To think this must be illegal and chessington EOA are putting the public At risk

[user1492337624]

So been chessington today
Been a pretty good day a few issues but nothing major
Of course it was busy as you would expect on a bank holiday weekend

But the thing that really ruined the day was getting trapped in the gridlocked car park for , almost two hours

I mean surely this must be breaking some kind of health and safety law

Who can I report this to other Than merlin ?
Health and safety executive ?
Someone else better to report it too

It worries me that we really are turning into a nation of complaining whingers in this country.
YABU.

Sadly these things happen occasionally. It's not pleasant but not sure it's H&S issues. It's just a lack of foresight and organisation skills on the venue's part. We went to AT recently and the car park and ride queues were longer than they needed to be as they aren't organised enough - they need to go and take a look at somewhere like Disney or Universal and watch how to manage huge queues and keep them moving.

Worst getting out of car parks for us has been after big concerts. Coming home from a large oasis concert years back resulted in being stuck in an office car park for about 5!hours without moving. We were losing the will! Took us well over an hour to leave the car park after a recent RW concert too.

Think you need to find other things to get in a froth about op

Too many people just accept this like lemmings
Of course you expect it to be busy
But not to the point of total gridlock

No. People accept it as a sad fact of life. If you don't like traffic, don't go there. You weren't at risk of anything more than boredom.

Merlin here. I'll sort it.

You still haven't explained what H&S risk you think it is? None of the reasons you mention in your second post are H&S concerns. The fire service will get through no matter what, they have contingency plans, alternative exits etc. No venue can plan for an unprecedented number of visitors, it's an unknown, not possible.

Lemming here, I'll just accept it

Dying of boredom is probably the only thing the op was at risk of

*t can be really hard to turn right out of there and it really backs up the traffic, they could do with some traffic lights on the main road to stop the traffic so people can get out.

Yes, I see, bugger up the traffic on the main road instead. No way.*

I don't think it would though, it's not a massively busy road, but it's quite fast and you can't see that far down the road when trying to turn out, so can take a while to get out.

Well for starters merlin could add the parking charge onto the ticket prices as that was majorly holding up the traffic as they tookpeoplesmoneyat the barrier

That has never happened when I have been. You purchase a ticket before you leave and use that to exit. Like any other car park.

Also you are meant to get your ticket first before you go to the barrier, maybe they could give a discount for paying at the machine

You're a lemming anyway because you trailed out at the same time as everyone else. You should have left an hour earlier.

Honestly OP - lemmings?

Have you never been out on a BH before?!

When you've got 'the authorities' to sort out the Chessington exit - can you send them over to me? Our junction of the M25 is a bugger.

Surely you're the lemming for going to a massive theme park on bank holiday weekend, the same as millions of other people?

It's what trip advisor is for isn't it?

Mumsnet the perfect site for lemmings

Chessington and parking is rubbish.

You used to be able to park in the North Car Park (near the hotel) but now that is £10.

You used to get it included as part of your annual pass (Chessington and Standard Merlin) now its just Premium Merlin passes.

You can get it on the way out of the park but they dont actually have many people selling nor do they highlight this

But (as an annual pass holder) some of it is not their fault. The road that one South Car park and north car park is full of traffic anyway as its the road to Chessington from the M25. Trains are not running from Chessington at the moment due to Waterloo upgrade (start back tomorrow) so rail replacement and extra traffic on the road because of it.

I have had it at legoland as well and I do agree its part of leaving at closing time on a bank holiday Sunday. But Chessington organisation can be rubbish and they have changed parking very slyly

There is a railway station nearby? So you park the car a couple of stops away and make the last bit by train. Just as you would do going to an event at Wembley, for example.

Oh dear, OP not getting the responses she wants so resorts to insults. Highly original.

I dont understand how its a H & S issue?

I was at GYS this year and it took 2 hours just to get out of the car park.
Surely you expect this when you go somewhere popular with a large amount of people?

Not me OP. I've never been stuck in traffic leaving a Merlin Venue, you know why? I thought ahead and left early, not like you 😁

What law would that be? And how was your health or safety affected by sitting in your own car in a traffic jam?

I'm not a lemming because there's no way I would go to Chessington in the holidays with thousands of other people and when we do go we always get the train to avoid the other lemmings sitting in their cars for ages waiting to get out of the car park.

So who's the lemming following everyone else into the car park in the holidays? Lemming!

Don't understand what you actually want them to do though?

Add car park fee onto cost of tickets? So what about those who travel by other means? Or do you expect them to subsidise you as well as paying their own trace expenses?
Better car parks? Not sure how that would improve the situation you describe.
Better / more exits? If the main road going past CWA is busy, it doesn't matter how many exits there are, or how good they are, there will still be difficulties exiting. Unless you are wanting the road to only be used by CWA customers, which will just push the problem further along the road.

There are only two ways I can really see for them to 'improve ' the situation for you -

1. Timed tickets in and out - which would put up prices as they'd have to employ staff to police this. Can't see it being popular with customers
2. Allow fewer cars to park at any one time - this would push up prices in order for them to recover the money they'd lose by restricting numbers. Again, can't see customers liking this - especially those who have a longish journey and would have to leave at a ridiculously early hour to be sure of getting in.

On the other hand, you could choose to visit on a day when is less likely to be stuffed to the gills ie : not a bank holiday weekend.

After visiting Disney and Universal theme parks in Florida with their amount of visitors, entering and leaving the parks were so easy, you're in and you're out within minutes because the road planning was well thought out. In the UK this sort of thing sucks.