Chessington World of Adventures Resort

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ProfBurp
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Justin wrote:With Room on the Broom, I think we are on to a safe IP. We can see what they have done with Gruffalo and Shrek, so it will hopefully it will be a quality experience. 
We should know more on the preview day, so watch this space :)
Completely agree, credit where credit is due, they actually did a pretty good job with Gruffalo so hopefully this new attraction will compliment that.
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Ladyofthelake
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I'm quite looking forward to seeing what they've done with Room on the Broom. As people have said, they've done good work with the Gruffalo so I am confident this will be completed to a high standard too. Even if it is mainly a walkthrough attraction, as long as they've paced the narrative correctly it should work well and keep people's interest for long enought to get the most out of it.

I do think Chessington have done well to secure two of Julia Donaldson's most popular works - they are ideal for Chessington's target market and should be popular for a good while yet. however I do think they need to be a little careful not to over saturate the park with these IPs - two attractions is probably enough, anymore and it'll risk being too much.
Swarm Chris

A walkthrough is pretty much all I'm expecting for this. I would have thought adding any 'ride' component may have caused bottlenecks, as they don't have much space to play with. Nice scenes, music and sounds should make for a nice small relaxed attraction.

Technically, wouldn't this be the third attraction, with the Grufallo theatre being the second? :P
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ProfBurp
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I am trying to find the music from the Safari/Azteca Hotel lobby, Zafari Bar & Grill and conference areas. It is a compilation of various different tracks of African music. I am presuming that as they have been playing even when it was a Holiday Inn they are most likely trans available to download from Apple Music/Spotify etc, but was hoping someone might be able to point me in the right direction, either already having a list of them etc. Your help would be most appreciated as always brings back memories of many visits. Thanks in advance
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ProfBurp
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Well there is some very useful free marketing about Gruffalo, with thw launch of a 50p coin that was launched especially for 20 years of the Gruffalo. It seems to be proving extremely popular!! Very useful for Chessington with the Gruffalo IP and of course the Room on the broom coming this year!
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Swarm Chris

Chessington have announced that they have reached car-parking capacity for the day. This is partly due to only the hard-standing car park at the hotel being available, with the Explorer grass car park currently closed for renovations, including the laying of tarmac entrance roads to replace the old gravel ones.

The park is currently advising anyone wishing to visit the park today, to arrive by public transport. It is also advising those who wish to arrive by vehicle on subsequent Animal Adventure days, to arrive at the park early to avoid disappointment.

It's weird to think that the hard-standing north car park used to be the main car park, with the grass south car park used as the overflow parking on super busy days. Now they reach capacity of that car-park when the park is barely open.
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Chris
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Indeed - but bear in mind that about 50% of that is used as hotel parking now.
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DeadJack5
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I never got to experience Hocus Pocus Hall, same as Bubbleworks. But if the attention to detail is as in depth as it is in The Gruffalo, it will certainly make a good attraction. I do agree that I would rather see a new concept as opposed to an IP but if its done well, I can't complain.
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Michelle
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I've the same opinion, The Gruffalo is very well done and was beautiful to experience, it's too easy to cling to nostalgia but the parks do have to move on and if the quality of this is similar to the Gruffalo then it should be a great addition.
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ProfBurp
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I loved both Bubbleworks and a HPH, but credit where it’s due, whilst I don’t like the invasion of IP’s constantly at Merlin parks, I have to say that they did a pretty good job of the Gruffalo and therefore if this new attraction is matching then I’m sure it will be good quality. Both are incredibly popular with children at the moment, so there is certainly a massive appeal, fingers crossed for a good addition to the resort.
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obliviongirl
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Getting really tired of the IP’s to be honest. I was disappointed when they changed Bubbleworks to Gruffalo but then again I haven't been on Gruffalo so can't really comment.

I understand IP’s are good from the park's perspective for marketing and that but in terms of longevity perhaps not so much. I miss the days when all the rides were based on original ideas... felt a lot more magical that way.
Swarm Chris

Anyone know what the state of the Explorer Car Park is? It was still under construction a couple of weeks ago and it's currently not listed on the Chessington website, bar a brief mention in a bit about motorhomes.

Would be nice to know if there's going to be parking issues this weekend beforehand. I sent a message to Chessington direct, but no response. :(
Swarm Chris

Swarm Chris wrote:Anyone know what the state of the Explorer Car Park is? It was still under construction a couple of weeks ago and it's currently not listed on the Chessington website, bar a brief mention in a bit about motorhomes.

