• 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

Could definitely see them phasing out the more expensive to feed and maintain animals and keeping the smaller ones they can have guest talks and interactions with (for an up charge of course).
 
I always thought the zoo portion of Chessington was really shit and I kind of felt bad for the animals. But maybe that’s because I’ve been spoilt with Chester Zoo as a child as I didn’t grow up in the South East of England.

The park would have some massive space if they phased out the larger animals and became more of an Animal Kingdom style park with rides themed around animals with some exhibitions. But the park doesn’t really look like it has changed much since I last went about 6 years ago with the exception of Jumanji. Out of all of the UK theme parks this needs the biggest overhaul before Universal.
 
venny said:
It’s interesting just how much disentangling it might take though. Tiger Rock is the obvious example
Click to expand...
I could easily see them getting rid of tiger rock and removing the tigers and then opening a new land in its place (there is more space there than the world of Jumanji) possibly a small rollercoaster and some flat rides, perhaps it could also take over the tomb rader, rafts and rangers, to make a larger land, and if done well with nice theming it could turn out really well

also if they were to get rid of the zufari section it would open up a huge amount of land to work with looking at google maps it looks like it would increase the amount of land by like 1/3rd of what it currently is, you could do a huge amount with that area, if they wanted multiple amazingly themed, compact, family / family thrill coasters
 
I've no idea of CWOAs long term plans, but if they were considering scaling the animals right back over a few years you'd expect them to be shifting the focus and the customers attention away from that aspect of the current park. Would seem odd then that this year's TV ad is probably the most animal focused one in years, possibly since Zufari. Would seem an odd strategy if that were the case.
 
pluk said:
I've no idea of CWOAs long term plans, but if they were considering scaling the animals right back over a few years you'd expect them to be shifting the focus and the customers attention away from that aspect of the current park. Would seem odd then that this year's TV ad is probably the most animal focused one in years, possibly since Zufari. Would seem an odd strategy if that were the case.
Click to expand...
For some reason, Shawn seemed to think that the new logo was the start of them de-emphasising the animals... I'm not sure I see it myself, but he seemed to think that the logo change could be part of it.

If they do remove the animals, I think they'll need to invest strongly into the rides side of the park to gain some form of new USP. If they just rip out the animals, Chessington has very little to set it apart from not just a potential Universal park, but also the other existing parks in London and the South East, as well as the wider UK.

I know IPs are frowned upon around here, but I do think that an easy way for Chessington to gain a new USP would be for them to invest good money into a big ticket IP-themed land. This approach worked wonders for the likes of Drayton Manor and Paultons Park, and "a land themed around [Insert IP here]" could definitely give them a new USP and be a real money spinner for them if the right IP was chosen and decent money was spent. I know that that would kind of compete with Universal directly, but if it was a lucrative, timeless brand not in Universal's wheelhouse, I think it could work.
 
Matt N said:
I know IPs are frowned upon around here, but I do think that an easy way for Chessington to gain a new USP would be for them to invest good money into a big ticket IP-themed land. This approach worked wonders for the likes of Drayton Manor and Paultons Park, and "a land themed around [Insert IP here]" could definitely give them a new USP and be a real money spinner for them if the right IP was chosen and decent money was spent.
Click to expand...
There was that survey about minecraft at chessington i think- that'd certainly be popular if they could do it!
 
Chessington - it’s nahtazu!

I’m all seriousness though, those lions and gorillas enclosures are just straight wrong.
 
I think they should keep the giraffes as it completes the hotel vision and with the up charge of the animal view rooms.

I agree tho animals like tigers Etc. shouldn’t be near rides or at the park full stop just cost a fortune as well but same goes with Drayton Manor, where in-fact there enclosures are much worse somehow?

Like people have mentioned I think they should keep some of the smaller animals like meerkats, Aquatics , reptiles and farm animals etc. But free up some space around the rides as I agree it’s there USP and there a whole park branded around animals from all the recently installed turf statues, signage, stage shows, hotels to the actual rides them selfs like crock drop.

However in Drayton Manor terms I feel it be more viable to loose the zoo entirely, free up space and costs and have a jungle themed land there with rides. I would love to see the tigers have a better life and for them to experience more space at Chester Zoo, East Midlands Safari or somewhere else around the world that can take more care of them. Thats if they can’t be put back in the wild but Im assuming highly now, as they barely move and always look depressed.
 
Who knows what land is safe with this Labour government in charge. But large chunks of land are CURRENTLY protected from from being built on. I believe the front part of the park is protected due to the manor and housing and we know the reserve is.

I could see the park loosing most of the headline animals and maybe focusing on one key big animal (eg tigers) then putting the rest of the focus on family friendly ones... (Meerkats, otters, reptiles etc). So they get the Drusilla's (large family animal park in Sussex with a few rides) family market.

I could see them getting rid of the apes and slowly creating an indoor zoo portion at the front of the park for easy year round operations.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
TBoy535 said:
I think they should keep the giraffes as it completes the hotel vision and with the up charge of the animal view rooms.

