• ℹ️ Heads up...

    This is a popular topic that is fast moving Guest - before posting, please ensure that you check out the first post in the topic for a quick reminder of guidelines, and importantly a summary of the known facts and information so far. Thanks.

Chessington World of Adventures Resort

jon81uk said:
I agree that Chessington are trying to move in the right direction, becoming a zoo-based theme park and Zufari was a great step towards that, as it combined a ride and animals pretty well.
Click to expand...
I dont think they have ever combined animals and rides to any success at all. Tiger Rock is the biggest example of that, all money spent on the tiger enclosures (surround the paths in giant fences for some tigers that never go near the ride anyway) that no budget to make an entertaining ride.

Zufari was an awful half baked idea in every way. It still could have been much better on the budget it did have.
 
I get that Zufari wasn't as good as it good be (trademark CWoA), but its still one of the most solid rides in the park. It probably would be better overall if the cave finale was just scrapped entirely as it doesn't quite work but all the animal sections are pretty good. It would have been nice to see what could have been done if there wasn't budget cuts, but it doesn't feel like the budget was rock bottom. My biggest complaint is that it needs a seperate offload station as it doesn't work with guests exiting past those waiting to board, causing the capacity to lower even further.
 
They took 4 or 5 no queue attractions and put them behind one of the largest queues in the park.

Seeing the animals is good because I can walk right up, when I fancy a break from queuing for a while.

Not to mention they could easily double or triple capacity on every day I've ridden it. Yet they don't, just one van pootling around the track.
 
Lurker said:
They took 4 or 5 no queue attractions and put them behind one of the largest queues in the park.

Seeing the animals is good because I can walk right up, when I fancy a break from queuing for a while.

Not to mention they could easily double or triple capacity on every day I've ridden it. Yet they don't, just one van pootling around the track.
Click to expand...

I didn't think they had many of those animals at all before opening Zufari, many of them were brought in just for the attraction. I do agree about capacity though, they should be running as many trucks as needed to keep the queue under 30 minutes, until they cannot fit any more trucks on the ride.
 
jon81uk said:
I didn't think they had many of those animals at all before opening Zufari, many of them were brought in just for the attraction. I do agree about capacity though, they should be running as many trucks as needed to keep the queue under 30 minutes, until they cannot fit any more trucks on the ride.
Click to expand...

Sure, but would it have been so tricky to build a path to see some of them too?
 
Aren't the only animals not viewable from pathway the Rhinos?

Giraffes were usually wandering around the lookout tower unless that's been removed.
 
Benzin said:
Aren't the only animals not viewable from pathway the Rhinos?

Giraffes were usually wandering around the lookout tower unless that's been removed.
Click to expand...

They added a viewing platform/lookout for non riders for the Rhinos a couple of years back. The Giraffes etc can be seen by walking through the reserve on the path opposite the Zufari entrance.
 
jon81uk said:
My biggest complaint is that it needs a seperate offload station as it doesn't work with guests exiting past those waiting to board, causing the capacity to lower even further.
Click to expand...
All it would have taken would have been to route exiting guests the other way round the pre show building. It would have made the job of the merge host a bit more challenging, but probably still manageable.
 
Zufari is just a token safari ride because some marketing manager in an office said "Chessington, that's the zoo one." It was pretty unpopular most days, even not long after it opened, mostly because people couldnt find the badly designed entrance and weren't too bothered.
 
To be fair, Chessington is the zoo one.
Never visited when it has had rides.
Wanted to, but the rest of the group wanted a park with more than one decent coaster.
 
Thameslink Rail said:
I can't work out how old the Victorian Carousel at Paultons is or the new River Rafts (which I believe used to be at Sealife Weymouth), if anyone knows how old these rides are then do tell me (and please don't point out that Victorian means 1837-1901, I already know that).
Click to expand...

The Carousel arrived in 2014. I assumed it was a new ride, but I guess that could be Paultons TLC making it look new.
 
