Chessington World of Adventures - Saturday 5th August
Having recently acquired a good number of new cameras that we wanted to test before the big trip to Orlando later this year we decided on a small local trip to test the cameras and different film. We decided that Chessington World of Adventure and Thorpe Park would work as it gave a good variety of subjects and between the two parks, there was something new for each of us. Neither of us had been to Chessington since World of Jumanji had gone in so Madrill Mayhem was a new credit for both of us, Jason hadn’t been on Dragon’s Fury or Vampire since the old Arrow trains got replaced by the Vekoma Trains. Thorpe gave Jason a credit, somehow in the many different visits he had managed to miss X:/ No Way Out, or as it’s now called Walking Dead the Ride. I can’t say much, I was missing Colosuss up until last year, somehow was always down when I went.
Anyway, we picked the weekend of the 5th and 6th as it gave us a small break from our last trip and still time after if we felt we needed to do some more testing with the new cameras before Florida. Unfortunately the closer to the weekend we got the worse the weather prediction was becoming, for Saturday it was saying a lot of rain. Oh well, it’s just rain we will carry on.
We got to the park a little before 9.45 am and pulled into the parking space as the visual queue for Mandrill Mayhem opened, tip for anyone visiting it goes up 15 mins before park opening, so if you want a start of the day ride go on at that time and your slot should be within the first hour. However, as we discovered during the day the virtual queue system allowed for a good number of rides without much wait. We got into the virtual queue with both my account and Jason’s for our start-of-the-day rides.
We were let into the park at 10 am and the general entrance now lets you in right next to the world of Jumanji, we headed straight for the Mandrill Mayhem queue with Jason’s virtual queue ready to go. The queue is fairly short for if it ever went away from the virtual queue but filled with references and easter eggs.
As we got about 10 people from the row allocation the ride went down. Boo, it wasn’t raining all that heavily so didn’t think it was that, the team member assigning people rows pointed out it was stopped on the mid-ride launch/break run. While they had to wait for someone to turn up to solve the issue then one of the ride ops from the booth came out to talk to the team member who had pointed out where the train was stopped to us, “You know what happened?” “Yeah I know what happened.” And thats all I got of that conversation as they noticed me listening in and moved away dammit. It took maybe 15 mins for the ride to come back up and cool to see how they recover the ride from that position, the people on the train get sent forward slowly, then back again then forward in a full launch and continues the ride as intended from there.
For our first ride, we got row 2 on the left-hand side of the train. This family boomerang wing-coaster was exactly what the park needed it’s so much fun in a small ride the launches are powerful, and the inversion is not too intense while also a great “my first inversion”. This ride is exactly what the park needed, they needed something at the upper end of thrill level for the park, a good ride to help transition kids to the more extreme rides like those found at Thorpe. It’s more thrilling than Dragon’s Fury and Vampire while not being too far away from them.
When we got off we went straight back on with my virtual queue, what was nice was that while the ride was down my countdown had paused so I didn’t miss my ride window because the ride was out of action. If you don’t know currently the back row on this ride faces backwards so we kinda wanted to experience that as we saw how far up the backwards launch spike it got. The same guy was working the row allocation, we asked nicely if it was possible and he informed us they don’t take row requests. We said we understood and thanked him anyway (remember always be polite) we accepted that we probably wouldn’t get backrow and would just keep trying. However, before he allocated us a row he dealt with the access queue, it did not go unnoticed to me and Jason that the next row to be allocated would probably be the back row on the right side, but didn’t get our hopes up. As he came back over “You guys wanted back row right?” and glanced towards the row 7 marker for the right side of the train “Go on then row 7”. We thanked him a lot, we got lucky.
The back row is a completely different and still amazing experience, on the backwards launch up the spike you are past vertical and though you don’t go as far up the spiral it’s still a decent distance. Both were fun and we would be back for more rides later.
We took a few photos on our way out of the land but knew we wanted to come back later for the majority of them (hoping for blue skies, which did not happen). We knew we wanted to hit Dragon’s Fury next however though it was testing it still wasn’t open. By this point it was 5 to 11 so we hazarded a guess and thought it might be opening at 11 am so sat down on the rocks opposite to wait and see. What would you know we were right, headed into the queue right away and were on the second vehicle of the day.
If you have read any of our other blog posts or know anything about us you probably already know, Jason does not like spinning. But he wanted the credit. We did mess up a little as they seated us on the same side with no one in the back… an unbalanced vehicle makes for more spinning… A little rougher than I remembered from being a kid but a lot of fun and long. We did spin, probably not as much as we could have but definitely more than if we had balanced the ride. It was a firm once and done from Jason, with a question on the break run of “Does ride to happiness spin more or less than that?” I said a little less on some rides and the same amount on others. I think he’s not sure if he will like Ride to Happiness when we eventually get around to taking him on it.
