Chessington World of Adventures is once again expanding its VIP offerings for 2025 with the introduction of ‘Workshop Tours’ to allow guests to take a peek behind the scenes at the inner workings of the Technical Services Department. Chessington kindly invited the Attraction Source team to preview the experience to celebrate National Roller Coaster Day, so join us in covering our tour to get an idea of what to expect should you wish to book on to it yourself!
Our tour began at the Lodge Entrance to the park, after which we were taken to a room that acted as the main base for a brief introduction from two engineers and two VIP hosts. This provided an overview of the tour, basic safety points, when you can and can’t take photographs and videos – the majority of the tour can be photographed – and an opportunity to ask any questions. Bags can be securely left here, which was recommended for convenience, as we covered a lot of ground over the next three hours.
Accessibility information is then provided – with the park aiming to be inclusive, they’ve taken adequate steps to ensure this tour is as physically accessible as possible. Whilst there are some steep slopes to navigate, the tour could be completed whilst using a wheelchair. It’s also important to note that the maintenance areas you enter during the tour can be very loud, with sudden, harsh noises like banging or drilling occurring due to the nature of the workshops, and so those with sensory issues surrounding loud noises might want to take personal steps to ensure they are comfortable with this.
Once all of this information had been discussed, we swiftly moved over to the first stop of the tour: the main Engineering Workshop. This large facility is located beside the Lodge Entrance, acting as the main location where ride vehicles are dismantled and rebuilt, along with storage for a variety of ride parts throughout the park, both inside and outside. Before entering, for example, some of the old wheels from Kobra were visible, as well as wheels from other attractions at the park awaiting re-lamination. Once we had entered the workshop, the tour began to focus on the parts of the ride engineer’s role that you would never really consider otherwise, such as some of the different procedures that they follow. This included colour-coded boxes to indicate whether certain parts are clean and tested or not, with more information being provided later on regarding who inspects these parts and how they are cleaned.
Whilst expected to change on a tour-by-tour basis as maintenance is completed, we were able to spot new brakes for Vampire, the chassis of the spare Vampire train – as the park owns three trains but only operates two per season, the spare train is stripped and inspected as necessary during the season – and the chassis and fibreglass shells of the Dragon’s Fury and Rattlesnake cars on our tour, amongst other parts from different rides. The engineers were actively working in this half of the workshop during our tour, giving a fascinating insight into what they get up to daily, for example, painting the chassis of the Dragon’s Fury car ready for it to eventually return to the circuit.
Exiting the main workshop, we were taken to an adjacent room known as the main store room. Inside were a ton of ride-specific parts, with codes attached to each to make their location easily accessible should they ever be needed. We spotted lapbar restraints for Rattlesnake, plenty of nuts and bolts, Croc Drop restraints, and some ride wheels, amongst a plethora of other spare parts. The opportunity is also there for those who would like to hold some of the ride parts for pictures, as long as the engineers permit you to do so – a must-do for enthusiasts, of course!
Following an explanation of how the store room works and where everything is located, we entered the main workshop once more to view its other half. Some electrical engineering components were located here, as well as the cleaning equipment mentioned earlier.
This marked the end of the first portion of the tour, heading back into the park to make our way to Tiger Rock. Our tour guides were certainly not short of some fascinating facts to dish out along the way, with some insight into the history of the park being given. One instance of this was when we were told about the modification of a former attraction to make way for another, with ‘Toadie’s Crazy Cars’ being shortened to allow room for Dragon’s Fury’s station in 2004, later becoming Jungle Rangers with the introduction of The Rainforest in 2020. Similarly, some information on the history of Tiger Rock was provided as you enter Land of the Tiger, keeping the tour engaging throughout!
We took one final pit stop before entering the Tiger Rock workshop at the former site of the Wild Asia area of the park, building up anticipation for what’s to come at the resort in 2027 via a sneak peek at the construction site. Whilst photography was not allowed at this point, this included a lot of rubble and debris following the demolition of what once stood in the area. Whilst sad to see Wild Asia leave the park, it’s certainly exciting to picture what might be popping up over the next year!
Moving forward, we headed outside of the Tiger Rock workshop, finding a vertical storage setup for the boats, which are lifted on and off via a forklift. Alongside this, other ride parts were dotted around, such as lift hill motors, conveyor belts, and more. Whilst Chessington has not had to do this yet, they keep a ‘form’ for the moulding of Tiger Rock boats in case they need a fabricate a new one due to the design of the boat shells being bespoke for Chessington, and the manufacturer of the Log Flume, Mack Rides, not providing them as a result. Entering the workshop, there were stilts for the boats to be stored on after being removed from the circuit via a winch, which was briefly demonstrated by the engineers. We were also shown the different toolboxes before walking up some stairs to tour the store room within this workshop, operating in the same way as the store room explored earlier. Some more details about Tiger Rock, its history, and its area were discussed upon leaving the workshop, such as the maintenance of the water systems and how frequently they’re checked. There’s just one exit point by the Merlion bridge for the water in the lagoons when drained, and it can take days to do so.
