A family day out! (Chessington World of Adventures)

Member Name: Absy_Baby

Product:	Chessington World of Adventures
Date:	28/07/09 (113 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: For families, mix of rides for most ages of children

Disadvantages: Expensive if you pay full price

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The Attraction
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Chessington World of Adventures is a family theme park, it has rides and a zoo. It is advertised as a family fun day out. It is just that, aimed at families and designed for families and younger children. I could not imagine my friends and I looking for a day out and choosing Chessington.

It is located just within the m25 off junction 9 or 10, depending which way you're coming from. It is in Surrey.

There are many rides within the park, aimed at all ages, and more importantly heights. The height restrictions on the rides vary between minimums and maximums which are:
1.4 metres (over or under depending on which ride)
1.3 metres (under must be accompanied by an adult)
1.1 metres (under must be accompanied by an adult)
And so on, you get the idea, all rides that have height restrictions have them clearly on the queue board at the entrance to the ride.

The park itself is broken up in to areas that are named such as: Beano Land, Transylvania, Mexicana, Market Square, Land of Dragons, Forbidden Kingdom, Mystic East, Pirates Cove and Toy Town.

The park also offers food and drinks, a good idea is to buy the drink carton that is refillable, this costs £4.99 and can be refilled however many times you like. The drink options are: Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite, Orange Fanta. This is definitely worth is when a normally a medium size drink costs £2.30. We all drank from this bottle and just refilled it every time it was empty, this saved us lots.

The food choices are:
Fried Chicken Co.
Caffe Nero
Greedy Goblin Family Inn
Pizza Pasta
Mexican Cantina
Hot Dogs
Fish and Chips
Burger King
Oriental Express
And of course ice cream and sweet places dotted everywhere.

The food prices are not too expensive and you can get deals, as we entered the park we noticed a poster advertising one adult meal for £7.99 (this was a proper meal from Pizza Pasta or Greedy Goblin Family Inn).

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The Price
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Details are Online Prices then On-the-day prices:
Adventurer (aged 12 and over) £24.00 or £33.00
Young Adventurer (aged under 12) (kids under 1 metre go free everyday £17.00 or £22.00
Senior £20.00 or £23.00
Disabled / Helper (Price per individual. Only 2 helpers per disabled guest. ) £18.00 or £20.00
Young Disabled £13.00 or £13.00

A family of 5 (which is what we were) ticket cost £115 on the door. Online a saving of £20 could have been made but it wasn't thought about (and I wasn't paying).

The family of 5 ticket, consisted of 2 adults, 3 children under 12, and the 2 year old entered for free.

You can on top of this buy an express pass ticket which allows you to queue jump on rides, I don't know how much this is and even looking it up online I can't find it. I wouldn't pay it anyway, what fun is it going to a theme park and missing the queues!?

You can also by a photo pass which costs £20 extra for 5 ride photos (which isn't that bad - £4 a photo).

You can also get group tickets and school discounts.

One last point, parking - it is free!

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Opening Times
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Open - Zoo Days
(Zoo & SEA LIFE only)
10.00 - 16.00
Open - Main Season
(Off Peak)
Full Attraction
10.00 - 17.00
Open - Main Season
(Peak)
Full Attraction
10.00 - 18.00
Open - Main Season
(Peak - Halloween)
Full Attraction
10.00 - 20.00

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The Zoo & Sea Life Centre
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The zoo has been a long standing feature at Chessington, it contains many animals, monkeys, lions, tigers, meerkats, sealions, penguins, creepy crawlies and more.

There is also a children's zoo which has farmyard animals in, this is an interactive experience and adults can take children in to touch and stroke the animals (mainly goats).

The Sea Life centre, is an aquarium filled with 250,000 litres of water and has many tanks spread out with a wide range of species including crabs, fish, star fish, sting rays and sharks. There is a main tunnel in which you walk through a giant tank and see all the fish. This is suitable for children, it is not massive although the sides are wooden up till waist height, which is silly, so you will need to lift little ones.

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My Thoughts
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I think Chessington is a great attraction for kids, younger kids, there is a lot for them to do and see but it does seem a bit mixed and matched in terms of rides. There are 3 or 4 main adult rides, which are not suitable for children and the under 1.4 metres, I don't understand why they would bother with these types of rides when most people who go to Chessington have children with them and can't leave them to go on a massive ride that you'd expect to find in Thorpe Park or Alton Towers.

I think the usual prices are day light robbery, you can go and see many things in and around the London area that cost less than £33 per adult, but then I would never pay these prices as you can find many 2 for 1 vouchers if you look. I would never pay full price and look around, or only go if there was a special offer on. But I suppose they bump the prices up so on the 2 for 1 they are still breaking even, but if you're stupid enough to pay full price then they'll accept that too.

I went to Chessington with my cousin, her partner and their 3 children, they are 18 months, 9 and 12 years old. The 18 month old loved the little rides, although she couldn't go on many, she particularly loved the pink elephants. The 9 year old was borderline, she is 1.2 metres although she absolutely hated Dragons Fury (and nearly broke my wrist in yanking my hand so hard) but loved the Vampire Ride. The 12 year old is just 1.4 metres and made it on Ramesees Revenge, she absolutely hated it while on it, but didn't stop talking about how great it was for the rest of the day. Overall I'd say once children are teenagers at secondary school chessington probably loses its appeal very quickly and becomes babyish.

The zoo is great, if not quite small, I don't like small cages and these are not massive by any means. Perhaps they should put more money in to this section as the younger children seem to love it.

There are toilet facilities everywhere and this helps. There are also places to sit and eat packed lunches, although I can imagine the grassy areas to get rather busy during peak times.

Summary: A good day out