Chester Zoo Chester Zoo now charging visitors to park closer to entrance

Zia said:
You're actually not far off the mark :D There is a monorail involved or a looooong walk.

Lots of bigger attractions (like the Merlin theme parks) offer priority parking and still make everyone pay for the non priority spaces. Even standard Merlin passholders. You have to have the extra-expensive Merlin Pass to get free parking. And somehow they get away with it!
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Merlin own Warwick Castle and I had hoped to visit until I saw the cost - a ticket for the castle and dungeon online is around £26 (variable depending on the day, and around £34 at the gate!) but if you want to park nearby it is £10, and the car parks which are 10-20 minutes walk away still cost £6! In comparison, Chester seems a bargain - not to say they are right to do it, though.
 
Cost doesn't seem to worry some, look at Whipsnade £25 to take the car in and still it get's packed out with cars at peak times, despite offering free parking and buses round the zoo.
It surely can't be all Fellows cars, one of the perks of being a fellow is free car entry,
 
amaroc said:
Cost doesn't seem to worry some, look at Whipsnade £25 to take the car in and still it get's packed out with cars at peak times, despite offering free parking and buses round the zoo.
It surely can't be all Fellows cars, one of the perks of being a fellow is free car entry,
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It is half price in the winter months and half price for members at all times I think - so £6 in winter which is not so bad. I think the majority will be members.
 
We all have had a go at the charge for parking what about the cancellation of the X8 bus service this use to carry many members of staff to and from work I know some will say well they have the X1 but how long before this is cancelled from entering the collections grounds as In my experience once one service as been cancelled from a duel route then the other usually follows within the year.
Does anyone know if the collection charge the transport companies for entering the collection ground which is usually the case for private land.
 
Zia said:
It is half price in the winter months and half price for members at all times I think - so £6 in winter which is not so bad. I think the majority will be members.
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£6 is the member price, non members still pay £12.50 on top on entry costs which on top of entry costs of around £25 per person would still make it in excess of £60 for a couple, being a fellow I don't keep up with the costs, but you do at least have the option of free parking and using the free bus service
I can still remember when, before they upgraded the car par, car entry was free in winter
 
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AdrianW1963 said:
We all have had a go at the charge for parking what about the cancellation of the X8 bus service this use to carry many members of staff to and from work I know some will say well they have the X1 but how long before this is cancelled from entering the collections grounds as In my experience once one service as been cancelled from a duel route then the other usually follows within the year.
Does anyone know if the collection charge the transport companies for entering the collection ground which is usually the case for private land.
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The bus company service has nothing to do with the zoo, lets not try and bash the zoo for an external company decision.
 
taun said:
The bus company service has nothing to do with the zoo, lets not try and bash the zoo for an external company decision.
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Especially when Adrian has since noted he misread the relevant information and no such decision was made.
 
amaroc said:
£6 is the member price, non members still pay £12.50 on top on entry costs which on top of entry costs of around £25 per person would still make it in excess of £60 for a couple, being a fellow I don't keep up with the costs, but you do at least have the option of free parking and using the free bus service
I can still remember when, before they upgraded the car par, car entry was free in winter
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Hence why I believe the majority will be members... :confused:
 
Andrew Swales said:
I'm not sure if the continued comments are expecting a reply, especially given the remarks that they are not on the topic of car-parks. I guess the moderators will close this down if they deem appropriate; but as mentioned above, electronic communication by its various means, be that email, text or via social media is the modern way of communication. Some details of other means would be most welcome to back up the suggestion, even if they risk being further off topic.
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I always found hard copy worked well.

(I shall start a separate thread on the interesting subject of media coverage of UK zoos.)
 
I thought this parking upgrade was a good business plan, as long as they kept the disabled parking untouched.
But visited today with my disabled daughter, with a blue badge, and was directed to the disabled overflow carpark.
The car park they directed me to can not and should not be classed as disabled friendly.
see attached photo, how would a disabled driver who needs to fully open their door, maybe even transfer from a wheelchair, access their car in this situation.
luckily, I'm the driver and it's my daughter who requires the increased access space, and therefore I was able to move the car for her to access, and even then if I was on my own with her, I wouldn't have been able to safely leave her alone in a carpark fore a few seconds order to move the car.

sorry, rant over.
 

