Chessington World of Adventures Resort

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Enter Valhalla

TS Member
I remember Thorpe Park once saying I a press statement that the average age of a person who is 1.4 metres is 8 years.

If this is true, then such a coaster at Chessington is still a pretty decent installation for them.
 
jon81uk

jon81uk

TS Member
Enter Valhalla said:
I remember Thorpe Park once saying I a press statement that the average age of a person who is 1.4 metres is 8 years.

If this is true, then such a coaster at Chessington is still a pretty decent installation for them.
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Having googled average child heights, it seems 75% of children will be 1.4m by age 10.
UK-WHO growth charts - 2-18 years | RCPCH

But I still expect there would be many 10 year olds who wouldn't want to ride an inverting coaster. But many would love Rattlesnake which is a 1.4m restriction. So it is more to do with what the coaster does than purely the restriction I guess.

I'd rather Chessington aimed at a Thirteen level of thrill, or something that compares with Dragons Fury and Rattlesnake for being "fun" rather than super scary.

I've been playing a lot of Rollercoaster Tycoon 2 recently. Chessington needs to have high excitement figures, medium-low intensity and low nausea. Thorpe can dial up the intensity rating.
 
D4n

D4n

TS Member
Favourite Ride
Zadra
Can't believe people are complaining about the prospect of a 1.4m height restriction coaster at Chessington.

Haven't we all been saying for years that a truly great family park will have rides of all types to appeal to all ages? Maybe Chessington is actually going to shift back in that direction?

It would certainly be better than a family boomerang. I can't think of anything so uninspired as that.
 
jon81uk

jon81uk

TS Member
D4n said:
Can't believe people are complaining about the prospect of a 1.4m height restriction coaster at Chessington.

Haven't we all been saying for years that a truly great family park will have rides of all types to appeal to all ages? Maybe Chessington is actually going to shift back in that direction?

It would certainly be better than a family boomerang. I can't think of anything so uninspired as that.
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That is kinda the point I was trying to make, the height restriction could be OK, but I don't think as a park adding something that inverts is right for the market they are now aiming at. Back 20 years ago before Tussauds too Thorpe and Chessington into seperate directions things were different, but now it is clear that Thorpe is for age 10-12+ and Chessington is for under 12s really. So a 1.4m restriction wouldn't be too bad, but I think they need a high capacity fun thrill rather than an scary inverting coaster.
 
Tom

Tom

TS Member
Not sure why they've chosen to hem themselves in with a boomerang, but suspect capacity will be part of the tendering with manufacturers.
 
pluk

pluk

TS Member
D4n said:
Can't believe people are complaining about the prospect of a 1.4m height restriction coaster at Chessington.

Haven't we all been saying for years that a truly great family park will have rides of all types to appeal to all ages? Maybe Chessington is actually going to shift back in that direction?

It would certainly be better than a family boomerang. I can't think of anything so uninspired as that.
Click to expand...

It's a shame they'd come to that conclusion the year after removing an excellent thrill flat and replacing it with an overgrown frog hopper rather than something which filled the large gap that Ramesis left.
 
Matt.GC

Matt.GC

TS Member
If Chessington want a 1.4mtr restriction coaster, then fine. It needs to be aimed at older children, be unique, decent and cost effective. If they go with B&M, it'll be reliable, well built, have a decent throughput and cost the earth which I would imagine would make it short, dull and devoid of decent theming.

I worry when Merlin spend loads on new hardware because they normally cut costs somewhere. In fact this dates back to before Merlin with the installation of Air which had the infamous tunnel and lackluster theming. Thirteen had missing theming and is small, the Swarm is themed well but very short, the Smiler is massive but themed and built cheaply, Wickerman is themed excellently but tiny and they've just opened the cheapest drop tower they could get their mitts on and themed the hell out of it at Chessington.

A decently designed and well themed Intamin Family or GCI with a decent track length and good layout would fit the bill and give them more bang for their buck.

Sent from my VOG-L29 using Tapatalk
 
Matt.GC

Matt.GC

TS Member
If Chessington want a 1.4mtr restriction coaster, then fine. It needs to be aimed at older children, be unique, decent and cost effective. If they go with B&M, it'll be reliable, well built, have a decent throughput and cost the earth which I would imagine would make it short, dull and devoid of decent theming.

I worry when Merlin spend loads on new hardware because they normally cut costs somewhere. In fact this dates back to before Merlin with the installation of Air which had the infamous tunnel and lackluster theming. Thirteen had missing theming and is small, the Swarm is themed well but very short, the Smiler is massive but themed and built cheaply, Wickerman is themed excellently but tiny and they've just opened the cheapest drop tower they could get their mitts on and themed the hell out of it at Chessington.

