I’m a sucker for a good mystery box and Chessington certainly love doing theirs! Being pleasantly surprised with the last box I purchased from them I went ahead and picked up the Chessington vampire mystery box.
Packed full of fangtastic goodies this box was put on sale to commemorate The Vampire’s 30th Birthday.
Being an anniversary box and priced at £25 I was looking forward to some potentially unique and anniversary themed items exclusive to the mystery box.
I was very much mistaken.
Chessington Vampire Box Contents
Up first was one hell of an item indeed!
Vampire Bear – £15
We were off to a great start as this £15 Vampire bear stands 25cm tall, is wonderfully detailed and incredibly well made.
An astounding start before the absolute nightmare landslide of epic proportions began!
Vampire Tote Bag – £4
In addition to some of the shockingly poor image quality that Chessington have on their site (case and point, see image to the right) this tote bag was NOT what I was expecting to see.
Mystery Boxes offer quality and value and whilst a tote bag is fine, it’s not something you want to see in an anniversary box.
The teddy is an exception as it’s a high quality retail item but an anniversary box should contain limited edition or unique items not stuff you can find on the shelves when you visit the theme park.
Picking stuff straight off the shelves just goes to show that the merchandise didn’t sell too well in the first place and this is an easy way to shift stock by throwing it into a box and throwing the ‘mystery’ title on it to lure people into purchasing it.
Not cool!
Vampire Keyring – £4
Yet another pulled off the shelf item and not an expensive one at that we have this bling keyring which don’t get me wrong looks funky but it’s just not something you’d go out of your way to purchase or want included in a LIMITED EDITION MYSTERY BOX!
Vampire Keychain – £4
An item that at this current moment in time of writing this very article isn’t available on the Chessington online store although it has been up there in recent weeks.
I’d put this down to them being added to all the mystery boxes sold rather than them being limited edition or anything similar.
As you can tell from the photo mine was a bit scuffed and battered and almost looked second hand.
Great.
You also NEVER put two of the same item into a mystery box unless it’s clothing or Pop Figures.
It’s the unspoken golden rule of mystery boxes.
Rookie mistake!
Vampire Pen – £2.50
Marketed as ‘Limited Edition’ this Vampire themed pen is priced at £2.50 and felt cheaper than a throwaway biro.
It was shockingly poor quality but it’s ‘Limited Edition’ so it’s worth six times in resell value Vs its cost price, right?
A Purple Vampire Ribbon – Price Unknown
I could only hope to bring you the news that this ribbon was stitched by blind Transylvanian monks and blessed by a witchdoctor before being swept away by Van Helsing himself.
But alas, I cannot.
I also cannot justify why on earth it was in this mystery box.
A piece of ribbon, labelled as a wristband.
Not even on the store as it feels like it has been ripped off some other product.
A shoddy piece of material that could just as easily be used for a few Primark G-Strings.
Awful.
Overall
So adding it all up I got £29.50 worth of goodies for £25 but if you add in the extortionate postage (over £5) i’ve actually spent more than what I would have done at the shop.
Completely missing the concept of both ‘Limited Edition’ and ‘Anniversary Box’ and instead throwing in junk that hasn’t sold from the shop this was a HUGE disappointment compared to their rather wonderful Roarsome box.
The Roarsome boxes were marketed as retail boxes so that’s what I expected and I got some good value for money.
This was a limited edition box with nothing other than a pen inside that was labeled as ‘Limited Edition’.
Even great Vampire retail items like a scarf, hoodie or even a cap would have been great additions. They’re not limited edition but they’re on the same quality as that wonderful bear.
A 30th Anniversary Vampire Chessington World of Adventures resin would have been a nice touch too.
They certainly missed a trick!
The bear is wonderful, don’t get me wrong but I could have just brought the bear for £15 and saved myself a tenner.
AVOID the Chessington Vampire Mystery Box!
There’s plenty of great items on the Chessington Online Store so my advice would be to purchase them individually without taking the risk of getting things you may not enjoy.
