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Chessington: World of Adventures - 17/7/18

TPC

TS Member
Today I visited Chessington for the 3rd time in my life. The reasoning behind the trip was I have done most of Thorpe's coasters, my Dad had already been to Legoland this year and most other parks were too far away to do in one day. Thus, Chessington was chosen as there were some attractions that I have never done before. Generally the rule for enjoying the day more was when there were no school trips. Anyway, below is all the attractions that I managed to do (rides done is 12 while total rides is 19). Bearing in mind how busy it was, I'm quite happy with the number of rides I did.

Vampire - 2
Gruffalo River Ride Adventure - 1
KOBRA - 1
Tuk Tuk Turmoil - 1
Lorikeet Lagoon - 1
Dragon's Fury - 4
Tiger Rock - 1
Tomb Blaster - 2
Scorpion Express - 1
Rattlesnake - 1
Black Buccaneer - 2
ZUFARI: Ride into Africa - 2

Vampire - 7.5/10
So much better than my last visit (which I found very rough). I did both the front and back row with very short waits. Best part is the tunnel and flying over the Wild Woods area. However the building's exterior needs to be themed up as it currently looks bland and not themed.

Gruffalo River Ride Adventure - 6/10

In theory this should have been very good but it just it isn't that great. Theming does look impressive in places but the ride's roof can be seen easily. The story elements of the ride can be easily missed due to the circular boats. Audio is far too quiet but if it goes any higher, it will be heard in the other rooms. This was a big disappointment and although I never loved bubbleworks, it was a far better attraction than gruffalo.

KOBRA - 4/10
This ride looks cool off ride but on ride, it's uncomfortable and slow. It has barely any force or speed, so it just relies on spinning. Don't waste your time on Kobra unless you want specific parts of your body to ache.

Tuk Tuk Turmoil - 5.5/10

It's a dodgems and that's really all I need to say.

Lorikeet Lagoon - 6/10

I'm not an animal person so although it is excellent for animal lovers, it just doesn't interest me.

Dragon's Fury - 8/10

On my first ride I was disappointed but the more I rode it, the more I enjoyed it. Best part of the ride is the helix and drop. Using single rider every time, I realised how school trips ruined the system. School trip groups of around 20 people all stood in the single rider line eventhoiev they were told on numerous times to go through the main queue. At one point, I believe I was the only single rider who was in the single rider queue. Fortunately for me, at around 4pm and school trips ended, the single rider line began to be used properly by single riders. Out of all the rides though, I felt the most bad for the staff operating Dragon's Fury who were ignored by the school children, even when they were told to do something in order to be safe.

Tiger Rock - 5.5/10

Log flumes just don't excite me so although there was a tiger gimmick, it was no better than Dragon Falls. Instead of having so many exposed warehouses, you have the ugly tiger cages which look really out of place and a really random tunnel scene. Something interesting to note was the ride's water was drained at one point due to a technical problem. Another thing was that our boat was full of water so we had to put our shoes in water throughout the entire ride.

Tomb Blaster - 4/10

This is probably my worst dark ride ever. The shooting system was impossible to use at first and while there were some nice pieces of scenery, there was no denying that seeing the roof, track and walls ruined the magic of the ride. The ride ending before off-loading was a black room and nothing else. On my first ride, there must have been a technical issue as we had to wait for around 20 minutes, without any announcements warning everybody in the queue. In the end, the queue took around 45 minutes, which is considerably higher than the 10 minutes advertised time. However my second ride had an advertised queue time of 60 minutes which took under 10 minutes. Both these examples show how inaccurate the queue board times are.

Scorpion Express - 7/10

The theme is something I have always enjoyed and the effects are impressive. There is no question or doubt in my mind that this is a far superior experience to Flying Fish at Thorpe Park.

Rattlesnake - 6.5/10

It's a fun ride and like earlier, there's nothing too much for me to say apart from that.

Black Buccaneer - 7.5/10

I was expecting a bit more airtime but it was still was an enjoyable experience that had a fairly quick moving queue. It was quite funny that the ride operator recognised my PortAventura tee shirt I was wearing today.

ZUFARI: Ride into Africa - 9/10

I love Zufari and for me, it's both under rated and the best attraction in the entire park. The animal portion gets you close enough to the animals to make you able to take brilliant photos but it's nothing scary. However, the icing on the cake is the cave scene which is just enjoyable to watch. I would have loved to ride Zufari more but the use of singles rider line meant the queue time was very quick.

Overall
Bearing in mind I disliked Chessington so much last time, today was much better but I would still rank this as the worst Merlin theme park in the UK. I know school trips always happen at this time of year but when school hildren left, the amount of rides I managed to do drastically increased.

Thank you for reading my trip report and I hope you enjoyed it. If you have any questions, I will be more than happy to answer them.
 
Sounds like you had quite a good day! You certainly got on a lot!
 
Forgot to mention how the park closed at 5. I know that the majority of schools left by 4 but it still felt rather early, bearing in mind it is summer time. Also, the wild Woods staff in particular were very friendly towards guests.
 
It sounds like you had a good day considering it was busy :)

Tomb Blaster needs putting out of its misery. It hasn't been in good shape for a long time now and the last couple of seasons it's seemed to be advancing prematurely to the next scenes before the current one has finished. It needs some of Merlin's trademark TLC...
 
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