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CWOA | Mandrill Mayhem (World of Jumanji) | B&M Wing Coaster | 2023

Merlin aim for a 90% satisfaction rate. So anything less than 10% of visitors on average unsatisfied with their visit is ok with them. Meanwhile, if I recall correctly, Efteling's aim is to get an average (!) guest satisfaction score of 9 out of 10, so to make up for one pissed guest (rating them 1) they need a total of 8 smashing 10s to make up for that.
 
If anyone’s interested, I rode Mandrill Mayhem and saw the World of Jumanji for the first time today.

I’ll split my review into two parts; a brief review of the land as a whole and a longer review of the main point of interest, Mandrill Mayhem.

Let’s start with the area as a whole…
The Area
Overall, I have to say that I really liked the area itself! It’s got some very nice theming; the main jaguar shrine centrepiece provides a really striking visual, and there are some other really nice sight lines and really nice bits of theming within the land.

In terms of some of the subtler bits of theming, I quite liked the Bazaar section; to me, it gave off almost Animal Kingdom-esque vibes! There are also various other nice bits of theming around the land, and while the landscaping is still a little scant at the moment, I think it will look really nice and make the area look really wooded when it’s grown in!

One thing I did notice is that while I like the area soundtrack and think it’s quite a cool, motivating piece, the loop is quite short. I can imagine that it might get a little grating to hear the same thing over and over if you’re in the area for any extended period of time. Short music loops do seem to be quite a Chessington-wide thing, though, so perhaps I’m just being overly pedantic…

If I’m being pedantic, it is also somewhat lacking in seating. As far as I could tell, I couldn’t really see any benches or anything for people to sit down on.

Overall, though, I did really like the area; from a visual standpoint, it certainly looks very nice, and overall, I think it’s quite well executed and will grow to look really nice once the landscaping is bedded in!

Now let me move onto the main point of interest…
Mandrill Mayhem
I was interested to ride Mandrill Mayhem, as it’s certainly one of the more unique contraptions I’ve ever seen from B&M. I was very intrigued to see how a family launched wing shuttle coaster rode, as to me, that seemed like quite an eclectic combination of ride types; I, for one, was certainly very surprised when Chessington announced that Mandrill Mayhem was to fuse all four buzzwords together! But did Mandrill Mayhem live up to the hype and the fairly positive reviews for me? Well, I’m sorry to say that overall, I was definitely somewhat disappointed with Mandrill Mayhem as a coaster. I had 3 rides, and don’t get me wrong, it’s far from a terrible coaster, but I wouldn’t say that it was an especially brilliant one either, and it wasn’t one I overly rated.

