Have been here on a full open park day and a zoo d...

Have been here on a full open park day and a zoo day.
I recommend getting tickets online as you can avoid the queues at the ticket booths and scan straight through the turnstiles.
Went as a family with a seven year old and four year old for the rides, and there were plenty of fun rides we could all go on, though found the reformatted bubbleworks - now gruffolo - felt too young for them and was absolutely saturated with toddlers and babies going on again and again, so would avoid this on our next visit, which is a shame as I loved the original bubbleworks.
On the zoo day we took a picnic, which I recommend as not all eating places are open and the few that are get very busy. There's always coffees though and we used the kiosk in the marketplace, which was very enjoyable as it was a cold day!
On the fully open day we went to vampires burgers and not only were the prices very reasonable, it was delicious and avoided us having to drag a bag of food around on rides!
I also used the theme parks app on the day which helped navigate the park and gave us details of queue times (and where the toilets were - all of which were clean!) which made the experience much better as we could plan where we went and what we rode without having to queue for ages.
I much prefer this zoo to London zoo. I think the animals at Chessington are kept in lovely enclosures and can hide from visitors if they so wish. There's lots of animals to see and my children loved watching the big cats.