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Featured Replies

comment_157946

How can the creature we are seeing actually see us? Is it a new kind of transparent TV Screen?

If we're going down this route of pedantry, it'd make sense that it'd be a two way system with a secondary monitor showing the status of the pre-show room...

But really, that issue is definitely the least of the pre-show's problems...

  • 2 weeks later...
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  • The funny thing is, the ride doesn't even NEED a plot...   Safari, animals, job done...

  • JoelPagett
    JoelPagett

    Went to the park yesterday, I have always been a fan but I am going to give my honest opinion now... What an absolute SHAMBLES. Updated the website on yesterday morning and it said nothing was clo

  • Mitchada04
    Mitchada04

    Just got back from a morning at Chessie so I shall review Zufari (this post may contain spoilers). It opened about 30 minutes after park opening which was a bit annoying. We got over to it at around

comment_158881

You can avoid it.. you just walk straight through the hut! It's not a problem :)

Not if you're one of the last people batched in... It's a very poorly laid out situation...

And of course, there's the issue if you skip the pre-show, others follow, then all of a sudden you have a packed out queue to the loading platform...

So... badly... done...

comment_158898

Not if you're one of the last people batched in... It's a very poorly laid out situation...

And of course, there's the issue if you skip the pre-show, others follow, then all of a sudden you have a packed out queue to the loading platform...

So... badly... done...

That's fair enough actually, I didn't think of that! Though, I suppose you could always ask the batcher if you could wait to be the first one through the next lot! I'm sure they wouldn't mind! However you do have a good point!

I noticed yesterday on one of the cars the second row had some kind of lap bar, not sure if this is new or what.

The loading is quite painful on this thing, guests in the cattlepen were actually cheering when they sent a car.. not good.

I was speaking to one of the girls yesterday when I was there and it was 'broken down' when I was at the station for a bit and she said that they're testing new restraints in order to speed everything up! I definitely cheered when the car was sent because we had been waiting a while! She said the lap bar is looking popular so far! They're also testing airplane type seatbelts on the front row :)!

comment_158902

You know the batching is poor when they release the group that watched the pre show after you whilst you are still crammed up against the doors, having not yet made it into the cattle pen...

Everyone was moaning about how slow the queue was moving, and as Marc said guests were actually cheering when a car FINALLY went. It was almost as if the staff had no clue whatsoever what they were doing. Even people in the jeep itself were cheering.

The staff checked us about 3 times to ensure we had our belts done up. Who knew getting into cars was so difficult? Talk about over-complicating a situation that really ought to be simple. It's not as if getting into a car is something we rarely do...

On another note, it's a terrible attraction. Pre-show: Awful. Queue: Awful. Ride experience: Not good enough to warrant queuing for the amount of time we did.

At least we got to see the giraffes though.

comment_158906

The Picsolve booth is pointless, The preshow isn't great, whilst going from the pre-recorded Chase Van Driver over to the Leema, technology played up and the lip sync was way out. I have only been on it twice and the same questions were asked, well apart from when she said "The boy in the front row with a hat on" which turned out to be a girl! LOL

On a positive side, we got lots of time on the safari this weekend, where as a few weeks ago they flew round very quickly and you didin't get to see much at all. The audio was a lot louder and much better to hear too.

It is good that they are making improvements and its good to see the area transform as the plants start to grow.

comment_158916

There were a LOT of issues with the seatbelts as quite often they were either twisted up so couldn't come out of the holster or just wouldn't come out at all, so unresponsive and completely the opposite design style of car seatbelts, which I think is one of the issues, as people just try pulling them out when they need to half the time actually start from the base... Poor design indeed...

Be interesting if they fit lapbars instead, although this would be problematic with small children (assuming it's a row-long one, individual bars would actually allow little ones to ride though, so that would actually be a must)...

Just such a shame Chessie made a load of simple design errors with this ride, ranging from high fences so you can't see anything, to the addition of a squeezed in Pre-Show which doesn't do anything worthwhile, and the less said about the Platform the better...

comment_158933

I think only two of those are relatively doable at the current time, and that's removing the pre-show and lowering the fencing... Pre-show can even be re-jigged into a queue line video just so we can still have Chase dodgy accent Driver...

Lapbars would probs require a bit of reduction of the amount of people per truck, as there's not much space in them (even for seatbelts, let alone lapbars)...

  • 2 weeks later...
comment_159690

It seems that Zufari's height restriction has been lowered to 1 metre opposed to the original 1.1 metre. From what I've read on various sources they have implemented a lap bar system thus leading to the lowering of the minimum height. Whilst is isn't a massive difference it is nice to see they are listening to criticism and hopefully this has improved the throughput as there should be no fiddling about with seatbelts.

comment_159743

Quite a few changes spotted today - I assume they are trying to respond to the feedback they've had so far this year:

  • Pathway walls leading up to the ride from Rameses have had a couple of animals painted onto them.
  • Explorer hats being handed out for picsolve photo (might have happened in past, but I'd never seen it)
  • Approximately the right number of guests for the pre-show were batched into the last section of queueline (rather than outside the pre-show doors). For the pre-show there were 2 costumed members of 'ACRE' who would hold the pre-show doors open for you and introduce/interact with parts of the video inside. The lemur voice now gives an indication of which animals you are likely to see and warns that they can't guarantee seeing all the animals.
  • The trucks all now have a simple lap bar that lowers down over the entire row. Pretty quick and no fuss! Plus the height restriction is dropped to 1.0m :)

Positive improvements all round, well done Chessington! Though will try to avoid sitting on the front row on all future expeditions - 1. Can't see anything 2. Get soaked!! And please get rid of the silly jets that blast in your eyes...

  • 2 weeks later...
comment_160467

Went on Zufari the other week; I was not impressed.

The weather was beautiful and the number of animals was minimal. Here's a POV I filmed:

The overall attractions just felt to be lacking, here's some potential improvements:

-shelter the queue! In the blazing sun it's really hard to find shade

-remove the Picsolve booth, I'm pretty sure less than 10% of people actually buy the photo, especially as nearly half the people in my group had their eyes shut on the photo!

-do something about the pre-show and loading area! The design is dreadful! People cutting in after exiting the pre-show building and everyone was crammed up with the two previous groups who had still not boarded a vehicle yet

-Please do something, anything to the warehouse, sorry, cave at the end. It does not add to the ride experience at all, especially as the voice in the vehicle cannot be heard above the noise of the motor

Overall, it was Zufari: Ride into Disappointment for me. Hopefully Chessington will be seeking ways to improve the ride! :)

comment_161114

A picture of the new restraint system has been posted by Theme Park Guide.

1004401_508759175846053_1416265518_n.jpg

The ride also closed at 1 today and as the article by Theme Park Guide says that not all of the trucks have these installed yet so maybe that is why. Or possibly it was to do with Rameses or Runaway Train as the access road is just behind Zufari. Either way, these look like an improvement!

http://www.themeparkguide.biz/news-page/17th-june-2013-zufari-restraint-upgrade

comment_161124

I do not understand how the change from individually fitted seat belts to a solid all the way across lap bar resting on the fattest persons stomach has resulted in the height restriction lowering?

surely it should be higher shouldn't it? When X had all across lap bars the restriction was high and with the individual ones its lower so shouldn't the same rules apply here??

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