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.
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.
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.
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!
Our next stop was Margate and the Hussar Inn…
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