Howl’o’ween 2022 will be the first time we’ve been back to a Halloween event for a second year so we can compare it to last year, as well as to other events we’ve been to.
Not a lot of big changes have occurred since last year, the same shows in the same locations, but of these shows, a few have definitely been improved. The most notable improvement was certainly the Banyan Circle of 8 show in Wild Asia.
They seemed to have increased the amount of pyrotechnics used for the show, and the number of performers looks to have doubled to 8 from last years 4. There is even a decent story about the 8 protecting Banyan from evil witches trying to steal Banyans power over beauty and wisdom. Quite the enjoyable show here!
Vile Villagers over by Vampire doesn’t seem to have changed all that much besides having 3 tiered scare intensities. The first tier (which we did) was very mild up to 3pm, then it got a bit more intense, until 7pm when it became and upcharge and even scarier apparently!
The same can be said for Creepy caves having 3 tiers of scare rating (as well as 3 tiers of pricing too). We didn’t do Creepy Caves this year, even though it’s the final year it’ll run as we did do it last year. I’m thinking we should have possibly tried the most expensive after dark version to see how Chessington could possibly ramp up the terror, but an opportunity missed here!
We did manage to catch a couple of the shows, Banyan being one and the Misadventure of Wilf being the other. The Wilf show is very child focused and was a very pleasant, non offensive show to watch and lasted only around 10 minutes or so. The costumes were great and the inclusive message was lovely too.
Other than the shows, there were also a lot more roaming actors than I recall last year too. There were the Witches roaming around the park, usually being based in Adventure Point, and we also caught pirates roaming around the new Shipwreck Coast area too.
Later on in the evening whilst walking from Dragons Fury to Vampire we even walked passed a parade, something that wasn’t advertised at all, or was present last year, at least that we could see!
The atmosphere of the park was great, especially as it got darker and it would be great to see Chessington open up later next year, especially once Jumanji is open! I don’t see this happening though as I think they have very strict rules on late night noise levels from the surrounding residents.
As for the rides, we had a much better run this year than last. We didn’t have any breakdowns at all and queues were kept short enough.
We started at Dragon’s Fury which was about 20 minutes of queuing, then onto Zufari for another 20 minutes or so. Photos were working in the queue line though which is great to see!
Next was Tomb Blaster which was advertised as 20 minutes but was a walk on. Throughout the day we also rode Croc Drop, Jungle Rangers, Rattlesnake, Gruffalo, Vampire, Tuk Tuk turmoil, Tiger Rock, stopped for some dinner and did Sealife too. We did manage to get back on Tomb Blaster and Dragon’s Fury again for second rides before ending our day with another ride on Vampire.
I recall last years Howl’o’ween being a bit of a disappointment in my own mind, not a bad event at all, just not quite fitting in with Chessington. This year however, I think they’ve got it spot on. I look forward to seeing what they’ll cook up for next year!
Our third day of Halloween park visits was to Chessington World of Adventures to see what their Howl’o’ween event had to offer!
Park entry was a smooth affair this time, no lengthy queues as we’d arrived early so we had plenty of time to do all the things we wanted to do and headed straight to Dragon’s Fury.
Once again we had to wait a little longer for our ride as it ran into technical difficulties, which means we’ve had two breakdowns in as many visits to the park. I wonder if something is really wrong with Dragon’s Fury and it needs a good refurb, or maybe it’s starting to show its age? Either way, we did eventually have a great ride, collected our photo and digipass and moved onward to Scorpion Express.
We were intending to get on Rattlesnake, but it was closed for the day so instead opted for Scorpion Express which was advertised with a 20 minute queue, but was actually a walk on. No complaints here!
Next we headed to Tomb Blaster, one of my all time favorite rides here. After queuing for about 40 minutes, we were in the final straight to the air gates only to have the station lights come on and the operative announce that they’d run into technical difficulties.
So on our visit we’d had a breakdown on Dragon’s Fury, Tomb Blaster is having issues, Rattlesnake and Seastorm are closed and we’d also noticed that Croc Drop had stopped operations. I put it down to bad luck as I’ve never been to a park with quite so many rides closed or having issues before, and both Tomb Blaster and Dragon’s Fury were working again shortly after.