In the interests of fairness, I’ll start with the positives…
The Positives
  • It’s a very striking ride visually; B&M track is always very visually attractive, and Mandrill Mayhem is no exception, with the track winding around the Jaguar Shrine making for a very nice visual!
  • I think the audio sequence in the station is quite good fun. I particularly liked the “not that way!” when the train shot backwards!
  • The initial sequence of elements is quite good fun, particularly towards the back. The swing launch sequence has two reasonably potent launches that are fun and punchy, the little mild pop of airtime off the launch track is quite fun, and towards the back of the train, the Junior Scorpion Tail provides some very fun floater airtime! It’s an element that I felt worked really well on Ice Breaker back in June, and it’s an element that works well here too. The Junior Scorpion Tail didn’t really do anything on the front, though; that one is definitely best experienced towards the back, in my view.
As inferred by my initial line, however, there are quite a few negatives I feel I need to discuss…
The Negatives
  • Once you get past the initial swing launch sequence, I honestly found the layout a little bit bland. It just lacked a certain spark, a certain… je ne sais quoi for me. I just found it a bit something of nothing, if I’m being totally frank. There were bits that I thought looked quite spicy and like they might provide some really fun moments before I rode, but they didn’t really do anything for me when I actually rode. I also don’t really think the layout plays to the strengths of the Wing Coaster as a model, and that was a concern I had from day one. In my view, it could quite easily have not been a Wing Coaster.
  • I wasn’t a fan of the principal helix stall at all. The helix itself was perfectly OK, but I found the stall at the top very uncomfortable and awkward to experience; it’s a part of the experience that looks a lot better than it rides, in my view.
  • While it’s absolutely not horrifically rough in the same vein as, say, an SLC, Mandrill Mayhem definitely isn’t smooth for a brand new B&M roller coaster. I found it to have a very noticeable rattle in both the inner and outer seats, and on all 3 rides, I came off with a bit of a headache. In a somewhat linked point, I’d also argue that in some aspects, the ride generally feels a little bit awkward and unrefined in its execution and the way it navigates the layout. For instance, in some of the more dynamic parts of the layout such as the dive to the left out of the station and the s-bend before the principal helix, the train almost seemed to shudder up and down quite noticeably, and the whole backwards lap felt a bit awkward, in my view. I don’t think dynamism and snappy transitions are really where the Wing Coaster shines as a model, and I think Mandrill Mayhem evidences that quite well, personally.
  • In terms of the trains, I feel that it shares the same flaws as The Swarm in that I don’t find the vests particularly comfortable, and the restraints do seem to tighten and leave you feeling quite uncomfortably constrained during the ride. That is more of a general Wing Coaster flaw than anything specific to Mandrill Mayhem, though, so that’s by the by.
  • Away from the ride experience itself, I do also feel that the throughput is an aspect that leaves much to be desired. The ride was being operated very well by the staff on the ground with all things considered, but I think that even for the type of ride they went for, there were some ways that throughput could easily have been increased. For instance, they could have found some way of running 2 trains and some kind of dual station mechanism on the ride, and in terms of a simpler fix, even installing full height airgates in the station would have increased the throughput by not forcing riders to wait off the station platform and only cross onto the station platform when the ride has ended. Mandrill Mayhem was the highest throughput coaster at Chessington today by my measurements, but I think the park needed a queue muncher and I don’t think Mandrill Mayhem fulfils that particular brief, personally.
So overall, then, I liked the land, but was disappointed by Mandrill Mayhem itself. The land is nice and Mandrill Mayhem itself is by no means terrible or without merit, but I do personally question whether this coaster was the right fit for Chessington as a park, or the best 1.2m calibre coaster they could have built.

Perhaps I’m just somewhat out of touch, though. I am not the ride’s target demographic; it’s aimed at kids riding their first big coaster, whereas I rode it as a 20 year old enthusiast who was riding his 111th coaster. It did seem to be going down quite well with the kids who were riding, from what I could tell, and that is the important thing after all!

I apologise if I come across overly harsh or nitpicky, as I’m aware that some of my points are quite pedantic, but those were just some of the thoughts I had.
 
....wait, what audio sequence in the station? There was no audio at all when I had my three rides last Sunday. Nothing!
 
....wait, what audio sequence in the station? There was no audio at all when I had my three rides last Sunday. Nothing!
Just before the ride initially launches backwards, an audio sequence begins that goes something like this:
“OK, adventurers; there’s not a moment to lose. Hold tight!”
*drums*
“Go! Not that way!”

After that, a little piece of music plays in the station throughout the ride.
 
Ah, okay so that was broken or simply switched off on Sunday then.

Quite frustrating as I won't be returning to Chessington in any hurry.
Probably not switched off, it's more likely that the sound system experienced a technical fault and was flagged up during the pre-opening checks for engineers to rectify in the evening. Chessington are very serious about ensuring that a ride's show effects and audio are fully active for guests.
 
^ They're definitely serious about recording it - maybe less so in rectifying it.



Also finally got round to riding Mandrill Mayhem and seeing the surrounding area last weekend.

The ride? It’s fine. A bit more intense than it might’ve looked, and just really odd. The reservation for riding works, but it really really shouldn’t have been a thing. The stall is awkward, but maybe a bit more comfortable than I would've thought.

There are moments throughout the area which are done really well. The station is fun, and the facade facing into the area is neat. The shops out the exit are pretty cool too and are glimpses of the fact that things can still be done well at merlin parks. But everything feels cut off. There’s not enough scenery to be immersed, there’s brick textures in vinyl print on walls, there's industrial fencing literally around the entire area, and things just seem to start and stop again. In all honesty, it is better than I expected, but not by much.
 
