Talk to me about Chessington World of Adventures!

[TeamSpike]

I'm after the worldly wisdom of the MN hive mind. Dd will be 7 in July and wants to go to a theme park. I've had a look and I think Chessington will be a good one.

So here are my questions. Is one day enough to see and do everything for her age? The rides and zoo, etc.

She wants to stay in a hotel. I'm thinking of finding a Premier Inn or similar close to the park. Its a long drive from home so don't really want to drive back at the end of the day.

Also, she's not a tall 7 year old so want to make sure there'll be plenty of rides for her to go on.

Apart from day tickets, will I need to book other things in advance as well?

Full disclosure, we'll be going on a Friday in term time so hope won't be crazy busy like a weekend or school holiday.

Thanks all

There's a premier inn or something similar 10 mins down the road.

There's loads for kids of her age but look at the website and the height restrictions for certain rides. There's a few with a 120cm restriction.

One day will be enough. The zoo isn't huge.

Have fun :)

If she is tall enough for most the rides you can do 2 days easily. Rides first thing and at the end of the day, animals when rides are really busy.

Yep, just checked, it's the Premier Inn Chessington, Leatherhead Rd, Chessington KT9 2NE. There's a Beefeater there too but not loads of other food places locally.

Went with a 3 year old and there were enough rides to fit a whole day! So plenty enough for a 7 year old. I think the resort itself has a hotel too

There are plenty of rides but a lot of closures too. Went this week and tomb blasters, tiger rock, rattlesnake, scorpion, vampire and gruffalo were all closed either all all day or got a good bit of the day. I was with my six year old and we kept busy for 5 hours, could have done another hour or so looking at more animals and there were two rides we didn’t do but one broke down whilst we were queuing so we called it a day. It’s all just generally a bit run down and sad, but it has been for years. My son loved it.
There are hotels there too if you can stretch. They have swimming pools and one at least overlooks the giraffes.

We got free tickets from the Sun so I didn’t mind that not much was running, but if I had paid I would have been miffed. Legoland is much better value for money especially if staying overnight and wanting to get 2 days out of it.

We have stayed many times in the hotel or less pricy premier inn.
You can just walk up the road to the park and return back for your evening meal.
lots to do not just rides.
My favourite of all the merlin parks.
My kids have very fond memories of Chessington.
Enjoy OP 😃

Thanks everyone! Sounds positive. I'll be using clubcard vouchers to pay luckily so will only be paying for the hotel

We went in October half term. Queues for an hour for most rides it wasn't the best. Paultons is far better in my opinion. Cleaner. Shorter queues and get a lot more rides for your money

Check how much a day ticket , hotel would cost and parking (I think you have to pay), compared to an overnight at their hotel. You get two for 1 tickets, free breakfast, overnight stay plus early access to the most popular rides in the morning.

I didn’t get the best impression of chessington when I went for one of the half term deals. Much preferred Paultons. Think it would feel different when everything was open but the queues were crazy for small child rides and it seemed a bit run down.

The on site hotel often does really good deals outside holiday times, or as PP says there is a Premier Inn very close by. There are a couple of pubs along the same road towards Leatherhead, which are better than the Beefeater for food - The Shy Horse and The Star. You are also on the bus route into Kingston - takes about 20 minutes - which has more eateries than you can shake a stick at as well as shops. Last time I went the queues were bad and a few of the rides were closed but it was in the summer holidays. Food in the park in expensive and really not very good.