Following how much Lily loved the giraffe feeding experience (twice!) at Chessington World of Adventures, we thought we’d go for something a bit different.

At 6 years old, she’s still limited to the animal experiences available for her age group, but she has asked to do the zookeeper day for her birthday next month – so watch this space!

But, how else were we to celebrate the Queen’s Jubilee weekend without a trip to her favourite place, Chessington World of Adventures, and one of their fantastic animal experiences? What’s more, as a Merlin Annual Passholder or a hotel or glamping guest, you get 20% off too.

So, as we were staying back in the Explorer Glamping, we thought we’d book onto the skunk experience – and what an experience it was!

Arrival

You receive an email from the team shortly before your experience, advising on where to meet and what to bring. You can meet at the VIP Hub in the park, or you can meet at the entrance to the park. We were staying in the glamping, so we were met there by a very friendly member of the VIP team who walked us to the zoo area.

We had an incredible behind-the-scenes tour of the theme park through the back route and Lily loved finding out more about the park!

After a short walk, we met up with another team member and Monsoon the skunk by the back entrance of the hotel to begin our experience.

The skunk experience

We were given gloves to wear to help protect the skunk, and introduced to Monsoon, before being told a bit about her and her family. They rotate the skunks, so different ones are taken out each day.

We were told a few safety tips and then Monsoon was fed worms to get her on her way. She was on a small leash, which we were reassured was comfortable for her and let her get out to explore.

As it was a hot day, we weren’t too worried that Monsoon didn’t want to walk far – Lily’s favourite thing was to bury the worms under the woodchips for the skunk to scavenge for. In fact, I think Lily was just as excited about the worms as she was about the skunk – she asked so many questions 🙂

We then had the opportunity to give Monsoon a cuddle. After a little reassurance that she wouldn’t be stinky, Lily was more than happy to give her a stroke and a cuddle, which soon sent Monsoon to sleep in the sun – Lily was in her element, cuddling this beautiful animal.

As our experience headed to an end, Lily asked to give her just a few more worms, then we made our way back to the glamping.

It was such a special experience and an animal I never thought we’d come so close to, let alone stroke and cuddle. We learned so much and Lily kept asking to go back to see Monsoon and her family of skunks in their beautiful open-air enclosure when we visited the theme park.

Thank you so much to the VIP team at Chessington for another amazing animal experience – we had such a magical time and can’t wait to visit you again!

You can check our our full review of the Explorer Glamping experience here, but if you’d like to find out more about all the VIP Animal Experiences at Chessington World of Adventures, click here.

As part of the trip, we also visited Go Ape Chessington – you can check out our full review from our previous visit here.

Related articles

Click here to check out our Giraffe Feeding Experience at Chessington World of Adventures.

Click here to check out our review of Explorer Glamping at Chessington World of Adventures

Click here for our review of Go Ape at Chessington

Click here for our review of the Chessington hotel and Christmas experience

Click here to check out our top ideas for family staycations