My feet ache and the children are over wrought with tiredness. It was a long day of being out yesterday and I, the woman who loves a day out, a theme park in particular, have to say it was entirely not worth it!

We visited Chessington World Of Adventures yesterday for the second year in a row. I remember going as a child and loving it but last year I was distinctly underwhelmed. I found it to be too big, too busy and lacking in things to do for children. We found the zoo to be a massive maze and walked round and round trying to find the gorillas which like a comedy farce had sign posts in all different directions. We thought the queuing was unbearable with over half hour waits for even the baby rides and we came away thinking it was NOT a park for small children and definitely not a park to visit with children of differing heights and desires. The waiting is SO long that making older children wait for your little one to queue up for a suitable ride before they can do the same for themselves and vice versa is just time wasting and frustrating not to mention an expensive way to spend the day. Waiting! Little did I know that last year was a pretty good day when it came to wait times!

I had decided not to go again. Ever. A stark contrast to other theme parks we have visited like Paultons Park, which is beautiful and run extremely well or even just the retro Pleasurewood Hills in East Anglia which might not have MASSIVE thrill seeking rides but at least you get to go on all of them. Three times! (Click on links for my reviews) We get invited to a lot of theme parks because of the blog and we feel very lucky. Because of this I very rarely pay to go to one myself but this season we did pay full price to go back to Paultons, we loved it so much. They just have it right, spot on and you come away feeling very glad that you have spent the money! So I wasn’t going to go back to Chessington because I knew it was NOT for us but…

They wrote to me and asked if I would like to come and review again. They said there was lots for children under 5 this year and the zoo (which apart from being hard to navigate round, we had liked) was obviously also there as was the aquarium. Well why not I thought, let’s give it another shot and yesterday we all trekked off to Chessington again via Waterloo. The train from there takes just over half an hour (an hour and a half from home) and my Step Mum and sister were driving from the other direction to meet us at the station. On Chessington’s website it states a ten minute walk to the park from Chessington South but I knew from last year that with three quarters of a mile this was optimistic and with a buggy absolutely more like the best part of an hour so thankfully we were picked up and driven to the park.

We drove up to the first two car parks only to be turned away and eventually parked what seemed like miles away in a field and after 20 minutes parking and another 20 minutes walk to the park we found ourselves in a GIGANTIC queue for people picking up tickets. The queue for people buying tickets on the day was far worse so we felt a little better but already we were thinking this might have been a bad move. A woman eventually came down the line asking for booking references, taking pieces of paper from people and handing out tickets from her bum bag to go straight through the gate. I gave her my name as I was picking up complimentary tickets and she did the same for me but wasn’t giving out maps. Something I didn’t notice until I was inside the gates, a task which took yet another twenty minutes and lost us the will just a little bit more…

We just looked at the swarming people and felt daunted. We didn’t know what way to go? There were sign posts but for what? We had no map and we didn’t know what was on in each area. We decided to just walk and see what happened and we found some little cars for Florence and Jimmy who were very excited. They were less excited by the time we got to the front of the queue nearly an hour later and had been on the ride which took all of three minutes… What next? Well, my sister wanted to go on a ride for her. We saw a waiting time of 90 minutes and reluctantly got in it while my Step Mum took the children to the Land of Dragons. They went on the little ride there and only had to queue for 20 minutes but while we took the best part of two hours waiting for our ride there wasn’t much else for them to do. Florence was scared to go in the soft play area with all the big children in it but she didn’t have socks on and wouldn’t have been permitted anyway so it’s a good job! They eventually went to watch one of many showings of the Madagascar show which proved to be the best part of the day! The show is only 15 minutes long but I think my two caught every showing so probably made an hour and a half’s entertainment out of it. There wasn’t a lot else for them to do!

In the end and after seeing the next children’s ride Bubble Works (which we didn’t go on) had a queue waiting time of 90 minutes and the vampire ride one of 240 minutes! I decided if I was properly writing a review then I would act as I would had I paid and I went to adventure services to complain. There I spoke to a manager who was probably the most patronising and irritating member of staff I came across and I came across a few yesterday. He even patted me on the shoulder, looked down at me and said ‘What did you expect, this is the summer holidays and we’re not even at capacity today so it could be a whole lot worse. I came with my niece last week and we waited an hour for Vampire but we weren’t complaining’! I explained a three year old needs the loo often and can’t cope with 90 minute queues and he again told me he had no problems with his niece, who assuming she’s not a giant, is a lot older than three to be going on the Vampire ride but there we are. He didn’t want to understand and had no intention of helping me so I told him what he was going to give us which eventually, after realising he was beaten, he did and with 15 fast track passes we headed off for more queues.

