• ℹ️ Heads up...

    This is a popular topic that is fast moving Guest - before posting, please ensure that you check out the first post in the topic for a quick reminder of guidelines, and importantly a summary of the known facts and information so far. Thanks.

Chessington World of Adventures Resort

MattyH said:
Okay this kind of came out of nowhere. An indoor waterpark at Chessington!

Public consultation at the Resort on Wednesday 16th November.

FB_IMG_1667212749152.jpg
Click to expand...
Interesting, it seems they are really trying to transform Chessington into a proper resort, like Alton Towers, rather than just a theme park with a hotel. I don't see this is a bad idea, in fact I think Chessington could do a really cool water park, with some great theming.
 
Wow, that’s exciting! Waterparks are always fun, and I think Chessington has an awful lot of potential as an Alton Towers-style fully-fledged resort that this will help to utilise!

I wonder whether this will be paired with a hotel Splash Landings-style or whether it will be a stand-alone entity?

On a side note; kudos to Chessington Buzz! That’s a good few times now that they’ve written a speculative article discussing the future of Chessington and been bang on the money; as much as some people are sceptical of fan sites as a rumour source, I think CB must surely have some inside sources at this point, because their track record for accurate rumours has been excellent as of late!
 
I sent somebody that link and it captioned it
"This website provides information on the emerging proposals by Origin Investors (Hounslow) Limited for a new residential development at Nos. 719-727 London Road in the London Borough of Hounslow."

Looks like somebody needs to update the meta tags on that site 🤪
 
Matt N said:
I wonder whether this will be paired with a hotel Splash Landings-style or whether it will be a stand-alone entity?
Click to expand...
It'll be the sequel to Splash Landings.

'Splash Landings 2: Eletric Boogaloo' or perhaps 'Splash Landings 2: The Search For More Money and Hopefully More Attractions Than What Those Dirty Brummie Have Up North.'

I've sussed out the theme already! 😄👌
 
Nosferatu said:
Like I said before, the right people are at the helm. Chessington is the park to watch at the moment.

In regards to the Jumanji station, there are quite a few scrap metal buildings like that in the Dwayne Johnson film so it's not too much of a surprise. Personally I'm expecting it to be some kind of aircraft hangar or shed, the metal looks a bit more visually appealing than the wooden shed in 'Welcome To The Jungle'. Here's hoping there are lots of smaller details to ensure that it doesn't look like a typical abandoned warehouse theme that you'd find at a UK park.
Click to expand...

My understanding is the RTP management is far more centralised now (with Ian Crabbe very much the senior leader for all the parks), I suspect they are working through each park based on a more centralised strategy.
 
The question is where will this water park go. The logical location would be somewhere close to the hotel so it’s open all year and easy to get to. There is land around the original hotel, but no idea if they could build on that. There’s also some large staff buildings near the hotel, which I guess could be removed and put there. next to that it would be areas of the zoo.

But also with this being Merlin they could well just plonk it in the middle of the park with no real thought in to it.
 
John Wardley's sentiment about the right people at the helm seem to be true. I think this combined with the privatisation of Merlin is now starting to really show its face. many people, rightly so said it would not happen. I do not even think even the most cynical can now disagree that the investment across the RTP division is having a serious step up in funding - like major!! The sheer number of simultaneous projects going on right now is unprecedented and it keeps on growing! They are not small investments either, for the most part, they are all large cap ex projects, with a few medium sized ones thrown in for good measure.

Are they the right investments or not is a different debate and something no one can fully answer yet, we can only comment on what we see now. I think this investment could be a really good addition for Chessington, actually, prefect addition for a kids / family park.
 
Last edited:
Interesting progression for the park. I will be interested to see if this is a smaller, resort/hotel-only offering or something larger and more fully-fledged, as obviously the market for an indoor waterpark in a catchment area like Chessington's is about as strong as it could be. Finally, a replacement for Croydon Water Palace!
 
Plastic Person said:
Interesting progression for the park. I will be interested to see if this is a smaller, resort/hotel-only offering or something larger and more fully-fledged, as obviously the market for an indoor waterpark in a catchment area like Chessington's is about as strong as it could be. Finally, a replacement for Croydon Water Palace!
Click to expand...

Cariba Creek was for hotel guests only to start with so seems plausible that they do the same at Chessington and open as hotel guests only (at least in the main season) until demand eases out.
For location I would say between the hotel and sea life makes most sense. I hope they don’t remove more of the main park to build this like they did with Aztec Hotel.
 
Vampire as it stands is Chessington’s most popular ride. I’ve ridden it 12 times this year and I love it to bits, as do Chessington’s customers. Always the biggest queue in the park.

From what I am lead to believe the track is still absolutely fine. Again, with the subject of retracks it’s not a ride which is under immense stress and there are older Arrow designs suspended rides still in use abroad.

It will not be removed. I am quite sure if the time came it would get a retrack perhaps with Vekoma but their planning is extremely strict.

Yes they are getting a new launch coaster from B&M but it’s not a full long coaster like Vampire is.
 
AstroDan said:
These projects are all well and good, but it would be helpful to have rollercoasters achieving more than 500 per hour at the same time as these glamour projects.
Click to expand...

Exactly this, Chessington needs rides that churn through the crowds a bit. Merlin in general has given up on throughputs but Chessington in particular seems to have a blind spot when it comes to guest flow.
 
Vampire and Dragon's Fury both have throughputs that are over 500pph, they're in the region of 600pph. Ideally they'd have throughputs of over 1000pph.

If Jumanji has 'solved the capacity problem' for shuttle coasters, then I'm sure we can expect a throughput of at least 700 or so people per hour. Not expecting 1000pph for a shuttle coaster as that's just impossible for a coaster of this length.

To be fair on Jumanji though, two thrilling family flat rides (if the ones on Chessington Buzz's Project Amazon minisite are to be believed) are being added to the area as well, those should help to absorb the crowds.
 
Last edited:
Nosferatu said:
Vampire and Dragon's Fury both have throughputs that are over 500pph, they're in the region of 600pph. Ideally they'd have throughputs of over 1000pph.

If Jumanji has 'solved the capacity problem' for shuttle coasters, then I'm sure we can expect a throughput of at least 700 or so people per hour. Not expecting 1000pph for a shuttle coaster as that's just impossible for a coaster of this length.

To be fair on Jumanji though, two thrilling family flat rides (if the ones on Chessington Buzz's Project Amazon minisite are to be believed) are being added to the area as well, those should help to absorb the crowds.
Click to expand...

Point is both rides can have higher throughputs, Merlin choose to operate them in ways that reduce the capacity.

My worry with Jumanji’s solution is that it is staff heavy, so once they need to save money it drops down to stupidly low numbers again, we have seen this with previous Merlin rides.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top