Chessington World of Adventures goes all out for Halloween – if you’ve already been to the park this year you will find plenty of new things to do as we found when we visited last week. In this review of the 2023 ‘Howl’oween’ event I’ll answer the following questions:
- What shows does Chessington have at Halloween?
- Is the Enchanted Village trick or treat worth paying for?
- Is Vile Villagers suitable for young children?
- What else is there at Chessington at Halloween?
I’m still in the process of writing my review of our April trip to Chessington which will be combined with the regular rides and attractions we enjoyed in October, so this post will focus entirely on Halloween. We went during half term but my daughter breaks up earlier than a lot of other schools (and has two weeks off) so we went on a mid-week day that was still term time for many. Also, the weather forecast was for heavy rain – it wasn’t too bad but was quite wet in the afternoon – which probably put people off coming. Because of that, the park was much quieter than it would be in the main school holidays or on weekends, so we never had to queue or wait more than a couple of minutes for anything.
The first thing you will spot on arriving at Chessington for Halloween is the decorations – there are giant cobwebs everywhere, pumpkin displays dotted around and even the (fake) topiary animals are wearing ghost costumes or witches hats. They’ve clearly put a lot of effort into theming the whole park, not just one area, which was really nice to see.
The shows
You can find out what shows are on and the times on the Chessington app. I was surprised to see how many shows there actually were – but unlike when we went earlier this year, when the main show was about animal superheroes with characters and a storyline the main shows this time were all musical – singing and dancing (apart from the shows for younger kids on the Mini Stage). Even so they were on the whole impressive and my five year old really enjoyed them.
Opening Ceremony at Adventure Point – this is a small temporary stage set up in one of the main courtyard spaces, next to the Adventure Tree carousel and the main gift shop. You stand rather than sit to watch, but the shows here are fairly short. The opening ceremony wasn’t what I expected at all- a troupe of dancers all in black, and some singers dressed as witches, also all in black. They sang a couple of cover songs but there was no dialogue – I was expecting a sort of welcome speech but it was more like watching an act from Britain’s Got Talent. It ended almost as suddenly as it had begun!
There is also a Closing Ceremony at the end of the day but by then we were in the Aquarium amid heavy rain so decided to skip it.
Howl’oween Live – The main show, on the Mane Stage, which took place three times over the course of the day (four times this week in half term). It’s a series of singing and dance acts, without a storyline or characters running through, but the calibre of the performers was very high and it was great to watch. The costumes were fabulous, covering just about every Halloween character you can imagine. My favourite was the spider who sang Queen of the Night while my daughter particularly liked the colourful rainbow backdrop and dancers performing ‘I Want Candy’ – the last song of the show when the dancers then threw candy into the crowd.
Witches of Adventure Point – back on the Adventure Point mini stage, this short show consisted of three colourful witches singing different pop covers. There was a bit of dialogue and banter between them in between and I especially liked their version of Backstreet Boys’ ‘Backstreet’s Back’ – even though they performed under umbrellas in heavy rain!
Banyan – Fire and Ice. Don’t miss this show in the Wild Asis area. Again it’s one for standing rather than watching seated, and is performed on the tarmac rather than on a stage. Two troupes of dancers represent rival tribes who battle, complete with smoke and pyrotechnic effects.
The Mis-Adventures of Wilf and Violet – a show for younger kids (I would say under fives) on the Mini Stage. We caught the end of it – Wilf and Violet are a werewolf and vampire but very friendly ones who like to dance!
Cheerful Charms with Witch – we didn’t manage to see this one, which is also on the Mini Stage. It’s described as fun and games with the witch from Room on the Broom.
What else is there to do at Chessington at Halloween?
There are special themed food items on the menu in many of the restaurants, from what I’d seen on social media, but the week that we went – 18 October, so the first week of my daughter’s two-week half term but when a lot of children were still at school – a lot of the eateries were actually closed, including Drop’n Chicken, Smokehouse BBQ and even the Coffee Hut by the Mane Stage – Vampire Burger Kitchen also didn’t look open when we went past, so we got hotdogs for lunch from the Adventure Point hotdog stand.
