dk3 Posted May 27, 2015 Report Share Posted May 27, 2015 Are you really complaining because Bubbleworks was down for 5 minutes? Every ride has short shutdowns which can't be helped. Yes I am complaining. I want Chessington to be great, but it's been suffering quite badly so far this year. And besides, when I posted I didn't know Bubbleworks would be down for such a short period. It being down was just adding to the fact that they're running on a very tight ship which I wish could be eased somewhat. pluk 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pluk Posted May 28, 2015 Report Share Posted May 28, 2015 Are you really complaining because Bubbleworks was down for 5 minutes? Are you really complaining that some one is complaining about a park that is happy to take tens of thousands of people's money every day but is barely functioning? Of course a shutdown is not the end of the world in isolation, but taken with the state of the rest of the place it's something else in the 'not good enough' list. dk3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AstroDan Posted May 28, 2015 Report Share Posted May 28, 2015 This Saturday is the annual TS meet to Chessington. Usually it's OK. This time though? Dreading it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benin Posted May 28, 2015 Report Share Posted May 28, 2015 That's what you get for going on a weekend in Half Term... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveJ Posted May 28, 2015 Report Share Posted May 28, 2015 For some reason May half term last year was far busier than an average Summer holiday. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AstroDan Posted May 28, 2015 Report Share Posted May 28, 2015 That's what you get for going on a weekend in Half Term...Our meet is May Half Term every year.There are never usually 90 minute waits. Canopy Capers is currently 90. What even is it? It's not just half term either. It's been like this on weekends most of this season! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benin Posted May 28, 2015 Report Share Posted May 28, 2015 Clearly everyone disappointed with a closed Griffin's wants to go on the closed Capers slide or break into the Squirt-a-Lot control box... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TPJames Posted May 28, 2015 Report Share Posted May 28, 2015 Unfortunately, a day at chessington always seems to go to the extremes in terms of queue times: -You either visit on an off peak weekday and it is absolutely dead. (I went towards the end of the Easter holidays and the longest queue was 20mins for Fury and everything else was 15 or less, excluding vampire which was on a timed ticket system). -OR you visit on a weekday/holiday and it is completely packed to the extremes; main rides at 60minutes+ and never dropping below that and supporting rides at 30-45minutes+ and rarely dropping below that. There is rarely a middle way anymore, which is one of the beauties about thorpe park. At thorpe park, you have the choice of an extremely dead weekday in the middle of the school term, an average weekend where queues for the coasters never exceed 45-60minutes at most (although tend to be emptier) or the option of visiting at different times in the holidays where crowds can range anywhere from making the park moderately busy to extremely busy. At thorpe park you get much more of an option of when you want to visit to determine crowd levels, whereas with chesssington nowadays there is a limited choice and if you are unable to attend an off-peak weekday, you are simply stuck with the crowds and long, slow queues. It's been stated many a time but the only solution to the problem is to invest in more high-throughput rides or improve upon the exisiting ones. If worked upon well, current rides could achieve almost double the throughput they are currently achieving or a major investment catering for 1500pph+ would be ideal to divert the crowds away from supporting low throughput rides. I do love chessington as a park, but only when it is dead because the rides within the park are simply not worth the long tedious queue times they receive. A bit more effort from merlin would mean queue times would die down, reviews would become better and gate figures would gradually increased resulting in higher profits. We all know merlin care about the money, they just seem to be blind in ways to increase profits and that solely lies at building guest satisfaction and investing within a park. At the moment, they seem to be sitting back and watch the money roll in, and whilst they are gaining more money and satisfaction, chessington isn't developing as a park and that will have a bad effect in the long term when the existing attractions cannot simply cope anymore and the whole park will have to be done over. (I wouldn't be surprised at this point if they simply sold off the park due to abandoning it and not investing in it in the long run meaning it is too much work to restore and make acceptable for the public's expectations) dk3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HermanTheGerman Posted May 28, 2015 Report Share Posted May 28, 2015 Our meet is May Half Term every year. There are never usually 90 minute waits. Canopy Capers is currently 90. What even is it? It's not just half term either. It's been like this on weekends most of this season! Ha! Canopy Capers won't be at 90mins. It's most likely a glitch on the website. Aside from the fact that it's effectively a climbing frame, it's also located in Land of the Dragons, which means that only about 3% of park goers actually know it exists. I'd be very surprised if it has ever had a queue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AstroDan Posted May 28, 2015 Report Share Posted May 28, 2015 I'll be sure to look at it this weekend. Really hope it'll be OK as it's my only visit this year to the park. At the moment I am almost wishing I hadn't pencilled the date in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt 236 Posted May 28, 2015 Report Share Posted May 28, 2015 Came back from Chessington and although it was very busy (something expected at half term and Chessington), I still had a good day Queues were pretty high today with vampire and fury peaking 100 minutes at some point with bubbles & safari reaching 75 minutes, zufari & tombs reaching 60 minutes and Dragon Falls 90 minutes (at the time I was in the queue), which is an insult to wait that long for at least in its current state. Despite that, coasters were being operated very well with vampire trains often batched before the second hit the brakes and fury trains all seemed to be running and loaded quickly. I still enjoy Chessington despite its major stagnation and problems and hope we see some major improvements next year as a new show and updated enclosure don't help the crowds or the fact most of the park is still very fun down in places. