Chessington World of Adventures Resort

Jared I agree with everything you said. :twirly: Although I still think Wild Asia isn't getting the appreciation it deserves.

I live in Bombay and have also visited several other cultural Indian cities; and I think they got Wild Asia more or less right. It is very stylised in places, in order to make it fun (real Indian cities are awful places most of the time!), but the stained concrete finishes with exposed brick, bunting decoration and atmosphere is very authentic. Plus I really 'get' the humour in likening auto rickshaws to dodgem cars!

Also I would also argue they did re-landscape the area as well as they should have done. Shifting the entrance back to create that short winding path introduction, so that visitors come at it from a more interesting angle, is much better than Beanoland's simple 'straight on' entrance. Also moving the dodgems and extending Kobra out the back helped to make the area feel much less compact.

TheMan said:

Wild Asia lacks soul, lacks atmosphere, lacks intimacy, and lacks immersion.

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I disagree, I see a lot in Wild Asia's design and there are moments where I do feel nicely immersed in the atmosphere. Here are some of my photographs to demonstrate what I think Chessington did well:

Lovely authentic details here. This is where the paths are closest to the beautiful trees and foliage.

I am very glad they kept the fountain from Beanoland, in fact it suits Wild Asia much better and makes for a nice feature. And the giant snake statues are almost on par with the Buddha, stone faces and dragon's head in Mystic East, in terms of large-scale visual features.

Smaller details like this sometimes get overlooked, this pond and bridge is in Lorikeet Lagoon. Notice the lorikeet flying towards the camera!

The accuracy of these buildings is great. The buildings are intended to look worn out, slightly dirty and broken; that's what they actually look like in parts of India!

Oh, and, peacocks are cool.

What I like about Wild Asia is it has its own personality, music, style and special features... And it managed to maintain the fun atmosphere of Beanoland. It just lacks the genius or elaboration of Chessington's original lands. It isn't worth more than 30 minutes unless you are really young.

It could be improved if they demolished Dennis' Madhouse and expanded out the back, along with planting more jungle foliage to get that 'immersed' feel. It is also quite flat; I would have liked to see an elevated queueline or a bridge...

Marketing-wise the competition is just about the best the park can do to not only get the public involved but more importantly for them give an explanation as to the ride's dilapidated state before most even see it

Can someone tell me what the hell Chessie have done to Zafari? It was turd as hell last week with the 2 courses for £10 deal gone and 3 choices for adult meals (to which we went, we shall have kids meals, as they have more choice and are actually just as filling)...

Zufari on the other hand, I enjoyed, although it has a fair list of flaws (queue, fencing, photo point in the queue, surrounding pathways, lack of seeing the ride, the pre-show, the station, off-load, the finale)... We were lucky with the animals being out mind...

The rest of the park... Meh, seen it a lot better, seen it a lot worse... Vampire is dreadful now though, they have managed to cock it up even worse now... I hate it, especially after working on it with 3 trains and minimal stacking... YOU DO NOT HAVE TO RECHECK THE BARS 4 TIMES! Manual dispatch the bloody thing since all the bars are down... Batching would work if they loaded more than a train in as well, and having better staff... But then again, when a manager stands at the chained exit (why is this still a thing?) watching guests unable to leave and has to have it pointed out to him, it's something way too set into the park's training...

Less said about Falls' current state the better...

As sadistic as it sounds, I'm actually looking forward to seeing how bad Chessington has gotten since I last visited it. It literally is a gallery of horror stories in here at the minute, is it really that bad?

If it is it's a shame that Chessington and Towers seem to be having issues with ride operations this season. Thorpe seems to be the only one getting it on track, which is weird

LiamC said:

As sadistic as it sounds, I'm actually looking forward to seeing how bad Chessington has gotten since I last visited it. It literally is a gallery of horror stories in here at the minute, is it really that bad?

If it is it's a shame that Chessington and Towers seem to be having issues with ride operations this season. Thorpe seems to be the only one getting it on track, which is weird

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The Zufari operations were bad on launch day. I spent most of the queue line standing in the same place for about 20 minutes. That pre show scene should be shortened, its longer then the ride! That cant be right. The ride has a max of 5 trucks but they have only been running on three. You spend 5 minutes after getting on the truck just waiting before you can actually move! Over at Thorpe however, the operations on Saw were ridiculously quick. The queue moved at lightning pace and people were on and off the ride in a flash. I was really impressed. The park ride teams need to start looking at improving operations ASAP.

Benzin said:

Can someone tell me what the hell Chessie have done to Zafari? It was turd as hell last week with the 2 courses for £10 deal gone and 3 choices for adult meals (to which we went, we shall have kids meals, as they have more choice and are actually just as filling)...

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I don't know if this is a Merlin-wide thing - I noticed that The Coach House at Warwick Castle had a vastly reduced menu also and they operate in a similar style.

Zafari was very reduced menu wise today, very odd...

I also got my first experience of Zufari today. Please, someone tell merlin that they need to change their queue designs before someone dies in one. Seriously, it moved so so slowly, with absolutely nothing but a 2 second loop of music going on. Something like a few live animal shows would greatly improve it.

The ride itself is ok, nothing fantastic, but not bad. They need a bit of a rejig to lighting and audio in the cave, to really build up some tenseness. Other than that it was quite enjoyable.

You know why the queue is so slow? They (PicSolve) thought it would be FANTASTIC to have a green screen section in the middle of it... Removing that would improve it no end (as well as expanding the space available for the pre-show...

Seen some stupid ideas recently, but I think that's the worst one...

I honestly don't know who in their right mind would buy a CSO'ed photo. :

Oh, is it like Ice Age at Alton then? With a pointless green screen half way through the queue? Resulting in the queue being longer on peak days (sometimes quiet days) and often causing unnecessary faff.

