of four!

Only downsides

-selection on quiet days; our first choice Mexican and second choice Orient Express were both closed. We went for Fried Chicken which was quite delicious anyway.

-you have to use the tortuous line of chaos where clueless customers discuss at length with clueless staff the limitations of their multi level annual pass to pick up the pre booked voucher. Give us a simple 'pick up a ticket' line Chessington!

The deal seems too good to be true, but it is true! If you plan to eat in these places you'd be daft not to use it while it is available.

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http://www.chessingtonbuzz.co.uk/interviews/nick-varney-2013/

Chessington Buzz have been fortunate enough to interview Nick Varney, CEO of Merlin, with regards to Chessington in general. It's quite an interesting read really. One thing which stood out to me the most:


6) Alton Towers, Thorpe Park and the various Merlin attractions abroad seem to have a constant stream of Large / Medium / Small investment years, why is this not the case at Chessington?

A) All of Merlin attractions work to fixed investment cycles involving years of low and high expenditure (broadly a high every four years). Zufari at over £6m represents a significant high year investment for Chessington and is a truly unique and exciting experience. The one difference with Chessington is that we are having to spend relatively more on infrastructure works than the other parks due to the under- / non-investment between 1997 – 2007. This is mainly to do with essential Health & Safety works but also ‘hygiene’ issues like toilet facilities.

So, Zufari's investment was over £6million (quite a long way off the rumoured £10-12mill I heard!), and this is a significant high year for Chessie. Now, maybe it's just me, but when we consider Thorpe and AT's 'significant high year' investments are in the region of £18-20million, and the last medium investment year for AT (2012) was £6million, it shows that the amount being invested in Cheesie is still much less than the other Merlin.

The first question also says £12million was invested since Sealife was installed, in 2008. As much as I don't like comparing, that is still A LOT less compared to Thorpe, AT and Lego...

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Especially when half of that is Zufari...

Bugger all has been invested in Chessie for years, simple as... Problem is most of any budget going into it would be required for fixing the place up, hence in days of needing to attract people being placed at the door of new attractions over the state of the park, it's hard for that to happen...

Zufari also had it's budget slashed from like £10 million...

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With this budget information in mind, I'm beginning to question whether Zufari was the best use of investment. It's a great idea in theory and a good fit for the park, but whilst I haven't been on it yet general word seems to be middling and I dont see it having the long term appeal that, for example, a decent coaster would. I hope some decent investment continues and Chessington can continue to expand their ride offerings over the next few years - theres a massive black hole of investment that has left it far behind other parks.

On a side note, this is something I've been wondering for a while. Where did the land uses for Zufari come from? Have they always owned it? If so, why was such a big bit of space never used before? Also, is using such a large space for one ride going to be a good idea in the years to come?

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Fun (possibly not that true) Fact - Zufari has more airtime than Tonnerre de Zeus, and only a (possibly broken) seatbelt to hold you in!

It is a big flaw in the ride though... Disney's has NO minimum height limit, and it has been a major sticking point for guests (especially as you can't SEE the animals well without going on it)...

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