September 20, 201311 yr comment_168838 I think the morning is the most active time only counts for Florida because HEAT... Hotel people I think do get a chance to ride Zufari out of park hours as well already... Can't remember tbh... They need a better ending mind... The Waterfall escape can stay but just have an evil voice or something in the cave... It makes zero sense... They can't expand it much further than they did though, goes up to the park boundary already... No hope of extension there...
September 20, 201311 yr comment_168840 The cave would be much better if it worked, and if they had a door/flaps at both ends to keep it dark inside.
September 20, 201311 yr comment_168851 The cave would be much better if it worked, and if they had a door/flaps at both ends to keep it dark inside. year , that would help massivly , seems a lot less impressive and dark ,by the fact you can see how small the cave is , and the exit , just infront of the truck !
October 8, 201311 yr comment_170163 Wow, is this attraction an odd duck. I went on a day as dead as you can get but the entire process of doing Zufari ate about 40 minutes of my day! Between getting to the site entrance, waiting to be let into the pre-show, the show itself (poor Lemur tried and tried but no cheering today) and then what seemed like ten minutes waiting for the jeep to start the whole thing is a giant queue. You get all this build up to something that literally seems to last about 7 minutes. I liked the ride, the animals are great, the getting thrown around in the truck was hilarious (anyone else reminded of Ace Ventura?), the cave was...an interesting way to wrap it all up. But I really feel like they went totally overboard for what the ride actually is. Like rapping a ring in a shoebox. There's just so much razzle-dazzle when all I really wanted was to just jump straight into the Jeep and go. Warm days in October really get the zebra's excited. *winkwink*
October 9, 201311 yr comment_170164 Zufari has obviously been born out of many trips on Kilamanjaro safari from Disney's Animal Kingdom, however for some reason they decided not to bring what is probably the most crucial and successful part of that tour - interaction with the driver. Replace it with a soundtrack with noones interested in, will be the same every single time, and won't adapt to the situation around you.. It makes no sense to me, it's made an attraction which could've been incredibly good, instead incredibly mediocre. Obviously don't have enough trust in their staffing to be able to train them well and ensure they give the right experience. But that's a huge huge shame.
October 9, 201311 yr comment_170165 Zufari has obviously been born out of many trips on Kilamanjaro safari from Disney's Animal Kingdom, Really? My first thought was no one that had anything to do with making this has never been on any other Safari ride ever! It is so full of obvious mistakes, and as you say the lack of use of the driver means the thing might as well be on a track anyway. A big wasted opportunity that probably just about slips into the 'good enough' category of guest satisfaction for them not to bother with improvements.
October 9, 201311 yr comment_170167 Most of the obvious mistakes are down to the theme park portion of it, rather than the actual safari side... Like, between leaving the station and the rhino paddock is decent enough (driver interaction would of course improve things, hell even zoo staff sitting in the front on a much louder PA system would improve matters), but everything else surrounding the ride is one big mess... You can see the inspiration, but the design errors just as much...
October 9, 201311 yr comment_170177 It strikes me as odd that they couldn't extend the fake rockwork another few inches to cover the entire building instead of having an obvious bit at the top.
October 9, 201311 yr comment_170187 You know what it almost seems like? I can imagine at some point in the conception stage someone bright suggested the pre-show as a means to make queuing on busy days less tiresome for people, and that in his mind it'd be designed to enhance the whole experience. But then he left and some derp who had delusions of Disney designed the whole thing to be a throughput nightmare.
October 9, 201311 yr comment_170206 Preshow must be taken from american parks - they seem to love this way of making people feel like they're not in a queue. Issue is, it doesn't work. And it's poor. Shoestring budget and by god you can tell.
October 12, 201311 yr comment_170437 The interaction with the driver can be hit and miss, it can be brilliant or very poor. At least with the pre-recorded PA every guest gets the same experience which in all honestly is what they should be aiming at.
