furie said:
It was great heading back there with the family and just having a family kind of day (as Will shall attest, it's best for everyone sometimes just to let us get on and faff on our own without involving others :lol: )
Not at all
We might feel like we're seriously getting nowhere fast sometimes, but it's worth the more relaxed approach for family_furie company
Nobody minds if I write a full waffly trip report in here, do they? This is going to contribute very little to the topic, but I had an awesome day yesterday to the extent that I want to write about it - undecided as to whether it beat last weekend, but definitely my best Chessington trip in a good few years
Nobody likes my driving stories, so I'll spare you the details, but suffice to say I only learned about the trip on Wednesday evening, and the journey was several hours longer than anything I've done before - I
think I travelled the furthest out of the 21, so YAY for me
Anyways, nearly each one of my 370 miles was as enjoyable as it was worthwhile; I'll take a brief moment here to thank Rach for petrol money, keeping me sane and putting up with more Dream Theater than anyone truly deserves.
Carparkupsets not withstanding, me and Rach made our way into the park at roughly 3:00 yesterday, and met up with the group in Wild Asia amidst a great deal of faff and already extremely high spirits. The weather really couldn't have been a lot better either, thus making everyone's smiles seem that bit wider. The next few minutes were fun, since we'd had basically no idea which members would be in attendance, and there were a few nice surprises in the mix, which made it easy for me to share my company between my usual beloved loudmouth extroverts and more sedate members when energy seemed thin on the ground
As I mentioned, it was very warm, so Dragon Falls was the obvious choice of ride and one many of us were extremely glad of. Aside from Joey literally getting on the wrong side of a member of the public, much yelling about 'whores', 'herpes', 'Hertfordshire' and other things with H in from Mr. Stone, the surprisingly short queue passed with little event. The ride featured Tim and an 'acceptable level of wetness', which became less so in the prescence of pesky power showers and pestilential pachyderms! I know I've made this point a few times already, but I think I'd have to go back to Blackpool last year if not Yorkshire 2009 to remember the last time I saw a CF group looking quite as nauseatingly happy as the select sweet sixteen of us did when we reconvened outside Dragon Falls for some more faff. Amidst laughter, it was decided that nobody really cared which ride we did next; in an unexpected turn, Hixee was given a previously unheard voice and he did decree that we should head for Rameses Revenge. Many sensible members decided this was not a good choice, and half the group - myself included decanted to some nearby rocks for a cooling drink. Aside from much mildly goonish conversation, a surprising amount involving this site, little of note happened on the rocks so we'll move on
When the group, some moisters than others reunited once more, we made our way to the other side of the area for the Mine Train. Chessington's Mine Train is poor at the best of times, and, especially with warnings of a 35 minute queue, I was all set to have an unexpected moan at this point - but not only was the queue around half this time, but banter with Marc, Richard, Neal and a couple of others made it pass still quicker and we were on the ride before we knew it. At this point, we'd meet the day's first 'faux-enthusiastic' member of staff, who identified us as 'vampire enthusiasts'. Guilty as charged. My famed fondness for fanged femme fatales doesn't make me want to do Mexican waves or equivalent any more though. Anyway, Richard exacted revenge by spiting a drink's bottle from the platform as the train left, and annoyed people with it - he received a telling off and by way of retribution, we were mercifully denied a third lap. On the way out, I found a discarded hat on the ride platform, which I'd intended to steal partly for irony but also because of the combination of sunshine and bald patch. Alas, it was considerably too small, and was thus handed in, much to the confusion of Generic Small Female Staff Member #38 who required much explanation. "This isn't my hat. I don't know why I wore it, it doesn't fit. So I'm giving it to you. Enjoy. etc."
Anyway, I'm pleased to say that was the only moment at which anyone in a hat threatened my enjoyment of the day. Although mercifully sans sombrero, Rattlesnake could easily have done the same, though I hear Mysterious Sue enjoyed it rather
too much, but instead I opted for another relaxing sitdown with Ian, Vadge and Marc while the others rode. Nicotine, iPhones, absent friends and ‘LC12’ were the main topics of conversation, as well as an impending food break.
“Joey? What are your thoughts on CHICKEN?” I demanded as someone who looked like a reasonable bet for mealtime company left the ride first. Actually, he seemed to have uncharacteristically few opinions on the subject, but we made our way to the chicken shack anyway, where flawless service and much amusement joined chips, goujons and excessive amounts of vinegar on the menu. My opinions on Grand National seemed to upset Sue (though not Tim) and Neal’s opinions on… everything upset many people. We also learned that while he liked to bone chicken, I did not wish to be attacked by One Direction – it was one of those conversations in which everyone kept setting up punchlines for everyone else, and thus the laughter was considerably more than was to be expected in the chicken place; we even found humour in the BBC’s Coast and Lambing Live for ****’s sake!
All backslapping aside though, we’d met up outside Dragon’s Fury a few minutes later – only to decide the queue, upsetting at the best of times, was officially too long for us, and instead opted to end the day proper with Bubbleworks. This had a queue which was much closer to being Will-approved, though I wasn’t so struck with the idea of sharing a boat with Richard! However, it seemed this was the right choice – Neal seemed determined to sink the boat he was sharing with Sue, Joey and Tim – thus mine suddenly seemed that much safer. Not to mention drier – a balancing act with boats once again ensured it was the front one which received the worst of the drowning, though fountains of unnecessary remained as persistent as ever. As an aside, Vampire’s clearly received some TLC this year – it’d be great to see the remainder of Transylvania getting similar treatment in the near future, as Bubbles really IS looking sorry for itself.
