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!
Next stop, Thorpe Park for Fright Nights!
loopsandlapbars.com 