Sunday 10th April
After finishing work at 7:30 in the morning, then having a few hours of sleep the sister and I left for Chessington. We met up with Joey at Waterloo and continued by just about catching the train to Chessington. We arrived at the park about 1:50 in the afternoon. It was HOT.
Mr Hixee came to meet us at the entrance as he had my Sisters ticket. While waiting for him to arrive we talked to Fraser who was working on the gate. We then proceeded to the group meeting point by the lockers. However everyone was actually in the smoking area behind ex-Goblin pub.
We waited around for a while for everyone to turn up. We then did quite a few rides which considering how busy the park felt and within 4 hours I thought was quite impressive. We ended up doing Bubbleworks, Rattlesnake, Griffins Galleon, Tuk Tuk Turmoil and Runaway train (which we only got 2 laps on, wtf?). It was a great afternoon, just chilled out and relaxing and lots of amusing conversation amongst the group.
It was getting to park closing so we left and headed into the hotel lobby where we waited for about 40 minutes before two of the Chessington peeps came to greet the group. We continued over to the bar where they generously got us all a drink, how extremely kind of them. We were all out on the veranda overlooking wanyama for some time, it was just really nice and relaxing.
Then some Vampires appeared and escorted us to Vampire. Well I say that they kind of gave up after a little while and I soon caught on that I was leading the group along with Ian, Nic and a few others. Our first stop was the new Twilight Zone attraction which sits next to the fish and chip place. We had a few group photos with the vampires outside before them letting us in. We were batched through in groups of four. I can excitedly claim in my fanboyism ways that I was the first one through! Go me!
It's an interesting attraction, I think it's quite good for something so temporary and small and to be honest it was just a good laugh, I think the majority of the group came out with amused expressions.
We were then escorted by the Vampires round to the Vampire via the fastpass queueline. We then had the issue of 'what seat do we take? I managed to sit in the front row with Mr Ian from Coasterforce. We had 5 rides in total with everyone swapping seats inbetween goes. It was running extremely well, a little rough but it definitely feels a lot faster this season, no idea what they've done but it's really good at the moment.
We were then escorted back to the hotel. We said our goodbyes to the group and then the Sister and I checked in at the hotel and went up to our huge room overlooking the reserve. It's actually a really comfy room but it's also huge, I'm not used to staying in 4* hotels lol. The TV was able to do everything but apparently at a cost so we turned it off as I didn't want random charges for nothing.
We headed downstairs to the restaurant for some food. I still absolutely love the hotel restaurant, it has a nice atmosphere and the staff were great. I had the chicken dish which was nom and the sister had this vegetarian burger for randoms sake. We then had the huge Kilimanjaro dessert of epicness. This thing has 6 scoops of ice cream, cream, wafer sticks, profiteroles, brownie chunks and chocolate sauce. It's an absolute monster of a dessert but it is so amazing.
We then went up and had some sleep. I think that was the quickest I've got to sleep for a while. It was great seeing peeps again (some great surprises in there) and I think it was amazing that Chessington put this event together for CF. Thanks to Ian for organising and inviting me, much appreciated. Sorry if I wasn't talking much but I was too tired to contribute to decent banter.
Photos can be found here...PHOTOS
Monday 11th April
After a good nights sleep at the hotel I looked out our window to see all the animals out and about.
We then headed downstairs for some breakfast. It was quite a big buffet with a decent selection. Their sausages were really nice but everything else was a bit average.
Benin came to quickly say hi before going off to do Vampire and meeting up with TPM quickly to say hi. We finished up, grabbed all our stuff from the room and checked out of the hotel. Walking up to the entrance of the park I saw one of the meerkat characters, I had to have my pic taken with him...
I think it was about 10:15 so we went to watch the sealions for a bit before going to the meeting point outside Hocus Pocus Hall.
Tom arrived on time but then the silly wait began. I found out from Scarlet that she was on the M25 and had got caught in heavy traffic due to an accident and we later found out that was also where Alan was. We left it till 10:50 before moving on and just as we started walking off Ollie and Maddie turned up, typical lol. They gone to ride Vampire and there was a bit of a queue which is fair enough.
