• 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

let’s see what happens. We were less to believe not long ago of a plan to turn around the park, with it seeing more investment than the others.

Surely plans must be in place. Theyll
No the faults
 
Had a good day at Chessington yesterday but the most notable aspect was being evacuated from the top of Tiger Rock!

As we got to the top run i noticed the front boat wasn't going down, to the point the next one bumped into it and figured we were going to do the same. In the end there were 3 boats of us up there.

There was swiftly an announcement saying the ride had ceased operation and to please stay seated until staff arrived.

There then followed a dozen increasingly irate announcements saying the same, presumably as people elsewhere on the ride were standing up and messing around.

I must say, if you're going to get stuck on a ride this is probably the best one. I had my phone in my pocket, my bag full of food, drink and my son's iPad so we were set in case of a long wait! It was pretty windy, which fortunately my son enjoyed but dry and warm so quite a nice little picnic spot. Full WiFI signal up there too!

The front boat was stuck on the little lift before the drop but after the bump ours started floating back which briefly concerned me. I did try to stop this but to no avail. However we only floated halfway and then entered a cycle of slowly drifting back and forth with the other boat.

After around 15 minutes staff members arrived. They pulled our boat back to near the lift-hill where we then climbed out, walked the remainder and then down the lift-hill stairs. So we basically got the VIP experience for free! Got a free fast-track for one ride for our trouble too.

Didn't get to fully enjoy the climb down (regular readers may remember my son is severely autistic so i was concentrating on aiding him and he only got upset when he realised we were leaving the ride) but it was still a memorable experience!

-----------------------------

Additional note, i always wondered why we got our own boat on Tiger Rock as a twosome. Turns out there is a sign on the wall saying children between 1.2 and 1.3m cannot sit in the front or back seat of the boat and i guess it's easier just to keep things moving rather than try and find passengers to fit in the remaining space.
 
The main reason that Chessington don’t pair up groups of two on Tiger Rock is mainly because of faff.

Being a family park, most family groups would rather ride without strangers and will likely argue with staff at the batching point if they try to pair them with other twos. The conveyer in the station can only be stopped for maximum of 15 seconds. If it stays stopped for longer, this automatically shuts the ride down. If guests were told to pair up with strangers, they would most likely stand there arguing, the staff wouldn’t want to stop the conveyer, so by the time the staff had finished arguing with the guests, 2-3 boats would have gone round empty, meaning it would actually be worse for throughputs.

There’s signs in the station warning guests that they might be paired up, but most people don’t read those signs and families tend to be the most demanding and entitled demographic, who would be the most unhappy about having to share a boat. Certainly when I worked there, we figured it was just easier, and more efficient, to allow small groups to have boats to themselves.
 
Enter Valhalla said:
The main reason that Chessington don’t pair up groups of two on Tiger Rock is mainly because of faff.

Being a family park, most family groups would rather ride without strangers and will likely argue with staff at the batching point if they try to pair them with other twos. The conveyer in the station can only be stopped for maximum of 15 seconds. If it stays stopped for longer, this automatically shuts the ride down. If guests were told to pair up with strangers, they would most likely stand there arguing, the staff wouldn’t want to stop the conveyer, so by the time the staff had finished arguing with the guests, 2-3 boats would have gone round empty, meaning it would actually be worse for throughputs.

There’s signs in the station warning guests that they might be paired up, but most people don’t read those signs and families tend to be the most demanding and entitled demographic, who would be the most unhappy about having to share a boat. Certainly when I worked there, we figured it was just easier, and more efficient, to allow small groups to have boats to themselves.
Click to expand...
From my visit to Chessington earlier this year, I was batched as a single rider on Tiger Rock without sharing a boat on rides.

I'm assumed that on very busy days, they would push for batching more people together although on Rumba Rapids, I've been batched on my own most of the time even on busy days.

