Chessington Trip Reports

[CWOAfanMalcolm]

Just returned from Chessington's Winter's tail event. 

 

Ride count 

 

Hocus Pocus Hall-3

Bubbleworks-3

Carousel-3 

 

Positives- The Park looks lovely for Christmas including that great Christmas tree.

The Christmas gift show was OK nothing special but worth watching. Even if I'm not really it's target age range! 

Animals were very lively despite the cold and got some great views of them. (often I forget how good the zoo area is, as in the open season I spend so much time on the rides and never take a glance at the zoo.)

With 3 rides, a long show and almost the entire zoo open there was a lot to do the first zoo day I have ever been to where I haven't run out of things to do by 1 pm 

 

Negatives- Would of liked maybe one or two more rides open but not the end of the world!

 

So to sum up, a very good day at the wonderful Chessington. My last Chessington and indeed Merlin trip of 2014!    Thanks for a great day Chessington.

[CWOAfanMalcolm]

This Was A while Ago (monday) went to chessington's African Adventures Event and had a reasonably good time. wasn't bowled over though 

 

When I arrived At the park The park was busier then I have ever seen it before the opening of a zoo day however luckily it didn't notice too much when inside the park.

 

Ride count

Scorpion Express-6

Tomb blaster-3

Hocus Pocus hall-1

Carousel-2 

Seastorm-0 

 

Positives- In my opinion a good selection of rides and restaurants. There was certainly enough to do for the 5 hours that you could spend inside the park.

Scorpion Express was open With short Q's (on the day I visited) and was loading and unloading quite fast.

Staff were as always friendly 

 

Unfortunately a few 

Negatives 

 

Ride Breakdowns Were a real problem 

seastorm didn't open at all during the day and Tomb blaster was very temperamental and talking about tomb blaster the ride is in very bad shape ,broken guns, Even more target's not working and the station annoucements are still far too loud Imo.

 

Park atmosphere was almost completely devoid apart from king Julian and Alex walking around there was no sign that an event was on at all which compared to howl-o-ween and winter's tail is pretty bad as they had so much effort put in to them. In past years there have been African extras that have been around during the day. If they were on they need to be made clearer that they are. 

 

To conclude It was a good day and I've probably sounded very negative when actually it was a good day however after so many good visits to chessie, this visit was a bit of a slap in the face. I'm sure the 2015 season as a whole will be great but truthfully I normally prefer chessie For day's out but this time I would have to say that Thorpe park is the better place to go this half-term. 

[TPJames]

Sunday 22nd February 2015- Chessington, "African Adventures" event.

 Ride-Count:
-Amazu Treetop Adventure x1
-Seastorm x9
-Hocus Pocus Hall x5
-Carousel x2
-Scorpion Express x0 (Unavailable all day)
-Tomb Blaster x0 (Unavailable all day)

 I had a great day at the park today and experienced the zoo in the first time for over two years. It was a really enjoyable day and I enjoyed the park with a really calm and relaxed atmosphere, despite some heavy rain in the last hour or so! Instead of doing a full written report, I would like to pick upon some positive and negative aspects from the day!
 

 

-Tomb Blaster and Scorpion Express failed to open all day. Shame really as these were the two main attractions we were looking forward to riding, however I do appreciate that rides and attractions are subject to availability.

-Seastorm was operating reduced cars today so thethroughput was reduced by a fair few people, however queues didn't reach over 15-20minutes and it was giving a fairly long cycle. Managed it an amazing 9 times though, although admittedly most of these were done in the last hour when the park was dead.

-We managed Hocus Pocus Hall 5 times!? We must have been crazy, the staff member thought so too! We even waited 20minutes for it at one point, was I absolutely insane!? We tried to go through it as slowly as we could on one occasion and ended up having fun getting "lost" inside the mirror maze   I'm pretty fond of the haunted house however I certainly wouldn't waste so much time going through it on a normal them park day.

-The zoo as a whole was pretty average; I remember it feeling much larger a couple of years ago. I think one of the reasons for this is the addition of Amazu. Whilst it was good fun, I miss the monkey and bird garden which used to be there. A lot of the animals in the zoo were hiding or just weren't there either; none of the lions or tigers out on the trail of the kings etc. Was pretty quick to complete compared to previous visits unfortunately.

