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ChristmasPud
TS Member
Good to see Chessington World of Adventures always striving to create memorable experiences for guests by, err, making their attractions memorably awful? Just when you think this ride couldnt get more utterly shoddy. Check out the worst of the audio problems 3 minutes in
The perfect excuse – take what used to be one of the best family dark rides in the country 20 years ago, make it extremely bad and not care, then use it as an excuse to ask Merlin for capex to redesign it with an IP.
All audio & video throughout the park is extremely poor, whoever has done this stuff are seriously taking the park for a ride. They have also cut the 3D glasses from Hocus Pocus Hall, I guess to save money on washing & stock? You have to question why they still open such worn out attractions. Apparently they have even badly dubbed over the Hocus Pocus Hall preshow video to remove references of 3D glasses.
The perfect excuse – take what used to be one of the best family dark rides in the country 20 years ago, make it extremely bad and not care, then use it as an excuse to ask Merlin for capex to redesign it with an IP.
All audio & video throughout the park is extremely poor, whoever has done this stuff are seriously taking the park for a ride. They have also cut the 3D glasses from Hocus Pocus Hall, I guess to save money on washing & stock? You have to question why they still open such worn out attractions. Apparently they have even badly dubbed over the Hocus Pocus Hall preshow video to remove references of 3D glasses.
Matt Creek
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Steel Vengeance
Visited the park today and though the staff were generally friendly and helpful, I can relate to the above post.
Tomb Blaster was in a diabolical state, the queue line, effects and ride area just look so drab and rundown. The audio was the worst I’ve ever seen it and makes the state of the ride 5-10 years ago now look nostalgic.
Hocus Pocus was an embarrassment. The fact they can no longer provide 3D glasses makes what was once a simple but amusing attraction so inferior now. The poor pre-show dubbing was insult to injury.
Vampire has funky new lighting around the gates but this, doesn’t conceal the wound of the ‘still missing’ chandeliers and School disco lighting job. Rattlesnake is still a rundown mess along with Fury which needs a repaint badly.
For some reason, the atmosphere at the park today felt noticeably more underwhelming then previous years and lacked the exciting pre-season buildup from the past.
It’s good seeing parks building and opening new attractions, offering some fresh experiences to the parks,p. But if an organisation (especially the size of Merlin) cannot seem capable of maintaining existing attractions and keeping basic upkeep and consistency of basic effects, then what hope is there in providing a good product.
Tomb Blaster was in a diabolical state, the queue line, effects and ride area just look so drab and rundown. The audio was the worst I’ve ever seen it and makes the state of the ride 5-10 years ago now look nostalgic.
Hocus Pocus was an embarrassment. The fact they can no longer provide 3D glasses makes what was once a simple but amusing attraction so inferior now. The poor pre-show dubbing was insult to injury.
Vampire has funky new lighting around the gates but this, doesn’t conceal the wound of the ‘still missing’ chandeliers and School disco lighting job. Rattlesnake is still a rundown mess along with Fury which needs a repaint badly.
For some reason, the atmosphere at the park today felt noticeably more underwhelming then previous years and lacked the exciting pre-season buildup from the past.
It’s good seeing parks building and opening new attractions, offering some fresh experiences to the parks,p. But if an organisation (especially the size of Merlin) cannot seem capable of maintaining existing attractions and keeping basic upkeep and consistency of basic effects, then what hope is there in providing a good product.
bluesonichd
TS Member
I think they are the polorised ones like you get at the cinema
Go Try it and report back
ChristmasPud
TS Member
They are chromadepth, not 3D cinema glasses.
Boats? This aint gruffalo (the one ride Chessington do maintain because it's new and probably contractually obliged to in the IP deal)
them ones on Spooky 4D at Oakwood would work?
Bert2theSpark
TS Member
But didn't they do that 5 or so years ago where they invested £14mill on regenerating the park?
AstroDan
TS Team
- Favourite Ride
- Steel Vengeance, Cedar Point
If Vampire has had theming removed/Fury needs a repaint/Rattlesnake looks tired/Zufari is running 2 vehicles with a 100min queue etc. - whatever happened 5 years ago failed.
ChristmasPud
TS Member
This is true in general, but the Tomb Blaster thing is especially poor.
