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Ash

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Whilst I certainly do think the lone cactus is comical and the fact they aren't further along is worrying, let's not forget that a rather major incident happened with the fire and has completely destroyed a cafe and damaged Bubbleworks. No one could have foreseen that coming and that no doubt has taken some resources, whatever that maybe, in order to rectify it. I'm sure things would be turning out differently had that not happened.

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No.

The only surprise willbe how terrible it will look when it opens. Even the worn out, tired looking rockwork that used to encase the ride is better then what we will end up. They had an opportunity to make an old ride look fantastic again. They've chosen the easy option so they can shove it. The more they trample over rides like Vampire, Runaway and Falls, the more laughable the park looks against parks that take pride in their attractions like Paultons and (god help me) Blackpool Pleasure Beach.

I know my words will fall to nothing and me not visiting means diddly squat. But that being said, I'd rather drive around the M25 for a day,. At least that gets investment...

I agree with you, we have no reason to believe that anything will come out of this re-theme but instead of slagging off something that is not finished yet, lets just wait and see. I've heard rumors of a giant metal scorpion in which the ride will run round and animal exhibits being placed in the queue line. Now if this does happen and is pulled off IMO I think it will look great again, of course a lot of this does depend on Chessington actually doing this right. I have said its a little worrying that all this time has passed and it still looks the same as it did about 6 months ago, Lets just hope that it is because most of the stuff is all being constructed off site.

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I like some of the ideas I'm hearing like those above, and it could be well good, but as has been said there's two main things that bother me.

-No matter what else they do the rocks (or at least something like them) not returning will be disastrous for how the ride feels, it will be open and obvious. The way it used to disappear in and out of view repeatedly made it look and feel much larger than it was, and the close proximity of them made it feel faster than it was.

-There is no way in the world it should be in that state now after being closed for so long. Cutting it this fine is just stupid regardless of what is happening off site, they've had ages; a lot longer then anyone ever had to build the much more substantial original I bet!

It is certainly true that we should wait to see what happens before having an opinion on it, but it's equally true to say we have been shown nothing previously or now to give us any confidence in what they are doing. I have very little hope of being impressed.

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I agree with you, we have no reason to believe that anything will come out of this re-theme but instead of slagging off something that is not finished yet, lets just wait and see. I've heard rumors of a giant metal scorpion in which the ride will run round and animal exhibits being placed in the queue line. Now if this does happen and is pulled off IMO I think it will look great again, of course a lot of this does depend on Chessington actually doing this right. I have said its a little worrying that all this time has passed and it still looks the same as it did about 6 months ago, Lets just hope that it is because most of the stuff is all being constructed off site.

My problem is it is all rumours. I'd believe the Scorpion thing if it was in the promotional image, Merlin in the past have always been keen to spoiler the hell out of their newer attractions so I'm not filled with confidence that a giant scorpion is to appear.

Whilst I certainly do think the lone cactus is comical and the fact they aren't further along is worrying, let's not forget that a rather major incident happened with the fire and has completely destroyed a cafe and damaged Bubbleworks. No one could have foreseen that coming and that no doubt has taken some resources, whatever that maybe, in order to rectify it. I'm sure things would be turning out differently had that not happened.

That's the past two months explained, how about the last 16 months before that. In 16 months you could build a brand new wing rider or rebuild an entire Big Thunder Mountain. Surely a tiny Mack powered coaster is child's play.

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I think it is in the promotional image...

But surely with the ride meant to be opening next month it should already be installed? I mean, the fire occurring is not an excuse because the ride has been closed for over a year with the only thing happening was removing the rocks and a repaint...

There is no excuse to be leaving things this late... They have a month left, it should be all in place (especially to lure people back in after a half term visit) and the final details should be the thing being focused on...

Another Merlin rush job... The planners need to sort themselves out...

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Most of the work being done this time last year and in the beginning of the 2013 season was demolition of the rotten damaged old theming. They ran a competition to get ideas for a new theme which ended in September. 3 months to finalise the design, then a month to get it made off site and now it is getting put together and should be ready for opening in March.

Yes they could of closed the competition to design the ride in July for example and started building before Christmas but I don't think 6 months from September is a bad timescale for design and construction of new theming.

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The competition was for Dragon Falls and the outcome of the competition had no impact the Runaway Train plans. The whole competition thing was run by Chessington's online marketing department, who sent me an email to say they had chosen my entry (which was all Dragon Falls-related) earlier in January. So there's really no connection at all between that and Scorpion Express.