I went on this yesterday and today, very different experiences.

Sunday Park was quite busy so had to rely on the virtual queue system a wait of nearly 3 hours to get on it.

Today went on in the hotel ERT so was a walk on first time we only had 6 other people on the ride, and found out they don't play the station audio until after 10am and the area music is quieter. After 10am the park was dead all day apparently only 300 people in so the virtual queue was just ride instantly but they were letting some people just walk in the queue if no one was waiting.

The area on Sunday was very busy when we visited which definitely helps the area seem alot nicer than what it is. Seeing it this morning with only a couple of people in the area it made me realise how poor it was noticing all the things they could of done better.

I liked the area music and tbh that seemed a big improvement around the park, enter jumanji you hear that, get closer to the pirate ship you just hear that area music.

The ride itself I liked, didn't find it too rough or anything, always ended up over the bride side of the station but thought it rode well just quite short. Agree with other comments about the loading time, even with it being dead today and not having full trains it still took ages to load it
 
Apologies if I sound harsh but I've been wanting to say this.

To me it feels like Chessington is starting to prioritise a ride having cool visual aesthetic over actually providing a decent ride experience. Croc Drop & Mandrill Mayhem are very obvious examples of this.

Croc Drop is probably the worst offender though. Half of the reason that you ride a drop tower is for views, and when most of your view is obstructed by a huge statue that only looks (somewhat) cool from offride, it just looks like a bit of a waste of time especially when the rotating aspect of the tower is (always) broken due to the park cheaping out on the manufacturer. SBF should be used for FECs and small coastal parks, not supposedly headlining UK theme parks as the "major new thing". It's just... silly. Plus, I don't really understand what the ride is supposed to represent either. From offride the statue looks cool but I just do not understand what the actual drop tower is supposed to represent if you don't understand (or know) the story which will be the case for 90% of people who visit the park. It's extremely easy to understand the visuals of Vampire - the train is a bat flying through the woods. Croc Drop's tower just looks like an innuendo to me with the big cylindrical rod in the crocodile's mouth. One of my friends, who loves the gentler rides, rode Croc Drop and just said it was really tame and didn't really do anything and wasn't worth doing again.

A ride like Vampire is proof that you can combine visual aesthetic with ride experience (it both looks good and IS good), a ride like Croc Drop is prioritising visual aesthetic over ride experience and even then you need context on why there's a drop tower in the crocodile's mouth and what exactly that's supposed to represent or what ever is ever going on. It's supposed to be "the new big thing" and ultimately it ends up being ignorable slop that replaced my favourite ride in the park. And it's always broken too.

And Mandrill Mayhem, they admittedly do a slightly better job, but ultimately the ride still feels to me like "everything about this ride is designed to be visually pleasing, and we'll sacrifice the quality of the ride if it has to come down to that". The fact that the inversion rolls over the entrance and the track wrapping around the statue is alright but something about it just... puts me off a bit. The backwards spike right at the beginning is by far the best bit of the ride, but the bits in between the roll & statue spiral is just the train bobbing around doing absolutely nothing waiting for something to happen between them. And here's the killer. You don't even notice the statue when you're going up it while on the ride, and it's taken quite uncomfortably too. The whole ride... just a rattly mess that actually gets rough near the end. Why am I slowing to an absolute crawl banked at 90 degrees? What's supposed to be the climax of the ride just leaves me with more and more questions on why this left the drawing board. "We wanted a ride that went upside down." Then clone Juvelen and replace a hill with a roll. There's your ride, it would've stomped on every other roller coaster in the UK, you would've had something that fit the Jumanji theme perfectly, you would've had something that would get me an annual pass to Chessington immediately on first sight, you would have never had to deal with the faffy nonsense of the virtual queue that had me panicking on whether or not I'd be able to snag a slot.

It's just... a bit of a waste really. The worst way of putting "we want it to look cool" over "we want it to be a good ride" instead of, you know, combining the two.
 