We waited a bit longer for the ride to start working, and after about 20 minutes or so, ride vehicles were being dispatched and they loaded us up and off we went. Pretty much all the effects were working, aside the boulder and a few banks of targets here and there. This was also the closest we’ve ever had our scores to one another! Tracy’s really getting into it now!
Me on the left, Tracy on the right!
Our next stop was the Yoohoo Children’s Zoo, the parks small animals attraction. I’d only been in here once before, but I do remember there being more animals wandering about! It was still nice to see the donkeys, pigs and the ferrets doing their stuff, but it did feel a little lacking in any real atmosphere today!
On our way towards the zoo entrance, we stopped off in the Education Centre next to Room on the Broom. In here they have various creepy crawlies for you to see, and a few you can handle. These being cockroaches, giant snails and stick insects. Earlier in the year when we visited, the same lady was out letting you handle their stick insects so we passed up this opportunity and moved on to the zoo and Sea Life.
A few of the tanks had been updated with halloween theming but overall it was still the same Sea Life we know and love! More photos for the digipass though, as they have since started taking your photo at the start, the same with Gruffalo River Ride Adventure, which is great to see!
Peace the owl.
After Sea Life, we wandered around the front lawn area, watched the otters frolicking about and watch an animal talk about their owls and tortoises. This was particularly entertaining as the tortoise they had wouldn’t behave and kept running off, but the keeper kept it light hearted and informative!
Next we found Forgotten Forest, a small walk through attraction that was included in park entry. As there was no queue we went in to see what there was to see.
The area is a nice little walk through attraction, decorated to feel spooky and has the occasional funny moment here and there to make it more light hearted. It did feel very much like a Christmas walk through that had had halloween theming slapped on top of it in my opinion, but it was still a nice and pleasant walk through.
We then headed into Trail of the Kings in the hopes of seeing all of the big cats today. We did manage to see the serval, caracal and both lions, but the clouded leopards were hiding again. Nice to finally see their caracal though!
Our next ride was on Gruffalo River Ride Adventure, a nice family water dark ride, and another photo for the digipass! I enjoy Gruffalo a lot. Its a pleasant sit down with elegant scenery and, although the sound effects can sometimes play over each other depending on spacing between the tubs, its got good ambient audio.
Once we’d made our way through the exit shop, we tried our first Howl’o’ween scare attraction called ‘Vile Villagers’. This small walkthrough attraction is just behind Vampire and sees you walking through a ghostly village and its inhabitants. The actors will try to scare you a bit, but generally we were left alone to walk through until instructed by the final actor to pass through the final tunnel to rejoin the world of the living.
This felt like a very watered down Platform 15 without the train set piece, and was enjoyable enough, especially with it being free. It wasn’t as scary as The Crows of Mawkin Meadow at Thorpe Park had been, nor was it just a walk through like Forgotten Forest. A nice balance between the two.
By this time we were getting to our time slot for Creepy Caves: Resurgence, the parks only upcharge scare maze. This was nothing like what I’d expected from Chessington at all. It wouldn’t have been out of place at Alton Towers or Thorpe Park with how intense it was in places, and great to see from a park that’s recently been dialing back the thrills!
The maze sees you walking through a series of caves and rooms that are heavily themed and filled with actors who will make you jump on more than one occasion. I never experienced The Creepy Caves so I don’t know if the story follows on, but here the Caves are filled with a resurgent group of rioters, lots of loud noises and shouting and a final scene with real pyrotechnics included, as well as a decent soundtrack following you through!
This was great to see from Chessington and hopefully we’ll see more like this next year. It felt like they were finally looking at targeting some of the older guests who visit the resort since there aren’t too many big thrills at Chessington overall. Well worth £6.
Once we’d done in the caves, we had dinner at the Pizza Pasta Buffet and then wandered about, hopping on rides here and there and watching the shows as they played out during our travels. Most notably where the Wild Witches in Adventure point and the show in Wild Asia.
We also fell extremely lucky on this occasion with the tigers as three of them came out just as we were passing through, and at one point, all four were out and about, lounging in the evening sun and posing for photos!
As the sun started to set, we tried for a quick queue on Dragon’s Fury but as it was operating so slowly, we abandoned it in favour of the big event for me, Vampire in the dark.
We queued for around 40 minutes, and by the time we were in the station it was as dark as it could get and we managed to get a back row seat. The last two rows are usually reserved for ride access and disabled guests, but there was no one left in queue so the trains were being filled with regular queuing guests.