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Waddi said:
I thought this parking upgrade was a good business plan, as long as they kept the disabled parking untouched.
But visited today with my disabled daughter, with a blue badge, and was directed to the disabled overflow carpark.
The car park they directed me to can not and should not be classed as disabled friendly.
see attached photo, how would a disabled driver who needs to fully open their door, maybe even transfer from a wheelchair, access their car in this situation.
luckily, I'm the driver and it's my daughter who requires the increased access space, and therefore I was able to move the car for her to access, and even then if I was on my own with her, I wouldn't have been able to safely leave her alone in a carpark fore a few seconds order to move the car.

sorry, rant over.
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Have you sent the zoo a message about this? I really think you should, as its very poor IMO!
 
Andrew Swales said:
Your post (along with this one) is on this thread, not the new one. To reply to it, I used the 'reply' button above which is live and working, as it is this time. This posts on this thread, not the new one; where I cant reply to a post on a different thread, as it would be 'off-topic' on the new one... This is the sort of petty detail which puts many zoo people off from taking part in this forum.
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For what it's worth, now someone's created a more suitable thread for the topic I'll be moving the various "zoos in media" posts from this thread into the new one in a bit when I get home from work (on my phone right now) - so it shouldn't be a problem for too much longer :)
 
I've now moved all the side-discussion into the other thread :) so it is now located here.

A few remarks remain in both discussions where appropriate.
 
Waddi said:
I thought this parking upgrade was a good business plan, as long as they kept the disabled parking untouched.
But visited today with my disabled daughter, with a blue badge, and was directed to the disabled overflow carpark.
The car park they directed me to can not and should not be classed as disabled friendly.
see attached photo, how would a disabled driver who needs to fully open their door, maybe even transfer from a wheelchair, access their car in this situation.
luckily, I'm the driver and it's my daughter who requires the increased access space, and therefore I was able to move the car for her to access, and even then if I was on my own with her, I wouldn't have been able to safely leave her alone in a carpark fore a few seconds order to move the car.

sorry, rant over.
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Which is understandable to be annoyed but can we have some context here?

What time did you arrive? As all the disabled spaces could have been full, although there should be a minimum amount of diasbled parking provided, it is usually only a small percentage of the overall parking.

I have not visited myself but would be surprised if this impacted on disabled bays as its a PR nightmare to do so.
 
taun said:
Which is understandable to be annoyed but can we have some context here?

What time did you arrive? As all the disabled spaces could have been full, although there should be a minimum amount of diasbled parking provided, it is usually only a small percentage of the overall parking.

I have not visited myself but would be surprised if this impacted on disabled bays as its a PR nightmare to do so.
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I haven’t visited during August myself but do regularly visit with my wife who is a blue badge holder & have never had issues with the disabled parking being full. I have heard it’s been extremely busy over the last few weeks & the disabled spaces are on a first come first served basis, they haven’t taken away any disabled spaces for the priority parking; so whilst I can understand you being annoyed & agree this is something Chester need to look at during busier periods it’s also not a result of Chester’s new parking scheme.
 
They have been using the car park were the coaches park for a while now as extra disabled space parking, not saying it's suitable just that's it was used well before the charges were introduced.

On another point, unless you got to the zoo before 9:45 ISH, you were redirected around to the other car parks anyway, away from the charged area, even if spaces were left.
 
taun said:
Which is understandable to be annoyed but can we have some context here?

What time did you arrive? As all the disabled spaces could have been full, although there should be a minimum amount of diasbled parking provided, it is usually only a small percentage of the overall parking.

I have not visited myself but would be surprised if this impacted on disabled bays as its a PR nightmare to do so.
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We arrived around 10:20am, hardly late in the day, the zoo had only been open for 20minutes, this was intentional to avoid the crowds waiting for the gates to open.
 
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