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Chessington World of Adventures Resort

AT86 said:
It seems the Blue Light Day at Chessington was pretty much a disaster on Saturday.

They are taking a hammering both on Twitter and Trip Advisor. Usual story of closed rides, one train operation, poor efficiency, staff who don’t know answers to basic questions, bad food, parking in a mud bath etc etc.

The person responsible for replying to Trip Advisor reviews doesn’t help matters, it’s a rather passive aggressive response to multiple complaints across various reviews, and will do nothing to help recover the guest experience.

For example multiple people have reported waiting three hours for Vampire in separate reviews and the response is that ‘we don’t recognise this queue time’ - effectively calling your guests liars is not a strategy to improve customer service. It actually makes their point about poor operations even clearer - you run your park so badly you don’t even have a clue how long people are actually waiting for rides.

Imagine all the Blue Light Card holders going back into work this morning and being asked by their colleagues how the trip went - word will spread how awful the day was along with the recommendation never to bother visiting.

They can throw up £17million new rides all they like, but unless they seriously concentrate on getting the basics right it is a waste of money, as long term you are causing yourself a massive reputational issue.
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Crikey, those reponses are terrible. There's one star review after one star review, and the every time the manager responds saying he's surprised by their comments. Once he'd responded to a few one star reviews, you'd think he'd start getting used to it. He must spend his whole life being surprised by things.
 
Ironically I haven't been following this topic but I got exactly the type of comment people are talking about regarding a colleague of mine who attended on a blue lights day he message me as he knows I'm into theme parks saying "
Service’s day at chessington today .
Bit disappointing to honest nigh on all the big rides are not running.
I wouldn’t rush to do it again.

By all accounts these days are always the first day of the season…To see how the rides are running.
Which they aren't."

So did make me chuckle a bit seeing exactly whats been described in here happen to myself in terms of negative word of mouth, and this is from people who aren't remotely enthusiasts.
 
Rick said:
Can we get some insight from Head of Positivity @Dave and his deputy @AstroDan ?
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I couldn't really give half a toss about WoJ, it doesn't really interest me much.

Hopefully it'll be alright. If operations are decent then that'll be a step up for this park as that's a major problem with Chessington.

Sent from my SM-G991B using Tapatalk
 
Skyscraper said:
Game three for the World of Jumanji comp has unlocked and is super easy.
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I agree. It seems like these games are aimed at pre-teens and below, which is actually quite interesting because it shows what audience Chessington are targeting with this attraction.
 
zeock said:
I agree. It seems like these games are aimed at pre-teens and below, which is actually quite interesting because it shows what audience Chessington are targeting with this attraction.
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A friend of mine still managed to get it wrong though, I have absolutely no idea how 😂
 
AT86 said:
Another lesson from Chessington in how not to respond to poor feedback on Trip Advisor.

3CC46F44-8FA9-49D1-80FC-8038FC704D29.jpeg

‘We spent 4million quid on our decaying park so it’s slightly less decaying than it was. Wotcha moaning about?’
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The passive aggressive approach comes across very amateur. Like the local kebab shop owner responding to negative reviews about the food being cold.

Going back over the last few weeks it seems to be a common theme on there.
 
AT86 said:
Another lesson from Chessington in how not to respond to poor feedback on Trip Advisor.

3CC46F44-8FA9-49D1-80FC-8038FC704D29.jpeg

‘We spent 4million quid on our decaying park so it’s slightly less decaying than it was. Wotcha moaning about?’
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Surely it isn’t the amount of money invested that matters, but what is done with that money?

You can invest all the money in the world, but if it’s not having a positive impact on the average guest’s experience in some way, then you may as well not have invested it at all.
 
Matt N said:
Surely it isn’t the amount of money invested that matters, but what is done with that money?

You can invest all the money in the world, but if it’s not having a positive impact on the average guest’s experience in some way, then you may as well not have invested it at all.
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Absolutely. Sadly, no one appears to have told Kevin that.
 
I don’t know who Kevin is, and I understand that most parks put a positive gloss on things and make empty promises about passing things onto the relevant department. But I suspect it’s also a big part of Merlin’s culture for managers to pretend they can’t see problems, and to have this insincere veneer of positivity, because they don’t really care.

It’s like when staff turn up to work and then get sent straight home because they’re not needed and they’re on a zero hour contract. The modus operandi for Merlin managers has always been to pretend they can’t see why the employee’s unhappy and to keep on saying, “It’s good that you’re getting sent home, because you’re getting an extra day off”. Even if they know that the employee’s struggling to afford food, they keep telling them it’s a good thing. I don’t expect managers to slag off their employer on Trip Advisor, but the constant rejection of objective reasoning can start to become quite sinister.

You can support your employer while still showing some compassion, and some respect for objective facts.
 
I'm going to be in London in June, is the train service from Waterloo to Chessington South a reliable service? Figure may as well try to get on Mandrill Mayhem if I'm nearby.

Also for said train service is it tap and go with your card like the tube or book another ticket instead?
 
John_P said:
I'm going to be in London in June, is the train service from Waterloo to Chessington South a reliable service? Figure may as well try to get on Mandrill Mayhem if I'm nearby.

Also for said train service is it tap and go with your card like the tube or book another ticket instead?
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Well…it runs every half hour to and from there. Not sure about Sundays. But as for reliable, the operator since 2017 has never been reliable!
 
Chessington South is inside the oyster fare zone so you can use contactless pay as you go & you won't pay more than the daily cost cap.

It's not usually a bad journey, apart from the one time I had to get a rail replacement bus which was tedious in the extreme due to the very convoluted route it had to take
 
There’s also the 71 bus route which terminates at the bus stops by the car park. I believe it runs from Kingston.
 
RyanUK said:
Well…it runs every half hour to and from there. Not sure about Sundays. But as for reliable, the operator since 2017 has never been reliable!
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John said:
Chessington South is inside the oyster fare zone so you can use contactless pay as you go & you won't pay more than the daily cost cap.

It's not usually a bad journey, apart from the one time I had to get a rail replacement bus which was tedious in the extreme due to the very convoluted route it had to take
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Cheers!

Seems very doable, booked a hotel before not far from Waterloo so can jump the train that morning. Nice day at the park then back into central London and to Euston and home.
 
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