Your thoughts on Zufari

[Auraofshadows]

I thought it was a crappy ride, but a good crappy ride. Needed more animals and less focus on a plot.

 

[SaiyanHajime]

Not done Zufari, but have long though Chessington could learn a thing or two from South Lakes Wild Animal Park. They let you get up-close and personal with most of the animals so you can feed giraffes, have lemurs all over you and stand within a few feet of rhinos, tigers and lions. They've clearly not spent much money on it, so a walkthrough attraction with Merlin's theming resources could be amazing.

H&S. There's a reason this is rare.

Aye, but if a farty little farm can do it in Cumbria I'm sure Chessington could manage something like it.

The farty little farm has a small attendance figure... For a start. You really couldn't do something like that on the attendance scale Chessington receives. It's always the smaller, slightly sketchy zoos which allow you to touch the animals. Bigger, more professional ones know full well it's not worth the risk. I'm also fairly convinced that visitors to smaller places are, on average, far more intelligent than the more varied population who visit huge attractions.

On top of those good reasons... Chessington is one of the most over-the-top attractions when it comes to health and safety I've ever witnessed. Even other parks and attractions in the chain aren't anywhere near as strict. I think there are number of reasons why, but it's all boring theory on my part. I think the fact that their staff are on average a hell of a lot younger than Thorpe (where you have to be 18 to work rides, I think?) and Alton (where location prevents younger people working there) is a big factor in ensuring both the safety of guests and employees with over-the-top rules and regulations, but I'm just guessing.

 

[marc]

You can feed and touch animals at London Zoo, Longleat, Colchester and all these park probably have near enough the same attendance as Chessington.

At Longleat you can actually walk into the pens with the chipmunks and meerkats. They are actually running around your feet.

Chessington is like a zoo from the 70's with everything locked away.

 

[nadroJ]

^ Marc, they've got similar stuff to that at Chessington Zoo now, they have the walkthrough monkey forest with the Tamarins running about your head and feet and obviously the Lorikeets. And also the animal antics show you can touch the binturongs and things like that, and also the petting zoo bit, I'd say they've got quite a bit of animal interactivity going on

 

[marc]

I've seen the monkey thing, well I've seen it but when ever I've gone there they have never been out lol.

That's good then that they have the interaction stuff I've probably just missed it.

I do like the section near where the meerkats are.

When we went for a media day they let us hold snakes, wish there was more of that as it was fantastic.

It's just the rest where the lions are etc.

Joey it's obviously just the animals where they are ott on H&S

 

[SaiyanHajime]

We're clearly talking about different things here.

In terms of small scale animal interaction, Chessington has more than most zoos. I thought people knew this. I've seen them walk the reindeer out on park, bring out skunks, binturongs, coati, rats, parrots and meerkats, they have the monkey walkthrough and the lorikeets and the petting zoo. Where at London zoo can you touch anything? A bird landed on me once there and I was told to "stop encouraging" it to do so.

I thought we were talking about stuff like hand feeding giraffes... Animal interaction has to be very controlled for H&S reasons.

Chessington definitely has higher attendance than any zoo...