Apologies if I sound harsh but I've been wanting to say this.

To me it feels like Chessington is starting to prioritise a ride having cool visual aesthetic over actually providing a decent ride experience. Croc Drop & Mandrill Mayhem are very obvious examples of this.

Croc Drop is probably the worst offender though. Half of the reason that you ride a drop tower is for views, and when most of your view is obstructed by a huge statue that only looks (somewhat) cool from offride, it just looks like a bit of a waste of time especially when the rotating aspect of the tower is (always) broken due to the park cheaping out on the manufacturer. SBF should be used for FECs and small coastal parks, not supposedly headlining UK theme parks as the "major new thing". It's just... silly. Plus, I don't really understand what the ride is supposed to represent either. From offride the statue looks cool but I just do not understand what the actual drop tower is supposed to represent if you don't understand (or know) the story which will be the case for 90% of people who visit the park. It's extremely easy to understand the visuals of Vampire - the train is a bat flying through the woods. Croc Drop's tower just looks like an innuendo to me with the big cylindrical rod in the crocodile's mouth. One of my friends, who loves the gentler rides, rode Croc Drop and just said it was really tame and didn't really do anything and wasn't worth doing again.

A ride like Vampire is proof that you can combine visual aesthetic with ride experience (it both looks good and IS good), a ride like Croc Drop is prioritising visual aesthetic over ride experience and even then you need context on why there's a drop tower in the crocodile's mouth and what exactly that's supposed to represent or what ever is ever going on. It's supposed to be "the new big thing" and ultimately it ends up being ignorable slop that replaced my favourite ride in the park. And it's always broken too.

And Mandrill Mayhem, they admittedly do a slightly better job, but ultimately the ride still feels to me like "everything about this ride is designed to be visually pleasing, and we'll sacrifice the quality of the ride if it has to come down to that". The fact that the inversion rolls over the entrance and the track wrapping around the statue is alright but something about it just... puts me off a bit. The backwards spike right at the beginning is by far the best bit of the ride, but the bits in between the roll & statue spiral is just the train bobbing around doing absolutely nothing waiting for something to happen between them. And here's the killer. You don't even notice the statue when you're going up it while on the ride, and it's taken quite uncomfortably too. The whole ride... just a rattly mess that actually gets rough near the end. Why am I slowing to an absolute crawl banked at 90 degrees? What's supposed to be the climax of the ride just leaves me with more and more questions on why this left the drawing board. "We wanted a ride that went upside down." Then clone Juvelen and replace a hill with a roll. There's your ride, it would've stomped on every other roller coaster in the UK, you would've had something that fit the Jumanji theme perfectly, you would've had something that would get me an annual pass to Chessington immediately on first sight, you would have never had to deal with the faffy nonsense of the virtual queue that had me panicking on whether or not I'd be able to snag a slot.

It's just... a bit of a waste really. The worst way of putting "we want it to look cool" over "we want it to be a good ride" instead of, you know, combining the two.
It’s an interesting hypothesis.

Personally, I quite enjoyed Croc Drop for what it was. Sure, it’s not an intense drop tower even by UK standards, and the drops are closer to gentle tickles of fun than the absolute gut punch that the likes of Detonator offer, but it’s a family drop tower and I wasn’t really expecting that to begin with. In terms of what the tower is supposed to represent; I’m not really sure. The storyline on the ride is “brave the drop, release the curse”, but why you have to brave a drop tower to release a curse, I’m not really sure. I think a lot of theme park ride storylines would crumble if you applied too much thought to them, though; I think an overly contrived storyline would probably go over the head of 90% of guests.