-The sea life centre was magical! Highlight of the day, I love it in there! We spent so much time in there and also spent ages getting our finger nails cleaned by the Cleaning-Shrimp! Was really nice in there and all the fish could actually be seen versus the zoo.

-The park as a whole looked reasonably tacky. I don't want to say this however there was scaffolding everywhere on all the rides having work. There were random metal barriers placed everywhere and the park's appearance looked no where near as nice as during the main season.

-The park was also reasonably empty which was good, however rides did become crowded due to Scorpion and tomb being closed. At around 2pm, everyone seemed to have left as it started to rain and there was no more than 10 people in the market square. However, seastorm and the carousel battled on with around 2 people per cycle and stayed open right until 3pm! I can't imagine there would have been more than 100peple on park at around 2pm and no more than 50people at about 2:30pm.

-The main point I picked up on was the lack of indoors spots! Thorpe Park are really lucky to have the dome, we ended up eating our lunch outside in the cold as there was no coffee shop open to go in or anything! The only places inside where you can sit down are paying resturants! I know the problem doesn't exist as much during main season, but there needs more indoor locations open during African Adventures. Also, an indoor picnic area needs to be built urgently!!

 
Overall, a good day out! I look forward to returning in main season when hopefully the park will look better and will have a full ride line up! 

[Matt 236]

Despite choosing one of the worst weeks to visit (in terms of crowds) I went to Chessington on Thursday 28th May as I was invited to a friend's birthday trip.

Ride count

Vampire 1

Dragons Fury 2x (1 fastracked )

Dragon falls

Scorpion express

Rattlesnake

Tomb blaster

Bubbleworks

Tuk tuk turmoil

Black buccaneer

Ramesis 0 (almost once)

Total 10

The park was very busy that day with vampire and fury peaking 100 minutes in the day, Falls reaching 90 minutes and everything else except caroulsel and hocus pocus receiving queues anywhere between 30-75 minutes. Kobra and Griffins galleon were closed all day and monkey swinger for some reason was as well (despite not bring advertised as closed).

Ramesis suffered a major breakdown around lunchtime (frustratingly when I was queuing up) as it kept stopping in a fixed position several times and was eventually closed. I hate the new entrance to the ride, it looks such a tacky and cheap job to the once grander entrance that has now been replaced with a penguin photo shoot, pity merlin didn't fund the cash to restore it to all its glory.

Bubbleworks whilst I still enjoy it and much prefer it to Its A Small World does need a major refurb in the future as the ride is looking rather tired and worn in lots of places, the factory room is looking rather dated now, the fairground coaster is still broken and the fountain finale isn't a patch on what it used to be.

Tomb Blaster is just as bad, if not worse as many targets were not working, took ages to reset plus numerous effects as I'm aware didn't seem to be working including the Boulder send one of the spinning tunnels, the ride also feels rather dated and in need of a refurbishment.

Park operations were mixed when I went, a Fury was running well on all cars (by the looks) and Vampire was dispatching trains a good 10 seconds or more before the 2nd trains hit the station brakes. Falls on the other hand was running a bit slowly as I saw several empty boats go by during a 90 minute queue which is never a good sign on the park's only high throughput ride currently.

Whilst I somehow still managed to enjoy the day to a fairly large extent, I can't help but criticise the amount of run down areas in the park. Fury needs a good paint job (dare I say more than Vampire now), Vampire's removed crypt & chandliers are quite disappointing to see too on top of an overworked skyway which may as well be fully replaced. Even Rattlesnake looks like it could do with some care.

Chessington is a great park to. Visit, but needs lots and lots of care, attention and General TLC. I knew 2015 was going to be a small year but a new show & refurbished penguin area just don't help the crowd and run down situation there and more work should be done. I just hope Merlin realise ASAP how popular & successful Chessington is and pull out the stops and invest more in to the park to make it the top class park it deserves to be.

On a positive note, the park close was pushed to 6:30pm which was great to see on a day like this and very much needed IMO. We also parked in the north car park (the first time I've been there) and never realised how big Chessington's car park was (possibly twice the size of Thorpe's).

I was also put in charge of the group as my mate had invited 8 further friends along too, which was hefty but doable challenging organising everything on top of looking after many teenagers (who had your typical behaviour really).

Probably won't return to Chessington now until Howl O ween as it's something I've really been wanting to do for a while now.