We headed over to Rattlesnake for the first ride of the day. I took a POV with my new camera, I need to work out how to perfect the position when filming...
[youtube]http://youtu.be/XS4AOvlza-g?hd=1[/youtube]
Benin met us at the exit and we moved on to Runaway train. It had a very short wait and once again the smoke effects were working in the queueline, this made me happy. Aside from that, it was just your average ride.
Our next choice was Tomb Blaster. I love Tomb Blaster but queue moved SLOWLY. However it was in this queue we got out the Toy Story 3 party hats much to the amusement of the ride host. She wished me happy birthday before we moved into the station area. They only had three trains in operation which explained the slow queue, oh wells. When we were sitting on Tomb in the station there was an announcement that it was Ollie's 11th birthday, we were all highly amused. Anywho we had set aside a plan for the on ride photo and it worked quite well.
Party blower things, party hats and birthday banner causes amusement.
After exiting the ride I got a phonecall from Scarlet saying she was at the gate. So we went over so I could give her the ticket to get in. Just as Scarlet enters Alan soon followed in full Vampire gear. Excitable lady working on the gate noticed all the party stuff and was like "we all have to sing happy birthday", queue everyone singing and then I got a sticker!
We then went over to Wild Asia where we visited Banyan!
[youtube]http://youtu.be/oCpHlIXeKHY?hd=1[/youtube]
Happy Birthday song count: 2
We were then going to do Kobra but it was having broken times so we went to do Tuk Tuk Turmoil instead which had quite a queue. When we were finally on we had the operator sing happy birthday and pointed me out as a target, then it was anyone with the party hats and then it was Alan because he was dressed up a vampire lol. It was quite fun, definitely added some amusement to the day..
By the time we got off Kobra was open so we did that, the queue was extremely short and it felt like we were on very quickly. However the sun was deciding it was going to be very hot and open queueline suddenly felt like a bad idea. The ride itself is ok, I'm starting to get a little bored of it though.
Lorikeet Lagoon was opening back up (it closes for an hour to set up their food in the enclosure) so we headed in there. It took ages before getting the lorikeets to eat all the nectar but they did provide some amusing times. There was also one that had managed to escape and was on the top of the enclosure, he was going mad because he wanted food but couldn't get back in lol.
Next up was Dragon Falls. The staff member in the queueline just outside the station decided that we should all give him a high five as we went past, it was quite fun before we hit unexpected queue inside. Oh well, 5 minute queue is better than a long queue. Once again we opted to do all the birthday stuff on the ride, it was amusing coming down the drop, I was expecting the banner to fly all over the place.
I called for food break next. I decided I wanted Pizza pasta buffet because it is made of nom. Ollie and Maddie headed off and Alan went to say hi to someone he knew over at the fake nandos. As we went in the staff member seemed really happy about seeing us because of our hats, and like most members of staff asked why we had them etc. She was then jealous and wanted one so we gave her a hat, she was well happy and put it on straight away. We were then taken over to our table by another enthusiastic member of staff, also thrilled by hats it would seem.
We were all loving the pizza and pasta but as I get back to the table after grabbing some more pizza I discover a man and his child at our table asking about the hats, we gave the little kid a hat. For the rest of the time we were there his sister wouldn't stop giving us some evil eye, clearly annoyed we didn't give her one too. I noticed that the kid wore the hat when we did and when we took them off he did the same and then put it back on when we did, aww, so cute.
Apparently we were due another visitor, as Benin got back from a trip to the counter a small girl decided to stand next to him, capture a detailed mental image of everything on the table before Benin saying 'Hi' in which the reply was some indescribable noise of hilarity. Excellently timed, the Father walked past, grabbing her on the way, he seemed amused by the situation too which was good. So yeah, all in all, one of the most random visits to a restaurant ever lol.
Before doing some more rides we decided to visit the zoo. I was shocked to see the Lemurs out..
We finally got to Wanyama. Fennec Foxes were hiding which was a shame but we did see the Meerkats, love birds, Dik Dik (I'm silly and immature and laugh a lot at this), Ostriches and the Gazelle.
