Chessington World of Adventures Reviews

Under pressure from my child, I paid up for a ‘reward’ school trip; apparently there were lots of schools visiting and queuing times were consequently very long, and the kids who managed to enjoy lots of rides were those prepared to queue jump. Complete waste of money that could’ve been spent on a family day out. Nice post-pandemic money spinner for the business though, so all good from their point of view, I suppose.

Rides are good, Cost appallingly High, I am waiting for £175 refund, however, unable to find out how, No direct contact with Customer Service provided. Cost of the day over £600 for 7 of us, these were reduced tickets!
Told by staff to email a request for refund, unable to find how you get a refund
All young staff, no "Managers" available to assist with queries, first aider required, no first aider in sight.
Food appalling, could not eat, fish n chips, sausage and chips, burgers and chips, ridiculous high prices
Games to win soft toys virtually impossible to win
no canopies for queues temperatures reaching over 38+ not enough shade provided on sight. Table and Chairs with no canopies.
Reserve & Ride tickets still put in queues, cost of tickets ridiculous high some rides only a small gain Took one and a half hours to get/active a pass, children were excited as we told them we had bought VIP tickets, to make our birthday treat extra special, we arrived when gates opened to get the best from the day ….. it took an hour and a half to get/activate tickets ?‍♂️.
Badly run, service extremely poor
Paid £175 for 7 fast track, when only 6 could be activated, they were unable to refund for 7th ticket, told to email refund request, no email address found to do this. Customer help line, received an automated reply saying would take up to 7 days for just a response ?. took nearly an hour to activate and find where you need to activate! And to find out how to use app!
Regular pass only covers a few rides, therefore, I needed to get a refund to purchase tickets, as it was too hot to be in hour long queues. NO REFUND SYSTEM, Told to email to request refund, NO EMAIL contact found for REFUND
Rides good, Merlin Group do not look after their customers, Merlin must have Big Bank Accounts because they rip off their customers
I have just emailed Chessington with the above, as Trust Pilot have shown an email address for Chessington.

Absolutely ridiculous- my son went today and spent the whole day there, he actually managed to get on JUST TWO rides for the whole day, extremely disappointing and upsetting the que for the rides were so long and it’s not even school holidays !!
We will never return - complete waste of money

I stayed at chessington resort with my family,my little girl got no sleep the night we stayed there,the next day she was covered in bites bed bugs, she had own room please note, I contacted the manager there then showed photos was promised compensation this happened on April 9 so far nothing not even a sorry, £318 pounds for one night

Awful day, absolute waste of money, upset children, disappointed grandparents and angry Mum. Got there before 10am, majority of rides closed due to ‘engineering works’. Queue system is incorrect - one open ride stated 20 minute queue time and was over an hour. Lack of signage, in total went on on 3 rides. Loud repetitive music everywhere. Small uninteresting animal enclosures - poor animals. Couldn’t wait to leave. Will never ever return.

We used to go to Chessington at least a couple of times per year pre-Covid. We have recently been back and were shocked at how run-down the park has become.

Rides frequently break down, rides where many cars/carts are cordoned off because they are broken. Boarding of rides is soooo slow, partly because of staff standing around chatting and not appearing to have any kind of boarding system in place. The park is dirty. Chessington used to have decent shows on, they too have spiralled downhill. App/board queue times are completely inaccurate. For example, rides with no queue were showing a queue time of an hour.

Our son has a significant disability, so we use their RAP (disabled virtual access app). That is now massively flawed. If you go on a ride that says it has an hour wait time (when the reality is there is no wait time in the main queue), an hour would be the time put on your RAP meaning you can't go on another ride for an hour (whist people in the main queue can!).
Also, if you have an hour to wait before you can go on a ride using RAP, it's usually a lot longer than an hour that you have to wait. You wait the hour, then go to the Disabled entrance only to have to queue again, possibly up to half an hour before your RAP is zapped and the new time added. So actually, disabled people are virtually queuing for a lot longer than people are actually queuing in the main queue. This puts disabled people at a massive disadvantage with regards to the amount of rides that they can actually do in a day compared to a non-disabled perosn. Discrimination????

