Chessington World Of Adventures, Chessington, UK

Chessington World of Adventures is based on the south of London. It is aimed primarily as a park for families, however it has some thrilling rides for older patrons. It is especially attractive, thanks to it's excellent themeing and atmosphere, a hangover from it's development by John Wardley.

Due to this being a family orientated park, the height limits are not too restrictive, with a 1.4m limit on only two rides, Rameses Revenge and Rattlesnake. The rest of the rides in the park should be fine with anyone over 1.2m, although there are maximum height limits on a couple of the rides.

The park gives a good impression, being clean and tidy. The zoo was also nice with well presented and large areas for the animals to roam. The animals themselves seemed well looked after, although the didn't look especially happy to me. This could have been due to the traditional British weather when I visited however.

Food is reasonable as far as I could tell, the KFC I had tasted the same as KFC anywhere, that doesn't say much however.

All in all I really enjoyed Chessington, yes, it isn't a park crammed full of high thrill attractions, but then again it isn't the kind of park to attract high thrill seeking, queue-jumpers either. There is a very relaxed atmosphere to the place, and there is enough to do to last a day. While I'm surprised it doesn't feature a children's rollercoaster, my dignity thanks Chessington for it as I'm not obilged to ride the thing for the credit. I do feel something like a small Tivoli coaster themed to Gnasher would work well in Beano Town however, possibly themed around chasing the postman?

Glance at the park

Chessington is not a massive park, however it certainly isn't small. It consist of 10 themed areas.

Upon entering the park you will find yourself in Chessington Zoo. My thoughts on this have been mentioned earlier, so I won't repeat them. The new Sealife centre is good however, featuring a wide range of sea life and educational information about them. The animal areas are well designed and nicely presented, as well as featuring unique attractions such as a spider monkey walkthrough.

Once past the zoo, you come to what could be considered the hub of the park, Market Square. This area is themed to medival Britain, and contains most of the shops and eating establishments for the park, include the Greedy Goblin Family Inn, the only pub in the park. A couple of attractions are based here, Hocus Pocus Hall, a 4D walkthrough attraction and the Safari Monorail also has it's station here although the ride winds it's way around the zoo.

Next to Market Square is Pirate's Cove. This area is themed similarly to Market Square and contains two rides, the Sea Storm and The Black Buccaneer pirate ship. The theming in this area is very good, I particularly liked Seastorm.

Transylvania is home to two attractions. The first is the Bubbleworks, now sponsered by Imperial Leather. The other is the suspended roller coaster Vampire, which I thought was superb. It starts off with a nicely themed and atmospheric queue, only slightly marred by the fact it is possible to see the ride station is a corrugated shed at one point. Inside the station the queue gets better, with an animated organist playing along to the music in the station, and the lighting themed as torches. The ride itself is nearly as good, while not hugely intense it is still forceful yet tame enough for families, as well as being hugely fun. I enjoyed the ride so much I mentally renamed it 'Minisis', as it offers a Nemesis like experience suitable for all. If I'm honest, this is probably my favourite ride in the park, narrowly edging out Dragon's Fury.

Heading up toward the top of the park you come to the Land of the Dragons, home of the afore-mentioned Dragon's Fury. This spinning roller coaster was built by Maurer-Sohne of Germany and was installed at the same time as Spinball Whizzer at Chessington's sister park, Alton Towers. Dragon's Fury certainly has the better theming of the two, although both rides are about the same in terms of fun and ride quality. Dragon's Fury has a very good first drop, however I feel Spinball has the better middle part. I wasn't looking forward to Dragon's Fury's second lift, however it is so fast that it doesn't really slow down the rides pacing. The ride is certainly good fun and shouldn't disappoint anyone, in fact I've yet to ride a bad Maurer spinning rollercoaster. A nice thing about the area is the theming and the fact that the roller coaster wraps around part ofthe fun house and the rest of the area, which also features a rocking tug ride called Griffin's Galleon, as well as the Sea Dragon's mini carousel ride.

Next to The Land of Dragons is Toytown, one of the area for the younger children in the park. This is an area that isn't quite as well themed as the rest of the park. Somehow is just doesn't seem to work quite as well, a lot of the theming is there but it doesn't work as a cohesive whole. The area contains several attractions for younger guests such as the Berry Bouncers, Tiny Truckers, Flying Jumbos, Carousel and Toadie's Crazy Cars. All these attractions can carry adults and many smaller guest may need to be accompanied.

Beanoland is found at the top end of the park and is themed to the famous comic. While the theming isn't as spectacular as that in the Forbidden Kingdom, for example, it does have it's own flair and character, with massive comic strips over all the buildings. In particular I liked the water fountain that squirted you in the back of the head and the hand dryer that dumped water on your hands, a little touch that may otherwise be missed. Another watery attraction is Billy's Whizzer, a chair-o-plane with jumping water jets to catch riders. Other attractions for kids are the Bash Street Bus, Roger the Dogder's Dodgems and Dennis's Madhouse. This area is aimed a little more at older kids, with the height limits being a little stricter, however as mentioned earlier I'd still like to see a childrens roller coaster, themed to Gnasher. If you want to be really cheesy you could call it the Grand Gnashional...Ok I'll stop there, before my bad humour does any more damage!

The Mystic East is next to Beanoland and is mostly home to the Dragon Falls water flume, a ride that was sadly shut on my visit. This ride is very nicely themed and looked very impressive, however it still suffers a little bit from 'Tussauds tin shed' syndrome, where by it is possible to see that the roof of the 'temple' is in fact a corrugated steel shed. The other ride in the area is Peeking Heights a ferris wheel with good views of the park. The are a couple of pay to play attraction next to Peeking Heights, the Great Wall Climb and Sumo Bungee Trampalines.

Forbidden Kingdom is probably my favourite area of the park, more for the theming than anything else. The area has a brilliant egyptian vibe, with excellntly integrated ride such as Ramses' Revenge, a Huss top Spin dug into the ground. The other major attraction is Tomb Blaster, a well themed dark ride were you travel around an egyption tomb, shooting possessed scarabs and other larger beasties. This ride is very nicely themed and well laid out, although all the car being connected in one train can cause delays in dispatch if the park isn't busy. Another point worth mentioning is the queue lines, as well as being beautifully themed, the queue line for both Ramses' Revenge and Tomb Blaster weave in and out of buildings as well as travelling over paths at certain points, this makes it a lot more difficult to queue jump as well as looking spectacular!

Mexicana is another very nicely themed area and is also home to two of the parks four roller coasters. Rattlesnake is certainly one of the better Wild mice I've seen, while it's ride isn't much smoother than any other Maurer Sohne Wild Mouse (see Flamingoland) it makes up for the rough ride in many ways by wrapping the ride and queue in scenary, I especially liked the mexican stuck upsidedown in the barrel! Runaway Train continues this tradition and while the ride name isn't going to win any prizes for originality, nor the track layout win any excellence awards, the themeing around the ride is of high quality. I would suggest useing bark chippings, sand or gravel to cover over the concrete however if Chessington are listening. All in all, while not winning a prize for being the parks finest attraction, this Mack built powered coaster is a nice little addition to the park, and can be held up as an example of how to add a nice little family attraction, without having to spend huge sums of money on a custom layout. The same could also be said for Rattlesnake, and it is some I feel a few parks could learn from, it would be nice to see an originally themed Wacky Worm, that's not just the temperary base on concrete.

Leonardofury, Last Modified 26/03/2008