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Chessington World of Adventures Resort

Matt.GC said:
Paultons is the best family park in the UK right now and puts all the Merlin parks to shame full stop.
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Not really.

As much as Paultons is a great family park and very well kept, you can hardly start saying it puts Alton Towers with its ride stock and events to shame.

Paultons is a lovely smaller park but let us not get carried away. It needs some dark rides, better restaurants, hours and seasonal events before it starts really threatening ATR.
 
AstroDan said:
Not really.

As much as Paultons is a great family park and very well kept, you can hardly start saying it puts Alton Towers with its ride stock and events to shame.

Paultons is a lovely smaller park but let us not get carried away. It needs some dark rides, better restaurants, hours and seasonal events before it starts really threatening ATR.
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I geniunly believe Paultons is the better family park, in that it serves everyone in a family with adults and children much more completely and with togetherness that AT does not deliver at all.

There is no (longer) any food on park at AT better than that served up in the new Paultons restaurant. While pretty standard theme park fare in terms of range the quality is far better than any Merlin on park food offering I can think of.

Yes, the thrill hardware offering is still some way behind, so if that is where you are putting your weighting then AT will clearly win out, but on just about any other measure Paultins takes it for me. When the dark rides you are missing out on are the state that Duel now is and an upcharged dungeon it's not much of a sway back to Towers.

Paultons, to my knowledge, has no 4PM closes...

I don't think the original quote is at all outlandish.
 
There is no (longer) any food on park at AT better than that served up in the new Paultons restaurant.
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Ah, be serious, Woodcutters serves really high quality pub food in contrast to Paultons' fast food style options.

The new restaurant at Paultons is fine and nicely themed but I think you're really pushing it there. I'd also say that food variety at Paultons still leaves a bit to be desired, with offerings repeated at multiple outlets throughout the (small) park - although it is vastly improved on what it was five years ago.
 
Sorry, I was responding to the assertion that Paultons "puts all the Merlin parks to shame full stop" rather than the family thing.

It's easy to get carried away. The Merlin parks are too varied to lump into one pot as much as it's trendy to just slag them off wholesale.

I look forward to the food at Paultons if it has improved so dramatically. Last time I was at Paultons, it was utterly dreadful. Certainly, somewhere like Woodcutters was vastly better than anything I saw at Paultons that day. It was 5 years ago, mind.

Equally, Paultons may not have any 4pm closes but then neither does it have any 6, 7, 8 or 9pm closes. Swings and roundabouts.

Paultons is a lovely, well run place and theye're going places I am sure - and no doubt great if you have a 7 year old. Otherwise, though - I am sorry. I just don't buy it yet.
 
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D4n said:
Ah, be serious, Woodcutters serves really high quality pub food in contrast to Paultons' fast food style options.
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I was serious. Can only speak from experience, last time I went to Woodcutters it was dreadful for both food and service, and very expensive for what it was. That was a couple of years admittedly, if it's improved then fair enough.

As I said, Paultons is very limited on options, the variety on menus across the park as a whole are small, but what they are doing they're now doing very well.

AstroDan said:
Sorry, I was responding to the assertion that Paultons "puts all the Merlin parks to shame full stop" rather than the family thing.

It's easy to get carried away. The Merlin parks are too varied to lump into one pot as much as it's trendy to just slag them off wholesale.
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Paultons are a long way behind any given Merlin park in terms ride hardwear and variety, especially at the thrill end at Towers, there's no denying that.

But Merlins parks can be lumped into one pot in terms of operations, both on a day to day running and a development strategy basis, which are consistent across the estate, and that is where Paultons excel. The way it is run, they way it is presented, they way new developments are implemented, it's all head and shoulders above Merlins approach regardless of which park you are in. I find myself enjoying Merlins rides in spite of how they and the parks are presented and run, not because of it.

I guess that's where they're coming from, and I'd agree.
 
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I don't disagree. Paultons is a cute independent joint with no awkward conglomerate strings to contend with. It reminds me of Nigloland a little but with poorer rides.

But the way Alton Towers is operated is vastly different to Thorpe Park or Chessington.

Alton Towers is excellent for ride operations on the whole, for example.

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I'd be hard pressed to think of any park anywhere, other than Thorpe perhaps, where rides being closed is so prevalent. On Tuesday we waited for Nemesis which had a 20 minute stoppage whilst we were in the station, walked across the gardens over to Th13teen, closed all day, looked at Rita, closed, queue evacuated ... so we went on a Waltzer.

I am not sure if I am unlucky, but that's a fairly standard Alton trip for me these days.

As has been said, Paultons has a lot less, but they run it pretty consistently.
 
Rick said:
I'd be hard pressed to think of any park anywhere, other than Thorpe perhaps, where rides being closed is so prevalent. On Tuesday we waited for Nemesis which had a 20 minute stoppage whilst we were in the station, walked across the gardens over to Th13teen, closed all day, looked at Rita, closed, queue evacuated ... so we went on a Waltzer.

I am not sure if I am unlucky, but that's a fairly standard Alton trip for me these days.

