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Chessington World of Adventures Resort

jon81uk said:
Then why is it in the photo? It also states bacon in the written text too, not bacon flavour soya bits. I think it’s definitely being mis-sold, that isn’t just a poor quality serving it’s not what is being promised.
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Thats the new gold standard with Aramark, remember this is a signature dish on the menu….
 
It's called Dragon's Playhouse for a reason. :oops:

Though no different to many places of work that employ a high number of teenagers to young adults. Plenty of stories I've heard and definitely a lot of relationships came about (including one for me, though I didn't get any at work benefits) between colleagues.

Also regarding the video, as soon as he claimed it was because of his "age and gender" I know I don't need to watch anymore of it. Grade A numpty.
 
The rolling ball on Tomb Blaster is completely detached from the track, for some reason. It is on top of a piece of theming. The effect hasn't worked for a long time, so maybe they are attempting to fix it.
 
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zeock said:
The rolling ball on Tomb Blaster is completely detached from the track, for some reason. It was on top of a piece of theming. The effect hasn't worked for a long time, so maybe they are attempting to fix it.
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I'm sure it was fixed when it was refurbished for 2020. Shame it's already shown to be quite unreliable in recent years. It's a cool effect, but not as cool as the giant statue room when everything was working and had good lighting when it was terror tomb. I'm glad they got rid of the horrible purple UV lights for more theatrical standard lights, making the ride visually look really good!
 
MaxPower said:
Stumbled across this video from a former Chessington employee which provides a bit of an insight into the working culture within the park..

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In terms of the video all the claims have a ring of truth, but as others have said, the titles of other videos on the channel, and the lack of context in the video, does make it all sound very questionable.

In any workplace where you’re dealing with the public it’s possible that you’ll encounter an aggressive customer. We know that Chessington gets some of the worst Trip Advisor scores of any major theme park in the world, with most of the one and star reviews being clustered on peaks days. In a workplace where you’re dealing with lots of angry customers, the risk of aggression almost certainly will be a lot higher. Even if something isn’t a specific employee’s fault, it doesn’t mean an angry customer won’t take their frustrations out on an employee.

There does also appear to be a rise in the number of assaults on people working in customer service roles in the UK, perhaps linked to backlogs in the courts and the short staffing in the police, meaning people are very unlikely to be prosecuted for assaulting staff.

Many workplaces would rather subject frontline to staff to risk the negative publicity from cases getting dragged through the courts. We know Merlin were criticised by The Smiler accident because it took 10 minutes to call the emergency services, because it had to be authorised by the duty manager. If you were generous you’d say Merlin didn’t want to waste the emergency service’s time with unnecessary calls. If you were cynical, you’d say that the company was putting their brand above people. Un-unionised workplaces like a theme park are particularly likely to prioritise the company’s reputation over protecting their staff. I’m sure Merlin’s procedures have changed since The Smiler accident. However, if a guest has assaulted an employee, would a business that historically only allowed the police to be called when it was authorised by the duty manager really have the employee’s interests at heart? And if one duty manager was calling 999 more than the others, what would that mean for their career?

It sounds like this person worked in entertainments, but Chessington have cut down on the number of staff a lot over the years, meaning there is a growing number of staff working on their own, which would considerably increase the risk to the staff.

We know that security are only paid marginally more than the minimum wage, so it is plausible that they’re not tripping over each other to get to the next aggressive guest. It’s also possible that a business looking to cut down on costs wouldn’t have enough security to staff.

It’s hard to place too much store on one person’s experiences, but to turn it around, what are Chessington doing to protect their staff from assaults? And how many staff are getting assaulted in a typical year?
 
Some throughput measurements for today:
Tomb Blaster: 624 pph
Mamba Strike: 184 pph
Mandrill Mayhem: 384 pph
An interesting thing I heard is someone complaining that the park closed at 6 pm, and they wanted it to close at 8 pm. There is clearly demand for later closures.
 
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