In terms of Mandrill Mayhem, though, I’m in closer agreement with your thoughts. It’s not a bad or terrible ride by any means, but I wasn’t particularly enamoured either; I was quite disappointed overall. The swing launch sequence is good fun, with some fun launches, and the little pop off the launch track into the Junior Scorpion Tail is a brilliant way to start the ride off, particularly in the back, but the rest of the layout is a little bit bland at best and awkward and uncomfortable at worst for me. The principal helix spiral with the stall at the top was the absolute epitome of an element that looks better than it rides for me; the helix itself was OK, but I found the sustained stall on your side at the top really uncomfortable. I also found the ride notably rattly, and the whole backwards lap felt quite awkwardly executed, in my view. The ride looks very nice from off-ride, and some of the elements look like they should be quite fun on paper, but it didn’t really translate to that in practice for me. I thought the World of Jumanji itself was nice, with some fun touches of theming and an awesome visual centrepiece in the Jaguar Shrine, but I didn’t massively rate Mandrill Mayhem itself.

In terms of why visual appeal is so important; I think they’re going for things that look “instagrammable” (for lack of a better term). Visually striking rides that provide that money shot on social media will get friends, family, colleagues and such of anyone visiting the park who posts on social media about their visit to go “Wow; that looks awesome! Maybe we should go too?”. In fact, a “killer image” that instantly makes people want to visit was said to be one of the crucial tenets of any Merlin ride project during Nick Varney’s tenure. Whether this changes under Scott O’Neil remains to be seen, but that kind of instant visual appeal has always been very important to Merlin.

I’d argue that visual appeal and a good ride experience aren’t mutually exclusive by any means. Indeed, I would argue that Merlin themselves proved this with Wicker Man, a ride that I happen to think is absolutely fantastic and is one of my very favourite UK coasters. A ride like Wicker Man would have been a brilliant fit for Chessington, in my view. Or if they were desperate for the inversion and the swing launch, I would have loved a ride like Ice Breaker; it would have had fantastic airtime and a more interesting, less awkward layout than Mandrill Mayhem, in my view, while also having 2 trains.

On a mildly related note, I’ve noticed that throughput seems to have been an afterthought in some of Chessington’s more recent ride projects. Mandrill Mayhem was being excellently operated with all things considered when I went, but it’s hardly a queue muncher in the grand scheme of things, getting around 500-600pph and sending a train every 3 minutes or so by my timing. I couldn’t time it, but Croc Drop also seemed like quite a low capacity ride; it only takes 16 per cycle, and I’d have said there was at least a couple of minutes between cycles. In the 5-10 minutes or so I spent in the queue before being ushered forward as a single rider, the queue also seemed to move pretty slowly. In a park that I would argue needs high capacity major rides, what with how Vampire and Dragon’s Fury had queues of over an hour for nearly all of the day when I went despite it being a not particularly busy Sunday in September, I am surprised that they seem to install new rides with intrinsically lower throughputs. It doesn't seem to be a Merlin thing, either, as the new rides at Alton and Thorpe seem to aspire for high capacities and Legoland don’t seem to install excessively low capacity rides, either.
 
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replaced my favourite ride in the park.

What was there before?

For an alternative viewpoint, my 9 year old son absolutely loves Croc Drop. It's about the same level of intensity as the Fire and Ice Freefall at Legoland which he also enjoys. Will be interesting to see how he feels about a more intense tower when he's tall enough.

Do agree on capacity though, it's pretty atrocious. We queued for almost an hour in the blazing sun on one trip this summer, though as usual this was due to Reserve A Ride occupying half the seats, very long change overs.... and of course don't get me started on most customers inability to follow the seat numbering system.
 
What was there before?

For an alternative viewpoint, my 9 year old son absolutely loves Croc Drop. It's about the same level of intensity as the Fire and Ice Freefall at Legoland which he also enjoys. Will be interesting to see how he feels about a more intense tower when he's tall enough.

Do agree on capacity though, it's pretty atrocious. We queued for almost an hour in the blazing sun on one trip this summer, though as usual this was due to Reserve A Ride occupying half the seats, very long change overs.... and of course don't get me started on most customers inability to follow the seat numbering system.
Rameses Revenge, a 'Top Spin' style ride! Not only was it my favourite ride there, but genuinely one of my favourite rides of all time. It admittedly plays a part in my disappointment with the replacement, perhaps my feelings towards Croc Drop would be slightly less pessimistic if it didn't replace a ride of such significance for me.

