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Chessington World of Adventures Resort

spinba11 said:
I don’t think vampire has 3 working trains.
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Well if Merlin actually cared about their guests then they would buy a new train to replace the one that gave up 7 years ago. But in the long term, they need to actually plan for when Vampire inevitably gives up. There is no way that the park will cope without it and it doesn't look like Merlin have noticed that it won't keep going forever.
 
Matt N said:
I was under the impression that the park’s theoretical throughputs for coasters were something like this:
  • Vampire: 1200pph
  • Scorpion Express: 1000pph
  • Dragon’s Fury: 950pph
  • Rattlesnake: 900pph
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These figures are, at best, wildly optimistic. As has already been mentioned, Vampire now runs two trains - more often than not the first is in the brakes before the 2nd is ready to go: typical throughput around 700. Fury will get 650/hr on a good day, but is often far less. According to a sign in the op cabin, Rattlesnake had a target of 400/hr about 10 years ago - it's not improved since and that doesn't account for the fact that you can't have 4 adults in a car so you often get multiple cars going out with 2 people. Scorpion Express is probably the only coaster that has a chance of getting close to 1000/hr
 
Whatever the arguments are for and against Fast Track, I think it's safe to assume that whoever made the decision isn't someone who spends much time out in the park talking to angry customers. And if staff get abused or assaulted, I expect their response would be, "They just need to have good listening skills and explain the rules clearly, and I'm sure the guests will understand. In fact, I've got an acronym that might help them to deal with angry customers...".
 
There seems to be a couple of themes with the TripAdvisor reviews.

The entrance queue of one to two hours for temperature checks and bag searches.
Other guests not social distancing and "they let too many people in"
breakdowns as the ride hardware is too old (vampire and scorpian express seem common.
Long queues (60-90 minutes) that probably should be expected.
Long queues that shouldn't be expected (180 minutes)
I want a fastrack so I can skip the queue and not worry about social distancing.


The two main issues seem to be the entrance queue and the "too many guests". The entrance sounds like it needs more temperature check stations and better management.
 
AstroDan said:
Whoever is running Chessington would appear incompetent.

The TripAdvisor is tanking, so why would you reintroduce paid fastrack which will make already horrendous waiting times longer?

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I don't agree with the logic, I pesonally would rather have one queue that moves quickly. But there are guests who would leave a much better review if they can pay to skip queues, there are comments in the reviews asking for fastrack.
Too many people don't care about others and only want to improve their day, someone seems to think appealling to those guests and offering fastrack will help.

But the biggest thing they need to fix is the entrance queue, almost two hours just to get into the park is not acceptable.
 
jon81uk said:
the guests who buy the fastrack will have a better day. There are some reviews and things where people are angry they can’t pay to skip the long queues. some guests don’t think about how much longer it makes the wait for everyone else, they just want to pay up to skip it.
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Genuinely I don’t think that your average guests think like that.

I remember once overhearing a staff member, at Chessington actually, explaining to a guest that Fastrack was sold out for the day, to which she replied with a sarcastic laugh and said “how can fastrack be sold out?!”

It is wrong to say that people are selfish for buying Fastrack because I honestly don’t think things like throughputs, limited capacities and slowing queues down is something which occurs to most guests.

That’s the world we live in and, as I’ve been saying for a long time, unfortunately if parks don’t run Fastrack systems, they will get complaints. These TripAdvisor reviews have demonstrated my point. I’m not saying it’s right, I’m just saying it’s the way it is.
 
Enter Valhalla said:
Genuinely I don’t think that your average guests think like that.

I remember once overhearing a staff member, at Chessington actually, explaining to a guest that Fastrack was sold out for the day, to which she replied with a sarcastic laugh and said “how can fastrack be sold out?!”

It is wrong to say that people are selfish for buying Fastrack because I honestly don’t think things like throughputs, limited capacities and slowing queues down is something which occurs to most guests.

That’s the world we live in and, as I’ve been saying for a long time, unfortunately if parks don’t run Fastrack systems, they will get complaints. These TripAdvisor reviews have demonstrated my point. I’m not saying it’s right, I’m just saying it’s the way it is.
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We are in agreement, there are guests that only think of their day out and want to buy fastrack.

In my opinion they are only thinking of themselves and their family, making them selfish to an extent, even if they don't realise they are.
 
Thameslink Rail said:
But how come out of the top 10 UK parks on TripAdvisor, only 2 have fasttrack?
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Because the way they have run the park in the ten years prior to now is very different. Other parks also have plenty of attractions.

The Merlin parks have "conditioned" some people to think a a 2for1 or an annual pass is the best deal and they need fastrack to have a good day.

The major issue with Chessington is that its a small regional park trying to be run as a big national park.
 
Benzin said:
Everything wrong with the UK park model right there tbh.

I'm glad parks like Efteling and Europa put their fingers in their ears and shout loudly when their guests complain about any lack of queue jump capability.

Of course my usage of Fastrack is far more limited these days to parks who don't offer a good disability system like Walibi Holland. It's probably interlinked with the disabled pass problem in the UK if we're honest.
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There's a reason most map VIPs were disabled.
 
My guess is that the middle management have been told they need to get the trip advisor reviews up by higher management and since they have little to no actual power or resources to implement the changes the park needs (investment in rides, capacity, more staff etc), they can only tinker around the edges. Fastrack will improve some peoples day (admittedly at the expense of others) - but if they leave positive reviews, job done.

The fact is, the years and years of under investment by both Tussauds and Merlin have left the place creaking behind the scenes and staff onsite have to deal with the shit, with no way to make the changes it needs.
 
AT86 said:
My guess is that the middle management have been told they need to get the trip advisor reviews up by higher management and since they have little to no actual power or resources to implement the changes the park needs (investment in rides, capacity, more staff etc), they can only tinker around the edges. Fastrack will improve some peoples day (admittedly at the expense of others) - but if they leave positive reviews, job done.

The fact is, the years and years of under investment by both Tussauds and Merlin have left the place creaking behind the scenes and staff onsite have to deal with the ****, with no way to make the changes it needs.
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In theory if they sell fastrack digitally they can do stuff like targeted push notifications asking for reviews.
 
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