I had nothing better to do today so thought I should head over to Chessie. I got up late and arrived at the park around 12. I was expecting the park to be dead due to it being a Monday but it would appear a few schools had an inset day and therefore there were quite a few peeps at the park. Most of the main car park was actually full.
Anyway I decided to head over to Transylvania first because, well, why not? I walked straight on to Bubbleworks. It's still a joke, how they ever thought it would be a better experience after the re-theme is beyond me. However they are slowly changing the logos everywhere so it no longer has the evil sponsor of doom on it.
See, no evil sponsor in the centre
After exiting the ride I noticed the hot dog stall which was closed seemed to have something on the blind thing. I believe it's new, don't recall seeing it before and I love it...
Next was obviously Vampire. I approved of no queue and actually getting straight on the back row. They were operating it quite well despite the operator deciding to talk over the epic music every two seconds. It was running really well again today and the third train is still sitting in bits on the indoor brake-run, looks like new wheels have been put on.
Empty-ish station
Decided to go round to Pirates Cove next. Hah, another new sign on Fish & Chips...
Love these, I wonder if there are more...
I decided to ride Black Buccaneer. The loading procedure is just ridiculous now, it took a good 5-10 minutes to load the ruddy boat! It was just a shambles. If they are going to do this they need to bring back the air gates and have a second ride host to sort out everyone to save all the stupid faff. Utter shambles.
Still, a great ride and I like this photo I took
I then decided to ride Fury, I can't remember the last time this was walk on in normal operating hours. I sat in the front and two randoms sat in the back and we got some EPIC spinnage. Was a really good ride.
Furious logo needs more RAH
I ventured into Wild Asia next and to continue the theme I walked straight on Kobra! Great timing, though the man on the tannoy needed to shut the hell up. It was actually a really lame ride, it felt like there wasn't enough power in it and it took forever to get us over the hill, yeah, very disappointed.
Kobra fountain <3
Kobra
I decided to ride Monkey Swinger next, frustratingly the fountains weren't on (they were later in the day) and the ride op/host took forever to do anything, he seemed very new too. After all these walk ons a few minutes wait felt like forever.
Time to swing like a monkey
Where oh where should I go next?
So I chose to ride Dragon Falls next. As I got to the entrance a mother was getting all irate about the change in height rules. She has three kids, two of them have been able to ride for a year or two and one should've been able to ride today and now none of them can ride. I know it's not Chessington's fault about this new rule but families are really not happy about it. As I got down the stairs in the station another family was being informed about the new rule and told their child couldn't ride, another really p*ssed off mother. However my ride was quite nice and gentle and I got quite wet which was quite nice with the sun out and being quite warm.
Empty station
Ha, these are really awesome /sad
I really love this new over-themed claw game machine, I want one of those odd looking ninjas!
That new sign also has a sensor which sets off an announcement that tells you to sit still and wait for the crash in the station before getting off
<3 these
My next choice of ride is my favourite ride in the park, Tomb Blaster! Once again no queue. The only other peeps on the ride was a family of four in the front car. I was like, "Can I just sit wherever?" so I sat in car 3 to be difficult
As we had to wait ages to be despatched the ride hosts attempted to entertain by getting all 5 of us to do a mexican wave. Clearly this idea was going to fail from the beginning, added to this fact the kids had no idea what a mexican wave was lol. So yeah, that failed and the host gave up, luckily it was time to send us on our adventure. I felt like I was doing really well, I suppose it did help having hardly any competition.
Epic entrance of epicness
Told you I was doing well...I think this might be my new high score
I decided to ride Rameses Revenge next. I don't usually go on it but I did and I sat in an end seat, the weather was nice but not hot enough to get drenched by those fountains. The ride was quite painful and intense, got some crazy spin on it that I lost all orientation at one point. Ended up having four cycles, yeah, won't be doing that again lol.
Rameses Revenge is clearly too intense for me
Ha, can they be closed all the time just so I can see this every time I walk past?
Decided to ride Runaway train next. Once again walk-on. Man on the tannoy clearly loves the sound of his own voice, urgh. He also operates the ride in a way I loathe. On the second lap he slows it down to make you think it's going to stop before sending you round again (standard operation), however he starts slowing you down before the last turn meaning that by the time you get to the station you're bored to hell and just want off. Stupid man. He also wants everyone to wave to him, you're not special so go away. If this is what the park calls guest interaction I'm going to be ranting A LOT this year.
Runaway train comes to a stop
For some reason I skipped Rattlesnake and headed into the monkey and bird garden. I bumped into a zoo host that I've talked to on many occasions, she is really cool and we ended up talking for a good 15-30 minutes. She told me a sad story regarding the amazing Fennec Foxes which made me really sad though. You may have seen in my last trip report that they recently gave birth to some baby Fennec Foxes. Well as this was the mothers first litter they died a few days later, apparently this is very common but we can hope they'll try again and are more successful second time around. It was really good talking to her again, she always gives me all the latest news from around the zoo that I may not know. Oh and she reckons their new zoo tour type experiences will start in about May time as no-one is actually trained up on them yet. She was actually working on the squirrel monkey walk-through and told me the two babies are already roaming around without their mother and says they are really cute and playful. I didn't get to see them due to all of them sleeping.