I agree tho animals like tigers Etc. shouldn’t be near rides or at the park full stop just cost a fortune as well but same goes with Drayton Manor, where in-fact there enclosures are much worse somehow?

Like people have mentioned I think they should keep some of the smaller animals like meerkats, Aquatics , reptiles and farm animals etc. But free up some space around the rides as I agree it’s there USP and there a whole park branded around animals from all the recently installed turf statues, signage, stage shows, hotels to the actual rides them selfs like crock drop.

However in Drayton Manor terms I feel it be more viable to loose the zoo entirely, free up space and costs and have a jungle themed land there with rides. I would love to see the tigers have a better life and for them to experience more space at Chester Zoo, East Midlands Safari or somewhere else around the world that can take more care of them. Thats if they can’t be put back in the wild but Im assuming highly now, as they barely move and always look depressed.
Click to expand...

East Midlands?

Your point is valid though. In this day and age we should be profiting a better environment for animals.
 
I think removing the animals and trying to become a rides-only park could result in a very, very painful transitional phase for them.

If it was like Paultons Park, Pleasurewood Hills or to a lesser extent Drayton Manor, where the animals are quite peripheral rather than a star attraction of the park, then I don’t think removing them would be an overly big deal.

At Chessington, however, the animals aren’t peripheral; they’re a big part of the park. The animal stuff still seems to be a huge part of the park’s brand identity; the tagline is “Britain’s Wildest Adventure”, they seem to use animal-based words like “ROARsome” a lot in their marketing, a lot of the marketing focuses on the animals, a lot of the recent attraction additions have been animal-themed, the hotels are animal-themed, the upcoming waterpark looks like it might be animal-themed, a lot of the seasonal events like Wilderfest and Howl-O-Ween are animal-themed… even though it hasn’t been a stand-alone zoo for nearly 40 years, the zoo element of the park is still quite heavily emphasised and milked at the moment in terms of its general branding and market positioning. If you look at this, Chessington’s animals are not merely a peripheral part of the park; they’re fundamentally baked into much of its inherent makeup.

If you take those animals away, then what actually is Chessington? How does it stand out from the pack within the UK industry, particularly within the rather saturated region that is London and South East England?

At the moment, the zoo and theme park combo makes it stand out; even if neither element individually is exactly top-of-class within the UK, the fact that Chessington has both in one park makes it stand out. If you took out the zoo elements, its weaknesses as a stand-alone rides park would become very apparent and it would lose its primary USP within the theme park market. It would be the same if you took out the theme park rides; its weaknesses as a stand-alone zoo would become very apparent and it would lose its primary USP within the zoo market.

If those animals go, I fear that Chessington could have a bit of an identity crisis and struggle to find its niche within the UK theme park market if it doesn’t do some serious soul-searching, and fast, to figure out what they actually are as an attraction.
 
Last edited:
Matt N said:
If you take those animals away, then what actually is Chessington? How does it stand out from the pack within the UK industry, particularly within the rather saturated region that is London and South East England?
Click to expand...
This is a good question, and for me I’d love to see the park really live up to the word “adventure” in its name.

I visited the park first in its pre-theme park days when it was Chessington Zoo with a circus big top in it. I can recall being so excited a few years later hearing about how it was being transformed in to the first “Disney style” theme park in the UK (as the media referred to it).

I can still so vividly recall my first visit to it a couple of years after its transformation, riding on the Safari Skyway and train between the different areas I found it absolutely mind blowing to go from one themed land to another, to visit a Wild West town, a Transylvanian village, the mystic East with its giant Buddha statues, and so on (granted, the Circus zone was a bit of a weird one). And that’s something that I’d love to see Chessington really do again, give me the magic of going on an adventure around the world. Sure, it still has themed zones but I feel like the impact of them has been lessened and diluted down over the years. And I wonder if that’s the way that the park can find its niche in this era with the very real competition that may come from Universal GB. Merlin should take a very good look at what Paulton’s have done with the Lost Kingdom and Tornado Springs, what PortAventura have done with Mexico, and what Phantasialand have done with Klugheim and their Mexican area. Get rid of little scrappy areas like Land Of The Dragons and give us fewer but larger and better themed areas that feel more believable. Give each one a real centrepiece ride. Create play trails (obviously they’d have to be a little more toned down than Deep In Africa but that’s a great place to get inspiration from). Give us some proper shows that are aimed at everybody rather than just little kids. In short, stop making everything feel so scrappy and bitty Merlin.

Oh, and a smallish Untamed style RMC as well please.
 
I've been to loads of parks this year. Undoubtedly the one that I got the least out of was Chessy. I got on one ride ... Due to breakdowns and planned closures. How can a park like Adventure Island keep more rides running (and plenty of them older) than Chessy. It really is a ridiculous situation.

As it stands, if the Universal Park comes, as popular as it is right now, it's going to be the first of the Merlin parks to close, in much the same way that the likes of Southport and frontier land did in the pleasure beach portfolio because they had been run down to the point of economic repair.

Sent from my Pixel 7 Pro using Tapatalk
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top