Chessington

By 10am we were at the gates of Chessington World of Adventures where we were spending the day with Jez, Miriam, Oliver and Amber.  Once inside we booked our tickets for Mandrill Mayhem, which is the big new ride in World of Jumanji (themed to the Jumanji movie franchise).  It was excellent but, unfortunately, our party had got a bit separated and Jez didn't end up riding with us because he was not there at the booked time. Next, the pirate ship, Blue Barnacle (pictured). Usually, I do not like these swinging pirate ships rides but this one was great (and we managed to sit out of the way of the sloshing water).

We'd been on the Vampire roller coater before, but it was just as much fun this time.  The queue for the ride, however, was over an hour long which took up most of the remainder of the morning and meant that, even after this few rides, we were ready for lunch. We met-up with the others for a burger at the Vampire's Burger Kitchen, which was okay but really lacked any theming.

PY really wanted to do Zufari: Ride Into Africa, which we had done previously but not everybody was keen on waiting for that. Although there were plenty of animals to see it felt a bit tamer than the last time we did it. The Gruffalo River Ride Adventure is a lot of fun and the adults were getting as much out of it as the kids or maybe we got a bit more out of it as there was a 7 year old with us. The scoring on Tomb Blaster, like all shooting rides in all theme parks, makes no sense to me but I was pleased that I won!

News obviously spread amongst future colleagues that I would be joining them and my phone buzzed while hurtling around the tree tops from people who were only getting the news this week. I decided to enjoy the moment and replied to everybody later in the day.

Jez and Miriam took Oliver back on Mandrill Mayhem while we went with Amber. We failed to get on Ostrich Stampede as the ride developed a fault while we were in the queue, so Amber and I ended up on Mamba Strike. She was just about tall enough and loved it - wanting to go again. I didn't really get to appreciate it because I was convinced she'd fly out her harness while riding it.

A full day. Back on the train home about 7pm as the park was closing.