Chessington World of Adventures

I took our two children to Chessington on 29th October. With the benefit of hindsight it would probably have been worth paying the £35 per person extra for a wristband that allows you to jump the queues, as we found that it took more than an hour to get on nearly all of the rides. As it was, despite spending about 9 hours at the park, the children only went on a small number of rides. Nevertheless, the children enjoyed the rides they did go on and the zoo provides a good break from standing in a queue.

I am glad I took the children to Chessington as it somewhere they really wanted to go to, but it seems to be a victim of its own success. Two years ago we went to Port Aventura (in Spain) for the October half-term and the children virtually had the park to themselves. Gullivers (Milton Keynes) is also very good and has short queues. Chessington is very expensive by comparison with both of these - almost to the point of making it worth paying the airfare to Spain.

We visited Chessington on 27th August and it is a wonderful place just the right mix of rides and attractions for all. As my son has Aspereger Syndrome we were allowed to used the back exit for access to rides and the system works by going to your first "Big" ride and having a time restriction were you can only access another "big" ride after this time but usually you wait not much more than 45 mins and you can access all ather rides. Bring cameras and the usual drinks etc but you can buy an unlimited drink cup for £4.99 and fill it as many times as u like through the day. A brilliant day entered the park at 10am and left about 7.30pm

If you go, go for the big rides but be prepared for long queues. Even for the shortest of rides for smaller children the waits are 30 to 45 minutes...you just get to the stage where you give up and go home. The whole place looks run down. Prices are a rip-off compared to somewhere like Gullivers, which has far more attractions for under 10's.