There was a fancy dress competition but given the heavy rain and the fact that my daughter was wearing her cat costume but it wasn’t a patch on some of the costumes and face paint we saw walking past we decided to skip it.
The creepy cart is – according to a helpful admin of a Facebook group – a cart that is moved around with prizes (such as pop badges) and treats for answering questions, which might have been nice but we didn’t happen to be in the right area at the right time.
The Pumpkin Patch – An area to walk around with pumpkin decorations, some good photo spots e.g. where you can go behind a vat of pumpkin soup ‘pumpkin family’ board with holes to put your heads through and a and a giant pumpkin spider in the middle. I found aside from the designated photo opportunity spots it wasn’t that easy to get a good photo in front of the pumpkins generally, as you follow a narrow path around and the arrangements are relatively sparse, but it’s still a nice additional free attraction.
Enchanted Hollow – this is the area that used to be Creepy Caves but it’s now a family-friendly trick or treat walkthrough. You enter an underground village inhabited by enchanted animals and knock on each door to say trick or treat. It was really quiet on the day that we went so there was nobody else walking through at the time; it meant the whole thing only took about 15 minutes but we were able to enjoy the surprise of who was behind each door as there was nobody ahead of us.
Each citizen of Enchanted Hollow was a delightful animal with a charming costume and they chatted to my daughter, asked her questions, a couple of times played a little trick (very simple stuff give her age, like the postman pretending he was going to take her bag of sweets and put them in the post box) and of course gave her a bar of chocolate for her trick or treat bag – and in one case gave me and my husband a full size bar of chocolate each as well. At the end you can choose a trick corridor or treat corridor to exit and there was no question in my daughter’s mind as she headed off down ‘treat’. We were given bags of popped chips and sent on our way by another charming animal – I would love to know what was down the ‘trick’ corridor!
We paid £8 for ourselves and £10 for our daughter to have the treats – she definitely got more than £2 worth of chocolate and in fact my husband and I got about £2 worth of treats ourselves as well. It did seem a little pricey for such a short time but it was really well done – the set and characters were great and there must have been at least eight animal characters, i.e. paid actors, which explains why it isn’t free. I admit that going to Chessington in itself isn’t cheap so adding this on top could be a bit steep – we had free tickets due to a planned strike day that coincided with our last visit. The strike was then called off at the last minute but we had already been offered free tickets for another day if we still went on the strike day, which Chessington still honoured – in other words, we paid when we went in April, and had a great day as the strike didn’t happen but the park was really quiet in terms of visitors, and we still got a free ticket to come back another time!
Vile Villagers – I wasn’t sure whether we should do this as it said for age 6+ from 12-3 and age 10+ after 3pm but my daughter was interested and I figured we could have a look. You follow a path through the woods, first passing through a graveyard and then through what looks like slums, with dirty sheets hanging from lines creating a bit of a screen effect – so you never know what’s going to be behind the next one or the next twist of the path. In the early session we saw plenty of actors often with face paint that made them look either diseased or injured but they did little more than give us a wink, stand silently, or chat away in a slightly mad-cap but not really scary way. My five year old was giggling and didn’t even mind when we passed a butcher’s stall that had things I felt we shouldn’t look too closely at!
The final part involves going inside where it was pitch black – I could barely see the people in front of us and we just followed them through. My daughter doesn’t like the dark but was absolutely fine holding my hand, as it felt like it took a couple of minutes to walk through (but probably wasn’t really more than 60 seconds) as there was nobody and nothing inside. Of course, I can imagine the whole village – but this part in particular- being quite scary later when the villagers aren’t being quite as friendly!
In the main school half term Chessington is open until 7pm and advertises rides at dusk, which I think would be quite nice – but when we went the week before, everything finished at the normal time of 5. We had the advantage of the park being very quiet though so we didn’t have to queue for any rides and despite the bad weather had a really enjoyable day.
Mini Moo Life 
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