We encountered an issue with one ride. We used the disabled entrance. Got to the front and their app didn’t work. It was apparent that they had encountered this before as they immediately told us to go back to the path to get signal. We did and it still didn’t work. We were then told to leave the queue and go to customer service to get it sorted. Due to an error with their app, they wanted us to leave the front of the queue, walk to customer services, possibly queue there, walk back to the ride, possibly queue again before we would be allowed on! I explained why I didn’t think that what was being asked of us was fair or acceptable. He then asked to see my son’s disability card which we showed him but we still weren’t allowed on. Eventually, we were let on. We sat there a while. Then a woman came and randomly asked us if we needed first aid! Baffled we said no. She then said that as there had been an incident she had to ask! We sat a bit longer and they announced the ride had broken. Everyone got off but our harnesses didn’t open so we were just left sat there! Eventually they undid them. I should add that this ride had virtually no main queue so had we of joined that we would have ridden the ride.

On one ride (Tomb Blaster), I caught a ride operator pull a very derogatory face both whilst we queued and as we went past. The face pulled is derogatory to disabled people (remembering that we had a disabled person with us). This is not something that I expect to witness anywhere, let along at a place intended for children/families.

Chessington/Merlin: the reviews on here speak volumes. Currently, out of 315 reviews 74% rate you as bad. Please listen to the people that pay to keep your business in operation.
Our trip to Chessington was not up to the standard that we have come to expect from Merlin Attractions.

Everything considered, we will not be going back to Chessington.

Overall we had a lovely family weekend however the actual resort was extremely overpriced and we wouldn’t return to the hotel or recommend.

The resort is tired and dirty. The swimming pool and changing rooms are vile. My child refuses to use the toilets because they were swimming in some dirty questionable liquid with mess everywhere. I did tell a staff member but nothing was done.

The whole resort smells of dirty soiled carpets.

We ate at the Zafari restaurant and again absolutely filthy. Old pots and plates everywhere, food all over floors. Limited service as everything is ordered online. The drinks were shockingly expensive and below par. Food not amazing and prices not justified.

Our hotel was lovely and clean, it was sound proof and the kids did love it. The carpet smelled.

We didn’t know much about the facilities, we didn’t have a map or anything. We checked in via the self check in and just got a key card but nothing else.

Staff are friendly however the majority just don’t have a clue about anything.


Overall not worth the money. Dirty and overpriced.

The actual theme park was lovely and kids loved their day. The entertainment team across the park were fabulous. So good at their jobs.

I went their a few years ago.I remember the queues were bad.Due to the high numbers of people in the theme park I believe they should have longer opening hours a bit like Disneyland. This would help people get on more rides and help with the queue issues. I believe that the park should open at 10 am and close at 8 pm.Just my opinion.

Very overcrowded. Even for minor rides like dodgems, queue times were 30 mins plus all day. For major rides like vampire 100 mins to 2 hours. This was weekday in term time. They then encourage you to buy expensive additional reserve ride passes that double the cost of your visit once you are there. Staff were exceedingly helpful and friendly - this is not their fault. Bosses need to stop being greedy and cap numbers of guests to make queue times sensible.

Absolutely amazing time at the hotel and 2 days In the theme park. Went in June, queues reasonable, themeing is fabulous - very beautiful in the park and hotel. Food and drink prices in the park are as expected for a London attraction, but they do let you bring your own in and there are lockers to store bags to in the park. Hotel breakfast excellent but would book slot before arriving. Hotel has a pool, fab views, climb area above monkeys, comfy beds and a fridge in the rooms which is essential to cool your drinks in summer. Staff super nice and kids had a brilliant time. Absolutely will be back again and highly recommend. My older kids (10 & 15) loved Vampire and Drafons Fury.

We had a good day out. The kids enjoyed the rids and some of the animals we saw. It was disappointing... We would have liked to see more animals...or at least the Flamingos, Rhino & other animal they said would be there. I would say for the younger kids was a bit too much, they were tired...

We stayed 2 nights in the monkey temple room with 3 children, which was just the very best experience! Every single staff member we met/came across from our days at the resort and park were beyond friendly and helpful, any queries we had were always met with the nicest and friendliest help, the on-site entertainment was so pure and the kids (who would usually not like that kind of thing) were drawn in with ranger deans enthusiasm and we came back for the second evening too just to be entertained by him! The queues were very long which made the experience a little tricky at one point for my autistic daughter but when James saw us struggling, he saved our entire holiday with a few extras that we cannot thank him enough for! (Someone please make sure James gets an extra big Thankyou from us!!!) our second day in the park was a lot quieter, we queued for a max of 15 mins per ride and some of them just went on again straight after a few times as there was no one waiting! The hotel was clean the food was great, and every single member of staff was super friendly and willing to help and really did make our experience a special one to remember forever. The only thing I would suggest to people booking the hotel package, is to make sure you book your pool, and food tables a long time in advance or there will only be slots left while the park is open so you’ll miss the early entrance or have to leave the park for the pool. But that was an error on our behalf as we didn’t know, we also loved trying to figure out how to get into the safe in our room that is a very clever little extra with extra little treats for the kids to keep as souvenirs and the lovely lady at reception even gave us the extras and the chocs on the kids beds was a very lovely extra.