As far as the mere mortals that were the general public were concerned, the day was drawing to a close, and many of us followed in Ian’s wake to his car for… whatever it was he wanted to do. The weather was nice, as I may have mentioned already, so I sat on the carpark with minor_furie for a moment, and thanks to the car park signs, began a ludicrous game of ‘thinking of animals beginning with I’ – aside from the obvious ones which there’s no need to suggest again, or anything beginning with ‘Indian’, ‘Indonesian’ etc. there were remarkably few, but this and the usual nonsense talk with Richard, Neal, John et al. took us to the hotel and, along with bothering of bearded dragons, passed the time until some official looking people arrived to begin our special experience.
To some surprise, the evening’s festivities began in the hotel’s bar – for even more reasons than usual, I remained on team diet pepsi, but others were more indulgent. We then sat in the sun and continued business as usual (which for Neal meant ogling zebras and putting ice down my back when surely it was he who required the cold shower) for twenty minutes or so. And then vampires and some more official looking men arrived, and it all got very exciting as in their company, we made our way through the hotel guest entrance and towards Transylvania. It’s no secret that I’m somewhat fanboyish about vampire girls and scare-actors in general, so I was especially pleased with this turn of events and happy to engage in general repartee with our undead guides who were at this point unaware of what they’d let themselves in for! I’ll say at this point that I felt the entertainment staff had really pulled out the stops – the vampires were great, always smiling (however sinisterly) and interacting with guests while never breaking character.
In the murky depths of Transylvania, still beneath blazing sunshine unfortunately for our esteemed company, we reached the temporary walkthrough attraction, unsure of what exactly to expect. More importantly, we were joined by the red vampire couple, who were even better than the purple ones and with an even more unhealthy interest in sampling my blood. The size of the walkthrough means that only groups of 4 at a time can experience it, so there was a short delay in an area with fishfood scented smoke machines and… vampires. Nic does not like scare attractions (and after Chessington’s Hocus Pocus walkthrough, this is fair enough!) and proceeded to **** herself humorously. The details of what followed have already been discussed, so I won’t go into those again, only that I’ll say it’s just about the right level of fear for its target audience (under 12s, presumably) particularly judging from the reaction of MM_Furie. For my part, despite the heavy fangs and blood influences, I thought it was a little anticlimactic – the vampire midway through implied that a close encounter with his scarier, hungrier wife was imminent (‘Are we talking Dracula or League of Extraordinary Gentlemen?’) yet she never materialised, hence my confused, almost disappointed face on exiting. However, as Hitchcock taught us, the one thing scarier than something is
absolutely nothing and Chessington used this, and the minimal space at their disposal, to great effect, and for this, praise is indeed due. After the maze, more bothering of vampires of JOY ensued, encouraged by an eternally bothersome Neal! I’m pretty sure I heard one of them say something along the lines of ‘That one is… perverted…’ which was why I retreated to a bench and was a bit scared to be followed – either vampire would have been very welcome to check whether or not I’m still human though – some days I’m not certain myself.
ANYWAY. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Vampire would be our next ride, and our generous hosts led us through the fastrack entrance and into a joyfully empty station, featuring yet more enthusiastic members of staff – though I still don’t understand why some of the Vampire voiceovers were in Mexican or Jamaican accents. There’s not a lot to say about what inevitably followed – 4 or 5 laps of the Vampire, which was proudly showing its age, but still showed real character around two or three corners. Trouble is, as Sue, Rach, John and others agreed – we’d just been plied with drinks and then were thrown around rather a lot. Hmm. Much-needed ERT of toilets followed!!
And then the event was apparently at an end, and it was time for the vampires to once again vanish into the sunset, claiming they were in search of blood. I pointed out that there was at least twenty willing victims – some more willing than others, already very much in their power, but apparently we have ‘bad blood’. I hadn’t eaten any garlic that day, so I can only assume this was merely one of the better reasons to quit smoking! It’s fun to annoy vampires
(Minor_Furie, who kept making ‘sparkly’ comments, agreed) Anyway, they were kind enough to stick around for a few photos with us, which, along with the countless things shouted at me while I was posing (which ruined my expression by the way!!) made my day still further.
FORSAKEN; fly away with me tonight. Awaken! Renew my life, now you are mine. Give yourself up to me...
Alas, all good things must come to an end, and by 8PM the group, still laughing and joking, were on their way out of the park again, and psyching ourselves up for the treks home which lay ahead. A long pause for goodbyes, more photos (I noticed how emotional Ian sounded when he complained that it was over 6 weeks until he’d see us again!) and to present Chessington_man with a comemorative Vampire plaque which he seemed genuinely thrilled by later, it really was time to go – which seems a great place to end the report.
Only I’m going to throw in another paragraph to say a big thank you to Ian not only for yet another flawless piece of organisation but for the invitation which actually meant quite a lot to me. Another vote to thanks to Furie for his supervision on the drive home, letting me win the race to Warwick and not being overly annoyed by the random circle in darkest Birmingham – Rach as well, as I wouldn’t have enjoyed the drives nearly as much without her. But finally – Chessington, if any of you have taken the time to read this, which I doubt, I can’t stress enough how much the effort on your part was appreciated, as it really was one to remember and most of the staff were a bit awesome <3
One very happy Will, signing off once again.
