Chessington World of Adventures Resort

[Matt N]

Fair enough; I accept that there’s clearly a compelling enough argument to prove me wrong to some degree, as you do all raise some very good points. I appreciate being informed on this sort of thing, as you have certainly made me think of things that I did not previously consider!

Perhaps a fairer thing for me to say would be; my view is that in the majority of cases, Fastrack exacerbates issues that already exist rather than being the sole cause of the issues in the first place. If Chessington were to remove Fastrack tomorrow, I don’t think that all of their queue-related problems would suddenly be solved.

 

[Poisson]

Stand in the queue for a ride at ride close, let's use Wicker Man for example. Suddenly, after a few cycles post ride close, the main queue starts moving much faster. Are the staff trying to be done for the day? Yes but most of it is because there's only 1 queue it pulls from instead of 3

 

[rob666]

Wrong topic to be fair!
What ride at Chessington can shift the end of day queue on three trains?

 

[Matt N]

Stand in the queue for a ride at ride close, let's use Wicker Man for example. Suddenly, after a few cycles post ride close, the main queue starts moving much faster. Are the staff trying to be done for the day? Yes but most of it is because there's only 1 queue it pulls from instead of 3

There are also less people, though, because the Fastrack and RAP users have likely already left for the day.

Whereas under regular circumstances, there could well be more people in the main queue without Fastrack, which would offset some of the gains from removing it in the first place.

 

[Poisson]

Wrong topic to be fair!
What ride at Chessington can shift the end of day queue on three trains?

Dragon's Fury most likely on 3 cars. Yay Chessie ops.

There are also less people, though, because the Fastrack and RAP users have likely already left for the day.

Whereas under regular circumstances, there could well be more people in the main queue without Fastrack, which would offset some of the gains from removing it in the first place.

It's about speed of the queue moving, not how long said queue is.

 

[Benzin]

Wrong topic to be fair!
What ride at Chessington can shift the end of day queue on three trains?

15 years ago could do it on Vampire.

But lol operations.

 

[Poisson]

I only used Wicker Man as it's half decently operated. They can't even operate car parking half decently at CWOA.

 

[Alix]

The Mamba Strikes basket continues to take a pasting sadly. While we were queueing today parents were allowing their children to demolish it, scattering polystyrene beads everywhere. That hole is about the size of the chimp’s head and there are plenty others all the way round.

 

[Alsty]

How long have Merlin been park operators? Putting cheap themeing that bored guests can pick at within reach of guests is such a school boy error.

I remember the Colossus station at Thorpe Park getting covered with graffiti until they moved the queue fence, and that was over 20 years ago.

 

[Poisson]

Out of reach is the way to go, especially if guests are going to be stuck there. Nemesis' rib structure had the same issue every season as the queue is right next to it

 

[TroySmith1]

Or just a resin?


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[The_bup]

That hole is about the size of the chimp’s head and there are plenty others all the way round.

I’m not actually sure how big a chimps head is. What happened to the standard unit of measurement; football fields

 

[James]

I think you'll find the standard unit of measurement on here is a Merlin Annual Pass.

 

[DistortAMG]

To be fair, a manufacturer can only work with the budgets and brief they’re given. I doubt Garmendale would have any say in the number of boats it runs. In terms of reliability, possibly yes, depending on what kind of work they’ve done on the ride and what’s causing the downtime.

Sorry going back a tiny bit to reply to this.

Yes and no. They would not have a day in day to day ops and maintance schedules of the park which determine how many boats are ready to go.

But if they did control upgrades which were crap, it could impact how many boats it can run.

In this case though Garmendale only replaced parts of the trough and upgraded bits of other structure. As far as I am aware all the control and mechanical parts are all original Mack. So I suspect the issues with boats lie with Chessington.

 

[dave___]

Or just a resin?


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The basket at Chessington has a hard plastic “casing”, unfortunately with anything hard plastic it’s very easy to hit and crack, and then get to the soft foamy bit underneath.

I’m not sure how they would solve it given Mamba Strike’s slow queue progression and the fact the basket is within arms reach of even the most short-armed child .

 

[Reb]

I’m not sure how they would solve it given Mamba Strike’s slow queue progression and the fact the basket is within arms reach of even the most short-armed child .

Real basket with real snakes

 

[Themeparksandy1981]

If Merlin removed fast track then the visitors who only go maybe once a year or when a park build a big ride wouldn’t go as they wouldn’t want to be queuing all day.
It’s the same at Disney they offer next to nothing now but the crowds still keep coming and guests buy genie+ and lighting line tickets.
I not been to Chessington since 2008 and reading comments across forums I don’t plan on returning anytime soon with it been a 5 hr round trip.

 

[Maelstrom]

If Merlin removed fast track then the visitors who only go maybe once a year or when a park build a big ride wouldn’t go as they wouldn’t want to be queuing all day.
It’s the same at Disney they offer next to nothing now but the crowds still keep coming and guests buy genie+ and lighting line tickets.
I not been to Chessington since 2008 and reading comments across forums I don’t plan on returning anytime soon with it been a 5 hr round trip.

That’s rubbish, most guests would still visit. Yep no one ever visits Efteling and Europa park as they don’t have fast pass! It’s not like they are the two most visited parks in Europe after Disneyland Paris.

I have just left Efteling this morning. Amazing operations, no fast pass, park busy but queues constantly moved and didn’t wait more than 35 mins for anything on a busy Friday and sat in the peak of Summer.

 

[Matt N]

I think Fastrack is more widely accepted and/or expected in the UK than it is abroad, though. I know that enthusiasts widely hate Fastrack, but a lot of people in the UK expect it in some capacity these days.

I heard it mentioned in a different thread somewhere, but I also think that the lack of Fastrack is not the sole reason for the often shorter waits at parks that don’t have Fastrack. For instance, Europa Park has lots of very high throughput headliners and support rides, and Paultons Park gets rather low crowds on its headliners so queues never get very long anyway.

Having been informed in this thread previously, I don’t deny that Fastrack probably increases queue times to some extent, but I don’t think you can use places like Europa Park, Efteling, Paultons etc as examples to show that Chessington would become a utopia with no queue above 30 minutes if Fastrack were to be removed tomorrow. Those parks have other factors working in their favour compared to Chessington, as far as I can see.

 

[AT86]

Another top day at Chessington