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Chessington World of Adventures Resort

Chessie not having any zoo functionality would be a crisis for many who still call it Chessington Zoo.

With having the zoo there's no chance of it being the most profitable when it has the most consistent outgoings of the entire Merlin portfolio.

I'd imagine AT having the listed buildings and substantial gardens faces consistent outgoings too, even if said upkeep is shall we say... lackadaisical?
 
Fair enough, well I guess most people are rather upset that Alton Towers is no longer the favourite child of the Merlin group :p .
Towers still the headline attraction for me in name and stature. Ask anyone abroad and most won't know Chessington and have probably heard of Thorpe due to Hyperia. Towers has legendary status and I think that's why it's so emotive for many when it's seen to not be performing well

Good times will return
 
Good times will return
Yes, when or if Merlin sells Alton Towers. At the moment I have zero incentive to revisit when parks like Europa Park have ten times more pull. But going back on topic, even just walking around Chessington (which as I've said previously, is also a very flawed park), it has more atmosphere than Alton Towers does currently.
 
Merlin actually invest more into the UK Parks then they do Gardaland or Heide Park both have gone years without a new coaster
A theme park does not need to invest in new coasters exclusively. I have not visited Heide nor Garda, but the feedback I see from other enthusiasts (some are also former Merlin employees like myself) tends to be more positive about both parks than any of the UK parks, Alton Towers in particular.
 
But Chessington’s issue is that they’ve tried to be a bit of a jack of all trades, not really picking a lane in terms of which side they want to emphasise more, particularly since Merlin took over. They’ve built up the theme park, but many of the additions and actions throughout the 2010s have had some degree of hefty animal-based component to them. Look at ZUFARI. Look at Land of the Tiger. Look at the entire accommodation offering. Look at their events. Heck, look at their taglines and marketing communications. The animals are very, very baked into Chessington’s identity alongside the rides, so losing them will be an utterly seismic shift like the park has never seen before. The park started as a zoo back in the 1930s, so losing the very thing that ultimately led to the current theme park will be a big, big transition for them that definitely won’t be easy.

Fundamentally, we need to ask ourselves; without the animals, what is Chessington? What niche do they fill within the UK theme park market, particularly in the increasingly saturated strand of it that is London and the South East? I think the IPs and recent investment might be an attempt to try and find the answer to that question and give the park a new niche, as with the heavy animal emphasis persisting as recently as the last few years, the park will need to do a fair amount of soul searching to try and distance themselves from the big animals and carve out a new identity. It’s a bit like SeaWorld and their efforts to try and gradually distance themselves from killer whales after having them as a main draw for decades, albeit the big animals at Chessington aren’t quite as much of a taboo main draw.

To offer a personal perspective, I thought they had already moved away from the zoo aspect a long time ago, to be honest. I first went there in 1991 and thought it was fantastic, but can barely remember the animals. When I told people I'd been there, I sort of had to explain that it was a theme park now, rather than a zoo.

However, as you rightly say, they did persist with the zoo aspect even in the 2010s (I was quite surprised with ZUFARI, even though it expanded the park). My instinct is that they'll be fine, as there must be a market for at least a couple of family theme parks near London.
 
The choice of IP's are great. Both are hugely popular and pretty much guarantee high visitor numbers for the next few seasons. This will probably change the perception of Chessington away from the animals without the general public even noticing, call it a brand refresh something similar to how Paultons rode the success of Peppa Pig world. My only worry with chessington is how well they will execute the IP's. Paw Patrol will consist of 4 rides, Minecraft will consist of 3 rides. Compare that with Peppa Pig world at 9 rides and Thomas Land at 18 rides they look short especially if guests are visiting solely based on the IP. If the quality of the rides were up to Disney / Universal standards the lack of ride numbers wouldn't be of concern but in this case the rides look pretty standard just plastered with theming. It might work but I do think there might be some disappointment seeing an advert for Paw Patrol world and finding 4 poor rides with 1hr+ queues for them.
I'd say there is potential for some expansion into both areas eventually

Paw Patrol into Rattlesnake/Skyway Safari and Minecraft into Tiger Rock/Tomb Blaster. Minecraft has a massive field behind the Glamping area that could serve as Phase 3 however that might not happen because of Green Belt regulations.

I don't think that Paw Patrol will become as big as Peppa Pig or Thomas in terms of area but I'm sure Minecraft will grow bigger.
 
Chessington has the most ongoing projects so it's the most interesting right now even if Paw Patrol and Minecraft aren't your thing. If that waterpark gets built and the lodges they got permission 7 years ago they'll be a resort. Compare that to Thorpe who have... Portacabins for a hotel
 
Wondering if anyone knows what is going on with the lake/pond/whatever it is behind the sensory room, we were there at the weekend and noticed some work going on:

https://ibb.co/xqDL65T6

Also, anyone been on Dragons Fury recently and noticed the lift hill being slower and quieter than normal. It seemed to take longer to get to the top and wasn't making it's normal noise.
 
Chessington Buzz posted yesterday about new fencing and pump house for the Chessington Armada (small boats)

Dragons Fury is slower at the top of the lift hill - not sure why maybe to calibrate it better
Cheers. Hope the little fountain comes back, our boy has spent a crazy amount of time watching that and was thoroughly unimpressed by what he saw over the weekend.
 
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I noticed the slower lift on Friday - it wasn't just over the top it was slow the whole way up. No idea what the reason is but it increases the minimum dispatch interval so hopefully it's not a permanent change. Watching cars going round with two (occasionally even three) empty seats whilst stood in an unmoving queue is a thoroughly miserable experience and if they can't solve the underlying issues there the last thing the need is more changes that reduce capacity further.
 
Someone probably set it onto a lower car capacity. If theres a bit of maintenance needing on something then probably better to have it run slightly slower on the lift.

Seriously though the speed that thing could operate at the 8 car setting was hilarious.

Guess the park now invest in new fencing before it breaks and nearly kills someone. A positive for certain.
 
It has (had?) a SRQ but I'm not sure it's ever used nowadays. They can't fill the cars anyway due to the weight limit. Best you could do would be to weigh each group and then see if it would still be under the limit if adding a single rider. Just seems like a lot of trouble for little benefit. On Friday they weren't checking to see if groups of 2 could pair up, they just directed each group to a separate car.

Re: lift modes - there looked to be a few cars off the system on Friday so it could well have been in a different operating mode than usual. Definitely slow the whole way up though.
 
Can’t imagine a hefty single rider would enjoy that repeated humiliation.
I do wonder if there might be a new policy here, because if three adults are to be allowed to ride (with or without a child) they can do so only if the weight limit isn't exceeded. Three average-to-large adults will generally exceed the weight limit so perhaps this new policy is to reduce the embarrassment of telling people they're too heavy - or possibly sparing the staff from confrontation by groups that are required to split up.

Still though it is very frustrating to see cars being sent half empty when you know you could have been batched with another group. If this policy is retained on peak days that's going to result in horrendously long waits and even more angry visitors.
 
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