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Chessington World of Adventures Resort

jon81uk said:
Do you have a link showing Chessington aren’t engaging in breeding programs? As far as I knew they are linked with other zoos for that sort of purpose.
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It was a question not a statement. I know historically Chessington have bred their large mammals but I vaguely recall people suggesting they were winding it down and looking at repurposing the land long term which was why I asked (and presumably the root of @dave___ comment)
 
Bowser said:
It was a question not a statement. I know historically Chessington have bred their large mammals but I vaguely recall people suggesting they were winding it down and looking at repurposing the land long term which was why I asked (and presumably the root of @dave___ comment)
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I know some people have said the Trail of the King's area is going away and the gorillas don't have a large enough enclosure, but I haven't seen mention of the wanyama and Zufari areas changing.
 
All the zoo animals will be removed from the park aspect of the resort and relocated in Wanyama probably with the exception of The Rainforest and the penguin enclosure. Trail of the Kings will relocate. Once the larger animals die out they won't be replaced hence Tigers will go, Lions will go. Gorillas likely to get a purpose built new enclosure similar to what was there before the Azteca hotel extension in 2013/4. All of this detail is in the consultation and planning for Wild Asia and Mexicana. Chessington (and very few zoos) breed their own animals. It's a specialism. ChessIngton recently had their Zoo inspection and it was generally favourable with some changes needed which the park have pre-empted with some moves already. The park needs Zoo status for a host of reasons, aside from nostalgia, so it's very much part of the plans as the 100 year anniversary is 6 years away. The zoo status garners it favour with planning and taxation. The plan is to make the zoo 'stand alone'. None of the animals are mistreated or deliberately killed at Chessington (if you read the Facebook post on Tonda you'd be aghast at what some say!) and their record is pretty strong across all areas of welfare etc - things change and standards change and some of the enclosures aren't as good as they were hence the need to relocate and reinvest. The Zoo is here to stay
 
Had a generally good trip to Chessington today, only two points of note:

1. Had a great view of the Paw Patrol area. Have a photo i took *looks shifty* but presume i can't post these anymore with the new rules?

2. A weird queue jumping incident and i'm curious to get opinions. We were in the line for Tiger Rock and a woman and child were doing the "excuse me our friends are at the front". When they got to us i refused to let them past. I asked where there friends were and could they call to them. It turned out their friends were in the FT queue. I pointed out this was the wrong queue and they needed to go back. My assumption was they were trying to get to the front so they could board at a similar time. Everyone around us in the queue commended me for this. In the end they phoned their friends who explained to the host, who called to let them through, which i did. So i felt bad as it was a genuine mistake but i wasn't to know and they didn't really explain, not could they have proven they were being genuine.

The queue jumping rules are clear that you can't hold a place for someone. Obviously moral decency for say a child desperate to go to the toilet i think would trump this but then in this case their friends were in the FT queue so i'm not even sure how they came to be in the wrong queue in the first place. Anyway, feel a bit weird about it now but thought it was somewhat interesting!
 
Call_um said:
Only just spotted that Chessingtons opening hours for the whole summer holidays (and for the rest of the season) is 5pm. Same with Legoland.

Going back, 6pm has always been standard, and for most weekends throughout the season.

Ouch.
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Since this post theres been a couple of changes;

- 6pm closes from 9th Aug - 31st Aug 4
- Mondays + Thursdays throughout September and October have been cut from 5pm to 4pm

Don't think Chessie has ever had 4pm closes so thats a shame. Still no sign of any hours past 5pm in October, usually 7pm in the holidays + weekends.
 
Bowser said:
Had a generally good trip to Chessington today, only two points of note:

1. Had a great view of the Paw Patrol area. Have a photo i took *looks shifty* but presume i can't post these anymore with the new rules?

2. A weird queue jumping incident and i'm curious to get opinions. We were in the line for Tiger Rock and a woman and child were doing the "excuse me our friends are at the front". When they got to us i refused to let them past. I asked where there friends were and could they call to them. It turned out their friends were in the FT queue. I pointed out this was the wrong queue and they needed to go back. My assumption was they were trying to get to the front so they could board at a similar time. Everyone around us in the queue commended me for this. In the end they phoned their friends who explained to the host, who called to let them through, which i did. So i felt bad as it was a genuine mistake but i wasn't to know and they didn't really explain, not could they have proven they were being genuine.

The queue jumping rules are clear that you can't hold a place for someone. Obviously moral decency for say a child desperate to go to the toilet i think would trump this but then in this case their friends were in the FT queue so i'm not even sure how they came to be in the wrong queue in the first place. Anyway, feel a bit weird about it now but thought it was somewhat interesting!
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In terms of the queue jumping incident, I’ve worked at both Thorpe Park and Chessington, and based on my experience, Chessington is a lot more relaxed than Thorpe about (what I would define as) queue jumping. But they kind of have to be.

Frequently at Chessington, parents would take their kids out of the queues to use the toilet then come back in the same place, and Security were totally fine with this. At Thorpe this would have been a big no-no, but Chessington’s family demographic meant that it was only fair and right to cut people a bit of slack.

The reason that the host allowed those people through, could have been for what they saw as a legitimate reason. Whilst I know that in principle, the queue jumping policy is black and white, I think that CWOA know their audience and know that they have to have some lenience.
 
Enter Valhalla said:
Frequently at Chessington, parents would take their kids out of the queues to use the toilet then come back in the same place, and Security were totally fine with this. At Thorpe this would have been a big no-no, but Chessington’s family demographic meant that it was only fair and right to cut people a bit of slack.

The reason that the host allowed those people through, could have been for what they saw as a legitimate reason. Whilst I know that in principle, the queue jumping policy is black and white, I think that CWOA know their audience and know that they have to have some lenience.
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See that’s interesting, because Lego has a much lower age demographic than Chessie, and so the toilet problem is much worse… but Lego class that as queue jumping, and are generally hot on dealing with it.
 
Probably host dependent. If a guest came to the merge point and told me then was more than happy to hold rest of their group back in queue and let them go.

The problem is inconsistency. Which is probably why Lego don't allow it.
 
Security would always allow people to do it as well. So from the point of view of the host, what would be the point of asking those people to leave the queue if Security would just allow it? Chances are if the guests refused to leave (which would happen more often than not) Security would have to be called, who would just allow it. I’m not criticising the Security team here, I’m just saying that’s the reason why the host and Rides Managers/ TLs wouldn’t prohibit it.

That said, one time on Gruffalo, I had a lady who queued up on her own while her family were getting lunch, and then expected us to allow her family to join her at the front of the queue. Suffice to say was a step too far 😂
 
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