So, I haven’t visited Chessington since 2008 (GF V I believe). Sam drove us down and my main concern that day was how we got back to Teesside… Tom ended up driving us back to Manchester and we got the 3.52am train to Middlesbrough laced with lager… fast forward 15 years and I find myself here with my wife and two kids on a very different kind of trip(!)
Kids being 4 (nearly 5) and 2, we thought Chessington would be a good shout to spunk our Clubcard vouchers on before they changed from 3x value to 2x value so… we got in for free courtesy of Clubcard. However, living in the north east, it still cost a full tank of fuel and two nights worth of Premier Inn fees. The prospect of Elmer and the Julia Donaldson stuff swayed us though.
I was excited to come back to Chessington, the last time I was there Dragons Fury was a fresh five year old and Beanoland was still going! I did however have my concerns, social media was rife with “queues, queues, queues!” which would not be ideal for two small kids.
Maybe it was the type of trip I was on but I needn’t have worried, we barely queued all day which was an absolute blessing so what follows is the rides and short reviews.
Elmer’s Flying Jumbos
Generic flying ride which both kids enjoyed. Queue was short enough throughout the day for two rides on this. It’s a shame there’s no more Elmer stuff apart from this one random ride and the gift shop?
Tiny Truckers
Generic car ride which the kids enjoyed, nothing more can be said for it really.
The Gruffalo River Ride Adventure
Last time I went on this it was professor bubbles or something like that - and that bloody Frosties advert was on repeat in the Q line. Anyway, this was a good retelling of the story but the first part had a few boats bunched up which lead to the sensors going a bit crazy and repeating parts of the story. Other than that we all really enjoyed it, definitely glad we rode it but has little re-rideability.
Room on the Broom walkthrough
Again a decent retelling of the story but disappointingly, the group was unescorted and the feral group of kids racing ahead of everyone else were triggering all the sensors and the people towards the back of the group missed a lot of the story.
Adventure Tree
Decent little carousel, nice enough that the adults could just stand in the middle and let the kids enjoy themselves.
River Rafts
Longest queue of the day, about 35 mins, mainly because of the amount of Reserve & Ride and RAP people dominating the main queue. Anyway, we measured the two year old who looked to just about 0.9m and thought we’d risk queueing, we needn’t have worries as they didn’t even bother measuring him! Anyway, nice little log flume and you actually get surprisingly wet from such a small drop!
This area proved to be the favourite as they also went on treetop hoppers (again, they didn’t bother measuring him) and jungle rangers. Jungle Rangers was a decent concept but the sound effects kept cutting in and out. We rode it twice and it was the same, disappointing as it could bring so much more to the ride.
We then walked through Land of the Tigers to Wild Asia. This place looked so much better than the tacky Beanoland.
Jungle Bus
Had just reopened after a closure so walk on. Decent little ride that gets the kids used to the ‘butterflies’ feeling.
Minor gripe from me here, using the app for the map it looked like we could walk down the side of Jungle Bus back to main entrance in front of Dragons Fury but it was all blocked off meaning we had to retrace our steps back through land of the tigers, Rainforest and land of the dragons.
Mandrill Mayhem
As a dad who is the only one in the group who likes the ‘bigger rides’, the virtual queue was a godsend. Being able to reserve a spot and know I was only going to be in the actual queue for circa 15mins made it much more plausible and fair for me to have a go and not worry about leaving the kids with the Mrs for 90mins or so. I’ve spent this evening reading through the construction topic of Mandrill Mayhem to get a goons POV (so if I liked a post of yours from 2021/22 that’s why!) and it was amusing to see the negativity. From an outsider I think the rollercoaster serves its purpose, bearing in mind there’s been nothing new coaster wise since 2004. I thoroughly enjoyed the coaster, particularly the reverse boost at the bottom of the helix on its return to give it that extra kick. Really fun addition.
However, I will say the whole ‘area’ seemed a little bit underwhelming. It’s like they had the idea to have the jaguar statue circled by the coaster and everything else was an afterthought. Particularly liked the screen telling you which Jumanji character you are which is positioned in direct sunlight most of the day so you can’t actually see the screen
We had a couple of hours to kill so did the zoo and the Mrs and eldest did Zufari which they seemed to enjoy.
It was interesting to see Chessington from a different perspective to my last visit and I probably enjoyed it more although I did miss not going on Dragons Fury and Vampire. Would have also liked to try Tiger Rock but there’ll be other times.
