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

Not so much lemmings. Most people just have the sense to know which battles are worth fighting.

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

😂😂😂😂

leaving an hour before closing? ni way! for the cost of the ticket I spend as much time in the park as possible.

You certainly do yellowlawn, you get to spend an extra two hours on the premises sat in your car.

[Imagines any theme park, any theme park at all, on a Bank Holiday Weekend]

[Feels sudden urge to fling self off cliff]

It would appear that I too am a lemming...

Well, maybe I'm a lemming, but I accept that if I leave at closing time on a sunny bank holiday from a major theme park I'm going to sit in a queue for a very long time. I'd bung the radio on, get the kids to eat the sandwiches they've been too busy to eat all day and not let it bother me.

I love Chessington and accept that because other people also love it some queuing goes with the territory.

I'm sure Merlin would give so many fucks if you reported this to them.

What do you expect to happen? They close the motorway and let you all out as fast as you want?

It happens at any big place - blue water, theme parks, festivals.

I would agree that Disney/universal pit is to shame with this sort of thing, their parks empty tens of thousands of people in short spaces of time with little traffic. The big difference between here and Florida, though, is that they have vast amounts of space around the parks to design and adapt the road networks, and the parks were built in these vast open spaces before the roads/surrounding towns existed. We just don't have the space in this country to put down six lane roads to service a theme park, nor the visitor numbers and revenue to justify it.

I love it when people who are part of a traffic jam insist that something must be done about the traffic jam.

I like to think of identical conversations going on in all the hundreds of cars that are causing the problem.

Delay in car park at a popular tourist attraction on probably the busiest day of the year - what a shocker!

In other news, I hear the pope is catholic.

OP I'm intrigued to know exactly what you mean by 'better car parks'? I'm sure Chessington would be fascinated to receive your detailed plans

60percentbanana

I would agree that Disney/universal pit is to shame with this sort of thing, their parks empty tens of thousands of people in short spaces of time with little traffic. The big difference between here and Florida, though, is that they have vast amounts of space around the parks to design and adapt the road networks, and the parks were built in these vast open spaces before the roads/surrounding towns existed. We just don't have the space in this country to put down six lane roads to service a theme park, nor the visitor numbers and revenue to justify it.

^
This. CWA was originally a small zoo, built at a time when there would have been far fewer visitors and most of those would have travelled by train, rather than cars. The park has evolved over time, unlike these theme parks in Florida, or indeed, newer ones in UK. Florida parks were built as such and so were able to allow for the extra traffic.

I feel for anyone living near CWA or similar - I never go out on bank holidays because of the ridiculous amount of traffic. It must be horrendous to live near such an attraction, however nice the area, due to the 5 million car drivers who all have to visit at bank holiday weekends.

Lakie The irony is just delicious.

I remember Chessington when it was just a zoo! As a child, we lived very close by.

You don't get this with the massive theme parks in the states. They are really well organised though.

Agree that they have massive amounts of space too.

Lemmings! I loved that on the Amiga (showing my age...)!

We once spent 3 hours getting out of the carpark at the Etihad Stadium after a concert. Ninety minutes getting out of the local Tesco one for a completely random, non Xmas related, reason.

I keep a 'travel jane' and water in the car glove box as I do a lot of motorway driving and have been stuck for hours before.

Comparing them to theme parks in the US is a bit pointless really. We don't have the space in the UK to build theme parks with 10,000 parking spaces, decent road connections and individual railway stations for each park!

Parks in America are built in wide open spaces and don't have to be squished in with people's homes and businesses. The two aren't comparable at all.