Chester Zoo The Islands development - planning, development and build (2012-2015)

Status
Not open for further replies.
SMR said:
After all this time, surely an excellent addition to ZooChat (and potential change in policy).
Click to expand...

Agree! Glad someone has commented on the zoo being a member of ZC!! We know they read everything we put on here anyway but great that they will now respond to clarify any questions......


..... Do you think they will respond to any relevant and appropriate questions raised on this forum? The Islands site encourages comments to be let that they then respond to, so I see no reason why zoo chat should be any different. Of course they will not necessarily comment on speculation etc but great to see them taking an active interest!
 
Worth mentioning (for those who've not received their ticket yet) is that although entry is timed, it seems that once in Islands you can explore for as long as you like... but leave and you can't re-enter until the official opening date.
 
SMR said:
Worth mentioning (for those who've not received their ticket yet) is that although entry is timed, it seems that once in Islands you can explore for as long as you like... but leave and you can't re-enter until the official opening date.
Click to expand...

So the entry on the ticket is when you can get into Islands, does that mean you can ride the boat at any time or just in the allotted time slot on the ticket?

I am assuming the latter. But will probably ring the zoo to confirm closer to the time.
 
taun said:
So the entry on the ticket is when you can get into Islands, does that mean you can ride the boat at any time or just in the allotted time slot on the ticket?

I am assuming the latter. But will probably ring the zoo to confirm closer to the time.
Click to expand...

I already asked- the boat trip can be ridden at any time once in Islands. A limited number of 'fast track' tickets will be available to avoid the queues but not sure how these will be allocated. I assume this will be a practice for when the boat trip is open to the general public as I am led to believe there will be 'VIP' boat trip tickets available to avoid the queues, with a separate queueing system.

A previous comment suggested that the time on the ticket is the time of the boat trip departure, but I don't think this is the case....

There are 14 boats carrying 17 passengers (or 13 plus wheelchair) and the trip lasts 12 minutes, so the boats will depart from the jetty approx one every 50 seconds.....that's over 1,000 people per hour! The queue mechanism can hold up to 900 people and will be themed as a series of market stalls - so at least there will be something to keep those in line interested.
 
Just seen ticket price has gone up to £28 for an adult peak day ticket...., cheaper if booked on line. Any other zoo charges more than that?
 
ChesterZooFan said:
Just seen ticket price has gone up to £28 for an adult peak day ticket...., cheaper if booked on line. Any other zoo charges more than that?
Click to expand...

Still very good value, in my opinion.

I cannot think of any other 'attractions' of similar size or quality that would cost this little.

Smaller zoos, that might struggle to detain even the most thorough of zoo nerds, cheerfully charge £10-12 a head; the rather ropey Isle of Wight Zoo asks for £10.50 for the visitor to see a few lemurs and a white lion or two. Chester is, by any reckoning, at least three times 'better' than such a place (whatever that might mean).
 
Considering the peak price in 2014 was £20 it is still quite a hike!
 
TeaLovingDave said:
Considering the peak price in 2014 was £20 it is still quite a hike!
Click to expand...

It is quite disappointing, sure they said there may be a slight rise in cost but not due to Islands. Maybe due to reports it is a £40m development, not the £30m the estimated. Construction costs can be hard to control but an over spend of 33% is bad.
 
sooty mangabey said:
Still very good value, in my opinion.

I cannot think of any other 'attractions' of similar size or quality that would cost this little.

Smaller zoos, that might struggle to detain even the most thorough of zoo nerds, cheerfully charge £10-12 a head; the rather ropey Isle of Wight Zoo asks for £10.50 for the visitor to see a few lemurs and a white lion or two. Chester is, by any reckoning, at least three times 'better' than such a place (whatever that might mean).
Click to expand...

It's difficult though because I imagine a significant proportion of Chester's visitors are going because it is a zoo that's within reasonable reach and they'd be content with something far inferior.

There will be presumably be people who will travel for Islands and for the quality of it but what people are willing to pay relates to what day out they think they are going to have not necessarily a rational assessment of the quality. In the height of season you can go to Alton Towers and pay a lot of money to stand in queues and barely recoup the cost of your entry on rides but people go in their hundreds of thousands. (and go home well before closing which means I can go on Nemesis 8 times in the last hour or so!)

Just hope people are willing to pay the price for a brilliant zoo not just think "I'm not paying that just for a day at the zoo" You can easily spend two full days there already but the majority of people only want to wander past animals for a couple of hours and have their food, play on the play things. They don't want to see everything, they want to fill the two or three hours they've got the stamina for.

We went to YWP last week and my friend was lamenting the £70 it cost him to get the family in, the equivalent at Chester would now be well over £100.

For the quality of what is on offer it is good value but do enough people value everything that is on offer.
 
OrangePerson said:
It's difficult though because I imagine a significant proportion of Chester's visitors are going because it is a zoo that's within reasonable reach and they'd be content with something far inferior.

