Chessington: A Winter’s Tail – Review

Last Updated on 15 December 2025 by Colette

Both my sister and I have birthdays in December, and like to do something to celebrate. Anyone who has a winter birthday will know that it can be a struggle to find decent things to do in winter – a lot of outdoor attractions close for the winter months and the weather is usually rubbish!

In recent years however, Merlin have opened Chessington, Legoland and Alton Towers for festive weekends so for the last few years we have made our birthday activity a trip to a theme park. Having visited Legoland a number of times, this year we thought  we’d try Chessington: A Winter’s Tail. 

Here’s how ticketing works: there’s the basic entry (which if you’re a Merlin pass holder is free) and then an extra fee for the Christmas Village where you get to see Santa and there’s a silent disco, real reindeer etc. We didn’t pay for the extra bit, so our regular access got us: entry to the park, rides, carol singers, the light trail and the Christmas panto. Full details of both can be found here: https://www.chessington.com/explore/events/christmas/

Here’s what we thought of Chessington: A Winter’s Tail:

1. The decoration in the park was great! Really festive and plenty of it dotted around the park. We particularly loved the light up trail of zoo animals. The carol singers were also good fun and worth going to see.

2. It’s a lot quieter than main season. Queues weren’t above 15 minutes all day and quite often rides were walk-on. Win!

3. That said, It’s worth remembering that only a selection of rides will be open, but they do clearly explain what will be available ahead of time so you can make an informed choice about whether to visit or not. 

4. We liked the festive food offerings in selected restaurants. We didn’t have any ourselves but I do like it when places make that extra effort and offer seasonal specials.

5. Because it was so quiet and all the rides weren’t open we had the opportunity to do different things, such as spending time looking round the zoo. It was nice to be able to do things at a slower pace and just amble round. 

6. There are still nice people in the world- I lost my Apple Watch within 30 mins of arriving but it was handed in at guest services – hurrah!

7. Chessington is a bit of a building site at the minute, with two new areas being built: Paw Patrol and Minecraft. It’s all screened off but it did make it feel a bit of a construction site in places. I don’t think it impacted our day though. 

We had a really good time today at Chessington. We left feeling really festive and everyone (even the fussy teenagers) said they’d like to come back again to A Winter’s Tail in future. 

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