Possibly my favourite photo I’ve taken so far!
Vampire is so much smoother on the back than it is mid train or front, and you get plenty of whip over both lift hills. This feels like the proper way to experience Vampire for me. Coupled with the darkness and the whole atmosphere about the Wild Woods, this was one of the best rides we’d both had on this Arrow suspended coaster!
To top it off, when we got into the station, we found there was no queue and were asked if we’d like to go around again, as the staff were hopping on for their final ride of the night too. We were moved up to middle of the train, and it did get rougher than our previous run, but still a great time had here. The only negative was that one of the photos was lost by the photo booth operator, but we still managed to get one, so I’m not complaining too much!
Overall, Howl’o’ween was a good time, not quite as good as Scarefest last year or Fright Nights, but still a great time. We were due to stay another day but ended up changing the plans to head to Legoland instead. This was due to us both wanting to visit Legoland for a second time, and feeling that seeing more of Legoland was better than revisiting Chessington again.
Our visit to Chessington for Wilderfest was a pretty quick decision. I’d thought about it, Tracy mentioned it, and within minutes we’d booked the hotel at Cobham services (again) and prebooked our passholder tickets.
We hadn’t planned in for another Chessington until Howl’o’ween later this year but they announced Wilderfest, seemingly out of nowhere so off we went.
We went over 2 days on a Saturday and Sunday, in the summer holidays so we fully expected it to be very busy, but bad weather forecasts, or a bit of luck meant that it wasn’t quite as busy as it had been on our last visit!
Day 1 was the wetter day, but we came prepared this time with a change of clothes, ponchos, towels and umbrellas and even though it was wet most of the afternoon, we had a great time! Our first ride was Dragon’s Fury as we went straight there to dodge the long queue later.
Usually an underwhelming ride, but not this time!
We had our first backwards facing ride and it was the single best ride on any Maurer spinning roller coaster that I’ve ever had. It not only got a decent photo of us, but it spun well, but still gave us a break before it spun off again. Back seats definitely seem to be the way to get a better ride from these!
The faces say it all!
After we’d gotten off Dragon’s Fury, we begun our usual saunter around the park, having rides on Croc Drop, Tomb Blaster, Vampire, Rattlesnake, Scorpion Express and Gruffalo River Ride. as well as searching for QR codes for a promotion Chessington were offering.
Adventure Points new Lion Statue for Wilderfest
They hide boards in all the areas of the park for you to find and scan, which added pages to a book that you could buy at with little avatars of you in cartoonised versions of Chessington’s themed areas.
Tracy went first, and I ended up buying one the second day so we both have one. You can edit your avatars in the app so you can make them look something like yourself. It’s a nice bit of fun, and would be nice if they did more things like this in future, maybe for cheaper rewards such as pop badges or other park merchandise.
Wilderfest itself was good, but not as good as I’d expected. The main draw was a show on the ‘Mane Stage’ that involved 3 different acts, Led Zebra, DJ Sharkey and Lady Ra Ra. We sat and watched one of the shows, and the acts were entertaining and well done, though Led Zebra was playing Bon Jovi’s music rather than any of Led Zeppelin’s music!
After each act had performed, there was a voting stage that was based on the noise the crowd made when prompted to vote for each act. DJ Sharkey, who was the most entertaining of the 3 definitely won on our show, but Led Zebra was awarded the win, even though there was barely any voting for them!
As the show plays at 3 different times in the day, I assume it’s scripted that each act wins once which is a bit of a shame that they don’t have actual interactivity in that regard, but it was enjoyable, and it does give off a faint hint of being at a live music show, so I’ll give them props there!
The other big side of Wilderfest takes place on the grassy area beside the Land of Dragons, where a few wooden huts and games have been put up. The selection was a little lacking, especially when you compare it to Food Street at Alton Tower’s Mardis Gras. There was also a hut selling specific Wilderfest merchandise such as T-shirts and badges. Though once again I found no T-shirts above XL in size so I only ended up with a badge this time around.
Kamal was out this time!
Finally there were various pop up acts around the park playing music and singing popular songs for the crowds, as well as a group walking around with animal puppets called the Groupie Troupe.