Must be a new Merlin thing.

The photo point isn't really the problem - it just means the queue moves a little bit fairly often rather than a long way infrequently. The photo point would only be a problem if there was no queue after it at all and they were forced to send empty trucks, which never happens. The main reason the queue is so slow is that, like all of Chessington's major rides, Zufari doesn't get anywhere near it's theoretical throughput.

James said:

Oh, is it like Ice Age at Alton then? With a pointless green screen half way through the queue? Resulting in the queue being longer on peak days (sometimes quiet days) and often causing unnecessary faff.

Must be a new Merlin thing.

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This is also present at the London Sealife, and the London Eye 4D show. Which are just as pointless :

Seriously, why not just have a normal on ride photo for Zufari?

I can see why they don't have an actual "on ride" photo. The shape of the trucks would make it impossible to get a good angle of anything but the back rows.* But to me that just says they shouldn't have a photo at all. On a coaster it makes sense, there are funny faces to be seen, and younger kids can use it as "proof" that they "survived" the ride. But on Zufari? You may as well just have a picture of you waiting for a bus.

* Actually, the shape of the trucks makes it impossible to see what's ahead of you, so the whole "oh no, there's a fallen tree in the road, we have to turn round" bit is totally wasted as you can't see it.

So got two rides on Zufari at the weekend so thought i would post some thoughts.

Start at the entrance which is nothing special but nicely themed, i'm not a huge fan of the 8 ft high fences that adorn the paths leading to the ride though i think they hide behind the scenes stuff. There are a few nice views of the first part of the ride and the first enclosure but it would have been great to see a little more.

The queue: Typical Merlin cattle-pen, it has a few little bits to look at but the 8ft high fences surround the queue so it is a bit depressing. Don't know why they couldn't have opened up the views of the ride or built up some earth embankments with theming on to obscure what ever it is they don't want you to see. The photo building and the pre-show building are nice if simply themed.

The pre-show, this is pleasant and good fun, my only criticism here is the animation of the monkey is a little.... crap. I do however like the concept and kids seemed to love it. My big issue with the pre-show is the huge crowd rush as you leave the pre-show to join the remainder of the queue-line resulting in groups getting split.

The award for biggest fail goes to the station though. The people exiting the ride have to cross the loading platform to get out. This results in either guests getting held on the off-load platform whilst the ride loads OR delaying loading the next truck whilst people leave affecting through-puts. Seems a silly design really that hasn't been thought out.

The ride itself is fun, though obviously dependent on the animals playing ball (one ride they did, one ride they didn't). The landscape is fine and is already growing which is good. On the negative the buildings within the ride compounds look a bit pants.

Some of the road is suitably rough to make riding the thing vaguely interesting, though the design of the trucks does make forward vision a little bit impossible. It is also a little rushed so what is a short route anyway seems to fly-by.

The finale is ok, the water effects are fun and the theming is fine, though it does suffer from a lack of theming above about 8ft, with the th13teen esque drapes on the ceiling). The exit water-fall is also fun but over-all the finale is a little lack-luster.

Over-all this ride is ok, it's not amazing but it's not the train-wreck some have made it out to be (in my opinion obviously). It needs a longer course and a more punchy finale to make it any more than mediocre though

5/10

I think you're being faaaaar to generous mate

DiogoJ42 said:

I think you're being faaaaar to generous mate

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My final score is probably a bit generous based on the ride through we had where the animals where almost perfectly located. If the animals are not in ideal locations (which is to be expected, they are not props) then it probably drops to a 3.5 or a 4.

For an attraction which takes up roughly the same size as all the rest of Chessington theme park put together, Zufari really isn't delivering on anywhere near the level it should be.

Screamscape have pointed out one of Zufari's flaws in their latest Chessington update:

2013 - Zufari – Ride into Africa - (4/24/13) ThemeParkTourist has posted a nice review with some pictures of the new Zufari attraction at Chessington. There is one critical problem with the attraction… the height restriction. Zufari is the kind of attraction little kinds would love… but unfortunately for some odd reason it has a height limit of 1.1 meters (42 inches) that prevents all small kids from enjoying it.
By contrast, Disney’s safari ride at the Animal Kingdom park in Walt Disney World has no height limit. A similar style experience set to open at Six Flags Great Adventure this summer has set a height limit of 54 inches to ride without an adult. Those under 54 inches must ride with a responsible guardian, opening the attraction up to children of all ages once again. Another similar concept, Rhino Rally at Busch Gardens Tampa, has a 39 inch height limit, but the terrain traveled by the car is slightly more aggressive and riders sit in individual seats with seat belts. It is my understanding that Zufari also has individual seats with belts, but lacks the aggressive speed and terrain of Rhino Rally, so why the height limit? The seats seem to be low profile with lap-bar only belts, so it makes me wonder if they couldn’t have just gone with the same bench style seating Disney uses on their safari trucks. Then again… this is the UK and laws and restrictions are sure to be different than what I’ve seen used in the US that may make it impossible to open this attraction up to everyone.

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I hadn't realised there was a height restriction, and 1.1m is a fairly major one at that. Just to put this in perspective no ride* at Legoland has a 1.1m height restriction. The Dragon, Pirate Falls, Jolly Rocker and Viking River Splash are all 1m. As for Atlantis which we can technically call the parks Zufari equivalent (just under water rather than on land) it can be ridden by any height as long as they are accompanied.

So why does Chessington need such a major height limit for a supposedly family ride?

* not including pay extra attractions

^ To be fair to Chessie Zufari is pretty vicious! It bounces you around a lot so much so that I didn't feel particularly secure in my seat!

However I do think 1.1m is a tad high.