Fast track? Queues? Surely not? Oh yes! Having these passes made the queue time jump from 240 minutes to 55 for Vampire and for the little trucks for the babies the queue without a pass was advertised at 60 minutes but we made it on in 35… And lots of people PAID for this ‘Fast Track’ privilege! When my 12 year old sister got to the front of the little trucks with Florence, having asked the girl at the start if she was in the correct Fast Track queue and if she was able to take a little one on and being told yes to both, the girl said you have to be 16 to accompany a child on them… Goodness me! So… Out they came and got my Step Mum and Jimmy and started all over again. It was ridiculous so they just went straight to the front and demanded to get on, which they got! (Again, sometimes steam coming from ears just alerts people not to argue with you!)

At that point we gave up. We’d been wanting to all day but the children wanted to go on rides. of course they did, they were at a theme park and we tried to make that happen. With the carousel, which had hardly any queue (comparatively), the children went on only 4 rides and my sister went on three. This is WITH Fast Track passes (which incidentally don’t work on most of the children’s and some of the adult rides). This was between 11am and 5pm and meant we had to split up in order to achieve that many! 5 people, 6 hours, 4 children’s rides and 3 thrill seeking ones but with us not getting to spend the day all together… Not the best. I met a family of five who with half price tickets and a £40 lunch had spent the best part of £200. They had been on two rides at 2pm when I met them. They were not happy and on my advice went off to Adventure Services who I knew were giving out free tickets to other attractions as well as the Fast Track tickets. The ever helpful (sarcasm) manager had said it was on a case by case basis what they compensated with… He was so very irritating! I spoke to many people about what an awful time they were having and saw very few smiles… Shame!

At the zoo, which again we found to be a complete maze (and we’d acquired a map by now) we couldn’t find any animals. They were all hiding away in their houses and I don’t blame them! If I lived there I’d hide away too. No meerkats much to our disappointment but we did see a funny looking bird. Oh and a duck! Off to the aquarium instead then. It looked like a beaten up old building and the queue was out the door! We simply disn’t have the will to try again! Florence was in tears. Again. Because yet another thing couldn’t be achieved. She’d wanted to go on the sky train and lots of other things where queues had been too daunting and long and she’d wanted to do all of the many, many chargeable activities around the park but I’d said no. I’m a firm believer that if you pay handsomely to get into a theme park then EVERYTHING should be included!

At 6 o clock we made the trek and I mean trek, back to the car. Not before having to PAY £2 for the car park I hasten to add. As if anyone has a choice about parking and then they charge you another £2! It’s like a final swift slap of the face and boot in the nuts before you depart! But thankfully we had left Chessington and I was very grateful for that! A long journey home but it was the most fun of the day giggling with the children and talking about what a fab time we’d had at Peppa Pig World and Paulton’s Park and how different it was to Chessington. Yes, even a three year old could see that. ‘I did REALLY like the Madagascar show though Mummmy’ was something Florence did keep saying and she did but for 15 minutes of entertainment I’d easily spend the money elsewhere.

I was asked if I would like to go back in a quieter time and write a review of the park out of school holidays. Part of me thinks I could as under fives don’t have to stick to non term time fun but I would feel an absolute fraud if I didn’t tell you about our day during the summer holidays when let’s face it, most families can find the time to go! I’m also not sure if it would be much better? Less queuing for sure but the park is such a concrete maze (it does have one beautiful piece of grass but then so does the park near my house and that’s free) and we had such a ghastly day yesterday that I’m not sure I could face it. The trip to Southampton from London for Paulton’s (which is way cheaper for tickets too) is worth it, worth it, absolutely worth it! The trip from London to Chessington and I’m afraid I just can’t say anywhere near the same.

I was given complimentary tickets and was angry. I felt cheated and wished I’d not spent the money on even the travel getting there. I can’t help thinking about how the people who’d paid for tickets must have been feeling? Like they’d be done no doubt and indeed they had! I’ve been to lots of other Merlin attractions by the way. Have reviewed a fair few for the blog and we’ve had great days at all! This one however needs putting down. Someone needs to put it and its customers out of misery and just start again from scratch. No redeeming features for us and I think this last photograph sums up our Chessington experience and how we felt they feel about the customers. I wouldn’t be surprised if that manager had designed this sign and placed them on the stairs himself! The whole place is utterly, utterly bonkers!

I was not paid to write this post but I was given complimentary tickets for the purpose of review.

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