[JoshC.]

So I visited the park yesterday (yes, I'm sure if you look back through these forums, you'll find me saying I wouldn't visit this season, but I was convinced to go with my family, so my baby brother could go for the first time.  So meh).  Park was alright I s'pose, but I just don't have a love for the place any more I guess.  Some things of note...

 

-Park was extremely quiet, which was nice.

-Rode Fury and Rattlesnake yesterday; they were both operating normally and were running well.  Was nice to see the majority of the effects in Rattlesnake working.

-Kobra and Rameses were both closed all day.  Tomb Blaster was closed for the morning too.

-Lorikeet Lagoon was also closed (first time I've ever seen it closed since it's been open).  Had a peek in the enclosure; couldn't see any lorikeets, but could see some big rats...

-Zufari is still extremely average and probably worse than how I remembered it (even though I saw basically all the animals on the circuit).  Wreaks of missed opportunities at every corner.

-New Madagascar show is alright I guess; the kids around seemed to like it.

-There really needs to be a good, sit-down restaurant within the park and not based at the hotels in my opinion.  Bring back Greedy Goblin!  Chicken Shack is very meh.

-Zoo was looking good on the whole; liked the new Penguin Enclosure.

 

 

All in all, I had a nice day on park, but the park itself just isn't very appealing to me these days...

[Ian-S]

Lorikeet Lagoon - is that the walk through thing that's just down from Kobra with it's entrance on the left side just past the indoor play area? If so that's been shut every time we've been the year, and we've been about 8 or 9 times now.

[Matt 236]

Despite not initially planning to return until October, I visited Chessington again this week with some mates on TPM.

Ride Count

Vampire 3x

Dragons Fury

Bubble works 2x

Kobra

Dragon Falls

Tomb Blaster

Jumbos

Zufari

Safari Skyway

Hocus Pocus Hall

Caroulsel (teacup)

Scorpion Express

Total 15

Park busyness-average

Favourite ride that day- Vampire

Pros

Vampire was running well

Vampire runs noticeably better at the end of the day

Fury

Fish & chip rethemed building looks very nice

The Caroulsel tea cup spinning (but I'm sure it's more manic with Peaj though)

Bubble work fountains were working

Myk & Fish

Cons

Fish and chips was very expensive, £6 for a small bit of cod with some chips (bit much especially with discount)

Part of Kobra's theming is a it broken (one of the tails)

Bubblework's fountain finale still isn't a patch on what it used to be with the missing mirrors and the absence of strobes (I hate to see what it be like without fountains)

Fury's queue line stunk near the shop (one of the worst smells I've witnessed at a themepark)

Tomb blaster was in a right state with many targets broken, no spinning tunnel plus the music from the Sphinx scene broken where you could just hear a very tiny theme tune (as if someone's playing it off their phone at full volume)

Skyway was shaking more than Polaroid picture

The North car park doesn't have the greatness the south entrance has (damn that £10 parking fee)

Someone had a protein spill on Buccaneer on tye cycle before the one we should've had, closing the tide down for a while

Zufari, that is all

Chessington could do with more adult ride t-shirts as I couldn't find any

Waiting 30 minutes for a pint of lager in monkey puzzle because the tank had runout and they forgot

The burger was very very mediocre and quite overpriced really (almost as bad as fish and chips really)

Despite these many many flaws, I still had a good day out at Chessington (though maybe the company helped that). It's a park for some reason I still seem to like and enjoy despite many on here heavily slating it (maybe I did just kinda contradict myself). If the park were to sort out its many many issues and sort the place up in the coming years, it could be an amazing place to go.

20 million a year would do great rounders, returning a major ride each year, adding new theming in, repainting Dragons fury & vampire and even rebuilding skyway with a more up to date ride system would do wonders. It would be worth it, especially considering it's been receiving the highest surge of guest increases of the four parks really despite the lack of investment.

[Ian-S]

Some friends went on Sunday last, 90 minute wait for Vampire each time, they literally only rode that (twice) and the flume (and a trip into the zoo). They were very happy and enjoyed it all, especially at the bargain price of £90, said they would be going back again soon.

I picked myself up of the floor from laughing around 20 minutes later, I couldn't believe they considered that good value and enjoyable (granted they didn't stay past 3.30 which was a mistake). All in their day cost them £148 including their food and parking.

