Chessington History 1990

1990 brings in a complete new era for the park with there first real roller coaster (excluding the clown coaster) opened. This was no ordinary coaster and this is one of the most heavily themed coasters around.

The Vampire, the UK’s first suspended coaster and the worlds only coaster to fly above tree height and dive under down. A coaster described by Chessington as the most impressive of its type in the world. This could be the fact it had themed trains in the shape of bats, back in 1990 this was the only themed hanging coaster trains. Although the trains looked suspiciously like the ones found on the prototype for the ride, “The Bat” that had closed 7 years before hand and they really added to the horror effect of the new area, Transylvania!

That wasn’t all that’s new for 1990, again in Transylvania is the mad Professor Burps Bubble Works, a tour through the crazy soda factory set in the heart of Transylvania.

This was a massive year for the park, only 3 years as a theme park Chessington was pushing other parks (in particular Thorpe Park) to add with more investment.

This also seemed to be the year where Chessington was more looked upon for being a theme park as oppose to its history as being a zoo. With the big animal removal of the Polar Bears leaving the park, they were located close to the Transylvania entrance.

1990 also brought Black Forest Chateau restaurant into Transylvania, along with the Alpine Spa. The park wasn’t really known for heavily themed restaurants back in the day until now, with many just described as “fast food” amd “Ice cream”.