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Chessington World of Adventures Resort

That is an awful decision. Not a good look at all. Thought they may have held out until next season.

£10 for Dragons Fury too which gets regular 100 + minute queues because it can only run about 4 cars.

That old tongue in cheek theory that Merlin are content with low capacity on their rides because it generates more fast track sales :rolleyes:
 
RicketyCricket said:
That is an awful decision. Not a good look at all. Thought they may have held out until next season.

£10 for Dragons Fury too which gets regular 100 + minute queues because it can only run about 4 cars.

That old tongue in cheek theory that Merlin are content with low capacity on their rides because it generates more fast track sales :rolleyes:
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It seems to me to be more of a chessington issue that a merlin wide one. Majority of their main coasters investments seem to have an adequate capacity apart from at chessington and maybe the odd exception at other parks. Even the other family wing coaster they’ve installed abroad has a much higher capacity than this! And wickerman has a very reasonable throughput for a GCI. They could easily have designed it to be a 2 train coaster but made sure to get a higher capacity and run it with 3. However it’s either chessington get the short straw every time or the park themselves are contempt with low capacity attractions.
 
The main problem will arise when the free virtual queue is shown as ‘full’ but the paid option is available.

From a guest perspective it’s the equivalent of shutting off the entrance to the standby queue line and saying ‘but you can still ride if you bung us another £12pp’.

And they wonder why their trip advisor scores are through the floor.
 
It should be noted that according to Chessington Buzz in the replies, this is only a trial at present.

However, I must admit that I am now wondering whether to just cough up £12 on my visit in September rather than try and battle for a free slot…
 
So not sure where I should put this as it's relevant to both Chessington and Towers - but it's been mentioned a few pages back.

Dragon's Fury/Spinball - anybody know why there is a 3 adult limit? Do any of the other SC3000 models out there have the same limit? (Yes I know Spinball is an SC2200). Both variants of Winja's allow 4 adults per car. Is this a "Merlin being Merlin" thing, or something Maurer have pushed on these two specific coasters?
 
Katy said:
So not sure where I should put this as it's relevant to both Chessington and Towers - but it's been mentioned a few pages back.

Dragon's Fury/Spinball - anybody know why there is a 3 adult limit? Do any of the other SC3000 models out there have the same limit? (Yes I know Spinball is an SC2200). Both variants of Winja's allow 4 adults per car. Is this a "Merlin being Merlin" thing, or something Maurer have pushed on these two specific coasters?
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Dragon’s Fury supposedly has this because one of the brake runs is apparently unable to stop a full car in certain conditions; I seem to remember something along those lines being mentioned earlier in the thread when I asked a similar question.

Spinball doesn’t have the same 3 adult limit, to my knowledge, but I could be wrong there. It has an individual weight limit of 111kg, but I have never seen enforcement of this weight limit.
 
AT86 said:
The main problem will arise when the free virtual queue is shown as ‘full’ but the paid option is available.

From a guest perspective it’s the equivalent of shutting off the entrance to the standby queue line and saying ‘but you can still ride if you bung us another £12pp’.
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You jest but this brings back flashbacks of Alton Towers around 2002/3. They had free Virtual Q for everyone, first-come first-served (scan your park ticket), and then they introduced a paid version for your phone called VQ Mobile. You could guarantee as soon as the free VQ ran out they'd have their vans down in the Valley trying to sell VQ Mobile
 
Alsty said:
You jest but this brings back flashbacks of Alton Towers around 2002/3. They had free Virtual Q for everyone, first-come first-served (scan your park ticket), and then they introduced a paid version for your phone called VQ Mobile. You could guarantee as soon as the free VQ ran out they'd have their vans down in the Valley trying to sell VQ Mobile
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I remember those days, but you could at least still join the regular line if you wanted to and queue (right?) with the Chessington situation that isn’t possible.
 
Have they started enforcing max 3 adults on Spinball? I've not even attempted to ride this year so haven't watched the ride closely enough to see for myself.

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Re: Towers VQ, there was a time when certain rides were VQ only, though I think that might have been dropped by the time they started charging

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Fastrack for MM is profiteering, pure and simple. If the virtual queue has availability then guests have no reason not to use it, unlike a physical queue which takes time out of the day that could be used to do other things. No doubt the trial is just to see how many they can sell at that price.
 
Mandrill Mayhem has a one reservation per day policy right? If people pay that £12, does that allow them to have an extra ride? If this is the case then Fasttrack for Mandrill Mayhem is monumentally stupid.
 
This really does seem crazy from a guest satisfaction point of view - is their response to the many complaints about not being able to join the virtual queue seriously taking free slots away and replacing them with £12pp ones?
Willemgorman1 said:
I wouldn’t pay £12 to skip a virtual queue when a virtual queue means i can ride other rides whilst waiting. What’s the point in skipping a virtual queue?
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The availability for the Fastrack / One Shot is separate (I believe), so it will continue to be available after the virtual queue is marked as "full". As @Thameslink Rail said this would probably allow re-rides too.
 
Thameslink Rail said:
Mandrill Mayhem has a one reservation per day policy right? If people pay that £12, does that allow them to have an extra ride? If this is the case then Fasttrack for Mandrill Mayhem is monumentally stupid.
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If they do have this policy, then it hasn’t been enforced very much lately. I’ve read numerous trip reports and reviews where people have reserved more than one slot in a day.
 
I’d imagine there would still probably be some guests who ride once when the VQ is already full for the day and want to ride again, so choose to pay as their only option for another ride (this is probably exactly what they’re hoping for)
 
AT86 said:
No they scrapped that policy early doors as there was no way of them policing it.
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Couldn’t they have coded the system so that each account created can only have one reservation per day?

Admittedly I’m not a qualified software developer, but I can’t imagine that that code would be too difficult to implement.
 
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