I went to
Chessington World of Adventures yesterday, and I managed to get throughput timings and insights from the 3 coasters I did.
- Dragon's Fury (Theoretical: 950pph on 8 cars) - 497pph (unknown number of cars, 17th September 2023, average of 10) Note: This number assumes that all 4 seats in a car were full for the sake of simplicity. Due to a rule imposed by Chessington allowing no more than 3 adults per car, seats were going out empty more often than not; some cars were going out full, but most seemed to be going out with only 2 or 3 seats filled out of 4. Therefore, the actual attained figure is most likely a fair peg lower than the one given above. For some idea, the average dispatch interval I timed was approximately 28 seconds, and in the period I wasn't timing, I'd say that the average interval looked to be somewhere around the 30 second ballpark.
- Mandrill Mayhem (Theoretical: 840pph on 1 train) - 575pph (1 train, 17th September 2023, average of 9)
- Vampire (Theoretical: 1,200pph on 3 trains) - 418pph (2 trains, 17th September 2023, average of 6)
- Tomb Blaster (Theoretical: Unknown on 5 trains) - I could not time Tomb Blaster exactly, as I was ushered onto the ride too quickly to gain any timings, but my very vague timing (aka checking my watch) of the dispatch I was on came to roughly a 3 minute dispatch interval, which would equate to around 600pph if all 30 seats on the train were full. (unknown number of trains, 17th September 2023)
Overall, I'd say that the park was mixed to weak operationally, if I'm being honest. The staff on the ground were working very hard and trying their best, but I would say that the park had some of the lowest throughputs I've ever seen relative to the crowds it gets. The throughputs of most of the rides I did seemed to be stunted to some degree by either procedure, a lack of staff, or both; the operations were certainly no fault of the staff themselves.
The strongest operations of the day were on Mandrill Mayhem, by my reckoning. Yes, the procedure that means that guests can't wait on the platform behind the airgates is a considerable stumbling block for efficient operations, and that's probably something that could have been avoided during the design phase, but there's not a lot that they can do to rectify that now. With all things considered, I thought the ride was being operated very well. With the cards that have been dealt in terms of the intrinsic throughput of the ride and the H&S-related loading procedure, I thought that an average dispatch interval of just shy of 3 minutes was very, very good, personally; I was certainly pretty pleased with this figure seeing as the ride only has 1 train and has to load in the way it does. The ride seemed relatively well staffed, and the staff were doing an excellently prompt job of checking restraints and such. Great job, Chessington!
Weight limits notwithstanding, Dragon's Fury definitely wasn't operating as promptly as Spinball Whizzer at Alton Towers mostly does. On Spinball, the cars continuously motor through the station, with the continuously moving loading system being well utilised and not really having any kind of delay, and dispatch intervals as quick as 20 seconds are achieved. On Dragon's Fury, however, the continuously moving loading system was not really being used (I could have sworn it had one the same as Spinball's from previous visits, but I could be wrong there), and 2 or 3 cars or so often seemed to be stacked up in the station at once. With that being said, a good number of cars were seemingly running, and 30 seconds certainly isn't a terribly slow dispatch interval by any stretch of the imagination, although the weight limit definitely limits the throughput potential of the ride and the likes of Spinball do show that faster dispatches can be achieved with the same ride hardware.
Vampire definitely had some of the most surprisingly slow operations of the day, and this was due in large part to the fact that the ride was seemingly lacking staff. One operator was running the whole show for the main queue, being left to both batch and check the restraints on the entire right hand side of the train. They had one companion, who was batching what appeared to be the RAP queue and checking the restraints on the entire left hand side of the train. These staff were working incredibly hard and certainly putting all their energy into checking the restraints and batching, but at very least, I feel that a separate bayloader for each queue would not have gone amiss and would have sped things along considerably. The whole process of the operator checking restraints, pressing the send button and then having to jump over the separating fence and batch people before jumping back over to check the restraints for the next train and repeat the whole process again definitely slowed things down, and as a result, dispatch intervals of over 4 minutes were timed in some of the slowest cases, with the overall average coming to around 3.5-4 minutes per dispatch, despite Vampire looking like a ride that could quite easily attain quick dispatch intervals on paper. It reminded me of Flamingo Land, where they run things in a similar manner, and with queues being markedly longer at Chessington than they were on my visit to Flamingo Land, I don't think this method is as proportionate to the crowds at Chessington as it is at Flamingo Land.
The situation at Tomb Blaster was very similar to that on Vampire. One operator was running the entire show on their own here, being left in charge of batching, checking restraints and sending the ride. The operator was working very hard and doing a very prompt job, but the fact that they were having to do everything slowed things down, and as a result, a ride that looks like it should attain fairly quick dispatch intervals on paper was dispatching around every 3 minutes. To be fair, though, the queue was not
as long for this, with me only waiting around 30-35 minutes, and the ride's fairly large train means that a throughput of roughly 600pph would still have been attained, which, if I had properly timed it, would probably have been the highest on park. Similarly to Vampire, though, 2 additional staff members (one bayloader and one operator sat in the cabin sending the ride) would not have gone amiss and would have sped things up notably, in my view.