As has been said, Paultons has a lot less, but they run it pretty consistently.
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I can't say I find this typical of ATR. I think you're unlucky. That said, when there's a bad day at Alton - it's a bad day. You'll find rides seem to go like dominoes. Then on most other days, issues are largely fine.

It would also be fair to say that the rides at ATR are vastly more complex machines than those at Paultons or Chessington.
 
AstroDan said:
I can't say I find this typical of ATR. I think you're unlucky. That said, when there's a bad day at Alton - it's a bad day. You'll find rides seem to go like dominoes. Then on most other days, issues are largely fine.

It would also be fair to say that the rides at ATR are vastly more complex machines than those at Paultons or Chessington.
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Right, but not more complex than older rides of the same model operated almost flawlessly by Six Flags and Cedar Fair.
 
AstroDan said:
It would also be fair to say that the rides at ATR are vastly more complex machines than those at Paultons or Chessington.
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Do you mean in terms of size, intensity, number of trains running or something else entirely? What metric are you measuring complexity by?

I’d argue that Vampire, Rattlesnake and Dragon’s Fury at Chessington, as well as Storm Chaser and Cobra at Paultons, could be considered equally complex as anything at Alton; Rattlesnake, Dragon’s Fury and Cobra in particular have tons of different cars to manage at any one time.
 
Matt N said:
Do you mean in terms of size, intensity, number of trains running or something else entirely? What metric are you measuring complexity by?

I’d argue that Vampire, Rattlesnake and Dragon’s Fury at Chessington, as well as Storm Chaser and Cobra at Paultons, could be considered equally complex as anything at Alton; Rattlesnake, Dragon’s Fury and Cobra in particular have tons of different cars to manage at any one time.
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The technical and mechanical requirements on something like Galactica or Rita is vastly more complex from an engineering standpoint than something with a basic lifthill such as Rattlesnake.
 
Rick said:
Right, but not more complex than older rides of the same model operated almost flawlessly by Six Flags and Cedar Fair.
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That's quite a blanket statement you're making there. I mean, I have been to a dozen or more Six Flags/Cedar Fair/other major US parks and I can certainly recount occasions when rides have been unavailable for the entire day - whether the Screamin' Swing at Cedar Point, El Toro at Great Adventure, Tempesto at BGW, Lightning Rod at Dollywood (admittedly not CF/SF parks) or various Larson Loops which litter SF parks .

I have been to Alton Towers 8 times this season - on one of those days I would say reliability proved to be a real issue (the domino effect). The other seven days were pretty standard. The odd thing here or there, but certainly not a widespread issue.

It would be fair to say that the step change in hours this season at ATR will probably be affecting availability on some days. That's just a train of thought, mind.
 
Rick said:
Right, but not more complex than older rides of the same model operated almost flawlessly by Six Flags and Cedar Fair.
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From my experience from a number of visits, six flags especially but also cedar fair do not operate them almost flawlessly. Multiple break downs during my visits to the parks. Plus coasters down for much longer periods at six flags than ever experienced at Alton.
 
Quite possibly lads, again - down to experience. Not since ~2006 or so have I been to a Six Flags park and not ridden everything.

Like I say, I must just be unlucky at Alton. I will report back with my latest disappointment.
 
AstroDan said:
Sorry, I was responding to the assertion that Paultons "puts all the Merlin parks to shame full stop" rather than the family thing.

It's easy to get carried away. The Merlin parks are too varied to lump into one pot as much as it's trendy to just slag them off wholesale.
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To clarify, I poorly worded that and I see how it reads and I'm not suggesting that Paultons is a better park than the likes of AT. It isn't.

In its capacity as a family park, it is better in my opinion than anything Merlin offer. I think it's better than Chessington, better than Lego and better than Alton as a family park. Having taken a family of the target age group to all of these many times, I 100% stand by that opinion.
 
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I think Paultons benefits from slightly lower expectations than the Merlin parks just because it doesn’t have the history and brand recognition of say an Alton Towers.

I found their food offering to be, on balance, better than Towers. There’s less chance of getting stuck with a terrible burger for example and a higher quality at some of the newer outlets. They also had their outlets open.

Clearly Towers wins on ride hardware, but for attention to detail, presentation, customer service, cleanliness and (outside of the coasters) dare I say even ride variety, I’d suggest Paultons is the superior park. I’m not totally convinced we’re comparing the same apples at the moment though.
 
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Tbh On a young child front Paultons does put the big players to shame !

how many rides are suitable for 1-2 year olds at any merlin park?

chessington
dragon boats
Gruffalo
Room on a broom- not a ride
Carousel
Tiny truckers
Jungle cars
Tomb blaster- not particularly suitable for age group but can ride.

Alton towers
Ceebies land except- go jetters / Octonauts

so postman pat, bugbie go round, in the night garden, ready set go.

duel- not really suitable for 1-2 year

Paultons park :
Have 18 rides with no height restrictions
One more with 0.75cm restriction

it puts merlin to shame tbh
 
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