Our Experience at Thorpe Park and Chessington

[C4rla]

I thought I'd share our experiences this week, as I found it interesting and helpful reading what others had shared.

We did Thorpe Park yesterday and Chessington today, so during the mini heatwave. We were meant to be in Florida (as I think were many people in the parks - we enjoyed spotting Disney and Universal tops), so the temperature definitely helped bring back happy memories for us ☀️☀️

We got to Thorpe Park about 9.40 for a 10am opening. Straight in through the temperature check with no queue. Scanned our annual passes and that was it. No one seemed interested in our booking for the day.

We went straight towards Swarm, but that was down (staff there weren't sure when it would open) so went to the other side and started with Saw as Colossus was also down. Queue was less than 5 mins and this was the only ride we've not done before so I really wanted to do it. Then onto Stealth where we literally walked straight onto the ride and took the last two seats, it took off before I had chance to get to scared about going on it! Then onto Swarm, which I really love, which had just opened and 15 minute wait time posted which seemed fairly accurate.

After this point however all rides seemed to have wait times of 30 - 60 mins which is more than I'm prepared to spend in a queue at the moment. I'm not great at queuing most of the time, especially not at the moment. We wore face masks in queues, although this was optional. We saw it actively being enforced on the rides and in shops though (to the surprise of some people we saw? ).

So today we went to Chessington. There's not that much to do for two adults and having seen the queues rise at Thorpe Park, so we went for the afternoon instead. It was great, we didn't wait for more than 5 minutes for anything we wanted to do, even with the 40 minute posted wait for Zoofari. The Sealife was nice and empty, so got to see lots there. While some of the animal areas were closed off, we didn't find it any more restrictive than last visits.

The only mistake I made was assuming it shut at 5pm. Worth knowing it's 4!

We're planning a quick visit to Legoland tomorrow and maybe Alton Towers on Friday. They seem to have dropped the £1 cost for making a reservation for annual pass holders, which is nice.

If anyone has any questions about the parks let me know, we will do our best to answer them.

[Smilesonfaces]

Hi C4rla. Your trip visiting all the theme parks would be my daughters perfect holiday ! I just hold the bags and coats !
Sounds like you have had a good trip away especially with no queues.

Would you say Chessington is good for a family of 3 (2 adrenaline seekers and one wuss !) ?

[Guest]

Sounds like you’re having a good time 👍🏻
Thorpe park is usually busier than Chessington once the schools go back because an older crowd visit Thorpe as it’s mostly thrill rides , Legoland seems busy all the time as it’s mainly pre schoolers .
Still annoyed that I’ve managed to book Chessington twice but still can’t get Legoland on a weekend .
Enjoy your trip today