Chessington World of Adventures Resort

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Dan
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Chessington have started the recruitment process for this years Howl’o’ween event, with open auditions taking place on the following dates:

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Dan
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Due to a burst water pipe in the area, Chessington are experiencing no water/low pressure this morning. The resort are are currently working with Thames Water to find a solution and will not be opening until 11am today.
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Swarm Chris

Updated statement from Chessington, as the park will not open today at all:
FRIDAY 27TH JULY 2018
Early this morning we were made aware by Thames Water of a burst water pipe locally, which has resulted in the area experiencing no water/low pressure. Many homes, organisations and businesses, like ourselves, have been affected.

As a result, due to the health and safety of you our guests, we have been forced to make the difficult decision not to open the Theme Park and Zoo today. We apologise we weren’t in a position with the information provided to us by Thames Water to make our decision sooner.

As an alternative to your day out, Thorpe Park Resort and Legoland Windsor Resort will be accepting your Chessington World of Adventures Resort tickets today.

If you have already arrived at either our Lodge or Explorer Gate, our Team will be handing out letters with more information. Equally, we are re-validating tickets already purchased for today to be used up until October 18 this year. Please retain your ticket or any booking information for this re-validation.

We appreciate that this is frustrating and we apologise for any inconvenience this has caused by circumstances simply beyond our control.
Source: chessington.com
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Justin
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Chessington uploaded the following video from the BBC earlier... https://www.facebook.com/21321734034/po ... 688979035/
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Dan
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After yesterday’s closure due to water supply issues, Chessington have announced that they will be open on time, and as normal today.
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Cwoalover
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Hi guys. I totally agree about Chessington not needing a new coaster but I would love to see Samurai return. Though land of the tigers may not be mystic east, samurai would be a perfect addition since the building are a nice surrounding area for samurai. Also, I would like the old colour scheme back. Who knows, it could be orange and black stripes! Really though, rameses revenge needs it's buddy back since it wasn't the only upside down ride when samurai was their.
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vanjiematteo
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Swarm Chris wrote:The field at the corner of the Vampire and Dragon's Fury has been earmarked for development for a fair while, and I could see it nicely housing a wooden coaster, given how they've implemented Wicker Man.
It's to my understanding that they can't build on that green area next to Dragons Fury as it is green belt land. I know someone who works for Merlin and this was the reasoning she gave me.
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Stevieg1993
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How about a Mack junior launch coaster? Similar to Manta at SeaWorld Diego. I'd probably say it would be a good addition to the park and be a hit with their target audience.
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Chris
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That's a great ride.

However, right about now, any new additions would be welcome at Chessington.

It's coming on 15 years without a new coaster.

(And no, Scorpion Express does not count).
Swarm Chris

A Mack launched coaster might be a good fit for Chessington in terms of building restrictions.

If I remember correctly they have a similar height restriction to Alton (leading to Rattlesnake being shoved in a hole), along with a noise restriction (in part caused by the very noisy Vampire lift hill), and the inability to build on various amount of greenbelt land (although tearing it up with vehicles on a wet day is fine).

As much as I would love a family woodie at Chessington, they'd probably need to dig another hole and find some way of making it less noisy. I haven't heard a Mack powered launch in real life, but I'd assume it'll be one of the quietest large rollercoaster types available.
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Stevieg1993
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A family Mack Launch Coaster would be good,similar to Manta at SeaWorld Diego. Think it's only around 50 feet and 43mph. Add a good theme and you'd have a good family coaster which can pack abit of a punch as well. It be like a small scale Icon but better themed. Take out the inversions or at a push maybe add a barrel.
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Jared
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vanjiematteo wrote:
Swarm Chris wrote:The field at the corner of the Vampire and Dragon's Fury has been earmarked for development for a fair while, and I could see it nicely housing a wooden coaster, given how they've implemented Wicker Man.
It's to my understanding that they can't build on that green area next to Dragons Fury as it is green belt land. I know someone who works for Merlin and this was the reasoning she gave me.
Thankfully that's incorrect. Chessington, thanks to some clever planning and agreements with the local authorities expanded their major development boundary and it allows them to build on that land. Believe it or not, Chessington isn's short of expansion space, theres just a far bigger masterplan in place when it comes to Chessington which is going to take quite sometime to implement. They did have 2020/2021 earmarked as a high investment year and the plan was for a new roller coaster.
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professorb
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Saw this today outside Creepy Caves. There was also an arm crawling out from under the door, can’t be seen in the photo. Not sure if this is complete or work in progress.