October 13, 201311 yr comment_170494 Why should every guest get the same experience? They should get the (minimum) experience, but everything above and beyond that will add so much to the attraction, and make every single ride unique. Animals are unique, they'll be in different locations and be doing different things. Pre-recorded announcements do nothing to take advantage of this, and the main thing RE-RIDABILITY. The ride would be so reridable with interaction, you'd want to go again (as I did with disneys). Zufari you just wish to go as far away as possible.
October 13, 201311 yr comment_170521 I wouldn't mind constant experience between guests, just a shame the current experience is DIRE and makes no sense...
October 15, 201311 yr comment_170612 I believe a consistent experience is the best way, that way everyone gets the same, otherwise you have some people having a great experience, others feeling very disappointed. Very good high quality attractions work very hard to give all their guests a consistent experience, look at the attractions in Orlando for example. Wherever possible if they can enhance the guest experience then even better. For me I would much prefer to get the same level of experience every time.
October 15, 201311 yr comment_170617 Yet rides like Jungle Cruise, the Safaris and pre-destruction Jaws were all loved because of the available improv to the ride hosts... Even Tower of Terror has a fantastic array of experiences available to guests throughout the ride... Terminator 2 as well can be added to the list... There's a set dialogue blurb of course, but then the host can do what they want with it... Considering Zufari's dialogue is A - Crap (the Rhino dung and warning signs sections), B - Makes no sense as you never meet Chase in the pre-show now (Not that it did in the first place) and C - Dependant on the animals being out, it's not a very good experience in the first hand... In fact, the attraction itself is inconsistent due to the animals and their behaviour... Having a driver be in charge of the dialogue would improve things a lot more, because of being able to adapt to the whole thing as it changes on a constant basis... It's extremely boring and confusing to have silence because there's an animal in the way and you can't see it, or that the traffic lights are red and you're still sat in silence... So basically, long story short, improv would be an improvement... Unless they think that means more Gotzee, it which case, it should go away...
October 15, 201311 yr comment_170640 To be honest, if the preshow only had the part with Chase (And no Gotzee), I wouldn't hate it as much. Or better still, if they turned it into an indoor section of the queue with Chase being on a queueline TV.
October 15, 201311 yr comment_170646 You wouldn't have awful experiences with Zufari if you had a driver talking, THAT'S the point. Everything would ADAPT to the situation. Have no animals? Play hugely on the tree branch in the way, reversing, huge waterfall area. Have something not working? Work around it. Yes, you get consistent now, but it's consistently crap.
October 30, 201311 yr comment_171452 well at least some of the indoor section is working properly... the door doesn't close behind, and a lot of the sprays aren't working... but the main water cascading on the left works (which was really disappointing when I went last month, and all the tension with the noise, then it lights up... and nothing!)
February 3, 201411 yr comment_175889 I wonder if Chessie have done any work on this over the closed season? Fixing the waterfall effects would be nice...
February 3, 201411 yr comment_175904 There is no doubt that money and work has been done on this ride. If people will notice anything that will be another thing. I do hope this season that all the plants and vegetation grows a lot more as it did look very bare last year, but like all attractions it does often take a few years for them to mature.
February 4, 201411 yr comment_175914 But then, if it looked too green it wouldn't look very African. When I picture Safari I mostly see yellow.
February 4, 201411 yr comment_175948 You can never please some people! Ok get the weed killer out :-)
February 4, 201411 yr comment_175950 Hey I thought it looked pretty good back in October. http://i13.photobucket.com/albums/a255/Pink_Oracle/Chessington2013047_zpsb54fa562.jpg
February 6, 201411 yr comment_176023 Yeah, its not very safari look if it is going green. Hopefully the animals will deal with a lot of the grass but then again it will probably still end up likes STR's area
February 7, 201411 yr comment_176100 Not very safari if it's green? Stay away from arguably one of the best theme park safari's in the world then (kilamanjaro), you'll hate it.
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