The long delay in refurbishing Runaway Train last year seems to suggest they were unsure how to proceed. All last year they had simply said Runaway Train was "closed for refurbishment" with no suggestion of a redesign; instead it was Dragon Falls that would be "rethemed". When the Dragon Falls project got cancelled, only then were Scorpion Express, the hotel and the monkey enclosure announced.

To me this shows how Chessington have loads of future plans but just can't get them done in the order they desire. Maybe Merlin prioritised a new hotel over the much-needed ride refurbishments without giving them much choice? Either way, I really hope Scorpion Express won't be another case of ambitious plans getting totally lost in translation as a result of confused planning schedules and budget changes...

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If the hotel took priority, therein lies the issue with the way Merlin run the parks...

The state of the park needed to take priority over an extension to the hotel, because if you provide a poor product to guests, will they bother returning? Regardless of the popularity of the hotel (where a majority are business people), the only really the hotel extension is even being built is because Merlin are desperate to squeeze as much money as they can out of the parks...

The park deserves priority to become a quality product again, not be shafted by Merlin's money-grabbing techniques... It's not like the hotel is even going to result in new attractions because of the way the big Merlin pot of money works in regards to park funds...

How simple is it that a quality product that is evidently full of care and attention will get the people coming in? Too simple clearly... And possibly naive in the British way of running things...

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The completion was definitely for Minetrain and Dragon Falls (http://web.archive.org/web/20130904164639/http://www.chessington.com/updates/).

That must have been an error on their website because here's the sign that was on park all season announcing the competition. Also until they updated their website at the end of last year that webpage only mentioned DF.

476474_551515298222521_1651925218_o.jpg

Anyway it was me who won the competition and I didn't include anything to do with Runaway Train in my entry!

They said it was only a possibility that any of my ideas would be included (which is always the case with such public competitions, leaving it to the professionals is usually best). So really there is no way that they would've delayed Runaway Train all year just to wait for the competition to close, there must have been another internal factor that stopped them.

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They said it was only a possibility that any of my ideas would be included (which is always the case with such public competitions, leaving it to the professionals is usually best). So really there is no way that they would've delayed Runaway Train all year just to wait for the competition to close, there must have been another internal factor that stopped them.

Pretty arguable considering how well the 'professionals' have been doing with their recent projects...

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That must have been an error on their website because here's the sign that was on park all season announcing the competition. Also until they updated their website at the end of last year that webpage only mentioned DF.

Anyway it was me who won the competition and I didn't include anything to do with Runaway Train in my entry!

They said it was only a possibility that any of my ideas would be included (which is always the case with such public competitions, leaving it to the professionals is usually best). So really there is no way that they would've delayed Runaway Train all year just to wait for the competition to close, there must have been another internal factor that stopped them.

Congratulations on winning, hopefully some of your design ends up on Dragon Falls next year!

But just because they put up a sign to advertise a competion for Dragon Falls doesn't rule out that there was a competition for Runaway Train too!

*edit* they mentioned both competitions on their facebook in the summer

<div id="fb-root"></div> <script>(function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_GB/all.js#xfbml=1"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));</script>

<div class="fb-post" data-href="https://www.facebook.com/Chessington/posts/10151685297814035" data-width="466"><div class="fb-xfbml-parse-ignore"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/Chessington/posts/10151685297814035">Post</a> by <a href="https://www.facebook.com/Chessington">Chessington World of Adventures Resort</a>.</div></div>

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Just a thought. I know everyone is honing in on the fact they have some 16 months for this refurbishment, so they have had ample time to essentially install a new ride and then some. If they had planned to only work on the new theme elements over the closed season and then the fire happened? Then their resources are going to be shuffled around and you have to make do. It's like leaving your homework to the last minute at school but then finding out you have run out of a colour ink, you have to make do with what comes out; a trippy colourful mess which you hope the teacher will accept.

Is it an excuse? Not really because as you have said, they have had ample time to start earlier but if they had put plans in place that got scuppered because of a freak accident then it's another case of "make do".

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The fire really isn't a valid excuse, because firstly, work should've been in full flow by that point of closed season, and secondly, they shut it all year and could've done ANYTHING...

Freak accident (that was avoidable if they hadn't put flammable items near outdoor heaters), or not, to hide behind the fire as reasoning for this appalling showing is daft...

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