We then went to do the new Twilight Zone walk through. I didn't really want to tell the others what was inside because I think it's more fun going in not knowing what to expect. One thing that does annoy me about this is that the through-put is very small. I think there were about 15 peeps in front of us and yet it took forever till we went in. Anyway, I think it's still a good bit of fun, it's just so crazy what they've done in a shipping container.
Well Ollie attempted to call me just before we went in so I called him back and we went to meet them at Bubbleworks. Alan just happen to exit Vampire as well which was great timing. We then went round to queue for Vampire. The queue wasn't too bad but then just as we were at the gate some fool decided to smash glass in the tunnel and it took them forever to clear it away delaying our ride for a while. Anyway we finally got on. Me and Sam (sister) tried to do the banner for the on ride photo, it worked quite well...
In the Vampire shop me and Benin ended up getting all the new 21st Vampire stuff. This includes Vampire bear, keyring and limited edition badges. Good times.
We then opted for Bubbleworks. There wasn't much of a queue which was nice. The highlight of the ride was us attempting to get everything and everyone in the photo and because we kept spinning this was quite hard but in the end we got a cool wavey effect on the banner
It was about 5:30 now so we decided our last ride should be Dragons Fury. We didn't have to queue too long but when we got to the gate before the station the amazing ride host decided to sing me happy birthday in a Christina Aguilera style. It was highly amusing and she continued to say how her doing it in the style of Beyonce would have been hot etc lol. Seconds later a ride host in the station noticed all the fuss and started singing happy birthday in the usual fashion, much to our amusement and the epic singing lady was saying how her rendition was much better than the other one etc. Haha, happy birthday song count: 5
We then got on the ride and to be honest I don't even know if we got much spinning, half way round the turn thing after the drop my hat decided to fly away in the most slow motion and hilarious way. We couldn't stop laughing for the entire ride, no idea where it landed either. Lol, just watching it float away like that was just brilliant.
It was a great way to end the day. It was just such a fun day but it went so quickly. I'm glad the weather held out in the end because the clouds towards the end of the day looked evil. Thanks for everyone who turned up to help make it awesomes.
Thanks for reading!
After finishing work at 7:30 in the morning, then having a few hours of sleep the sister and I left for Chessington. We met up with Joey at Waterloo and continued by just about catching the train to Chessington. We arrived at the park about 1:50 in the afternoon. It was HOT.
Mr Hixee came to meet us at the entrance as he had my Sisters ticket. While waiting for him to arrive we talked to Fraser who was working on the gate. We then proceeded to the group meeting point by the lockers. However everyone was actually in the smoking area behind ex-Goblin pub.
We waited around for a while for everyone to turn up. We then did quite a few rides which considering how busy the park felt and within 4 hours I thought was quite impressive. We ended up doing Bubbleworks, Rattlesnake, Griffins Galleon, Tuk Tuk Turmoil and Runaway train (which we only got 2 laps on, wtf?). It was a great afternoon, just chilled out and relaxing and lots of amusing conversation amongst the group.
It was getting to park closing so we left and headed into the hotel lobby where we waited for about 40 minutes before two of the Chessington peeps came to greet the group. We continued over to the bar where they generously got us all a drink, how extremely kind of them. We were all out on the veranda overlooking wanyama for some time, it was just really nice and relaxing.
Then some Vampires appeared and escorted us to Vampire. Well I say that they kind of gave up after a little while and I soon caught on that I was leading the group along with Ian, Nic and a few others. Our first stop was the new Twilight Zone attraction which sits next to the fish and chip place. We had a few group photos with the vampires outside before them letting us in. We were batched through in groups of four. I can excitedly claim in my fanboyism ways that I was the first one through! Go me!
It's an interesting attraction, I think it's quite good for something so temporary and small and to be honest it was just a good laugh, I think the majority of the group came out with amused expressions.
We were then escorted by the Vampires round to the Vampire via the fastpass queueline. We then had the issue of 'what seat do we take?
