Chessington World of Adventures and the desperate search for audience

Chessington is my home park. I’ve been visiting since 1994 yearly at the very least and I have a soft spot for the place. It’s one of the UK’s major parks, and yet around the world not a lot is known about it. For a quick overview, this park started as a zoo and was developed by the Tussauds Group and John Wardley in the late 80’s with nice theming, a suspended Arrow, mine train, dark ride and some other bits and bobs.  The Chessington I grew up with was the only proper theme park in the south east, Legoland never appealed to me as a kid because it’s almost entirely interactives as opposed to rides. Chessington had small rides, big rides, great theming, landscaping and animals.  In ways, a very small and distinctly British version of Busch Gardens.