Twilight Zone - Chessington World of Adventures
As part of the 21st Anniversary celebrations for the Vampire Rollercoaster, Chessington World of Adventures announced that they would be opening a new scare attraction for the Easter holiday period. Having dabbled in the past with the Black Forest Walk and Hocus Pocus Hall: Bewitched, we were quite excited about this new addition. As such, we grabbed a group of children (Chessington’s target market) and headed down to see it for ourselves.
The first thing that really struck us is just how small the attraction is. The theming and decoration around it barely disguise the fact that it is just a large packing container that has been dumped unceremoniously in the park. Saying that though, it's not often in April that you get the chance to have a quick scare, so we joined the very short queue (the attraction wasn’t really that well advertised) and before long were face to face with the beautiful vampire host who would start us on our journey.
Inside the container, I was surprised just how dark it was and in many places struggled to find the right way to go. With the narrow corridors and twisting layout, the inside was definitely more deceptive than the outside.
As we ventured further in, the two 8 year olds in our group became very nervous about what was going to happen and when the first real scare came they both jumped out of their skins. I will also admit to being quite startled myself! Ok, this isn’t intense adult scare attraction stuff, but the sudden noisy attack had us all on edge going forward. By the time the actor had made a full appearance, the two children were desperate to get out. They didn’t like the vampire, they didn’t like the dark and they didn’t like the fact there seemed to be no way out. For a target audience of children, the attraction had certainly achieved what it set out to do!
Leaving the main character area it was then time to find a way out and it was at this point where even I started to get a little nervous. For a family attraction, the final corridors were PITCH dark and leading the way I really struggled to keep calm while the group behind frantically pushed me forwards to escape the vampire chasing them from behind. As we finally burst into the light there was a sense of relief from the whole party!
The first thing that really struck us is just how small the attraction is. The theming and decoration around it barely disguise the fact that it is just a large packing container that has been dumped unceremoniously in the park. Saying that though, it's not often in April that you get the chance to have a quick scare, so we joined the very short queue (the attraction wasn’t really that well advertised) and before long were face to face with the beautiful vampire host who would start us on our journey.
Inside the container, I was surprised just how dark it was and in many places struggled to find the right way to go. With the narrow corridors and twisting layout, the inside was definitely more deceptive than the outside.
As we ventured further in, the two 8 year olds in our group became very nervous about what was going to happen and when the first real scare came they both jumped out of their skins. I will also admit to being quite startled myself! Ok, this isn’t intense adult scare attraction stuff, but the sudden noisy attack had us all on edge going forward. By the time the actor had made a full appearance, the two children were desperate to get out. They didn’t like the vampire, they didn’t like the dark and they didn’t like the fact there seemed to be no way out. For a target audience of children, the attraction had certainly achieved what it set out to do!
Leaving the main character area it was then time to find a way out and it was at this point where even I started to get a little nervous. For a family attraction, the final corridors were PITCH dark and leading the way I really struggled to keep calm while the group behind frantically pushed me forwards to escape the vampire chasing them from behind. As we finally burst into the light there was a sense of relief from the whole party!
 Nice theming but we can still see it's a container! |
 The attraction's intended demographic! |
Many people have badmouthed this attraction over the last few weeks and I really don’t understand why. Chessington is a family park and their attraction is certainly entertaining for a family audience. Yes, if I had entered with a group of adults I may just have thought – oh this is a very dark narrow walk through a shipping container and not thought any more, but to experience it with scared children made us realise that it does exactly what it was meant to do - entertain (and sometimes scare) people of all ages.
It’s not known what will happen to the Twilight Zone now the Vampire celebrations are over but for a small, easily staffed attraction, it would be good to see it make a return as part of Halloween Hocus Pocus – if only to bolster up the line-up alongside the other attractions.
So Congratulations to Chessington on taking a chance and doing something just a little bit different!