Reb
TS Member
It can fit four adults actuallyThere's no room in the Vampire operator cabin for that
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ā¹ļø Heads up...
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Batzy
TS Member
I've had a good but slighty mixed day at Chessington. It was absolutely packed and as much as I tried to work around it, things didn't all go the plan.
I see what everyone means now by the queue times being inaccurate. Croc Drop said 35 minutes, walk on. Rattlesnake said 45, waited over an hour. Sadly couldn't get on Mandrill as booking was all full and confusing overall. Had to miss Dragon's Fury too as the queue was out the entrance all day.
I noticed no major rides went down during the day, which was a nice surprise. Rattlesnake could have been operating better though. They weren't filling all the carts which was a bit annoying.
After being disappointed by Mandrill and an hour and a half left, we ended the day with Vampire. It said an hour, (which it was by the time we reached the station), and it was a good way to end the day. I hadn't originally planned to do it but I'm glad I did. It was better than I expected.
Overall not a bad day, just not the best time of year to go.
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I see what everyone means now by the queue times being inaccurate. Croc Drop said 35 minutes, walk on. Rattlesnake said 45, waited over an hour. Sadly couldn't get on Mandrill as booking was all full and confusing overall. Had to miss Dragon's Fury too as the queue was out the entrance all day.
I noticed no major rides went down during the day, which was a nice surprise. Rattlesnake could have been operating better though. They weren't filling all the carts which was a bit annoying.
After being disappointed by Mandrill and an hour and a half left, we ended the day with Vampire. It said an hour, (which it was by the time we reached the station), and it was a good way to end the day. I hadn't originally planned to do it but I'm glad I did. It was better than I expected.
Overall not a bad day, just not the best time of year to go.
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jmc
TS Member
Granted its a busy time of year, but if because of the current system youāve been unable to ride what is arguably going to be the main draw for a lot of people at the moment, then that is completely farcical.
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D4n
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Zadra
Crazy that you weren't able to ride it today.
I visited yesterday and was able to ride 7 times despite hour plus queues across the rest of the park. Occasionally the queue was "full" but new slots regularly came up. It massively improved the day as often at Chessington the issue is finding any queues of a reasonable length to join.
Unfortunate that it didn't work for you but glad you had a good day regardless.
Batzy
TS Member
Tbh, it was also on me. I should have booked earlier. I tried at 11ish and it said unable to book because the queue was full. The timer said 3 hours until it the next slot was open. When that timer was up I did manage to book it for 4:30 but we had to leave at 4 so I cancelled it. If we'd been able to stay till closing I would have got on it.
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Reb
TS Member
I wish there was some way you could guarantee at least one ride on mandrill.
It seems like such a shame to have people that want to ride it unable to because they're unlucky whilst some people could have 3 goes due to looking at the app at the right time.
RicketyCricket
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Taron
Just let people queue regularly lol
They might get a few complaints about the queue times but at least everyone has an equal chance to ride.
Merlin really are clueless sometimes. How was such a low capacity ride approved in the first place?
They might get a few complaints about the queue times but at least everyone has an equal chance to ride.
Merlin really are clueless sometimes. How was such a low capacity ride approved in the first place?
siralgenon
TS Member
I mean how do you even manage that with a log flume, it's constantly moving. Unless you're putting one person in each boat I don't know how you can get the queue to 100 mins.
Thameslink Rail
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- The Smiler
I've seen Chessington manage it before, usually by not letting enough main queue guests through at the merge point.
BigShadowtinytree
TS Member
Two words: fast track.
You forget that chessington now run it on around 10-15 boats. ?
Enter Valhalla
TS Member
I highly doubt that Tiger Rock is actually 100 mins. Chessingtonās queue times are notoriously inaccurate.
BigShadowtinytree
TS Member
I did forget that actually, lack of boats certainly wonāt help either.
Batzy
TS Member
I agree about the queueing. Yes it would be very long, but then at least people can decide for themselves whether it's worth it for them.
If the park can get its queue times accurate that is!
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Tom
TS Member
More like "operations" and "reliability" - both being hideous. The place looks very pretty and well presented, but the operations are generally worse than many independent UK parks.
Reb
TS Member
I often wonder how much Chessington makes vs how much it costs to run.
It appears to be popular but doesn't seem to get much investment.
It's almost as if Merlin are waiting for the park to do better before they really invest some money. I know we just had the new Jumanji area but some areas of the park are really badly maintained.
It appears to be popular but doesn't seem to get much investment.
It's almost as if Merlin are waiting for the park to do better before they really invest some money. I know we just had the new Jumanji area but some areas of the park are really badly maintained.
djtruefitt
TS Team
Iāve never known such a bad log flume than chessingtons, after itās refurbishment. Anyway. It seems to spend more time broke than it does open when ever I visit. Then it does seem to run hardly any boats. But I guess that is what happens when you get someone like Garmendale to bodge the ride rather then Mack 
.
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Matt N
TS Member
- Favourite Ride
- Mako (SeaWorld Orlando)
One factor could be that Chessington's attendance has often been said to be significantly driven by Merlin Annual Pass holders compared to that of the other Merlin parks. I've examined Merlin's attendance graph (the one wheeled out for planning applications) in detail, and it showed that there was roughly a 30% spike in attendance at Chessington in 2008 despite there not being any significant investment that year aside from the SeaLife centre. 2008 was the first full year of Merlin owning the parks and as such, it was the first full year of Merlin properly pushing the annual passes in the way that they have for many years now. With that in mind, I don't think that it's too much of a reach to suggest that the introduction of and heavy emphasis on MAPs from 2008 onwards was at very least a significant contributing factor in driving that particular increase.
In terms of what this means; if a greater percentage of Chessington's guests are MAP holders, then the average guest is spending far less money than in a theme park where a lower percentage of the guests are annual pass holders. Having high guest figures is all well and good, but it's pretty irrelevant to the bottom line if spend per capita (i.e. how much money the average guest spends while in the park on entry, food, merchandise etc) is low. As an example; if park A gets 1 million guests per year with a spend per capita of Ā£100, they will have a turnover of Ā£100million. If park B gets 2 million guests per year with a spend per capita of Ā£25, they will have a turnover of just Ā£50million. Even though park B gets double the amount of guests that park A does, they will only make half as much money, and that's all down to spend per capita. Spend per capita is far more important for determining how much money a park will have available than guest figures alone.
My basic point is; the reason for Chessington being popular but having lower investment could be because the large demographic of passholders, who often spend as little money as is humanly possible while in the park, mean that there is less money available due to the sheer percentage of guests spending minimal amounts of money on park driving down the spend per capita and by extension the turnover.
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