The Magic Returns To Chessington In 2020

The magic is returning to Chessington World of Adventures. The park is just 4 weeks away to opening for the 2020 season to annual pass holders and reopening on 19th March. Opening it’s newest area, Rainforest, with the new mini log flume River Rafts, Treetop Hoppers and Jungle Rangers. Along with the rethemed attraction; Elmer’s Flying Jumbos.  

The park is a hive of activity at the moment, with construction sites everywhere. With Rameses Revenge being craned out on Saturday and parts for the ride left laying on the floor next to the Gruffalo stage. Work on removing the ride started a few weeks ago and now looks to be completed before the season starts. 

Work on the new Rainforest area looks to be almost complete, with the River Rafts attraction station, lift hill and drop installed from what we can see. Boats for the ride are themed around crocodiles and can be seen outside the Dragons Fury exit. Since our last visit to the park back in January, the Treetop Hoppers attraction has been rotated to face inwards into the new Rainforest area, offering great views of the log flume and Jungle Rangers ride. Toadies Crazy Cars is no more and the attraction has been ripped out and a new system installed. Jungle Rangers looks to be using a new ride system and new cars. Interestingly, the ride seems to travel around an animal enclosure. Animals such as Capybaras and Tortoise’s are yet to be moved from there current enclosure into there new home. This could mean meet and greets with the animal will no longer be available, due to them being moved into a ride area. 

Elmer’s Flying Jumbos has rapidly progressed since our look at the ride, the repainted ride cars have been reinstalled and have never looked better! The elephants have been repainted into bright colours, with there coats repainted into patch work like Elmer has. The ride doesn’t look like its begun testing yet but it looks almost ready and we expect that it will be open for the Annual Pass Day. The centerpiece for the ride is yet to be seen. From the promo art work it looks like the centre of the ride will have a large patchwork Elmer on it.  

Project Pirate Ship is a go! Work on new foundations for a pirate ship has begun, the old Black Buccaneer ride is no more. Concrete footers have been placed in three corners of the ride area and we expect the ride will open around mid-April / May time. The park has started a competition to rename the ride on there social media channels. We just hope this new pirate ship will be as intense as the old one was. 

Over the past two weeks the vampire has been undergoing some major work on its lift hills, both lift hill chains and sprockets have been changed during routine maintenance work. Scaffolding was being removed from both life hill one and two during our visit to the park on Saturday. 

Other small bits of work going on across the park include a new photo opportunity at the entrance to Mexicana, the entrance and area around Rattlesnake being repainted, Canopy Cappers being repainted in some sections, the pay per use cars that used to be located where Elmer’s flying jumbos is now are being relocated to another section of the park and new pin badges and a Dragons Fury resin have been released in the Adventure Point gift shop. We are looking forward to open season and seeing all of these changes in full force!