Oh my God! I’ve just seen the entrance to the rainforest area!

EVEN IF THAT WAS THE ENTRANCE TO A PARK I WOULDN'T BE IMPRESSED LOL.
 
I just saw this really interesting article from SouthParks about the originally planned Egyptian theme for Dragon Falls: https://www.southparks.co.uk/history/the-drawing-board/an-alternative-to-mystic-east/

It would seem that had this theme been picked, the two Angkor Wat heads would have been two Sphinx-style statues instead, and a pyramid would have enclosed the first lift hill and drop.

While we’re on the subject of Egypt and Chessington, what was the theme of Forbidden Kingdom, before it had the Egyptian theme applied, as I’m assuming that it was not an Egypt-themed area when The Fifth Dimension existed?
 
On another “old Chessington”-related note; did Tussauds have Tomb Blaster and Duel’s ride systems bespokely designed by Mack as a custom ride system? Only asking because when you look at dark rides on Mack’s website, the only two types mentioned are the 8-person single car dark ride (for “medium capacities”) and the omnimover (for “the highest capacity”): https://mack-rides.com/products/dark-rides/dark-ride/

I was under the impression that Tomb Blaster was an omnimover, but I could have sworn that someone once told me it had separate trains. I know that Duel’s station works like that of an omnimover, but the ride system itself is not an omnimover, because I remember reading about it in Tales of the Towers, and John Wardley said that Duel was a real headache to operate in its early years for this reason. Does anyone know any more?
 
Duel’s ride system exists to solve Wardley’s belief that omnimovers remove any degree of surprise and consistency from dark rides, as inevitably someone at some point either sees the scene triggering ahead of them or sees it resetting, both of which are real mood killers.

In theory, with the right lighting, once you leave the station on Duel you should be able to make it most if not all the way around without actually seeing another vehicle, further adding to the mood as you suddenly feel much more alone. However, that effect is lost at several points these days.

The rolling loading system is used to get throughputs up and keep continually loading so that you get the capacity benefits of an omnimover but without the issue of trigger points around the ride.

I believe that Mack did sell one other ride system similar to Duel (I think it might be in Japan? I distinctly remember hearing someone had stumbled upon a second one.). However, compared to a lot of other similar transit systems on the market at the time it was very complex and quite costly (a single vehicle on Duel cost more than the average family car when it opened, and they bought 32 of them!).

Tomb Blaster is a strange ride system in general. I’ve never seen another one quite like it other than Journey Into Imagination at Epcot. The ride uses trains which are stopped and started within show scenes and the stations. Again, it goes some way to addressing the need of not having scenes reset in front of guests (albeit, it not as personal of an experience as Duel, as you’re sat in a train rather than single groups), but due to the fact the ride stops at several points (originally for the story to play out, today for you just to shoot targets) it probably wasn’t practical to attempt to rolling load it. You need the vehicles to move as one to maintain the timings.
 
@Matt N if you are interested in the Haunted House specifically (including info on the ride system etc) then it’s worth getting a copy of the book Smoke and Mirrors: The Haunted House of Alton Towers.

It is full of info including construction pictures and plans for the ride, an interesting read if you like that sort of thing.
 
Matt N said:
While we’re on the subject of Egypt and Chessington, what was the theme of Forbidden Kingdom, before it had the Egyptian theme applied, as I’m assuming that it was not an Egypt-themed area when The Fifth Dimension existed?
Click to expand...

There was no theme before 1994 - The Fifth Dimension was not in a named land, and stood alone in a silver/grey corrugated box, with a small kiosk next to it.
 
Ah right; thanks for the clarification, guys! I must admit, I’m surprised that The Fifth Dimension did not have a themed land surrounding it; I thought John Wardley’s whole ethos with Chessington was to design fully themed areas a la Disney, which is why we saw the likes of Mystic East and Mexicana built when the park originally opened?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top