Wow what a day, #chessingtonworldofadventures hang your heads in shame!!! To be honest the #MerlinGroup should because they own both Chessington and #legolandwindsor let me just throw this out!!! Autism is a disability that affects people in different ways but a main factor is people suffering from it have issues with being in crowded places and suffer from a "meltdown" because they can't stand being restricted, in crowded and noisy places.

Now a couple of years ago they had an amazing pass system that allowed you to take your child (or in our case 2) and get a paper form that they marked off when you went on rides, this was brilliant, they changed to the new (ridiculous) app system at Legoland Windsor 3years ago and it was nothing but rubbish, it would seem that they've not only rolled it out to Chessington world of adventure but also made it even worse for these kids!!!

With the paper form you could go from ride to ride, still having to go into a queue just not as long (which was stressful for my children) but not as long, now with the app, get this!!! You really couldn't make this up!!!!

Now!!! You have to provide ONLINE documents regarding your child's disability 7 days before you arrive, they then choose IF the paperwork is acceptable??? I'm loving how the staff have medical degrees in child psychology and the study of autism, they then keep this documentation on their records, we're clearly not happy about that because we don't know how safe their document storage actually is.

But, here's the icing on the cake, oh loving this part!!! So, it would appear that the app will reserve a place in the line for the disabled person based on the actual waiting time, so off you go when it's your time, but once you've actually done your first ride you then have to wait another 45 mins at least for the second ride!!! So based on this you can take an autistic child or children to the Merlin group parks, they can ride two rides in 3hrs based on the hope that they haven't already had a meltdown and fled the park because they couldn't handle the situation, now when you pay £36 for a child ticket, this means that if you hopefully get your child on the first ride, by the time the 2nd one comes about they've fled?? But they certainly like us today won't last for the 2nd ride, so that's just cost £36 to go on 1ride, if they manage to get on a 2nd one!! Weyhey that's only £16.50 a ride, I'm loving their value for money and their clear new statement supporting people and children with disabilities, and they have the audacity to keep asking us if we want to renew the annual passes.... Doubt we'll actually be going back to any of them again, thank you for wasting our money during hard times and a special thank you for the trauma you put my daughter through today.

If I could give a zero I would! We have been to a few theme parks and this is by far the absolute worst!
My issues lies with their approach to disabled guests, on arriving at the theme park we went to guest services to get an access band for my disabled son only to be told I should have applied for this a week ago! I explained that there was absolutely nothing clear on the website about this, a requirement like this should flash up like the promotional items. I was told I would have to scan a QR code and just hope they get back to me. What if you had decided to attend that morning? Then what? It’s not good enough! I shouldn’t have to trawl their website to find this information. It would have been better knowing I had booked a carers ticket to contact me to make me aware of this requirement, now that would have been good customer service! Or even just let me get the band one the day.
I filled the form in and received an email asking for the back of my sons blue badge, I explained I was now in the park and not able to go back to access the blue badge and was unclear as to why they now needed to see the back given I had shown the blue badge and the DLA letter! I sent a lengthy email back and asked for it to be put forward as a complaint, but asked them to process the application but no response! What I find most offensive is that they are basing the access badge only on the higher mobility element of the DLA, they have not got a clue about compounding cognitive issues despite them asking about this in the form. At points I had to carry my 9 year old in huge queues in hot temperatures, with him spinning out due to his ASD. It is just wholly unacceptable that all disabilities are not being considered it shows such a lack on inclusivity and diversity, they should be ashamed.
It’s awful, I Will never ever go back. Lego Land and Alton Towers are far better.

Staff are so rude amd absolutely vile. The security guards are the same rude no people skills no judgement no nothing just real jumped up people with sia badges that they think gices them the right to cause trouble.

To be honest I think I won't ever go back there.