I managed to sit in the front row with Mr Ian from Coasterforce. We had 5 rides in total with everyone swapping seats inbetween goes. It was running extremely well, a little rough but it definitely feels a lot faster this season, no idea what they've done but it's really good at the moment.We were then escorted back to the hotel. We said our goodbyes to the group and then the Sister and I checked in at the hotel and went up to our huge room overlooking the reserve. It's actually a really comfy room but it's also huge, I'm not used to staying in 4* hotels lol. The TV was able to do everything but apparently at a cost so we turned it off as I didn't want random charges for nothing.
We headed downstairs to the restaurant for some food. I still absolutely love the hotel restaurant, it has a nice atmosphere and the staff were great. I had the chicken dish which was nom and the sister had this vegetarian burger for randoms sake. We then had the huge Kilimanjaro dessert of epicness. This thing has 6 scoops of ice cream, cream, wafer sticks, profiteroles, brownie chunks and chocolate sauce. It's an absolute monster of a dessert but it is so amazing.
We then went up and had some sleep. I think that was the quickest I've got to sleep for a while. It was great seeing peeps again (some great surprises in there) and I think it was amazing that Chessington put this event together for CF. Thanks to Ian for organising and inviting me, much appreciated. Sorry if I wasn't talking much but I was too tired to contribute to decent banter.
Photos can be found here...PHOTOS
Monday 11th April
After a good nights sleep at the hotel I looked out our window to see all the animals out and about.
We then headed downstairs for some breakfast. It was quite a big buffet with a decent selection. Their sausages were really nice but everything else was a bit average.
Benin came to quickly say hi before going off to do Vampire and meeting up with TPM quickly to say hi. We finished up, grabbed all our stuff from the room and checked out of the hotel. Walking up to the entrance of the park I saw one of the meerkat characters, I had to have my pic taken with him...
I think it was about 10:15 so we went to watch the sealions for a bit before going to the meeting point outside Hocus Pocus Hall.
Tom arrived on time but then the silly wait began. I found out from Scarlet that she was on the M25 and had got caught in heavy traffic due to an accident and we later found out that was also where Alan was. We left it till 10:50 before moving on and just as we started walking off Ollie and Maddie turned up, typical lol. They gone to ride Vampire and there was a bit of a queue which is fair enough.
We headed over to Rattlesnake for the first ride of the day. I took a POV with my new camera, I need to work out how to perfect the position when filming...
[youtube]http://youtu.be/XS4AOvlza-g?hd=1[/youtube]
Benin met us at the exit and we moved on to Runaway train. It had a very short wait and once again the smoke effects were working in the queueline, this made me happy. Aside from that, it was just your average ride.
Our next choice was Tomb Blaster. I love Tomb Blaster but queue moved SLOWLY. However it was in this queue we got out the Toy Story 3 party hats much to the amusement of the ride host. She wished me happy birthday before we moved into the station area. They only had three trains in operation which explained the slow queue, oh wells. When we were sitting on Tomb in the station there was an announcement that it was Ollie's 11th birthday, we were all highly amused. Anywho we had set aside a plan for the on ride photo and it worked quite well.
Party blower things, party hats and birthday banner causes amusement.
After exiting the ride I got a phonecall from Scarlet saying she was at the gate. So we went over so I could give her the ticket to get in. Just as Scarlet enters Alan soon followed in full Vampire gear. Excitable lady working on the gate noticed all the party stuff and was like "we all have to sing happy birthday", queue everyone singing and then I got a sticker!
We then went over to Wild Asia where we visited Banyan!
[youtube]http://youtu.be/oCpHlIXeKHY?hd=1[/youtube]
Happy Birthday song count: 2
We were then going to do Kobra but it was having broken times so we went to do Tuk Tuk Turmoil instead which had quite a queue. When we were finally on we had the operator sing happy birthday and pointed me out as a target, then it was anyone with the party hats and then it was Alan because he was dressed up a vampire lol. It was quite fun, definitely added some amusement to the day..
By the time we got off Kobra was open so we did that, the queue was extremely short and it felt like we were on very quickly. However the sun was deciding it was going to be very hot and open queueline suddenly felt like a bad idea. The ride itself is ok, I'm starting to get a little bored of it though.