The lighting & audio was in a very poor state when it shut in 2015, but the back-end tech didn't need entirely replacing. When the 2016 tech 'upgrade' happened, it was a big waste of their money on making something worse.
New lighting throughout with glowing purple light in the wrong places. New amps & soundcards with whole chunks of audio & spot sounds missing (the most obvious part is the mummies at the end), very poorly programmed music which fades out halfway through or jitters around, poorly remixed and hurts your ears as the trains pass the speakers.
It wouldnt take a multi-million cash injection to fix all this and would have cost less than the big waste of capex they've got now. It's not very difficult to fix either, but it would take somebody who cares, has high standards and is better informed about the ride. I'm amazed Tomb Blaster has got even worse since the 2016 job rather than fixing those errors.
The Hocus Pocus preshow bodge job would have also been very easy to do better on a £0 budget, if higher standards were held internally. To be honest, the park should close the attraction if they don't have the budget to run it as intended with the glasses anymore (though theyre not that expensive). It's outlived its best anyway and is very worn out now, same with Vampire, very lame compared to how they used to be
This was a PR claim. The money was almost entirely on the new hotel and existing attractions received no notable reinvestment.
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Matt Creek
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Steel Vengeance
Hefty cash injections for Chessington (or all Merlin parks more-so) is only half the battle.
Building or extensively updating attractions is all good and well, but maintaining and keeping existing attractions and areas makes things already much better. If the park could get the financial infrastructure to maintain basic effects, structures and simple area painting the parks would already look and feel comparatively better.
If Merlin had given Chessington a ‘proper’ upkeep budget then maybe we would’ve never seen things like the Crypt and Vampire chandeliers removed and not properly replaced. Parks such as Phantasialand, Liseberg snd Europa Park do simple repaints (amongst other improvements) on a yearly basis, whereas at Merlin parks we are lucky if we ever see that at all.
With the exception of the Gruffalo area and Tiger Falls building site, most of the park remained in just as much decrepit state as last season (and those before it), remaining rundown, unloved and much the same. Even Gruffalo had a few things broken, but then agsin its new and should be in still top form.
Building or extensively updating attractions is all good and well, but maintaining and keeping existing attractions and areas makes things already much better. If the park could get the financial infrastructure to maintain basic effects, structures and simple area painting the parks would already look and feel comparatively better.
If Merlin had given Chessington a ‘proper’ upkeep budget then maybe we would’ve never seen things like the Crypt and Vampire chandeliers removed and not properly replaced. Parks such as Phantasialand, Liseberg snd Europa Park do simple repaints (amongst other improvements) on a yearly basis, whereas at Merlin parks we are lucky if we ever see that at all.
With the exception of the Gruffalo area and Tiger Falls building site, most of the park remained in just as much decrepit state as last season (and those before it), remaining rundown, unloved and much the same. Even Gruffalo had a few things broken, but then agsin its new and should be in still top form.
Gotta give credit where it's due though, for all the crap and abuse the staff reportedly had to put up with from people over this last weekend, they were still smiling when we walked in yesterday at 3pm and happy to sort something out for us that in all honesty could have waited until next weekend.
I also hope the passholders who were caught abusing staff loose their passes permanently, especially one particular nasty one who made quiet a scene on Vampire by all accounts.
I also hope the passholders who were caught abusing staff loose their passes permanently, especially one particular nasty one who made quiet a scene on Vampire by all accounts.
ChristmasPud
TS Member
Oh yeah, staff do have to put up with a lot from self entitled passholders a lot. Tis a shame :/ Hope nothing too bad happened
Just verbal, but I'm afraid if I'd have seen what went on I'd have filmed it (it's a publically accessible place so no expectation of privacy) and sent it directly to Nick Varney, the staff deserve a medal for standing their ground and not let him bully his way onto the ride.
I'm sure you can guess what went on, or if you happen to be a member of a certain Facebook group, already know the gist of it. By all accounts some other passholders stood up to the person as well so it wasn't all bad, just a sad reflection of the entitled times we live in.
I'm sure you can guess what went on, or if you happen to be a member of a certain Facebook group, already know the gist of it. By all accounts some other passholders stood up to the person as well so it wasn't all bad, just a sad reflection of the entitled times we live in.
dickie001x
TS Member
Video not found.....please check again!