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Justin
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This ties in with what they posted on Instagram today.

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Justin
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I can't recall seeing this thememing, but MMM Instagram have posted this new image...

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Cobby
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I went to Chessington yesterday for the first time since I believe 2015 and I wanted to write a little trip report on it. We did have a good day but there was a few problems with Chessington. First I'll start with the positives, the whole Land of the Tiger area is amazing and a really great addition to the park. I was also surprised at how big the whole tiger enclosure was which is great for the animals and the general feel of the area. Also all the staff through out the day were great and really friendly, and I really like how the whole park is themed overall.

Now the negatives on both my visits the operations were awful. The worst example of this has to be Rameses which I think has some of the worst ops I've ever seen. Now I'm mainly comparing this Ripsaw as that's the only other top spin that I have done but Rameses gets loaded from both sides which is weird as I originally boarded on the left hand side from the queue so I moved all the way to the end to fill every seat, but then people where also let down the right hand side and that caused them to have to move around me to get on the ride. 
They also don't tell everyone to fill every available seat which causes two single seats in the middle and end of the row which could have a party of two in if everyone moved down to fill every seat. Chessington also seems to not like asking for any smaller parties of two to fill extra seats. I noticed this on Vampire where the queue was 100 mins and I was in a party of 3. This meant that I got batched onto my own row and I noticed that further down the gates there was another single rider on the same train. To me it would've made sense to put me and the other single rider together and then ask if their was any parties of two in the main queue, especially because the station staff were trying to improve the throughput. 

My other gripe was with Tomb Blaster. Can this even be called a dark ride? Most of the building was flooded with natural light and this "dark ride" has taken the top spot for the worst dark ride I've ever been on. The ride photo really showed it when everyone on the train looked bored. You could also see most of the warehouse which is a shame as the queue is overall really well themed. The first time I queued for it, it broke down which I don't mind but there was no announcement to tell the queue this and it was only when I saw the app and saw the queue was closed that I realised it had broke down later followed by the arrival of ride maintenance. I also found it funny how old the ride system is. 

Finally the whole park could just do with a general tidy up and a bit of TLC. I'm not talking about spending loads of money on it as it's not entirely necessary but little things like making sure the toilets are free of cobwebs, which I know is fighting a losing battle with it being outside but it's still doable, cleaning up a few bit of ride areas like Rattlesnake, having staff walking round with litter pickers like at Towers etc.  

Despite this I did have a good day at Chessington and whilst I enjoyed the park overall I think that they just miss out on some of the details which would help to make the park more enjoyable.  
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Swarm Chris

I've been to Chessington twice this year and both times it felt like it had lost some of its sparkle. I do enjoy the overall atmosphere of the park, probably the most out of the resort parks, but I also noticed issues with Vampire and Tomb Blaster similar to yours.

Tomb Blaster has had some of the effects repaired for this season, the boulder being the most notable. I believe it was the previous facelift last year or maybe the year before, where they raised the overall light level even more. A shame as it used to be pitch black in there between scenes and it was massively better because of it, even though essentially none of the scenery has changed since it was first installed.

I also had the exact same issue of a ride break down and no announcements on Tomb Blaster.
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Justin
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The amigo at Rattlesnake has been fixed, although it has not been seen working yet!
Swarm Chris

Hocus Pocus Hall is seeking new owners.

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New owners to be announced on 17th October and will be taking up residence in Spring 2019.

But so you're aware, Compass is a real estate agent and that is their phone number. So don't expect any clues by calling it, just probably an annoyed business!

Edit: For whatever reason, Chessington have listed it with the agent, who have put it on Right Move  :lol
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Justin
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Just to confirm, the number is real and they will not provide you with any information :)
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