Our adventure at Chessington World of Adventures

In the midst of all the chaos of life, work, and Yon assessments we've been having around here we decided to take a short break and tick off another thing from our London Wish-List, and so we booked a weekend at the Chessington World of Adventures for my parents and us.
We've been planning on getting to Chessington for about a year now, and every time we were on our way to press the "book now" button we found an excuse not to, because we were very worried about how Yon will handle the whole experience and with it being a let's say not very budget friendly holiday, we knew we'd be really disappointed to have paid all that money and make all that effort for it to be a disaster. And believe me, after you go through a few of those - lets puke in the restaurant, grab the 400 years old boat and cry through a cathedral while there are people praying trips - you kind of hesitate before you jump into the water of another family holiday.
Also, Ron isn't really the adventurous type - he likes both his feet on the ground, and so all the roller coasters and scary rides are not his cup of tea.
My parents are even worse.
But then we've been to Legoland over Christmas and everyone had a good time, and we really needed a break from everything, and we are in the crossing off things from the list kind of mood, so we did press the "book now" button this time, and ended up with two days and one night of adventures.

Grandparents & kids next to the Chessington map

The park itself is really amazing, and I will give you the button line first - everyone had a great time. It has so many different types of attractions and rides that everyone found things they enjoyed doing.
A few tips -
1. If you are getting there by train then you can walk from the rain station to the park as it's only about 10-15 minutes, but you can also take bus number 71 which will get you there faster, and with less complaining from various people in your group.
2. The park has lots of places to buy food and drinks, but if your kids don't like fizzy drinks then you are in a bit of a problem, and it will be water all the way. There are a few places that sell Capri-Sun but they are few and far between.
3. We chose the specific attractions we wanted to do each day, because the place is huge and also it minimised the arguments.
4. Check online the "What's going on in Chessington today", because that is the only place you will find it.
5. The hotel guests get an "early rider" offer where you can get in through the fast-track from 9 to 10:30 am. It's great because you don't have to wait in the queue and the park is less busy.
6. Queues. Be prapared for lots and lots of queueing time. The average time I've seen is 40 minutes, and it can get up to an hour and a half on the main attractions.
7. There is no real shade in the park so suncream is very important. As are umbrellas, it is London after all.

Yon can't wait in queues. Honestly I don't understand how any child is supposed to wait 40 minutes in a queue for a 7 minutes ride. But with Yon it is just impossible, and after the 20 minutes queue at the entrance to the London Aquarium ruined his and our ability to enjoy the visit, we decided to ask for a disability pass for him in the park. I know it might sound silly, but it was really hard for us to ask for the disability pass, I find we stumble on the words and feel awkward, like on the one hand it somehow makes his disability and difficulties more "real" and on the other hand we are waiting for someone to look at Yon and say "hey, he isn't really disabled". We've tried to do it over the internet just so we won't have to go through it, but since you can't we got to the Adventure Services with him and his certificates and they were perfectly nice and helpful in getting us the pass and explaining the rules. In a nutshell, you go through the disabled entrance which is usually at the exit of the ride, and you don't have to wait in the queue, BUT the operator takes your pass and write down the time when you can go on your next ride, which is the amount of time you saved on the queue, i.e if you skipped a 40 minutes of queueing, you will still have to wait them until you get to go on the next ride. You just don't have to do it standing in a queue, but running around freely.
As hard as it was going in there and asking for the pass and showing them Yon's CVI and explaining he can't wait and is undergoing more assessments and all that, it really saved our trip. And Yon got to say "I am special so I don't wait in the queue. I have Ocular Albinism" and feel very important.

Sailing ships instead of queues

The hotel wasn't as good as the park unfortunately, which was a bit of a letdown, and not at all what we expected after staying in Legoland. I honestly can't understand why when you order two rooms under the same name and credit card, they can't guarantee they'd be close to each other, and in the end we got opposite sides of the floor, but hey - at least they were on the same floor. It is also beyond me why they gave us four single beds, and it took three requests and Hidai doing it himself to make our bed as close to a double as possible.
Some tips, if you are planning on staying in the hotel -
1. Book dinner in advance. We didn't, and when we got to the hotel we had to reserve the 8:15pm slot, which effectively meant we got served at 9pm. Not good after a whole day of running around with hungry kids and adults.
2. There is no real entertainment for the kids - there was Madagascar with no sound, and a hotel show which was a bit lacking. You can go outside to see the few animals that stay outside for the night, but with hungry and tired kids it was less than ideal.
3. Breakfast wasn't as good as the one in Legoland, though it wasn't really bad, and there was a queue even for that.

The bottom line is that in our two days we ended up going through 20 attractions, taking a photo with the Octonauts & the Madagascar animals and watching the Madagascar show and after the mandatory visit to the shop which got us a bubble-gun and a tiny Alex, we started heading home. That is where, after massive train delays we learned the most important lesson of all - always have a taxi for the drive back.