Not a bad day out especially if you have kids but don’t expect anything to blow you away, my friends and I went primarily for the coasters but went on a fair share of family rides too. Vampire, once the main attraction of the park, is in desperate need of a re-track along with some fresh purple paint for the track. At the moment, the cruising swing coaster feels less like i’m a bat soaring swiftly through the woods and more like i’m being dragged through 10 tonnes of gravel, the ride experience is unapologetically bumpy and clunky as the ride cannot perform a single turn without jerking you around. Rattlesnake is not any better, although the gimmick is its quick bath and forth whips that are supposed to be reflective of a rattlesnake’s tail shaking, it instead feels more like i’m inside of a washing machine. The bunny hop bumps are good fun but overshadowed by an overly uncomfortable ride. Dragons fury, another major attraction, was a very different experience for me as a larger adult. The spinning of the cart does not account for those of a taller or heavier build and it span so fast that I could not focus on or enjoy the ride remotely. The ride needs some kind of spin cap because I came off feeling sick and couldn’t get my head right for a full day. By far the best coaster and the newest attraction at Chessington is the winged coaster ‘Mandrill Mayhem’ located in Jumanji world. The launches, speed, pacing and overall enjoyability of this ride far exceeds anything else at the park and had I not gone on it, this review would be a full star lower. The excellent ride experience is slightly undermined by a ridiculously unintuitive QR code online prebook system instead of a regular queue, which creates more problems than it solves. The smaller, family oriented rides mirror much of what you would find at other parks, a good log flume in the form of tiger rock, a decent laser tag esque adventure in tomb blaster and a pretty great spinning ride in kobra. The monkey swing also got a big thumbs up from my friends. As for food and drink, I advise taking a packed lunch of some kind as prices are quite extortionate but nothing unexpected. The theming of the park on the whole can be jarring with its rather random and erratic ‘zones’ that are right next to each other, but it is more than made up for by some genuinely very good ride / queue theming, animatronics and animal enclosures. 6/10

We have always loved Chessington and always visit(although haven't been for a few years) around Halloween, not because we like Halloween,we don't, but the park stays open longer(used to be 8pm,now 7pm). Definitely different...Guess cutbacks. There used to be actors interacting with the crowds and great music...yesterday there was just an irritating tune on loop. No real atmosphere. Rides kept continually breaking. We queued for an hour for Dragon Fury,and then it broke ..we were given a fast past for when it re-opened. We went to water ride...broken,Vampire -broken. Constantly looking at the app to see if and when the rides re-opened. The thing I noticed mostly,so many eating/drinking areas closed. Some vans that were opened were closing up at 4 30pm,over two hours before the park shut. As I say we hate Halloween but it was actually hard to recognise that it was Halloween, half hearted attempt Chessington.

‘staff’ member working in the dragons soft play on 16/10 - I didn’t actually realise he worked there, I first thought he was a guest teenager as he was slumped over a chair, on his phone, with a hoodie so you couldn’t see his face. Tried to take my non walking toddler to this soft play and found the toddler section had traffic cone in it? After much confusion of me looking at this wondering why there was a cone in there, the staff member makes an appearance and says that section is closed as there’s a leak. Why not add a sign..a traffic cone serves no purpose. So I walk across the room to the bigger section, my toddler had already started climbing up in excitement. Staff member comes back and says he’s too small (bare in mind at this point he’s half way up the equipment himself), and could we get off. So I ask where he can go then, and he pointed at a foam mat on the floor with absolutely no climbing accessories/toys/enrichment. I did then say the lack of customer service was poor..no reply. I appreciate the toddler section was leaking, but no alternative SIMILAR area was then offered. All in all, would not recommend for toddlers who are too small for the majority of the rides. If anyone faces the same situation, there is some grass by Sea Life which can be crawled across…..

Great day out. Friday 20th October. Not many queues as weather forecast not good. But a dry day. 2 new rides were great. Glad didn't spend on " fast track". Only thing was the price of coffee and doughnuts. I know we are a captive bunch but it was a bit extreme. Overall a good day.

The rides were amazing!! The hotel we stayed in was really nice and the trick or treaters were really well thought of. Though once we literally got 4 rollercoasters done in 1 day. However, it was definitely worth the wait as the theming of all the rides was brilliant!! I would recommend going there with an 8 out of 10, thanks for reading. 📖