At Europa Park, I was mostly batched with other groups (sometimes on full boats) on both the log flume and the rapids and nobody had any issues.

Personally, I'd say that staff at Merlin parks appear to batch what is easiest on water rides and don't batch groups together unless it's absolutely necessary.

I wonder if this is why they haven't updated the No Single Rider policy for Pirate Falls at Legoland? 🤔
 
Bowser said:
Had a good day at Chessington yesterday but the most notable aspect was being evacuated from the top of Tiger Rock!

As we got to the top run i noticed the front boat wasn't going down, to the point the next one bumped into it and figured we were going to do the same. In the end there were 3 boats of us up there.

There was swiftly an announcement saying the ride had ceased operation and to please stay seated until staff arrived.

There then followed a dozen increasingly irate announcements saying the same, presumably as people elsewhere on the ride were standing up and messing around.

I must say, if you're going to get stuck on a ride this is probably the best one. I had my phone in my pocket, my bag full of food, drink and my son's iPad so we were set in case of a long wait! It was pretty windy, which fortunately my son enjoyed but dry and warm so quite a nice little picnic spot. Full WiFI signal up there too!

The front boat was stuck on the little lift before the drop but after the bump ours started floating back which briefly concerned me. I did try to stop this but to no avail. However we only floated halfway and then entered a cycle of slowly drifting back and forth with the other boat.

After around 15 minutes staff members arrived. They pulled our boat back to near the lift-hill where we then climbed out, walked the remainder and then down the lift-hill stairs. So we basically got the VIP experience for free! Got a free fast-track for one ride for our trouble too.

Didn't get to fully enjoy the climb down (regular readers may remember my son is severely autistic so i was concentrating on aiding him and he only got upset when he realised we were leaving the ride) but it was still a memorable experience!

-----------------------------

Additional note, i always wondered why we got our own boat on Tiger Rock as a twosome. Turns out there is a sign on the wall saying children between 1.2 and 1.3m cannot sit in the front or back seat of the boat and i guess it's easier just to keep things moving rather than try and find passengers to fit in the remaining space.
Click to expand...

Sounds eventful - feel for you with you autistic son. I’m in the same boat.
 
Jb85 said:
Sounds eventful - feel for you with you autistic son. I’m in the same boat.
Click to expand...

Thanks. Yeah we were pretty fortunate we had so many elements in our favour. If it had been on the first lifthill of Vampire would have been a very different story!

It's the main reason we're not really going to AT at the moment, the few rides he wants to go on are just too unreliable and he asked to leave last time which was heartbreaking. CWOA and Legoland have been more reliable this year and if things do go down they seem to be fixed relatively quickly.

Also tend not to go on rides that have the potential to leave you stuck in a perilous position. Bit concerned about some of the German parks that have locker policies too as he can only communicate with his AAC device but we'll cross that bridge if we get there.
 
Bowser said:
Also tend not to go on rides that have the potential to leave you stuck in a perilous position. Bit concerned about some of the German parks that have locker policies too as he can only communicate with his AAC device but we'll cross that bridge if we get there.
Click to expand...

I presume this is in relation to the more recent additions to Phantasialand and Europa?

Majority of the rides don't have lockers, and I'd imagine that if you were using Europa's RAP equivalent they'd have some format to ignore the locker stuff. Arthur's single rider queue ignores it.

Those are pretty much the only parks in Germany that have any locker based policy. And they're in the queuelines anyway just prior to loading.
 
Benzin said:
I presume this is in relation to the more recent additions to Phantasialand and Europa?

Majority of the rides don't have lockers, and I'd imagine that if you were using Europa's RAP equivalent they'd have some format to ignore the locker stuff. Arthur's single rider queue ignores it.

Those are pretty much the only parks in Germany that have any locker based policy. And they're in the queuelines anyway just prior to loading.
Click to expand...

Yes those 2 parks. It’s more for if we are stuck on or by the ride for a long period and he’s left unable to communicate. Will investigate options when the time comes.