There will be presumably be people who will travel for Islands and for the quality of it but what people are willing to pay relates to what day out they think they are going to have not necessarily a rational assessment of the quality. In the height of season you can go to Alton Towers and pay a lot of money to stand in queues and barely recoup the cost of your entry on rides but people go in their hundreds of thousands. (and go home well before closing which means I can go on Nemesis 8 times in the last hour or so!)

Just hope people are willing to pay the price for a brilliant zoo not just think "I'm not paying that just for a day at the zoo" You can easily spend two full days there already but the majority of people only want to wander past animals for a couple of hours and have their food, play on the play things. They don't want to see everything, they want to fill the two or three hours they've got the stamina for.

We went to YWP last week and my friend was lamenting the £70 it cost him to get the family in, the equivalent at Chester would now be well over £100.

For the quality of what is on offer it is good value but do enough people value everything that is on offer.
Click to expand...

the zoo have mooted in the past that they would consider selling a two day ticket as they recognise like we do that the size of the zoo now and the shear number of attractions there needs the two days to do it justice.
There are occasional comments on FB about the entry cost but considereing the 1000s through the gate the conplaints appear to be reletivly low in percentage which is positive enough.
The price increase was inevitable in truth - a £40million development needs to start paying for itself a without any impact on the conservation funding that the zoo feed into the projects they support globally.
I still think the price is more than competative for a quality full day family attraction in the UK personally.
 
sooty mangabey said:
the rather ropey Isle of Wight Zoo asks for £10.50 for the visitor to see a few lemurs and a white lion or two. Chester is, by any reckoning, at least three times 'better' than such a place (whatever that might mean).
Click to expand...

I would probably rate Chester a hundred and three times 'better' for value.
 
OrangePerson said:
and go home well before closing which means I can go on Nemesis 8 times in the last hour or so!)

but the majority of people only want to wander past animals for a couple of hours and have their food, play on the play things. They don't want to see everything, they want to fill the two or three hours they've got the stamina for.
Click to expand...

I wonder if you should have gone to Specsavers....:D

I agree average Joe public have a much lower tolerance limit before reaching overkill on viewing animals. Only zoochatters and the like have the stamina to really 'work' a Zoo to its full potential, but on my last Chester visit a few years back, six or seven hours solid animal viewing probably meant I still missed some things. I don't know what time they close nowadays but 10 a.m - e.g. 6 p.m. gives a max of eight hours potential and (unless you live next door to the Zoo) with travel factored in etc its not always possible to be there that full length of time, so the stage eventually becomes reached where it becomes impossible in the largest collections to see everything properly in a single day's visit.
 
karoocheetah said:
the zoo have mooted in the past that they would consider selling a two day ticket as they recognise like we do that the size of the zoo now and the shear number of attractions there needs the two days to do it justice.
Click to expand...

There are alternative possibilities, Paignton have a scheme with a reduced price for a second visit within a fixed period.
It's also worth noting that Chester's peak period is mid-July and August only. Regent's Park is charging peak price from now to the end of October and the full price ticket is £27.

Alan
 
gentle lemur said:
There are alternative possibilities, Paignton have a scheme with a reduced price for a second visit within a fixed period.
It's also worth noting that Chester's peak period is mid-July and August only.
Click to expand...

That's the upper-tier peak price - the lower-tier peak price of £26 continues until November 1st.
 
An interesting discussion.

I do think that if you present something that is very good, you are entitled to ask people to pay rather more than you would for something of an inferior quality.

Compared to other leisure opportunities, this is still a very competitive price: I have to pay £20 to watch 90 minutes of shockingly poor football, in an uncomfortable seat, from which the view is dreadful. Those who, like Orange Person, enjoy being thrown about on dangerous rides pay an enormous amount for the privilege (and face enormous queues as well).

I would actually like it if Chester charged even more at the gate. It would serve to ration what is a scarce resource (that is, visitor space in the zoo) and would reinforce the message that seeing animals is a privilege, rather than something that is just a bit of a laugh.
 
On a related point, why is it that UK zoos are so much more expensive than zoos in other parts of Europe? A ticket for Zoo and Aquarium Berlin is only 20 Euros which is just over 14 pounds.
 
From a petrolhead's perspective, if I want to go to see the British Touring Car Championship at Oulton Park, it's £26 in advance online for the main Sunday race day or £32(!!) on the gate. And that's before you've forked out for a horrifically overpriced and underwhelming burger if you haven't brought your own food with you, so I think a full day at Chester with a reasonable choice of food on site is pretty good value by comparison.
 
I agree that Chester is excellent value for money, but I think the issue is that if you have a 2 adults, 2 kids family then a day at the zoo can become a bit of an impossibility. My interest was started from those childhood visits, and I'm sure most of ours are. It would be a shame for future potential wildlife/zoo enthusiasts to miss out on that initial spark to the passion because they can't afford it.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top