I said farewell to zoo lady and continued round to Wanyama. I spotted Dwarf Mongoose (who were obsessed with the grass), Meerkats, new birds which are loud (think miniature lorikeets) among other regulars in the area.
I then opted to wander round Sea Life. It contained fish...
I then walked back round to Mexicana and rode Rattlesnake. Matt was operating! It was good to see him again, shame he isn't very active (if at all) on here these days.
It was then time for Safari Skyway. Not done it in a very long time. Bit boring to be honest and felt like it was going to fall apart. However it did mean I spotted a gorilla in the new expansion. Annoyingly I didn't get a pic of the gorilla actually in there but you can have an aerial shot of the expansion...
Random toilet shed has gone!
I then had a second go on Fury. This time I got like no spin which made me sad.
Then walked straight on to Tuk Tuk Turmoil after failing to achieve Noodle Noodle times. It was ok, nothing special, not the same when you don't know anyone else on the ride /loner. I then decided to say hello to the Lorikeets. None of them really came near me as I didn't have any food for them. I also spotted new birds in there that are just pigeons with a red eye, fail.
I then grabbed some food at the chicken place in Forbidden Kingdom. It was nom. The staff were really good, was a random influx of guests and they just dealt with us random latecomers. Bit of a delay with the food but they clearly weren't expecting like 20 peeps to turn up at (I think) 3:30ish. I decided that more Tomb Blaster action was needed. This time I was the ONLY peep on the ride and yet I managed to get a smaller score than earlier, still stupidly high though. My aim was just completely off at times, I blame the food
Second score
It was then time for some more Runaway train. It was still being run by the fool but as we came round on the third lap the two hosts decided to high five everyone as we went past, was brilliant. They then did it again as we came to a stop on our final lap, I don't mind that sort of guest interaction as that was just pure silly fun.
I then had another two goes on Rattlesnake. Oh and they now have baggage boxes on Rattlesnake, I'm assuming this is another H&S meltdown about peeps taking items on the ride.
It was coming close to 5pm now so I headed over to Vampire for one last ride of the day. Standard ride on Vampire sans queue
Was actually a really good day, nice ride count (obviously I could have whored like mad but I didn't) and was great talking to zoo lady (I'll remember her name one day lol) again. The weather was quite pleasant and the park was very quiet, I might do this school week visit more often Thanks to those who read all of this report.
More photos - http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=17679769&l=b0686090f6&id=529160359
Anyway I decided to head over to Transylvania first because, well, why not? I walked straight on to Bubbleworks. It's still a joke, how they ever thought it would be a better experience after the re-theme is beyond me. However they are slowly changing the logos everywhere so it no longer has the evil sponsor of doom on it.
See, no evil sponsor in the centre
After exiting the ride I noticed the hot dog stall which was closed seemed to have something on the blind thing. I believe it's new, don't recall seeing it before and I love it...
Next was obviously Vampire. I approved of no queue and actually getting straight on the back row. They were operating it quite well despite the operator deciding to talk over the epic music every two seconds. It was running really well again today and the third train is still sitting in bits on the indoor brake-run, looks like new wheels have been put on.
Empty-ish station
Decided to go round to Pirates Cove next. Hah, another new sign on Fish & Chips...
Love these, I wonder if there are more...
I decided to ride Black Buccaneer. The loading procedure is just ridiculous now, it took a good 5-10 minutes to load the ruddy boat! It was just a shambles. If they are going to do this they need to bring back the air gates and have a second ride host to sort out everyone to save all the stupid faff. Utter shambles.
Still, a great ride and I like this photo I took
I then decided to ride Fury, I can't remember the last time this was walk on in normal operating hours. I sat in the front and two randoms sat in the back and we got some EPIC spinnage. Was a really good ride.
Furious logo needs more RAH
I ventured into Wild Asia next and to continue the theme I walked straight on Kobra! Great timing, though the man on the tannoy needed to shut the hell up. It was actually a really lame ride, it felt like there wasn't enough power in it and it took forever to get us over the hill, yeah, very disappointed.
Kobra fountain <3
Kobra
I decided to ride Monkey Swinger next, frustratingly the fountains weren't on (they were later in the day) and the ride op/host took forever to do anything, he seemed very new too. After all these walk ons a few minutes wait felt like forever.
Time to swing like a monkey
Where oh where should I go next?
So I chose to ride Dragon Falls next. As I got to the entrance a mother was getting all irate about the change in height rules. She has three kids, two of them have been able to ride for a year or two and one should've been able to ride today and now none of them can ride. I know it's not Chessington's fault about this new rule but families are really not happy about it. As I got down the stairs in the station another family was being informed about the new rule and told their child couldn't ride, another really p*ssed off mother. However my ride was quite nice and gentle and I got quite wet which was quite nice with the sun out and being quite warm.