As we got off of Dragon’s Fury and headed towards the Vampire the rain picked up and started to fall down, we ducked for cover and donned our disposable ponchos and continued on our way to Vampire. Vampire was the longest queue we waited in all day as we were in the queue the rain went from heavy to lighter still not quite drizzle but not painful on the face heavy. While in the queue I tried to nab a picture of the organ-playing vampire and forgot to turn the flash off photo still came out okay but I need to remember that for future with the go.
This version of the Vampire is all I’ve known my first time on it was with the Vekoma trains so was interesting to see what Jason thought of the “new” trains, especially as this was probably the coaster that got him into coasters. He’s told me stories about nearly chickening out as a very young kid and his mum making him go on for him to end up loving it, so I was hoping he still enjoyed his old intro coaster. He preferred the old trains, though didn’t think the new ones took anything away from the ride, he thought it had some good forces in the corners while not being overly thrilling for it’s audience, the tunnels and flying through the trees being a highlight on this older ride, but shows it’s age in the fact it has two lift hills.
After Vampire we decided to hit the swinging ship as Jason is a sucker for them. The queue for it is now partly a goat habitat as part of the Zoo side of park which I was not aware of so got to watch the goats enjoying their shelter and one trying to eat a tree while we waited. I will warn you that this ship’s deck is VERY slippery in the rain and both me and Jason nearly fell over boarding the back row. It was us and two other groups so the middle of the ship was empty. It’s a fairly long ride cycle and gets to a decent height on the swings, Jason was loving every minute. I really need to get him to Efteling for multiple reasons but also for their world’s largest swinging ship.
While we were in the queue for Vampire we had joined the Virtual queue for Mandril again and by the time we got off the ship, it was time to ride. We headed into the World of Jumanji area again taking some photos before boarding. This time we got row 4 on the left side of the train. Still fun still loved it, we were taking it in turns to be on the outside seat so we were both experiencing both seated positions.
After Mandrill we took more photos around the land really taking in the detail they put into this new area, it really shows what Chessington and Merlin have planned for future expansions. We decided to have a wander around the park for photos to test our cameras. We weren’t having much luck with the Mint InstantKon RF70 which is a manual camera that uses Instax wide, but the other new cameras including the Instax Mini 90 Neo, Polaroid Now, Polaroid Go, and Polaroid SX-70 Autofocus Model 2 we were slowly getting used to and learning their framing. For example the Instax mini it was line up what you want to take a photo of and then aim down and to the left, similar to how the square you have to have your subject way higher in the viewfinder than you think.
We got around a good chunk of the park before heading back towards Vampire, as we were in the area by Gruffalo it started to rain and thunder could be heard. We made the quick decision to get some chips and drinks in the Vampire restaurant to take a break and escape the pour down we believed was about to happen. We were right it fell down we spent maybe 30mins hiding out in the restaurant before we were confident that the rain had subsided. As we left to wander the rest of the park we started to see some blue skies, this was promising we thought hoping most of the rain had passed, it hadn’t but more on that later.
While walking around we joined the Mandrill queue again cause why not, so we headed that way and were praising the blue sky that seemed to be heading our way should mean we got some pictures without the overcast sky which our cameras aren’t always a big fan of. We were of course wrong. This time we were row 4 on the right side of the train, still love it.
We wanted to grab one or two more photos of Vampire before heading off and this proved to be our downfall, as well… a massive downfall started, we got soaked even with ponchos on, the bottom of our legs and feet drenched. Rivers of water running everywhere. With that we called it a day, luckily we were staying not too far away so didn’t have to be in soaked clothes for long.
Chessington still works very well as a middle thrills park in the UK, more thrilling than Legoland but not as thrilling as Thorpe Park, it’s found its place and market in the theme parks around London and has the added draw of the Zoo. I’m glad it’s getting investment and the new land and rides were what it needed. I hope we can see more future expansions to the park and with the hotels looking to add a water park area akin to Centre Parcs or Rulantica (but smaller) they are really interested in making it a dedicated resort for multiple days.
For future expansions I would probably like to see what used to be Beanoland and is currently Wild Asia be redeveloped, the area does feel in need of attention as if you know it used to be the old theme it is fairly clear that other than a reskin not a lot else has changed bar the addition of Kobra. Also, Zufari needs figuring out, I know it was their attempt at a Kilimanjaro Safari or Rhino Ralley type ride but it seems inconsistent in its operation and information from an acquaintance says it often only operates 1 vehicle at a time, I’m not saying removal but maybe work on it a little.
Otherwise ignoring the weather we had a good slower day at the park and are both excited to see what Chessington adds next, if it’s anything like Jumanji it will be great. Also, the world needs more family wing coasters I was shocked at how good that model worked in the family form, need to get on Legoland Germany’s one at some point.
Credit Counts at the end of the day:
Kate - 201 Jason - 87