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Chessington General Discussion


Ash

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The real worrying thing for me is that on the Dragon Falls sigh it says it will be completed over the WINTER of 2014! So we have a long time to wait for it all to be completed

I'm just hoping its 2014 the ride will be finished (not 2015) as the ride is clearly a rusting metal trough now.

Tbh, Thorpe Park has more theming now than Chessie. If Oakwood can do some decent upscale theming, Chessington surely can too.

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Probably living in la-la land when suggesting this, but why on earth haven't entry prices been reduced, even by a couple of quid?

I 'get' that it's a business and all that, but we have three major rides which will look and feel significantly less 'good' isn't a good service. It's all well and good saying 'We're improving your experience, we're sorry for the inconvenience', but is that good enough for seeing naked rides and construction sites across the park?

As I say, I know it's probably living in la-la land, but personally, seeing the state the park is in more and more, I don't think that a few notices here and there apologising is enough for what guests will experience this season...

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Thinking about this now, I find it disgraceful Merlin haven't upkept the run down areas and at the last minute having to strip it all down in what is probably the biggest investment year in ages. The park has had 2008,2009 or tbh almost every other year that these works could have been done instead of cramming it in to 2013.

Dragon falls and runaway train should have really been stripped down in 2010 IMO, a year when little to nothing happened and then at the end of the year rebuilt so therefore the park's 25th anniversary would have seen both these rides hopefully in their former glory [to a degree. As for Tomb Blaster, this should have also been done last year.

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@Josh, I don't think Disney California reduced entry fees when the Adventure park turned into Construction Board Land... It's the usual thing hidden in the T&Cs of any park that covers them for such eventualities (not saying it's right to do so, just more they have it covered)...

The worry atm is that the theming might not return (as there are previous examples at the park) or it just won't be of any viable quality... Whilst most of Merlin's thematic additions are quite decent, there's always a few parts which could've been better...

Waiting game for this, but it's not one of hope...

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Ah, didn't think about it being covered in T&Cs, good point..

Personally, I think the theming will return in some shape or another. Maybe I'm just being too optimisitic, but for the most part, there's clearly been effort put in by all the Merlin parks with regards to theming and overall experience (the only exception that springs to mind is Storm Surge). Of course, it hasn't always been successful (as you say), but it's there. So yeah, fingers crossed on that one.

But this season in general is not exactly great. The transitional period is just rubbish, and not what guests should be expecting, nor deserve.

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Forgot to say - Yesterday none of the queue time boards were switched on. Perhaps they are going to be switching over to the new Thorpe Park style boards? Or perhaps the system was just broken...?

Kinda frustrating when trying to work out what to ride.

Hope it's not like this when I go! If they do replace the queue boards, then PLEASE can they get them for rides like Seastorm, monkey swinger and black buccaneer because other wise you have to journey all they way to market square to find out the queue time and then by the time you've got back the queue has doubled in length!
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  • 2 weeks later...

Chessington have now added a ride status page on their web saying which rides have normal operation and which ones are closed.

http://www.chessington.com/plan-your-trip/ride-status.aspx

Although there doesn't seem to be much change from last time, it states Mine Train is closed for refurbishment with no apparent opening date yet. Could this be a sign for more rides being down for refurbishment in the future?

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Seems they are going for a Disney style "here's our plan for refurbishments, plan your trips around it". Except, of course if you ignore the fact that Disney has year round opening and Chessington has five months where nearly all the rides are closed giving ample time to do the changes and refurbishments they need to do.

This thing would be more helpful and more interesting if it showed future refurbishment plans of closures that may occur during this season.

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God, I'd love to work in a theme park, or just even try it, I know some will have good and bad experiences, I would love to have it for part time job, good luck mate! Hope it works out well, shame I'm in the back end of Wales other wise I would apply :P

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Vampire was running on one train today, complete joke! it never opened first thing in the morning and then broke down around 3/4 oclock, and had to leave the queue after waiting for about 15 minutes!

Tomb Raider, absolutely love the theme of this ride and the laser shooting, but for starters 2 out of the 3 trains in use had at least a car or 2 shut off,and then apparently only one train is allowed round the ride at one time so you can imagine how slow the queue has been moving with 'sorry for the delay' voice overs being played every now and then, and then after about 20/30 mins queuing (starting from the steps in the indoor section!) just as we were about to get into the loading bays, the ride broke down and seen several maintenance people and people on the ride walking from where the ride is back into the station (presumably being evacuated), so had to leave the queue then... managed to get on it at the end of the day, and disappointed to find a lot of the targets not working.

Zufari, we're forever trying to compare our rides with america and of course we're going to be disappointed... but I really enjoyed it with some great close ups to the animals, shame there isn't an open fast section as the whole ride is quite slow, and liked the indoor 'surprise' section. Overall a great addition to Chessington keeping in with their animal side to the park.

Dragons Fury, never realised it was only allowed 3 adults max per car, anyone know why because the throughput is even worse, and even just queueing from the bottom of the steps at the station takes 5 mins or more!

Everything else seemed to be running fine, and had a really great day - queues seemed to be max 5/10 mins on most rides besides dragons fury and vampire fury.

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Vampire was running on one train today, complete joke! it never opened first thing in the morning and then broke down around 3/4 oclock, and had to leave the queue after waiting for about 15 minutes!

Tomb Raider, absolutely love the theme of this ride and the laser shooting, but for starters 2 out of the 3 trains in use had at least a car or 2 shut off,and then apparently only one train is allowed round the ride at one time so you can imagine how slow the queue has been moving with 'sorry for the delay' voice overs being played every now and then, and then after about 20/30 mins queuing (starting from the steps in the indoor section!) just as we were about to get into the loading bays, the ride broke down and seen several maintenance people and people on the ride walking from where the ride is back into the station (presumably being evacuated), so had to leave the queue then... managed to get on it at the end of the day, and disappointed to find a lot of the targets not working.

Zufari, we're forever trying to compare our rides with america and of course we're going to be disappointed... but I really enjoyed it with some great close ups to the animals, shame there isn't an open fast section as the whole ride is quite slow, and liked the indoor 'surprise' section. Overall a great addition to Chessington keeping in with their animal side to the park.

Dragons Fury, never realised it was only allowed 3 adults max per car, anyone know why because the throughput is even worse, and even just queueing from the bottom of the steps at the station takes 5 mins or more!

Everything else seemed to be running fine, and had a really great day - queues seemed to be max 5/10 mins on most rides besides dragons fury and vampire fury.

I actually thought my day today was great even though vampire opened at 11:30am I still had a good time it was 40 min queues I heard yesterday so should be glad you went today :) I know I had a good day

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Dragons Fury, never realised it was only allowed 3 adults max per car, anyone know why because the throughput is even worse, and even just queueing from the bottom of the steps at the station takes 5 mins or more!

Only a max of 3 adults due to Chessington's ridiculous H+S policies. It was built wrong so it can't run with a heavy car basically.

In wet weather it only runs 2 people per car. ;)

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