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Chessington World of Adventures Resort

This was just Tweeted by ChessingtonBuzz. Looks like concept art for one of the new flat rides for next season!





Here's a quote from the ChessingtonBuzz article on what type of ride it could be.

Following the success of Croc Drop. We are expecting that Flat Ride A is manufactured by SBF Visa. It is thought that Chessington has partnered up with the Italian company on both of the two new flat rides for the area.

Chessington Buzz is expecting that the new Flat Ride A will be a Super Jumper ride. Built by SBF Visa, the Super Jumper is a round flat ride with a series of bouncing arms. Guests sit in groups of 3 on the end of the arms and are thrust into the air. The ride also rotates round on a central hub.

The Super Jumper is a family thrill ride. Giving guests above 1.1m an opportunity to experience a different type of thrill. Very different to other rides in the park, the ride also has the ability to travel both forwards and backwards. Giving guests an unpredictable ride.

It may look similar to that of Flying Jumbo’s, but the ride is certainly more intense. Travelling much faster and bouncing higher. The ride would be a fantastic addition to the new Amazon Land area. Adding a touch of family thrill to Chessington’s line up.
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AstroDan said:
Why are the buying SBF? This is cheap, bottom-of-the-pile trash,
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In fairness, these are supporting rides to a big budget B&M. I can’t imagine they had an awful lot of money to spend, and to be honest, will an SBF really ride much differently to, say, a Zamperla?

This should be quite good and popular, because if I’m remembering correctly, won’t this ride be similar in nature to the revered Mixtape at Alton Towers?
 
Matt N said:
In fairness, these are supporting rides to a big budget B&M. I can’t imagine they had an awful lot of money to spend, and to be honest, will an SBF really ride much differently to, say, a Zamperla?

This should be quite good and popular, because if I’m remembering correctly, won’t this ride be similar in nature to the revered Mixtape at Alton Towers?
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I wasn't aware Mixtape was revered. Nemesis and Oblivion are revered. Mixtape was tolerated with people enjoying the ride, generally.

Stop finding excuses, Matt. Merlin is a huge conglomerate with millions of pounds and its disposal. SBF Visa are one of the cheapest European manufacturers of rides, with questionable safety records (see: Miami accidents) and poor build quality.

Zamperla is a cut above this now. I would say SBF are what Zamperla were 15 years ago.

Croc Drop is hardly a beacon of operational excellence.
 
Matt N said:
In fairness, these are supporting rides to a big budget B&M. I can’t imagine they had an awful lot of money to spend, and to be honest, will an SBF really ride much differently to, say, a Zamperla?

This should be quite good and popular, because if I’m remembering correctly, won’t this ride be similar in nature to the revered Mixtape at Alton Towers?
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I don't think its a big budget B&M either, its a short shuttle coaster.
 
AstroDan said:
I wasn't aware Mixtape was revered. Nemesis and Oblivion are revered. Mixtape was tolerated with people enjoying the ride, generally.

Stop finding excuses, Matt. Merlin is a huge conglomerate with millions of pounds and its disposal. SBF Visa are one of the cheapest European manufacturers of rides, with questionable safety records (see: Miami accidents) and poor build quality.

Zamperla is a cut above this now. I would say SBF are what Zamperla were 15 years ago.

Croc Drop is hardly a beacon of operational excellence.
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Isn't the other supporting flat supposed to be a Miami? Hopefully from a different manufacturer if so.
 
Matt N said:
will an SBF really ride much differently to, say, a Zamperla
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Well, yes. Cheap tat is unlikely to ride as well, is less likely to be open at all due to reliability issues, and more likely to maim you by losing gondolas, as 2 nearly new SBFs have done since July.

I'd also struggle to call this a big budget B&M. Unless there's things about it we can't currently see I'm thinking this might actually be the smallest budget B&M ever built?
 
pluk said:
Well, yes. Cheap tat is unlikely to ride as well, is less likely to be open at all due to reliability issues, and more likely to maim you by losing gondolas, as 2 nearly new SBFs have done since July.
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Which two SBFs are those? I'm sure that a Merlin park would look after their SBFs properly though. They have higher maintenance budgets than smaller parks.
 
For clarity, I was referring to the ride as a big budget B&M because I assumed that every B&M would reach at least a certain level of expense regardless of the size of the ride. I’d wager that this will be a fair bit more expensive than similar rides from, say, Vekoma, Gerstlauer or similar; I’d be going for the hardware on this costing at least £10m on its own.
JAperson said:
I know we've been assuming it's a B&M and it's generally believed to be, but has it actually been confirmed?
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Pretty much, yes. One of the planning documents had “Bolliger & Mabillard” written at the bottom, which was taken as confirmation that B&M would be involved.

In other news, it appears that Chessington Buzz is reporting that Flat Ride B will be an SBF Top Dancer: https://projectamazon.co.uk/in-depth-flat-ride-b/

Out of interest, if people are so against Merlin buying SBFs, who else actually manufactures this type of flat ride? Aside from Zamperla, I’ll admit I’m struggling to think of any competitors that Chessington could have gone for.

Also, I only called Mixtape revered because it seemed very popular in the year it operated, and I was struggling to think of an alternative word…
 
Matt N said:
This should be quite good and popular, because if I’m remembering correctly, won’t this ride be similar in nature to the revered Mixtape at Alton Towers?
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Originally it was rumoured to be a Smashing Jump, but now looks like it will be a standard Jump-and-Smile.
 
Skyscraper said:
The Miami that had an arm issue was actually built by Zamperla, not SBF.
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Miami? The two rides in question are a balloon ride and one of their smaller pendulum rides.

The recent Miami failure at Blackgang was a pretty old ride which had been through multipleowners.
 
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