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TPJames Posted May 30, 2015 Report Share Posted May 30, 2015 Sorry for being sad but... Rameses revenge is currently displaying a 60 minute queue. How can it even hold that length a queue with the new, shortened queueline? I can only presume reasonably slow operations would lead to such a long queue on what is a relatively unpopular ride at chessington. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Benin Posted May 30, 2015 Report Share Posted May 30, 2015 They've got a massive cattlepen in what was once the shop nowadays... Looks utterly vile tbh... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cal Posted May 30, 2015 Report Share Posted May 30, 2015 Sorry for being sad but... Rameses revenge is currently displaying a 60 minute queue. How can it even hold that length a queue with the new, shortened queueline? I can only presume reasonably slow operations would lead to such a long queue on what is a relatively unpopular ride at chessington. And that 60 minute queue is likely to be because they are only using the front row. (Photo from themeparkguide) Pretty poor for a busy day but there must be a good reason for it. TPJames 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HermanTheGerman Posted May 30, 2015 Report Share Posted May 30, 2015 Well, the ride has been down for most of the week, so I assume it is linked to that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TPJames Posted May 30, 2015 Report Share Posted May 30, 2015 Chessington have been really poor over this half term in terms of operations; Dragons Fury running empty cars around the circuit(despite being on a reduced number of cars anyway), Rameses revenge closed half the time and running one row when open, Vampire breaking down constantly, Kobra closed the whole week and Monkey Swinger and Griffins Galleon closed most of the time. The rides which have been open are either on really slow/ reduced operations or running only one member of staff resulting in massive queues. I understand that sometimes these things cannot be avoided, but for such a major headlining theme park in the UK, it is shocking that they are running with a service this poor and still charging full whack for a visit. I had a brilliant visit to chessington a few weeks back but only because it was dead as operations and ride reliability remain as poor as at the beginning of the season and have not been improving. (The public haven't been putting up with it as well as queues for guest services have been absolutely horrendous all week). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian-S Posted May 30, 2015 Report Share Posted May 30, 2015 (The public haven't been putting up with it as well as queues for guest services have been absolutely horrendous all week). Were they actually complaining though? When we went Monday most people in the queue were picking up Ride Access Passes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AstroDan Posted May 30, 2015 Report Share Posted May 30, 2015 Left today at 2.00pm. I've been to a lot of theme parks and Chessington 2015 is one of the worst. Breakdowns all over the park, some rides closed entirely, theming removed and throughputs which make Blackpool look good. Dire. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mark9 Posted May 30, 2015 Report Share Posted May 30, 2015 (The public haven't been putting up with it as well as queues for guest services have been absolutely horrendous all week). Was Guest Services on reduced capacity too!? TPJames, Matt 236, Celia Mae and 2 others 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coaster Posted May 30, 2015 Report Share Posted May 30, 2015 Chessington have been really poor over this half term in terms of operations; Dragons Fury running empty cars around the circuit(despite being on a reduced number of cars anyway), Rameses revenge closed half the time and running one row when open, Vampire breaking down constantly, Kobra closed the whole week and Monkey Swinger and Griffins Galleon closed most of the time. The rides which have been open are either on really slow/ reduced operations or running only one member of staff resulting in massive queues. I understand that sometimes these things cannot be avoided, but for such a major headlining theme park in the UK, it is shocking that they are running with a service this poor and still charging full whack for a visit. I had a brilliant visit to chessington a few weeks back but only because it was dead as operations and ride reliability remain as poor as at the beginning of the season and have not been improving. (The public haven't been putting up with it as well as queues for guest services have been absolutely horrendous all week). This post sums up Chessington's current state to be honest, it's just poor to be still operating so badly this far into the season yet charging guests full price. I don't know why people still visit to be honest. Breakdowns all over the park, some rides closed entirely, theming removed and throughputs which make Blackpool look good. Once upon a time, Blackpool had the best throughputs out of any park in the UK. Sadly those times are long gone Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cal Posted May 30, 2015 Report Share Posted May 30, 2015 Sounds like another fun day at Chessington today. 2 rides closed, rameses on half capacity, vampire's had a lot of downtime and they are removing a car on dragons fury on a 2 hour queue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SteveJ Posted May 30, 2015 Report Share Posted May 30, 2015 Cars go empty on Fury all the time, it's because they're BrOkUn (for reasons) and take 2 seconds to fix. But it takes forever to take them off and on the track and run them round for testing. All because it's a poorly engineered ride that should never have become the park's leading coaster. Thank you DIC Tussauds and your rubbish cheapest option strategy. Chessington is really suffering with crowds, best to stay away until the inherent problems from 10 years of shocking management are sorted out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian-S Posted May 30, 2015 Report Share Posted May 30, 2015 That'll be a long wait. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
insider9150 Posted May 30, 2015 Report Share Posted May 30, 2015 I'm not sure what is happening with the maintenance of the rides, but for all the years I have been visiting chessington, this is the worst for ride availability. It seems the engineering team havent a clue about fixing the rides this years, thers no urgency. From what I heard from a ride operator on ramases today, the engineering team send more time walking around the park, thand fixing the rides. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian-S Posted May 30, 2015 Report Share Posted May 30, 2015 I didn't think they had a 'team' based on the number of engineer vacancies on their site. I even considered applying for one myself until I saw the qualifications needed, alas experience didn't seem to be of any meaning compared to certificates. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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