I do appreciate that there is a market for Croc Drop though, it does look to be quite a hit with younger guests, and I can forgive that. However I still have issues with how the park cheaped out on the manufacturer (wouldn't be surprised if that plays a key role in its breakdowns) and the fact that the jaws of the crocodile ultimately end up obstructing some views you might get from onride plus its bout of maintenance and capacity issues. Chessington has made it clear that capacity is not something they put into consideration when making a new investment, and it's disappointing to see that.

In the new Jumanji area, the two flat rides (Mamba Strike and Ostrich Stampede) were also cheaped out on, from the same manufacturer as Croc Drop. And whaddaya know, especially Ostrich Stampede has been plagued with issues ever since opening and has had generally very unfavourable reviews of its ride experience - both ride types have much more successful alternatives frequently seen on the UK funfair circuit (known as 'Miami Trip' and 'Techno Jump' style rides).

Once again I appreciate your child's enjoyment of the ride; but then my problems translate into the capacity, maintenance and manufacturer decisions.

The manufacturer of all three of these rides generally design their rides for small family establishments, not leading UK theme parks. So I'd expect them to do a little better there.

Edit: An add-on, those Fire & Ice towers admittedly look like silly fun with their little bouncing. They're often in pairs too, which helps capacity
 
Rameses Revenge, a 'Top Spin' style ride! Not only was it my favourite ride there, but genuinely one of my favourite rides of all time. It admittedly plays a part in my disappointment with the replacement, perhaps my feelings towards Croc Drop would be slightly less pessimistic if it didn't replace a ride of such significance for me.

I do appreciate that there is a market for Croc Drop though, it does look to be quite a hit with younger guests, and I can forgive that. However I still have issues with how the park cheaped out on the manufacturer (wouldn't be surprised if that plays a key role in its breakdowns) and the fact that the jaws of the crocodile ultimately end up obstructing some views you might get from onride plus its bout of maintenance and capacity issues. Chessington has made it clear that capacity is not something they put into consideration when making a new investment, and it's disappointing to see that.

In the new Jumanji area, the two flat rides (Mamba Strike and Ostrich Stampede) were also cheaped out on, from the same manufacturer as Croc Drop. And whaddaya know, especially Ostrich Stampede has been plagued with issues ever since opening and has had generally very unfavourable reviews of its ride experience - both ride types have much more successful alternatives frequently seen on the UK funfair circuit (known as 'Miami Trip' and 'Techno Jump' style rides).

Once again I appreciate your child's enjoyment of the ride; but then my problems translate into the capacity, maintenance and manufacturer decisions.

The manufacturer of all three of these rides generally design their rides for small family establishments, not leading UK theme parks. So I'd expect them to do a little better there.

Edit: An add-on, those Fire & Ice towers admittedly look like silly fun with their little bouncing. They're often in pairs too, which helps capacity

Ah i remember Rameses, that was great! Yeah it's definitely an all round downgrade in comparison.

I've never noticed the obstructed view on Croc Drop, maybe i've always been lucky with my seat. Have definitely noticed how the rotation is rarely working (once on six visits by my count)!

And agree on the Jumanji Flats Rides, they seem really cheap. Ostrich is actually quite fun to ride in fairness but as you say, they're both always broken and/or disproportionately long queues in relation to how fun they are. Like you say, can go to a funfair and ride one for £2 with no queue.

Generally i feel the same as you in regards to Chessington (had a capacity rant on the previous page). It's all the more baffling that they've deviated from previous higher capacity rides (Vampire, Gruffalo, Tiger Rock etc) to lower capacity rides with the added issue of artificially inflated queues in the era of RAR and RAP (though i won't begrudge the latter and we often use it ourselves).

Does seem weird when Merlin seemingly take a different approach at Alton Towers and Thorpe Park.

Will be interesting to see how the new Legoland duelling rollercoaster fares...
 
Edit: An add-on, those Fire & Ice towers admittedly look like silly fun with their little bouncing. They're often in pairs too, which helps capacity
The Fire and Ice towers are great family rides. Paultons have a pair in Tornado Springs called 'Windmill Towers'.

Agree with other comments on here. The lack of thought given to capacity is really poor.
 
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