Would be nice to know if there's going to be parking issues this weekend beforehand. I sent a message to Chessington direct, but no response. :(
To answer my own question: Chessington have just confirmed to me that Explorer Car Park will be open from tomorrow. :)
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Chris
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What a great little attraction! Here's our POV.
Swarm Chris

That first room has a far higher quality than I was expecting.

Does look like a nice attraction, hopefully I can go back and visit it once the crowds have died down a little bit. :)
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ProfBurp
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Oh wow it looks impressive can’t wait to try this out soon! They’ve done a good job and much better than I was expecting.
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abigsmurf
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That's a pretty neat, creative attraction. One of the best non horror walk through attractions I've seen in a while

Just kinda wish they'd either make some of the tasks work without the staff or have proper performers. Kills the atmosphere a bit having an immersive attraction narrated in rhyme and then just having the staff going 'come on guys'
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lewis97
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abigsmurf wrote:Just kinda wish they'd either make some of the tasks work without the staff or have proper performers. Kills the atmosphere a bit having an immersive attraction narrated in rhyme and then just having the staff going 'come on guys'
It was being operated in manual mode yesterday, which is why a staff member was leading groups through the attraction, then triggering the start of each scene. They are hoping to have it working automatically in the next couple of weeks, which should reduce the need for the staff member, although I guess it depends how well it works without having someone stopping guests in the right places and making sure they’re doing the right things along the way.
Swarm Chris

Dragging this topic back from the depths, as I fear it will soon have the [retired] tag next to it.

Chessington have broken this ride. The state it was in yesterday, I feel they perhaps should have just not bothered to open it. This is quite sad, because it was a ride I often looked forward to and would ride a few times in a visit.

First up the queue. It stated 40 minutes, but the line was just to the top of the outdoor stairs leading down. It should also be noted that there is a holding point inside now, which if it hadn't been there, would have meant the entire queue would have been inside the core themed indoor area. My expectations, this was a 5-10 minute queue. Wrong. It was much closer to 40 than it had any right to be. (Edit: for reference, queue time used to be an hour if the queue line hit the actual entrance and used the entire long queue, back when the ride first opened.)

Inside, it seemed strange that they were letting groups of about 8-10 people through at a time to go to the station. When each train can hold around 30 people, this seemed odd, even if holding a car back for RAP. At the station it became clear, of 3 consecutive trains that I saw, there were 4 entire cars roped off and out of action. That's very close to an entire train inoperable. Then it appeared car 2 was to be used by RAP and only RAP. So if no one was waiting for RAP, that car was sent out empty. On the train I was on, there were 10 people taken from the regular queue and 4 from RAP. Fast track now feeds into the main line at the holding point, using an old emergency exit.

Things didn't get much better. This is the worst state I've ever seen the ride, with scenery, effects and audio missing throughout the ride.

In the queue line, one of the TVs showing instructions for the ride had been removed, whilst the other was on standby. In the ride, the boulder no longer works again. The snake room has no smoke, meaning you can just see the entire backstage mechanism that operates the rotating snakes, lit up horrendously brightly. The scene where knives are thrown at you by shadows on the wall, no sound effects at all, in fact barely any audio at all. The final room, it just seemed to be running part of the audio, and felt like someone had just left a portable CD player with a single speaker in there somewhere and removed all of the actual audio system. The ride felt hollow.

Clearly this ride received little to no maintenance over the winter. At least when they gave up on Bubbleworks, capacity remained high, the audio worked and most of the scenes worked. It seems to me they've given up on Tomb Blaster now, and given that 3, of what I would presume the best quality, trains they have, are significantly broken, I'd be surprised to see this continue much longer. If it even makes it to the end of this year.
Swarm Chris

Some updates on the Explorer grass car park. It's not finished. But, it is overall in a better state than last year.

The park is in the process of laying a proper hard standing road and path. The core of this will lead from the entrance road, presumably around to Go Ape, on the park side of the car park.

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On the entrance road that winds around the back of the car park, they have leveled the road and filled all of the potholes. I'm unsure if this will also have asphalt laid on it, but it seemed like it should. Either way, road quality is massively improved over last year.

A high grip free standing roadway has been placed to mark the parking rows, but something has already churned up the ends of each row. Meaning I saw a car get stuck with wheels spinning, whilst attempting to park at the end of the road. The side access tracks to each row in the car park I was in, had not been repaired and were still very bumpy.

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Finally, getting out of the park. There was barely any queue to get out, I had maybe 3 cars in front of me at the barriers. But it still took me around 25 minutes to get out, because only the exit at the car park entrance was used, which is a nightmare for traffic. I suspect that the back exit is currently inaccessible due to the new road being laid.
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