The animals that the puppeted were really quite believable and they looked the part, and there was always a crowd around them whenever we saw them, so I ended up not getting any photos of them in action!
Overall Wilderfest was a good time, but not as good as Mardi Gras, and neither as good as Scarefest at Alton Towers!
For our second day, we largely skipped the Wilderfest shows in favour of rides. We had another ride on Dragon’s Fury to start with, and did the same as the day before, sat on the back to see if it was a similar experience, which it was.
Well, it was after we got going! Our train was dispatched and then got stuck at the bottom of the lift hill, but they sorted the problem within about 15 minutes and the operators kept checking on us to make sure we were ok, and both of us were of course. Almost excited to be involved in a breakdown of sorts is in the same vein as a rollback on Stealth for me!
We once again wandered around, jumping in queues that were short, or took our fancy at the time. We ended up in queue for Vampire before long as it’s was for the longest time both of our favourite rides at Chessington. It’s still a great family ride, but now the over shoulder restraints and the age are seemingly taking its toll as it does rattle about its course a lot more than it used to, and we got quite a bit of head banging from our rides.
Hopefully a decent refurbishment and maybe new restraints will bring Vampire back up to the excellent ride it once was. It’s still more than worth queuing for as it does feel like Chessington’s signature attraction and we both still love it, but for me Tomb Blaster now takes the top spot at Chessington as I really do enjoy that too!
Duel at Alton Towers or Tomb Blaster at Chessington?
To close I’d say Wilderfest does fit in Chessingtons calendar well and for a first year it was good, but I’d love to see it expanded in future with more going on and a bit more of a festival vibe around the park too!
We finally saw the elusive Clouded Leopard, and got a decent photo too!
Following on from Thorpe Park, we stopped in The Ramada at Cobham services on the M25. This hotel was very cheap, and my exceptions were low because of this but I was pleasantly surprised at how good the hotel actually is. We paid £29 for the night, and it easily kept up with the Holiday Inn in terms of quality. The staff were helpful and pleasant, and the service themselves have a multitude of food offerings. It is a perfect stop for visitors to Chessington World of Adventures and Thorpe Park as both are within 30 minutes drive away.
We hit the road early so we could get to Chessington, get parked and into the park, but due to traffic and other factors we arrived a bit later than I’d have liked which meant we were in a queue to get into the park. It was only while queuing that I realized my second mistake, and booked Chessington for a teacher training day, which meant the park was extremely busy.
It took us a fair while to get in, but once we’d had our bags and tickets checked, we headed off to Croc Drop, Chessington’s newest addition and replacement for Rameses Revenge.
Croc Drop – Brave the drop, release the curse!
The new ride looks the part, it has great themeing, and we both liked the little puzzle they put on to work out what the glyphs on the side of the building say. The ride itself is an SBF Visa drop tower in the same vein as Magma at Paultons Park. I will say that Croc Drop is the better themed ride, but Magma is the better ride overall as it has more to its sequence.
After Croc Drop, we headed over to Mexicana for a ride on Rattlesnake. This wild mouse is a laugh, and well themed in places. It could really do with being tarted up a little here and there, but otherwise it’s a good all round attraction for Chessington.
Rattlesnake
Our next visit was to our old favourite at Chessington, Vampire. We’ve ridden this more than any other roller coaster in the UK and until recently, it was my favourite family coaster. It is an Arrow Dynamics suspended swinging coaster with Vekoma trains. It fits in well at Chessington, and rides great, if a little slow and rough in places. We both thoroughly enjoy it and will endeavour to always have a go on it when we visit!
On to Wild Asia next for a go on the Monkey Swinger. This is a standard chair swing ride, that usually features water jets, but they weren’t operational. Despite this and the lengthy queue, we still enjoyed it!
Once we’d finished up on Monkey Swinger, we had a wander around, looked in the shop and decided to call it quits for today. As I mentioned earlier, the park was very busy, with 90 minute queues on Dragon’s Fury and Vampire, and 120 minute queues for Tiger Rock. So we headed to the car and once again I sent the drone up for some photos.
Chessington from the air!
This was the worst visit we’d had to Chessington unfortunately. The amount of people that had come along was staggering, meaning that even if you weren’t in a long queue, you were surrounded by folk and it just wasn’t as good as it has been on previous visits. Still a great park to visit, just not during the holidays!
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