A decently designed and well themed Intamin Family or GCI with a decent track length and good layout would fit the bill and give them more bang for their buck.

Sent from my VOG-L29 using Tapatalk
 
Benzin

Benzin

TS Member
The thing is family thrill coaster doesn't conjure up 1.4m height restrictions.

1.3m at a push. It's just such a weird thing to do when there's so many options now available on the market. Gerst, Mack, Vekoma could all provide something (if they really want a shuttle thing Fury at Bobbejaanland would be perfect) for the park but apparently a shuttle wing coaster is what they want?

Bemused more than anything. You could buy Lech Coaster!
 
D4n

D4n

TS Member
Favourite Ride
Zadra
pluk said:
It's a shame they'd come to that conclusion the year after removing an excellent thrill flat and replacing it with an overgrown frog hopper rather than something which filled the large gap that Ramesis left.
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Agreed.

Perhaps guest feedback following the closure of Rameses was harsher than anticipated? Lots of comments about there not being much left to do that appealed to older children / teenagers?

That's pure guesswork though.
 
Plastic Person

Plastic Person

TS Member
I still think they would be better off going for a 1.2m thrill ride in the vein of Wicker Man or Thirteen. The capacity problems at CWoA are beyond any other park I can think of that somehow still clocks 2.5 million guests a year. Whatever they construct should be as accessible as possible. There's also a risk in accidentally reestablishing themselves as a 'thrill park', especially given how long it took the general public to clock that Colossus was in fact, at Thorpe Park. There's no room or height allowance to expand back in that direction.

Can't say I'm not intrigued by the prospect of a launched B&M wing shuttle coaster, mind. Intrigued and surprised. And will believe it when I see it, for now.
 
Dave

Dave

TS Founding Member
I would be amazed if Merlin have the foresight to do it but shuttle coasters don’t have to be low throughput these days. A lot of manufacturers offer a multi-train option (turntables and transfer tracks).

as I say I doubt Merlin would bother, they seem to aim for low throughput rides but it’s possible.
 
John

John

TS Member
Favourite Ride
Steel Vengeance
The one saving grace from a capacity point of view is the inclusion of support rides. If these are selected carefully and they design them to be able to operate vaguely efficiently (by incorporating things like a batching area to reduce loading times) then the area as a whole could really help the overall park capacity. The coaster will need a longer train than a standard Jr Boomerang though, that just wouldn't cut it at Chessington - it's problematic enough at DMP and they don't have fastrack.
 
Matt N

Matt N

TS Member
Favourite Ride
Mako (SeaWorld Orlando)
Plastic Person said:
I still think they would be better off going for a 1.2m thrill ride in the vein of Wicker Man or Thirteen. The capacity problems at CWoA are beyond any other park I can think of that somehow still clocks 2.5 million guests a year. Whatever they construct should be as accessible as possible. There's also a risk in accidentally reestablishing themselves as a 'thrill park', especially given how long it took the general public to clock that Colossus was in fact, at Thorpe Park. There's no room or height allowance to expand back in that direction.

Can't say I'm not intrigued by the prospect of a launched B&M wing shuttle coaster, mind. Intrigued and surprised. And will believe it when I see it, for now.
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Wait, Chessington gets 2.5m guests a year? I thought it was closer to 1.5m…

As much as I do think that something more accessible (lower height restriction) and higher throughput might possibly have suited Chessington better, I’m just really pleased that they’re getting a new coaster. I also think that becoming a more rounded park like Towers is (and like they used to be) might be good for them; it could get their guest figures back to that early 1990s peak!

With regard to capacity, surely it helps that this will provide the park with a net ride gain of 3 rides, regardless of how much capacity they have? Surely additional rides of any capacity will help ease the queues, no?
tayspru said:
Merlin build low capacity on purpose to drive fasttrack sales and nothing will change my mind
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Merlin have built high throughput coasters before; for instance, I certainly wouldn’t call Swarm at Thorpe a low throughput coaster (must be at least 1,000pph, surely?), and neither would I call Thirteen at Towers a low throughput coaster (allegedly hit over 1,400 riders per hour in its opening year). Some of the coasters they’ve built in mainland Europe seemingly have decent capacities (I’m thinking the B&Ms at Heide and Garda are probably pretty good at dealing with crowds), and Wicker Man at Towers seems to be consistently getting over 1,000pph now it’s settled in.
 
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