The tour continues in the World of Jumanji, where we had the opportunity to take over a couple of the rides within the area: Ostrich Stampede and Mandrill Mayhem. Following on from the accessibility mentioned earlier, ride-specific accessibility requirements apply as usual, meaning that wheelchair users will be required to transfer onto the rides themselves. It’s important to note that this doesn’t operate as standard Fastrack; instead, the VIP team will walk you to the front of the queues. This is included in the itinerary of your tour as opposed to being given a Fastrack ticket to use in your own time, making it as seamless as possible, and we were also able to choose our rows when riding.
After taking a ride on Mandrill Mayhem, we headed behind the scenes to take a look at the unique ways in which the ride and workshop are set up for annual maintenance, which, similar to the ride itself, is unconventional. Unlike most roller coasters, Mandrill Mayhem doesn’t have a switch/transfer track system to remove the train from the circuit and into the maintenance shed. Instead, we were shown the removable piece of track that allows the train to be removed row by row via a crane, alongside a removable rail piece in the station for daily wheel checks on the train. The gate to enter the ride area is used to demonstrate the multi-level safety in place to ensure nobody ever enters unless they are meant to, for example, there are three different levels of keys required to lock the ride off to ensure it is not operational, and then to enter the ride area itself, maintaining that safety is paramount during routine maintenance.
Entering the workshop itself, we were presented with what is the most organised maintenance area in the park, given that it is the newest. We couldn’t help but notice one cool feature straight away – a Bolliger & Mabillard (B&M) running wheel that had been turned into a clock! On our tour, the workshop was currently being used to store the skeleton of the seats for the spare Vampire train, as Mandrill Mayhem’s standard maintenance schedule occurs over the closed season period. Seven individual trolleys were kept in the back of the workshop, each dedicated to a row of the Mandrill Mayhem train to be bolted on once removed from the circuit – there is no track within the workshop itself, unlike most roller coaster maintenance sheds. We were once again shown the toolbox with spare parts inside, the store room, the air compressor for the ride, and some parts that are unique to Mandrill Mayhem, such as a spare bumper that would typically be located at the end of the two spikes on the ride.
The final behind-the-scenes stop of our tour was the Mandrill Mayhem control room, which contains the capacitor storage system for the ride, manufactured by Stercom to power its two separate Linear Synchronous Motor (LSM) launches. On our tour, plenty of the in-depth technicalities of the ride were delved into at this point, which made for an interesting segment. For instance, there are 13 pairs of LSM stators in the station and 8 pairs of LSM stators on the second launch, with the capacitors in the control room constantly charging the stators to power the launch and get you up to speed during your ride experience. This takes about one minute maximum on average, meaning Mandrill Mayhem has a minimum dispatch interval that might make running a second train more difficult in theory. Furthermore, during the ride experience, you’ll reach a maximum height of 20 metres whilst traversing 380 metres of track, which was manufactured by B&M in the USA and Hungary. The support columns were manufactured elsewhere in Europe, and the train was manufactured in France. During the fabrication of the ride, approximately 1,519 litres of paint were used to give the ride its iconic jungle-themed colour scheme, alongside 251 tons of steel and 2480 bolts to secure all supports down to the 54 footers and the track to the supports – it’s impressive how much comes together to get these projects from concept to reality!
One final ride on Vampire brought our tour to a thrilling close, with the same direct access as enjoyed on Ostrich Stampede and Mandrill Mayhem, before returning to the main base for a final speech from the engineers and the VIP team. Each tour has one item to give away to a lucky winner, putting your knowledge to the test a final time.
It’s important to note that this tour operates during standard park hours, and so your tour may differ slightly from our experience! It’s also worth double-checking the timings on your ticket and planning for food and drink accordingly – whilst you can bring water with you for the tour, and toilet stops are accounted for in the itinerary, food is not included.
If you’ve ever wanted to peek into the technical side of theme park operations, then I’d absolutely recommend this tour! It’s evident that a lot of thought and planning went into putting it together. The itinerary is thorough, covering a lot of information that you’ll be blissfully unaware of as a standard day guest, but that only complements the fascinating nature of the tour. Being priced at £95 per person, it feels like good value for money given how much is on offer, from skipping queues to touring three different workshops across the span of three informative hours altogether. The engineers and VIP team accompanying our tour were friendly, encouraging, and took their time with all aspects to ensure all questions were answered and that everything was covered, remaining interactive throughout. You will be able to book the Workshop Tour via Chessington’s website imminently.
Separate to the tour, the park celebrated National Roller Coaster Day by having some engineers located near Dragon’s Fury display some ride parts for guests to see, touch, and ask questions about, with the aim of educating people on how much care and attention goes into maintaining the attractions at Chessington. Various wheels and other parts were for sale, along with a Mandrill Mayhem track theming feature which was never used in the area – pretty cool!
Thanks again to Chessington for allowing us to preview this new VIP experience, making for a memorable National Roller Coaster Day – we couldn’t have asked for anything more! Have you ever been on a similar behind-the-scenes tour before? If so, what did you think? Let us know via our social media channels!
