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Chessington World of Adventures Resort

Rick said:
I have this discussion with people all the time about town planning when they complain about new houses being built and how it's "disgrace that we are destroying the countryside" before I remind them that the house that they live in was a field not less than 30 years ago.
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My local council leader wrote in the local rag recently that he gets a lot of letters from the NIMBY brigade about new home building projects in the town. He basically apologised and said that he tries to stop or all but the government keeps overriding him. To which I emailed him and told him that we desperately need more housing and that I'm appalled he sides with all the old, rich (both of which descriptions are practically interchangeable these days), land owning NIMBY elite in trying to block affordable housing for the young.

I suppose the moral of the story is, change needs to be beneficial. Is what you loose outweighed by what you gain? You could argue that a modern Gruffalo ride that kids can relate to needs to replace an irrelevant knackered old Bublleworks that seemed to be lingering on for nostalgic reasons. Transylvania to so called "Wild Woods" however.... err... not so much.
 
Hairobics said:
Oi. Don't undermine my pop at Merlin.
Bring back Bubbleworks and I'll be civil.
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Why would they bring back bubbleworks? It had its time things have to move on. Is gruffalo better then prof. Burp?? No not at all. But it is a hell of a lot better then the rubbish that became bubbkeworks after the IL sponsor! The only reason people want bubbleworks back is because they have memories of riding it when they was younger or when there kids was small. But these days the bubbleworks wouldn't interest my 3 year old. All looks to fake. And that's why the gruffalo works so well. And not to mention the amount of people who visited even just to see if it would come close to bubbleworks. As much as I hate ip's I must admit that this was a much needed ride at a time when the whole merlin parks are struggling to recover from the change in financial climate. Just hope that some of the revenues raised will be put back into chessington and make the park look good again. But yeah the gruffalo really screws up the areas theme :(
 
That was mostly a joke. And tell that 3 year old that she is wrong. :p

Edit: I've lost all faith in Chessington being something I will ever enjoy. It's just a whole different beast now, but that's fine.
 
Hi guys. Just a random Chessington question. I personally feel that the park is currently very centered towards young families, so was it always intended to be a family park or is this just a stigma brought about by Merlin?
 
Matt N said:
Hi guys. Just a random Chessington question. I personally feel that the park is currently very centered towards young families, so was it always intended to be a family park or is this just a stigma brought about by Merlin?
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It's been targeted towards young families ever since Tussauds bought Thorpe Park.

In the 80's & 90's it was geared towards thrill seekers just as much as families.

As for Merlin, I think they would prefer that there were no rides at all and just turn the place back into a zoo surrounded by hotels.
 
MaxPower said:
It's been targeted towards young families ever since Tussauds bought Thorpe Park.

In the 80's & 90's it was geared towards thrill seekers just as much as families.

As for Merlin, I think they would prefer that there were no rides at all and just turn the place back into a zoo surrounded by hotels.
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Why couldn't they just have had both parks cater to all like Alton Towers does?
 
I must say that the only time I have ever been to Chessington it was just a zoo.
I have no recollection, it was half a century ago...but apparently there were absolutely no queues at all, and the whole family had a lovely day...for less than a fiver.
Always wanted to go back to ride Vampire, but been scared as I would stand out rather as a solo adult male...same reason I don't do Legoland.
 
Matt N said:
Why couldn't they just have had both parks cater to all like Alton Towers does?
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Tussauds didn't have Legoland in the same group as Merlin do now, and it was increasingly difficullt for Chessington to get planning permission for larger rides. Meanwhile, Thorpe was a blank slate. It didn't entirely work, though, and Merlin have enforced some half-baked measures to readress the balance in recent years.
 
DiogoJ42 said:
Back in my day, Chessie was THE place to go in the south. Thorpe was the one considered a "kid's park"!
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Likewise diogo. Chessie used to be where my school used to take us, then after I left school they added samurai. Doing that with a hangover back in 98 put me off for life.

It looked like back then the place was catering for everyone, but doing it with class.
 
In many ways chessington has the sad history of being the park that inspired Tussauds/ Merlin to buy other parks.

Wardley said in an interview that the council made it very clear that they wouldn't allow major expansion of Chessington in the 90's which led Tussauds to buy Alton Towers from Broome. Later in its life span the desire to have a thrill park in the south led to Tussauds buying Thorpe Park as it had fewer planning constraints. Tussauds then began the thrill park/ family park split. Merlin I think struggle with the south parks identities particularly as Lego exists in their portfolio as well.
 
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