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Chessington World of Adventures Resort

Does anyone know how much the park enforces the maximum height limits? I've found at Thorpe and Alton they don't really do this aside from Spinball. I'm 196 and wouldn't mind getting out MM and DF.
 
Think the maximum height limits are more to do with being able to fit in the restraints
 
I'm 1.98 meters so I'm over a lot of Chessingtons maximum height limits, hoping they'll let me squeeze on rides if I fit especially dragons fury, I fit on spinball but sometimes they height check me and turn me away.
 
The maximum height limits are often guidelines rather than hard limits like the minimum ones are, and they often aren't nearly as strongly enforced. My dad is somewhere in the 6'6"/6'7" ballpark (pretty much exactly 2m), and there are quite a number of rides that he technically can't ride if we're going by the book, but the only coasters that he's almost consistently booted off of are Spinball Whizzer at Alton Towers and Colossus at Thorpe Park (and Colossus is due to not being able to comfortably shut the restraint rather than being rejected from the ride on height alone), and he's even ridden Spinball once or twice in the past, so it's not overly consistent.

At Chessington, I can imagine that Dragon's Fury might be a squeeze for someone of 1.96m; I'm only 1.77m, or slightly under 5'10" for those who prefer imperial units, and those Maurer spinner cars are not the most roomy even for me!
 
Enter Valhalla said:
The only place I’ve seen the maximum heights strictly enforced is at Gardaland, where they were height checking all taller people. Never seen it in the UK though.
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Spinball whizzer and Drayton manor rapids are the 2 I get height checked on the most but nearly all rides with a maximum height they never check anyone it's more the case do they comfortably fit, some ride hosts refuse to try and push down on restraints though whereas some will try and push down quite firmly as long as you want them to.
 
George W said:
I'm 1.98 meters so I'm over a lot of Chessingtons maximum height limits, hoping they'll let me squeeze on rides if I fit especially dragons fury, I fit on spinball but sometimes they height check me and turn me away.
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As stated above, I don't think that maximum height limits are enforced very strictly, according to people who are actually over the maximum height limit.
 
When did Mandrill Mayhem get its single rider queue? I don’t recall seeing this when I visited back in May.

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I also noticed that on Saturday and I don't recall it being there when it opened either. I thought that it might not be in use yet (i.e. just added to the sign ready for when they stop using the Ride & Reserve), but no, there were actually people using it.

The batcher was doing a particularly poor job of using it though. They put a group of three in rows 4+5, then another group of three into rows 6+7 like this
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Then they put a single rider into row 4 and another in 6.

When it got to the batching area the two single riders just paired up again:

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They need to batch odd numbered groups properly before doing single riders.
 
The whole batching process on Mandrill is absurd. Literally down the road in their sister park, another wing coaster operates pretty efficiently with a self-batch system in place. It seriously feels like Chessington are just trying to irritate their guests and staff sometimes. I’m sure the staff would much rather they were allowed to batch in a more efficient way than what they’re currently being made to do.
 
I had a chat with the ride host and the single rider queue only just opened last week. And for single riders it’s very, very good. They just let you straight on without a slot, I couldn’t believe it, you can absolutely hammer the ride using it.

As said above it’s very surprising how it’s not being used as it should be (ie to fill single seats for odd numbered groups).
 
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So just got back from Chessington today, and I’ve thought about it all day wether to post this or not but here goes;

I’m not impressed with the Jumanji area at all, I can only describe it as “cheap” wether this be because of working for Disney prior or being spoilt by the US parks I’m not sure.

But upon further inspection of the land even the themeing is coming away already or chipped to show it’s actually cheap Merlin Magic Making plastic again.

I’ve tried to be positive about my experience today but I’m in no rush to go back to Chessington anytime soon.
 
Excalibur said:
So just got back from Chessington today, and I’ve thought about it all day wether to post this or not but here goes;

I’m not impressed with the Jumanji area at all, I can only describe it as “cheap” wether this be because of working for Disney prior or being spoilt by the US parks I’m not sure.

But upon further inspection of the land even the themeing is coming away already or chipped to show it’s actually cheap Merlin Magic Making plastic again.

I’ve tried to be positive about my experience today but I’m in no rush to go back to Chessington anytime soon.
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I agree that the Jumanji area theming looks cheap.

I wish they’d gone with something a little more inventive as the area looks very basic in some respects, for example the flooring, pathways, and wooden benches look like they’ve come straight out a generic kiddie playground. It’s doesn’t feel like it’s been designed to draw you in immersively, some little things like themed bins or more creative elements would have gone a long way to immersing you in to the area rather than just plonking down a stone monkey and a motorbike and calling it a day. It would have been so much better if they’d have gone with the idea of making the pathways look like the board of the Jumanji game, it would have made the area look quite impressive. And fencing around Mandrill Mayhem just looks awful.

What the area also needed was a cool looking flatride to go alongside the new coaster to give the land some real visual appeal. I don’t mind Ostrich Stampede too much but Mamba Strike just looks really cheap and tacky. And it’s also strange that for a land set in a jungle there aren’t any misters around to give it a steamy look and feel (and also importantly to cool the guests off on a hot day).

But I think though it’s a fun park. I took my 12 year old son for his first visit and we had an absolute blast. There are some good rides there and the animal areas are great (though the Sealife in a tent is poor). One I thing I find with the park though is that’s it seems quite poorly signposted, it can seem quite tricky navigating your way around. Obviously other parks have more open layouts where you can see rides in the distance to help you get your bearings but at Chessington it feels like everything is often hidden away behind other stuff, even finding the various queue entrances can be a struggle. The Vampire RAP entrance is bizarre hidden away with very little signage.
 
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Excalibur said:
So just got back from Chessington today, and I’ve thought about it all day wether to post this or not but here goes;

I’m not impressed with the Jumanji area at all, I can only describe it as “cheap” wether this be because of working for Disney prior or being spoilt by the US parks I’m not sure.

But upon further inspection of the land even the themeing is coming away already or chipped to show it’s actually cheap Merlin Magic Making plastic again.

I’ve tried to be positive about my experience today but I’m in no rush to go back to Chessington anytime soon.
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I don’t think that you should feel you’re biased because of being spoilt by US parks.

The big problem with Merlin is that they set themselves up as this big dog theme park giant, so anything done on the cheap looks even worse.

If a small independent UK park had opened World of Jumanji, we’d all be praising their efforts. But when it’s an organisation with the resources that Merlin has at its disposal as well as the fact that Merlin are happy to shout about being second to Disney, when we see something cheap and tatty, it’s all the more painful, and makes their fanciful claims of “catching the mouse” seem like even more of an audacity.
 
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Leigh said:
Chessington announced that Halloween (the 31st October) is going to be a blue light card only day

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I have no issue with blue light card only days - but making it Halloween seems like it's going to potentially frustrate a lot of people?
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It’s a Tuesday and not during half term so I don’t think it would have been majorly busy anyway.
 
I apologise for going back a bit in the conversation, but am I right in saying that the SRQ on Mandrill Mayhem means that you don’t have to use the virtual queue at all?

I’m going this time next week on my own, so if it does mean you don’t have to use the virtual queue, then that is a huge weight off my shoulders ahead of my visit!
 
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