Empty station
Ha, these are really awesome /sad
I really love this new over-themed claw game machine, I want one of those odd looking ninjas!
That new sign also has a sensor which sets off an announcement that tells you to sit still and wait for the crash in the station before getting off
<3 these
My next choice of ride is my favourite ride in the park, Tomb Blaster! Once again no queue. The only other peeps on the ride was a family of four in the front car. I was like, "Can I just sit wherever?" so I sat in car 3 to be difficult
As we had to wait ages to be despatched the ride hosts attempted to entertain by getting all 5 of us to do a mexican wave. Clearly this idea was going to fail from the beginning, added to this fact the kids had no idea what a mexican wave was lol. So yeah, that failed and the host gave up, luckily it was time to send us on our adventure. I felt like I was doing really well, I suppose it did help having hardly any competition.
Epic entrance of epicness
Told you I was doing well...I think this might be my new high score
I decided to ride Rameses Revenge next. I don't usually go on it but I did and I sat in an end seat, the weather was nice but not hot enough to get drenched by those fountains. The ride was quite painful and intense, got some crazy spin on it that I lost all orientation at one point. Ended up having four cycles, yeah, won't be doing that again lol.
Rameses Revenge is clearly too intense for me
Ha, can they be closed all the time just so I can see this every time I walk past?
Decided to ride Runaway train next. Once again walk-on. Man on the tannoy clearly loves the sound of his own voice, urgh. He also operates the ride in a way I loathe. On the second lap he slows it down to make you think it's going to stop before sending you round again (standard operation), however he starts slowing you down before the last turn meaning that by the time you get to the station you're bored to hell and just want off. Stupid man. He also wants everyone to wave to him, you're not special so go away. If this is what the park calls guest interaction I'm going to be ranting A LOT this year.
Runaway train comes to a stop
For some reason I skipped Rattlesnake and headed into the monkey and bird garden. I bumped into a zoo host that I've talked to on many occasions, she is really cool and we ended up talking for a good 15-30 minutes. She told me a sad story regarding the amazing Fennec Foxes which made me really sad though. You may have seen in my last trip report that they recently gave birth to some baby Fennec Foxes. Well as this was the mothers first litter they died a few days later, apparently this is very common but we can hope they'll try again and are more successful second time around. It was really good talking to her again, she always gives me all the latest news from around the zoo that I may not know. Oh and she reckons their new zoo tour type experiences will start in about May time as no-one is actually trained up on them yet. She was actually working on the squirrel monkey walk-through and told me the two babies are already roaming around without their mother and says they are really cute and playful. I didn't get to see them due to all of them sleeping.
I said farewell to zoo lady and continued round to Wanyama. I spotted Dwarf Mongoose (who were obsessed with the grass), Meerkats, new birds which are loud (think miniature lorikeets) among other regulars in the area.
I then opted to wander round Sea Life. It contained fish...
I then walked back round to Mexicana and rode Rattlesnake. Matt was operating! It was good to see him again, shame he isn't very active (if at all) on here these days.
It was then time for Safari Skyway. Not done it in a very long time. Bit boring to be honest and felt like it was going to fall apart. However it did mean I spotted a gorilla in the new expansion. Annoyingly I didn't get a pic of the gorilla actually in there but you can have an aerial shot of the expansion...
Random toilet shed has gone!
I then had a second go on Fury. This time I got like no spin which made me sad.
Then walked straight on to Tuk Tuk Turmoil after failing to achieve Noodle Noodle times. It was ok, nothing special, not the same when you don't know anyone else on the ride /loner. I then decided to say hello to the Lorikeets. None of them really came near me as I didn't have any food for them. I also spotted new birds in there that are just pigeons with a red eye, fail.
I then grabbed some food at the chicken place in Forbidden Kingdom. It was nom. The staff were really good, was a random influx of guests and they just dealt with us random latecomers. Bit of a delay with the food but they clearly weren't expecting like 20 peeps to turn up at (I think) 3:30ish. I decided that more Tomb Blaster action was needed. This time I was the ONLY peep on the ride and yet I managed to get a smaller score than earlier, still stupidly high though. My aim was just completely off at times, I blame the food
Second score
It was then time for some more Runaway train. It was still being run by the fool but as we came round on the third lap the two hosts decided to high five everyone as we went past, was brilliant. They then did it again as we came to a stop on our final lap, I don't mind that sort of guest interaction as that was just pure silly fun.
I then had another two goes on Rattlesnake. Oh and they now have baggage boxes on Rattlesnake, I'm assuming this is another H&S meltdown about peeps taking items on the ride.
It was coming close to 5pm now so I headed over to Vampire for one last ride of the day. Standard ride on Vampire sans queue
Was actually a really good day, nice ride count (obviously I could have whored like mad but I didn't) and was great talking to zoo lady (I'll remember her name one day lol) again. The weather was quite pleasant and the park was very quiet, I might do this school week visit more often
Thanks to those who read all of this report.More photos - http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=17679769&l=b0686090f6&id=529160359
