Kids in outer London – Chessington World of Adventures

Easter marks the opening of the various theme parks and as the kids thrust dozens of “two for one” ticket deals at me I thought it’s probably better to get the annual family expedition over sooner rather than later. Last year we went along to Thorpe Park, which they loved as it has been overtaken with white knuckle rides but disappointed me as it contained little else apart from the beach area for the diddlies. I miss the farm there :(

Anyway, we took the train out from London to Chessington South which was a relatively painless experience. It’s about a 15 minute walk from the station to the park and you can’t get lost as you just form part of the crowd pottering along. Bit of a nasty road to cross though.

It was a beautiful sunny Easter Saturday and I was expecting queues to get in the place – but we were in after just five minutes. My daughter had expressed a desire to try the new Dragon Fury ride – so we queued in the sweltering heat for about an hour. Yes, it was a thrilling ride. But afterwards I noticed how much the top of the first elevated section wobbled and decided that it was one that I wasn’t going to experience again. Yeah, we screamed a bit. Would have screamed more if I'd known about the wobbly bit.

We met up with some friends (after discovering that there are numerous Caffe Nero outlets - so be specific) who had come a little later by car and had to spend over half an hour queuing to get in, they weren’t so happy. But the youngster amongst them (he’s six) was all bright eyed with excitement – he is a pirate fanatic and had just rode the Black Buccaneer. We all set off for Transylvania to have a go on Vampire which had been shut at the beginning of the day. Luckily, we only had to wait for 30 minutes and we were off. Those with loose shoes had to ride barefoot. Lots of happy screams all round.

We trekked to a large patch of grass near the Explorer gate to eat our picnic and apply some of the sun lotion that we had to buy to prevent us all burning. Remember to take some along when you go as it was pricey. Here is also the only “Smoking allowed” area we could find (I’m more than happy to comply with requests to only smoke in designated areas but to do so there have to be a reasonable number of the damn things).

Then we queued for about half an hour to go on everyone’s favourite: Bubbleworks. The music is the same but some of the models appear to have changed. But the water and splashing is just as good – we laughed hysterically and came out absolutely drenched. My only photo purchase of the day occurred here too – before we were soaked.

At this point there was a parting of our group. The teens went off in search of another new ride – Kobra – while me, the six year old and his dad queued up in the imaginative overhead walkway into the pyramid for Tomb Blaster. I like this ride as you get to shoot all the green lights and compare your score to your fellow riders – and it is like moving through the film set of Tomb Raider. Shame that Harrison Ford wasn’t actually there.

As the teens hadn’t returned (apparently they saw that the queue for Dragon Fury was only 20 minutes and did that one again), we set the six year old loose in Canopy Capers while we enjoyed another cup of coffee.

Then we all set off to Dragon Falls. Not a long queue and we managed to get wet again. Lots more laughter though. At this point we decided to take a look at the animals. First up were the meerkats and whilst we were sad that they weren’t in their outside area, they were up so close to the window that we spent ages watching them. We visited the gorillas and the tigers too – and the lions put on a great show eating large chunks of meat.

Walking towards the Lodge Gate we spied the otter enclosure who had just been fed. Watching them crunch through and play with their fish was a delight. Then we managed to slip into the new Sea Life attraction just before it closed. I wasn’t expecting much but this was probably the highlight of my day. It’s a full blown aquarium – there were large open displays with rays, lots of smaller tanks of all manner of fish (including piranhas) as well as seahorses and jellyfish. i loved the rainforest part of the walk but the undersea tunnel was stunning – sharks and rays and eels – coming at you from all angles. Fantastic.

I might even be persuaded to return again before 2012.