Most Disappointing time at a Theme Park I have ever had!

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Chessington World of Adventures
★★★☆☆
2.7
47.0% of users recommend this

drinmurf's review of Chessington World of Adventures

“Most Disappointing time at a Theme Park I have ever had!”

★☆☆☆☆

written by drinmurf on 04/09/2011

I visited Chessington World At Adventures yesterday with my family. In total there were ten of my family members including me, two children, one teenager and six adults. We were thoroughly disappointed. We felt that we had completely wasted our money. Instead of being a nice, fun, stress free family day out it was a boring, stressful, disappointing, frustrating day out that left us all feeling exhausted and annoyed and bitterly disappointed. We were not disappointed at the park itself, it was the way Chessington is run. We arrived at the park when it opens thinking that we would have plenty of time to get everything in you have to offer. Instead we managed to get on five rides in total and some of my other family members only two. This was due to the insanely large queues and a staggering lack of information of what was going on. The queue for the Vampire Ride was 90 minutes long, but because we wanted to go on it we decided to queue up. As we waited in the queue more and more people were exiting so we asked what was going on, they informed us that the ride had broken down and that we had a two hour wait to go on the ride. Non of Chessington's staff were there to tell us this helpful information, so lots and lots of people (including us) were left not knowing what was going on and wasting valuable time queueing up for a ride that was not even working. Because of this we could not go on the Vampire ride, which we so badly wanted to go on. We queued up for an hour to go on the bubble works. As we neared the end of the queue to go on, we were left standing there for half an hour because non of the staff were there to let us on to the ride. It was only because one of my family members took it into her own hands to go and find someone that we managed after an hour to get on Bubbleworks. We eventually found out that the bubbleworks had broken down. So during the day two rides had broken down and no one and I repeat no one informed us. The most upsetting and financially painful thing was that you force people to buy ridiculously overpriced fast track tickets so that we can get somewhere in the queues, as if we dont pay enough to get in in the first place. Due to the overcrowded queue areas and lack of staff, if anything were to happen that could harm us we would not be able to get out because of the amount of people which was scary.
Another thing that was disgraceful was the fact that all the staff we saw never seemed to know what was going on and very rude and incredibly unhelpful.
Sanitary conditions were absolutely foul. Toilet facilities were shocking, throughout the whole day we saw no cleaners and it was clear they had not been cleaned all day long. Toilets were overflowing and blocked and the smell made you feel sick. In one queue for a ride there was very old human faeces on the floor that staff had failed to notice until we informed them. We did not see one of your staff picking up litter all day and the park was strewn with food rubbish, water bottles and general rubbish people had dropped.
On our way home out of Chessington car park we were shocked at the state of the road surface. The car park was littered with pot holes that could easily damage a car if hit wrong. It was also dusty and uneven to walk on which would be a hazard for the elderly and disabled.
It was unbelievable that you seem to charge extra for everything. Due to the economic difficulties that everyone is struggling with in today's world it makes going to Chessington out of the question as it was a complete waste of money. I have previously gone to Thorpe Park a few months ago, and i will continue to go to Thorpe Park. It is run so much better and I actually had an amazing, memorable day with my friends at Thorpe Park rather than a stressful, disappointing, exhausting day out at Chessington. I will never again waste my hard earned money to go to Chessington again. As i said earlier, it was not the park/rides iteself, they are great fun, it was the way it was shoddily run that ruined out day out.

  • September 2011

    Date of visit (month/year)

  • All ages

    Ages suited for

  • Value For Money

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Guest's Response to drinmurf's Review

Written on: 26/04/2012

I booked a Thomasland party for my son (who tneurd 3) plus 11 of his friends. Unfortunately it was a complete disaster. There was no designated meeting place, everyone milled around the entrance gates getting in the way of other patrons. The party staff were unhelp & didn't interact with the children, they were rude and snappy. We waited in queues only to be taken out of them as they were considered to long, had we stayed in the queue we would've been next on the ride. As for the supposed queue jumping for 1 ride this didn't happen. I also paid for a birthday cake which was paid for didn't materialise i was informed very rudely that I hadn't ordered one even though it was on the bill. The room set aside for parties leads out on to the balcony the fat controller and others use for their song, they completely ignored the children there for the party completely blanking them, hence to say the children were rather upset.Anyone thinking to booking a party at Thomasland I strongly advise against it, by all means go to there but go as a day trip, it will save you any disappointment.

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