Chessington World of Adventures, April 2025

It was the kids Easter holidays to we treated ourselves to a few days away on a theme park roadtrip, hitting the Merlin parks down south we can’t get to regularly and finding random Premier Inns nearby to stay at. Day one of our trip started with a 4 hour drive to Chessington World of Adventures for our first visit of the year. Elliott’s now 1.2m plus height means he has some new rides to try, and we wanted to get on some of our favourites again!

We arrived, parked up and headed in. Elliott had a singular focus: straight to Mandrill Mayhem for his first ever inversion. Mandrill is a B&M multi-pass launch boomerang style wing coaster that launches backwards from the station, up a spike, then launches out from the station forwards, inverts over the Jumanji World entrance and loops upwards around the Jaguar Shrine, before reversing its way through the course and back into the station.

Was he a little nervous? Yes. He’s 7 and just over 1.2m with his big shoes on, but brave and determined to try these big boy rides. He loved it. We managed to get back row so did the first go on Mandrill in the reverse facing seat but did another lap at the end of the day forward facing so he had both experiences. It is a great coaster and good starting point for a step up to the next level of coaster for little ones.

Next up was another of Elliott’s favourite rides in the park: Vampire. Vampire was also celebrating it’s 35 birthday just a day or so before, so they still had some of the bunting out and a birthday party table laid out in the queue line. They even had the original Transylvania sign in an ‘Estate Sale’ box in the queue for you to see, if you can remember it from back then. Chessington is relatively new to us as we’ve never travelled this far for theme parks until the last 4 or 5 years, so some of the Chessington nostalgia gets a bit lost on us. Inside, the ride station felt a little more vibrant than usual.

The vampire animatronic lighting seemed brighter, and the station felt more illuminated. Maybe it was still in party mode. That aside, vampire is a great little family inverted coaster with a 1m height restriction. Whilst Mandrill is a great introduction for bigger coasters, Vampire is a great start for coasters in general. It is a little on the old side (35 years to be precise), so not the smoothest ride, but fun regardless as you go sailing across the rooftops.

Next up was another ride new to Elliott and his 1.2m power. Croc Drop. He’s only done one drop tower before – Magma at Paulton’s Park – so was looking forward to a slightly bigger and more impressively themed one. Nervous again, but as usual after the first drop, the nerves turned to joyous screams as the tower bounced in and out of the Crocs gaping jaws. We love the theming on Croc Drop. Is it the greatest drop tower experience ever? No, but still fun.

The Egyptian themed indoor shooting ride Tomb Blaster had been updated a little since our last visit. The guns were working, the targets all seemed to be working, and the lighting and sound all seemed to be working too. Glad to see the ride looking refreshed this year. Given all the updates that the park is making in the coming 12 months, it’s good to see some of the older rides getting some TLC too.

I haven’t been on Zufari for a few years. In fact, last time I remember going on, Elliott was too small to ride at all. This time we wanted to get on to see the new indoor section, which had been updated, along with the entrance room, and I think the Zufari entrance sign is new too. It had been raining, and I think it had not long reopened, so there was no queue when we got there. The driver told us to jump on at the back for the best view, and he should know best. The entrance room did look a little cleaner. It’s set up like a safari outpost hut with tables full of notes, mosquito nets, shelves of tools and utensils, plus some plants and flowers all around. There is a green screen for photos, but there was no one there taking any as we passed.

Onto the ride. We passed the giraffes, rhinos, some longhorn cattle type things, and some sort of ibex/springbok thing. Its not the greatest safari tuck ride, but always nice to see the animals. The new indoor section though. Wow. Pointless. You drive into a building that acts as a little turning area for the tour. In this ‘cave’ section, they’ve made it looks like some sort of waterfall that you’d see in the Avatar movies. Purple and green lights shining down on the waterfall, filled with plastic plants (I think they were plastic anyway) and a UV light effect. Whilst it looked fancy, if felt unnecessary and very out of place. Not sure what the point of it was to be honest. Spend the money on the animals and their welfare and less on an unnecessary light show in the middle.

There are 2 other rides in the world of Jumanji that Elliott could now do. Mamba Strike and Ostrich Stampede. We had to do both. Both are fun little flat rides that seem to get bigger queues that aren’t worth the wait, but if you can catch them at 15 mins or less, then they’re worth riding. Ostrich Stampede is a spinning ride where you bounce up and down on ostrich seats as it goes around. Mamba Strike is an SBF Top Dancer ride that spins your seats around sideways, a bit like a side-on magic carpet ride. You can get some good drops on Mamba Strike, but both are fun rides. Elliott enjoyed them. Not sure Jo agreed!

Another 1.2 on Elliott’s credit list was Dragons Fury, a Maurer spinning coaster much like Spinball Whizzer over at Alton Towers that he’d only just been on and loved. Jo, not so much. As with Spinball, this thing always has a big queue and takes FOREVER to get on. Luckily, they have an ice cream and snack stand in the middle of the queue, so it was Calippos and magnums all around. By the time we finally got to the ride it had started raining, so jackets were on, hoods were up, and we were off, with Jo expecting more bruises. Its not my favourite, but Elliott enjoyed, and Jo preferred it to Spinball and would ride it again… if it had a 10 min queue. We all enjoyed the ride, but the rain didn’t help, so we’ll have to let them both experience it again on a day where they can open their eyes!

There were a few areas of the park that were closed, but we had a nose through the gaps to see what we could see. Mexicana was closed off as it was preparing for demolition. This area will be reopening in 2026 as the new Paw Patrol Land, with new rides, including a new kid’s coaster and more. Wild Asia is also closed off as that is also currently being re-themed.

Rumours are that it will reopen in 2027 as a Minecraft themed area with another new coaster, a re-themed Cobra (Zamperla disk’o) and more. The wave swinger will be permanently removed though. Good things ahead for Chessington. I hope the new themed areas are as well done as Jumanji. The UK theme parks need some great themed areas to compete with Universal if they are bringing their expertise to the UK market.

It was a slow day for us. We weren’t in any rush to do everything as we knew we’d be able to come back this year with our Merlin passes, so we just did re-rides on all the good things and enjoyed a walk around the park. We didn’t ride Rattlesnake this time, it was up and down throughout the day, it’s a 1.4m height requirement so Elliott can’t ride, Jo wouldn’t ride and quite frankly, it’s that rough neither me nor Evan wanted to ride. Gruffalo always has a big queue, but Jo and Elliott jumped on during a moment of quiet time, we missed out on Blue Barnacle and some of the other smaller rides, but it was still a fun day.

As we were staying in the area to head to both Legoland Windsor and Thorpe Park over the next few days, we needed somewhere to rest our weary heads. We’ve stayed in a few different Premier Inns locally, but this one was a new one on us. We were at the Premier Inn Slough West (Trading Estate).

This one seemed to be newer, cleaner and better than some of the others we’d stayed at. Parking was free, which is always a bonus. There is a multi-storey car park across the road, so park there and put your car details in at the tablet at hotel reception or you’ll get a fine! It’s about 50 min drive from Chessington, but it was only 15 mins from our next stop of Legoland Windsor, so made sense for us to do the hour drive after Chessington so less faff in the morning. Rooms was clean and quiet. Only £95 for a quad room on a Wednesday night during School holidays. Can’t ask more from a Premier Inn.

Onwards to our next destinations…

Get full info on the official Chessington website!