Lorikeet Lagoon was opening back up (it closes for an hour to set up their food in the enclosure) so we headed in there. It took ages before getting the lorikeets to eat all the nectar but they did provide some amusing times. There was also one that had managed to escape and was on the top of the enclosure, he was going mad because he wanted food but couldn't get back in lol.
Next up was Dragon Falls. The staff member in the queueline just outside the station decided that we should all give him a high five as we went past, it was quite fun before we hit unexpected queue inside. Oh well, 5 minute queue is better than a long queue. Once again we opted to do all the birthday stuff on the ride, it was amusing coming down the drop, I was expecting the banner to fly all over the place.
I called for food break next. I decided I wanted Pizza pasta buffet because it is made of nom. Ollie and Maddie headed off and Alan went to say hi to someone he knew over at the fake nandos. As we went in the staff member seemed really happy about seeing us because of our hats, and like most members of staff asked why we had them etc. She was then jealous and wanted one so we gave her a hat, she was well happy and put it on straight away. We were then taken over to our table by another enthusiastic member of staff, also thrilled by hats it would seem.
We were all loving the pizza and pasta but as I get back to the table after grabbing some more pizza I discover a man and his child at our table asking about the hats, we gave the little kid a hat. For the rest of the time we were there his sister wouldn't stop giving us some evil eye, clearly annoyed we didn't give her one too. I noticed that the kid wore the hat when we did and when we took them off he did the same and then put it back on when we did, aww, so cute.
Apparently we were due another visitor, as Benin got back from a trip to the counter a small girl decided to stand next to him, capture a detailed mental image of everything on the table before Benin saying 'Hi' in which the reply was some indescribable noise of hilarity. Excellently timed, the Father walked past, grabbing her on the way, he seemed amused by the situation too which was good. So yeah, all in all, one of the most random visits to a restaurant ever lol.
Before doing some more rides we decided to visit the zoo. I was shocked to see the Lemurs out..
We finally got to Wanyama. Fennec Foxes were hiding which was a shame but we did see the Meerkats, love birds, Dik Dik (I'm silly and immature and laugh a lot at this), Ostriches and the Gazelle.
We then went to do the new Twilight Zone walk through. I didn't really want to tell the others what was inside because I think it's more fun going in not knowing what to expect. One thing that does annoy me about this is that the through-put is very small. I think there were about 15 peeps in front of us and yet it took forever till we went in. Anyway, I think it's still a good bit of fun, it's just so crazy what they've done in a shipping container.
Well Ollie attempted to call me just before we went in so I called him back and we went to meet them at Bubbleworks. Alan just happen to exit Vampire as well which was great timing. We then went round to queue for Vampire. The queue wasn't too bad but then just as we were at the gate some fool decided to smash glass in the tunnel and it took them forever to clear it away delaying our ride for a while. Anyway we finally got on. Me and Sam (sister) tried to do the banner for the on ride photo, it worked quite well...
In the Vampire shop me and Benin ended up getting all the new 21st Vampire stuff. This includes Vampire bear, keyring and limited edition badges. Good times.
We then opted for Bubbleworks. There wasn't much of a queue which was nice. The highlight of the ride was us attempting to get everything and everyone in the photo and because we kept spinning this was quite hard but in the end we got a cool wavey effect on the banner
It was about 5:30 now so we decided our last ride should be Dragons Fury. We didn't have to queue too long but when we got to the gate before the station the amazing ride host decided to sing me happy birthday in a Christina Aguilera style. It was highly amusing and she continued to say how her doing it in the style of Beyonce would have been hot etc lol. Seconds later a ride host in the station noticed all the fuss and started singing happy birthday in the usual fashion, much to our amusement and the epic singing lady was saying how her rendition was much better than the other one etc. Haha, happy birthday song count: 5
We then got on the ride and to be honest I don't even know if we got much spinning, half way round the turn thing after the drop my hat decided to fly away in the most slow motion and hilarious way. We couldn't stop laughing for the entire ride, no idea where it landed either. Lol, just watching it float away like that was just brilliant.
It was a great way to end the day. It was just such a fun day but it went so quickly. I'm glad the weather held out in the end because the clouds towards the end of the day looked evil. Thanks for everyone who turned up to help make it awesomes.
Thanks for reading!