What’s the reason some parks implement this? No UK rides do afaik, even Mandrill which has the track slowly inverting over peoples heads. Is it just cultural health and safety variations? I mentioned in my Plopsaland report how they had a casual attitude to this 😂

I remember the lockers at Universal Singapore were at the ride entrance on the inverting coaster which was a bit rubbish for something with a 60+ minute queue. Authentic 90s queuing experience though!
 
Benzin said:
Majority of the rides don't have lockers, and I'd imagine that if you were using Europa's RAP equivalent they'd have some format to ignore the locker stuff. Arthur's single rider queue ignores it.

Those are pretty much the only parks in Germany that have any locker based policy. And they're in the queuelines anyway just prior to loading.
Click to expand...
Having been to Europa last month as a solo, Arthur's single rider queue goes to it's own section of lockers at the very start before you go into the queue itself.

Although yes, RAP goes through the ride exit and skips lockers.
 
Bowser said:
Yes those 2 parks. It’s more for if we are stuck on or by the ride for a long period and he’s left unable to communicate. Will investigate options when the time comes.

What’s the reason some parks implement this? No UK rides do afaik, even Mandrill which has the track slowly inverting over peoples heads. Is it just cultural health and safety variations? I mentioned in my Plopsaland report how they had a casual attitude to this 😂

I remember the lockers at Universal Singapore were at the ride entrance on the inverting coaster which was a bit rubbish for something with a 60+ minute queue. Authentic 90s queuing experience though!
Click to expand...

FLY has no nets or anything by design. Stops things being thrown or dropped.
 
Two people have been stabbed at Chessington, appears to have happened in the car park.

Police confirmed that a stabbing took place at the packed theme park this afternoon and said officers were called to attend just after 2.30pm.

A Met spokesman said: 'Police were called at 2:36pm on Thursday, 22 August to reports of two injured people at an adventure park in Chessington.

'Officers and London Ambulance Service [LAS] attended. A man was found on a nearby road with minor injuries. A second man was found in a carpark with knife wounds.

'A third male was arrested on suspicion of grievous bodily harm [GBH]. At this stage we believe that all of the men are known to each other and that nobody else was involved.

'The injured parties were taken to hospital. We await an update on the condition of the man with knife injuries.'
A Chessington World of Adventures spokeswoman said: 'An isolated incident involving two guests occurred in the car park this afternoon.

'The emergency services were immediately alerted and the resort’s fully trained first aid team administered care until ambulance teams arrived.

'We are fully supporting the Metropolitan Police with their investigation.'

Anyone who witnessed the incident or has footage should call police on 101 or X @MetCC quoting 3961/22AUG.
Click to expand...


www.dailymail.co.uk

Stabbing at Chessington World of Adventures: Two men injured

Two people have been injured after a stabbing at the Chessington World of Adventures theme park near London.
www.dailymail.co.uk
 
What terrible news... I hope all involved recover well.

I do wonder whether this will cause Chessington to introduce the same stricter security checks as Thorpe Park has. While this incident happened outside the park, it still happened on Chessington property, so they may want to be safe rather than sorry.
 
Matt N said:
What terrible news... I hope all involved recover well.

I do wonder whether this will cause Chessington to introduce the same stricter security checks as Thorpe Park has. While this incident happened outside the park, it still happened on Chessington property, so they may want to be safe rather than sorry.
Click to expand...
It happened in the car park, so I assume that if they were attending the park they were checked anyway. There is nothing to stop someone from bringing a prohibited item in their vehicle and leaving it there for the day. There is nothing to stop anyone from driving in the car park at any point.
 
There have been plenty of incidents at US parks with stabbings and guns over the years. Unfortunately it's just societal and not much you can do if it happens before your security checkpoints.

Chessington does have less intrusive checks though compared to Thorpe Park. I guess on the whole they get less trouble due to the different demographics they attract.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top