Overall, Chessington does it’s job as a family attraction more than a thrill seeker destination which I guess is what Thorpe Park is for! But having done it now, given my travel logistics, I’ll be in no rush to return unless there’s another major investment soon.
Kids being 4 (nearly 5) and 2, we thought Chessington would be a good shout to spunk our Clubcard vouchers on before they changed from 3x value to 2x value so… we got in for free courtesy of Clubcard. However, living in the north east, it still cost a full tank of fuel and two nights worth of Premier Inn fees. The prospect of Elmer and the Julia Donaldson stuff swayed us though.
I was excited to come back to Chessington, the last time I was there Dragons Fury was a fresh five year old and Beanoland was still going! I did however have my concerns, social media was rife with “queues, queues, queues!” which would not be ideal for two small kids.
Maybe it was the type of trip I was on but I needn’t have worried, we barely queued all day which was an absolute blessing so what follows is the rides and short reviews.
Elmer’s Flying Jumbos
Generic flying ride which both kids enjoyed. Queue was short enough throughout the day for two rides on this. It’s a shame there’s no more Elmer stuff apart from this one random ride and the gift shop?
Tiny Truckers
Generic car ride which the kids enjoyed, nothing more can be said for it really.
The Gruffalo River Ride Adventure
Last time I went on this it was professor bubbles or something like that - and that bloody Frosties advert was on repeat in the Q line. Anyway, this was a good retelling of the story but the first part had a few boats bunched up which lead to the sensors going a bit crazy and repeating parts of the story. Other than that we all really enjoyed it, definitely glad we rode it but has little re-rideability.
Room on the Broom walkthrough
Again a decent retelling of the story but disappointingly, the group was unescorted and the feral group of kids racing ahead of everyone else were triggering all the sensors and the people towards the back of the group missed a lot of the story.
Adventure Tree
Decent little carousel, nice enough that the adults could just stand in the middle and let the kids enjoy themselves.
River Rafts
Longest queue of the day, about 35 mins, mainly because of the amount of Reserve & Ride and RAP people dominating the main queue. Anyway, we measured the two year old who looked to just about 0.9m and thought we’d risk queueing, we needn’t have worries as they didn’t even bother measuring him! Anyway, nice little log flume and you actually get surprisingly wet from such a small drop!
This area proved to be the favourite as they also went on treetop hoppers (again, they didn’t bother measuring him) and jungle rangers. Jungle Rangers was a decent concept but the sound effects kept cutting in and out. We rode it twice and it was the same, disappointing as it could bring so much more to the ride.
We then walked through Land of the Tigers to Wild Asia. This place looked so much better than the tacky Beanoland.
Jungle Bus
Had just reopened after a closure so walk on. Decent little ride that gets the kids used to the ‘butterflies’ feeling.
Minor gripe from me here, using the app for the map it looked like we could walk down the side of Jungle Bus back to main entrance in front of Dragons Fury but it was all blocked off meaning we had to retrace our steps back through land of the tigers, Rainforest and land of the dragons.
Mandrill Mayhem
As a dad who is the only one in the group who likes the ‘bigger rides’, the virtual queue was a godsend. Being able to reserve a spot and know I was only going to be in the actual queue for circa 15mins made it much more plausible and fair for me to have a go and not worry about leaving the kids with the Mrs for 90mins or so. I’ve spent this evening reading through the construction topic of Mandrill Mayhem to get a goons POV (so if I liked a post of yours from 2021/22 that’s why!) and it was amusing to see the negativity. From an outsider I think the rollercoaster serves its purpose, bearing in mind there’s been nothing new coaster wise since 2004. I thoroughly enjoyed the coaster, particularly the reverse boost at the bottom of the helix on its return to give it that extra kick. Really fun addition.
However, I will say the whole ‘area’ seemed a little bit underwhelming. It’s like they had the idea to have the jaguar statue circled by the coaster and everything else was an afterthought. Particularly liked the screen telling you which Jumanji character you are which is positioned in direct sunlight most of the day so you can’t actually see the screen
We had a couple of hours to kill so did the zoo and the Mrs and eldest did Zufari which they seemed to enjoy.
It was interesting to see Chessington from a different perspective to my last visit and I probably enjoyed it more although I did miss not going on Dragons Fury and Vampire. Would have also liked to try Tiger Rock but there’ll be other times.
Overall, Chessington does it’s job as a family attraction more than a thrill seeker destination which I guess is what Thorpe Park is for! But having done it now, given my travel logistics, I’ll be in no rush to return unless there’s another major investment soon.
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