Fun at Chessington

As a family, we love a good day out at Chessington World of Adventures. It's ideal for us as my both girls have now outgrown Legoland, and my youngest isn't quite big enough for some of the rides at Thorpe Park. It's also nice to have both the zoo and Sea Life Centre on site.

Anyway, since the announcement that Chessington will shortly be closing the much loved Bubbleworks ride, a visit during the school holidays was almost compulsory. So on Thursday off we went with some good friends for a day of fun It worked well as our party consisted of two mums, two 13 year olds and two 10 year olds.

We travelled to the park separately with our two teens texting one another the whole route with traffic updates (which was handy as both the M26 and M25 were a bit of a nightmare). Almost two hours after leaving home, we finally parked up and started the trek to the park entrance.

As you can imagine, school holidays + one of the most popular rides closing soon = one very, very busy park. That said we only waited about 20 minutes to get on our first ride, Dragon Falls. I usually avoid this ride like the plague, but as it was a rather hot day a nice water slide ride with the added bonus of being shot at with water pistols after the slide part was more than welcome. Well, that was until I realised just how steep the slide was and that there wasn't really much holding us in apart from a little rail to hold on to (which I did, for dear life, might I add). However, by this time we were floating in our little boat towards the top of the slide and it was too late to jump ship. I was in a boat with the two little ones who were showing not an ounce of fear and when I looked back to the others I could see the teens were quite happy too, although my mummy friend was looking much the same as I was feeling - unhappy! And then off we went down the slide, with the girls giggling away and me with my eyes tightly shut.

Having survived we made our way around the park (stopping to have a picnic in the show area). As it was an extremely busy day, we decided to purchase fast passes for the two kids who wanted to ride Dragons Fury and for four of us to ride The Vampire. Having our fast pass slots, we were able to squeeze in a couple of rides whilst waiting.

So off we went to churn our stomachs a little on the Jungle Bus. Then off to Dragon's Fury for the two crazies in the party to not only churn their stomachs, but to make themselves as dizzy as possible at the same time. We observed from a safe distance, slightly alarmed at the amount of sway in the structure and with a growing feeling of nausea just from watching everyone spinning around in their car whilst travelling at speed along the roller coaster track. Next it was the Carousel.

And then on to the main purpose of our visit, The Bubbleworks! Who doesn't love this ride? It's 26 years old, it's really quite cheesy and that's what is just so appealing about it. I marvel at the layers of dust on some of the plastic bubbles suspended from the ceiling and the funny little yellow ducks, but the best part is the archway of water jets you have to travel though towards the end of the ride, oh and let's not forget the obligatory repetitive music as you travel around in your little tub.

With our final ever trip on this legendary ride over, it was off to the Vampire to soar above and through the trees.

Then off to the Rattlesnake. Now this had the potential to end badly, as the minimum height for the ride is 1.4 metres and my youngest is dreadful for slouching. No matter how much I tell her to stand up straight, she just will not!. However, it all worked out well and she was able to ride the Rattlesnake, but not until they'd stopped the ride to clean up after someone, who was unable to hold on to the contents of their stomach. Yuck!

The kids managed to squeeze in one more ride before they shut the queue lines and after they were done we tucked into freshly cooked to order doughnuts before heading to a nice grassy area to sit and picnic a bit more whilst we waited for the main crowds to leave. Then it was off back to the cars and home for a well earned rest.