Great visit but you do need to do your research and plan your visit, if you just turned up and ambled up to the big rides you wouldn't get much done in your day. We stayed overnight at the safari hotel. The hotel was lovely, clean, everything we needed and a nice view of some of the animals over breakfast. It also meant we got in to the park an hour earlier than day visitors. This was our best time to do the rides we really wanted, some of which we ran around for a second go and walked on! Top tips, really check your child height before you go and see which rides they can and can't do. If you don't want to pay extra to skip queues then run to your top two or three rides at park opening. For mandril mayhem you can virtual queue so you get a time window but can be on another ride whilst waiting for your slot. Download the app before you go so you can see current wait times. In the afternoon when the queues are getting long use the app for the rides with the shortest times or check out some animals or a show (times also on the app). Nothing is too far away so you mostly can hop back and forth across the park to make the best of wait times. If you only want to do bigger rides then probably look into paying to skip the queues, especially if you are only there for the day. Some parts of the park look a little bit dated, and expect lots of opportunities to pay for extras (amusements, win the cuddly toys, drive boats on a lake etc, the kind of thing that you could put lots of coins in if persuaded by your small people! We told ours we didn't have any coins on us !!) We were pleasantly surprised by the Julia Donaldson rides, even our 8 year old really enjoyed them. Food was as expected fast food and not cheap, we took a picnic lunch and plenty of snacks. Breakfast in the hotel set us up well, cooked breakfast, pastries, toast, cereal, fruit, coffee/hot chocolate machine etc. It's a really good day or two out if you plan and don't expect it to be Disney slick.

I went for my birthday for halloween and had an amazing time here. It is such a great theme park and the zoo is great. The safari hotel was so lovely and it made me so happy having a room overlooking the animals. The weather was a bit of a downfall though especially on sunday it rained all day and got soaked. It was really wet and cold and the rides kept breaking down because of the weather. Me and my friend got stuck on the log flume and had to be rescued as the ride had broken down. We was there on monday too and the queue times were ridiculous waits, i waited 2 hours for the vampire. I did queue up for single rider for mandrill mayhem and i queued for 40 mins which was very bad and not what i expected. I however would love to come here again as I really did enjoy it but it a shame about the weather.

Firstly I will say it’s brilliant that this theme park caters to younger attendants when most others are tailored towards young adults and above. That said given it’s a theme park for younger children I find it absolutely disgraceful that queue times in peak season (which let’s face it is the time we all take our children as that’s the holidays) can be upwards of an hour and up to 2! Considering children as young as 5 can enjoy most rides in the park how can you expect children of this age to suffer these wait times? I have read some rather corporate cookie cutter explanations like ‘these are exceptions’ ‘rides aren’t always broken’ and ‘balancing the experience for those with or without fast passes’. From a business model this is a complete fallacy as if the queues were balanced it would negate the fast pass system altogether. Rather than expect parents to pay around £100 on top of the original ticket price just to have the day their original tickets should have supplied surely raising the ticket price and decreasing the capacity so all the attendants can enjoy themselves and not just the ones with the most money would be the goal? Rides are ALWAYS down which can be understood for older ones like vampire but when it’s the new mandrill mayhem isn’t that a failing on the parks side? I’m curious as to how many rides the owners think is a fair day out and if the answer isn’t at least 15 (only half of the rides onsite) then some serious overhauling is needed. Also without fast passes I don’t see 15 being achievable. As for the ridiculous restaurant prices who can justify them. For 4 burger, chips and drink the price is a laughable £60! This could be acceptable if the quality were higher but it’s no better than Burger King. It’s a shame as with the unique experience of the park and zoo this could be the perfect family trip. Instead it’s the perfect example of corporate greed.

Chessington is an amazing place. The park itself and the rides are brilliant. A good share of rides for all ages. We had a fantastic time there and wouldn’t hesitate to go again. We have a few complaints though…. 1.We requested my sons birthday to be added to the birthday board when we booked online, asked at reception as we could see it wasn’t on the board, and was told this could be sorted but it wasn’t. 2.The evening meal at the Temple restaurant wasn’t the best. Awkward queuing system for the carvery. However, breakfast was superb in there, a totally different experience. Staff more attentive, pots cleared away quickly and a far better organised feel. 3.When we stripped the beds before we left, it was disappointing to see cheap plastic mattresses on the children’s beds and the mattress protector on the double bed was badly ripped and stained. The room was good but needs a ‘tidy up’. Few stains on the carpets, paint needs touching up, mould in the silicone in the bathroom. However, we would still 100% return.

We stay for one night because of the break fast and swimming pool and I payed for 1 hour more because i think we running of time..they book us the swimming pool by 8:30am to 9:30 and the breakfast by 9:45 its too short about the time and my kiddos not even Enjoying the pool because of the short time we have. We live the pool by 9:00 am because we have to change for our clothes and here We go breakfast by 9:45 and there is no food left only sausage and the bake beans. By 10:25 the Chef top up the buffet and only bacon and hash brown , there is no egg at all imagine We waiting for so long to what food they top up and thats all by 10 :35 sausage and hash brown all the pastry finish at all by 9:45 since we came I asked the till lady where is the food. The restaurant staff look all tired full of mess all the tables, the restaurant staff i think they waiting for the 10:30 taking time to pick up all the food and the Restaurant team staff in the morning if you work about hospitality you need to communicate to the guest, greetings is Important and Talking to the guest is Important don ‘t ignore them at all. It’s better to order food in the bar it’s quick than in the restaurant in the night it’s crowded and busy. Room a bit old smelly toilet and carpet is dirty the elevator only one working and before we left from the 3rd floor the ground floor is not working so we use the stairs bringing all this bags. I hope all this problem solve so quickly.