Some people have very low standards.

[TraX]

Then they suit Merlin's lowest, and most faded of attractions. ;-)

[Ian-S]

I should have sad very low expectations, but what I did say is one and the same for them.

[JoshC.]

Some friends went on Sunday last, 90 minute wait for Vampire each time, they literally only rode that (twice) and the flume (and a trip into the zoo). They were very happy and enjoyed it all, especially at the bargain price of £90, said they would be going back again soon.

I picked myself up of the floor from laughing around 20 minutes later, I couldn't believe they considered that good value and enjoyable (granted they didn't stay past 3.30 which was a mistake). All in their day cost them £148 including their food and parking.

Some people have very low standards.

 

As long as they had a good day, does it matter?  Does it really matter if they rode 3 rides or 100 rides?  As long as they had a good day and enjoyed themselves, that is all that should count.  Doing the zoo is also a very big thing really (though I'm not saying £45pp for a zoo is good value!)

 

What should matter is that Chessington don't sink to the level of assuming that everyone will be like your friends and have a good day with so little done.  They should of course strive to be as good as possible and make sure everyone can enjoy themselves, regardless of how they spend their day. 

[Coaster]

Some friends went on Sunday last, 90 minute wait for Vampire each time, they literally only rode that (twice) and the flume (and a trip into the zoo). They were very happy and enjoyed it all, especially at the bargain price of £90, said they would be going back again soon.

I picked myself up of the floor from laughing around 20 minutes later, I couldn't believe they considered that good value and enjoyable (granted they didn't stay past 3.30 which was a mistake). All in their day cost them £148 including their food and parking.

Some people have very low standards.

I do have to question the sanity of people who think that three rides for £90 is good value, I'm sorry but regardless of whether you enjoyed the rides/company it's not.  That's £30 a ride!

[Benin]

They didn't just do the rides though did they, they also did the zoo... Perhaps they were so over-awed by the zoo (which is pretty decent quality, aside from the areas that haven't been redeveloped in years) that they enjoyed their day...

 

London Zoo costs £27 on the gate as a comparison... Now THAT'S expensive!

[Coaster]

They didn't just do the rides though did they, they also did the zoo... Perhaps they were so over-awed by the zoo (which is pretty decent quality, aside from the areas that haven't been redeveloped in years) that they enjoyed their day...

 

London Zoo costs £27 on the gate as a comparison... Now THAT'S expensive!

Regardless of what other places charge, £90 (or if you are going to look at individual prices, £47 each) is still expensive for three rides and the zoo in my opinion.

[JoshC.]

Regardless of what other places charge, £90 (or if you are going to look at individual prices, £45* each) is still expensive for three rides and the zoo in my opinion.

 

Given the fact that they queued 90 minutes for Vampire twice, you could quite easily argue it's their own fault that they only got 3 rides done.

 

If someone enjoys themselves and thinks it's good value for money, then that's that.  Value for money is in the eye of the spender I guess.  

[Ian-S]

Regardless of what other places charge, £90 (or if you are going to look at individual prices, £47 each) is still expensive for three rides and the zoo in my opinion.

Perhaps I should have put it differently but this is what I meant, it wasn't whether they enjoyed the day that surprised me, it was that they considered the £148 (total) good value.

[Coaster]

Perhaps I should have put it differently but this is what I meant, it wasn't whether they enjoyed the day that surprised me, it was that they considered the £148 (total) good value.

Yeah that's what I was saying, enjoying the day and good value for money are two different things.

[JoshC.]

I agree that value for money and enjoying your day are two different things, but isn't it up to guests to decide what is good value for money, and not attractions?  Personally I think £30 a ride is ridiculous as well, but then again, I visit parks and have a different perspective than the average guest.  If  guests find that good value, are happy to pay that sort of price and can enjoy their day, then there's nothing you can do really.  

 

I just hope people don't see this as a way to criticise Merlin's prices, which is what I feel people are sort of doing.

[Ian-S]

Nope I wasn't critising the pricing.

[Coaster]

No I'm not criticising the prices (on this occasion  ), just questioning why they considered that to be good value.

[Mark9]

You obviously haven't been to Disney recently Many people go there and only go on one or two things, and that is way more expensive.

 

What the hell are these people doing with their days to only do two things?!

[JoshC.]

Visited Chessington today with the family; main reason being that my Mum had a BTS tour for the animals booked, and because my family liked Chessington.

 

The place was pretty dead, with only Truckers really seeing a queue.  But the park itself felt like it lacked any atmosphere as a whole; I've visited the park on dead days before, but the atmosphere was still there.  But today, it just felt very lacking.  Even my family felt the same about it, even though they've enjoyed every visit they've made over the past few years.  Also, the food / service in the Zafari Bar is rather substandard...

 

The Zoo area was decent and the BTS tour of the zoo was apparently ace, so some positives at least.  But the theme park side of the place just left everyone a bit disappointed..

[Matt 236]

Well at least there was one in positive on the trip then.

I've always found Chessington in the past to be a magical atmospheric place, but it does seem rather lacking this year for sone reason, whether that's because of removed theming, mixed operations and closed rides who knows. It feels for the first time, Lego & Thorpe have more atmosphere this year then Chessie.

I'm going back for Halloween, but only to try out the new mazes plus night rides in addition to having never been then.

[Coaster]

PARK OPEN:  10am - 5pm (We left at 3:30pm)

RIDES CLOSED:  Tomb Blaster, Safari Skyway.  (Rattlesnake opened halfway through the day).

 

We had an average day at Chessington.  The park had moderate crowds but poor ride operations meant that queues built up quickly and moved slowly, for example Zufari was only using two vehicles, and Rattlesnake was running four cars with much slower dispatch times than previously - I can only hope that this is a temporary measure.  Vampire was running two trains but stacking reguarly.

 

It was a shame to see that several areas of the park have been left to rot and ruin.  Several ride areas have had yet more theming torn out of them (Vampire's queue and station for example), and the flats/carriages of rides could all do with a scrub down, as most are filthy.  Overall, from the grubby entrance plaza to the state of the rides and park areas as a whole, Chessington really needs a major cleanup, several cans of paint and TLC to get the rides back in fully working order!

However, it was nice to see some of the cave finale in Zufari working! 

 

Single Rider on Dragon's Fury was a welcome addition, although it was quite a slow moving SRQ, it was still considerably less than the main queue time (advertised as 50 minutes).

 

A final point to note, the state of the car park is a disgrace.  The road is not tarmacked meaning that anything above 5 MPH would damage the suspension of your car - something I read a lot of complaints about over the summer.  Further to this, they were forcing cars to drive round the entirety of these roads at the back of the fields on the way in, rather than the old (much better) system of driving up the short gravel road near the barriers and turning left into the field.  I find it unacceptable that the park have stopped people parking in the concrete car park when this one is in such a state.

 

RIDECOUNT:

Dragon's Fury x1

Vampire x1

Rattlesnake x1

Rameses Revenge x1

Bubbleworks x1

Dragon Falls x1
Scorpion Express x1

Monkey Swinger x1

Black Buccaneer x1

Griffin's Galleon x1

 

Thanks for reading. 

[JoshC.]

Went to Chessington yesterday, since family wanted a go on Bubbleworks before it gets its retheme.  As ever, I don't really have much positive to say, so I'll keep it short..

 

-Tried the Smokehouse.  Food wasn't very nice, overpriced and the service wasn't great either.  Bring back Greedy Goblin.

-Queue times seemed quite over-exaggerated.  

-Painfully slow operations.  Kobra being the worst offender - had a queue which should have taken 15 minutes, took 40.  That wasn't helped by staff stopping the ride mid-cycle because someone was screaming, and they thought she wanted to get off...

-Fair few staff (a minority of staff I stress, but still enough for it to be noticeable) seemed quite low in mood, and in general not very pleasant to be around.  Yeah, it's the height of summer and it's busy and stressful, but that doesn't excuse not smiling and deliver basic customer service..

-Pandamonium was naff, and didn't seem well received by the audience in general.

 

A couple of positives though...

 

-Park close time has been extended till 6pm for the rest of summer it seems, which is good.

-Lorikeet Lagoon is still fab.

-We left early.

 

If it wasn't for Bubbleworks going, don't think family would have gone, and I certainly wouldn't have initiated any sort of visit any time soon.  But the problems in and around the park are still plain to see, and it doesn't feel like they're going to be sorted any time soon.