Now that all the individual blogs have been written, I’d like to summarise our holiday and get any last bits out that I may have forgotten!
Though each park did a great job of their own respective Halloween events, the standout one for me was Fantasy Island’s Fear Island event. This is followed closely by Thorpe Parks Fright Nights, Chessington’s Howl’o’ween, Legoland’s Brick or Treat and then Scarefest coming in last.
Scarefest was the weaker offering purely because it just didn’t feel like it had the weight that 15 years should carry. I think if it had just been any other year then it would have probably beaten Howl’o’ween and Brick or Treat, as Darkest Depths is now my favourite scare maze of all the ones I’ve done.
It’s not to say Scarefest was bad as it most certainly wasn’t, it was just lacking something is all!
Though Paultons Park didn’t put any scare mazes or any scare zones or such, they decorated their park beautifully and it’s well worth a visit on a lovely autumnal day to see it all.
If I had to rank all the scare mazes/zones we did this holiday, I’d say it goes as follows:
- Darkest Depths
- Villa Voodoo
- Blood Bunker
- Scream Asylum
- The Crows of Mawkin Meadow
- The Invitation
- Vile Villagers
- Deaths Door
- Terminal
None of the scare mazes or zones we did were bad by any stretch but some were executed much better than others were. The audio only experiences were good but have a lot of scope for improvement, as did Deaths Door. I like to see them changed and adapted for next year and build in the foundations put in place this year.
There wasn’t much I could say needed changing at Fantasy Island, except perhaps that they stay open a bit later for dark rides. I’ll touch on this topic in my Alton Towers Fireworks blog!
Overall this holiday went a whole lot smoother than our summer excursion did! We had great service from The Annex, Ramada at Cobham and Stargazing Pods at Alton Towers and all in all it didn’t cost a fortune to do it all. I’m more than happy to share an itemised breakdown for anyone who’s interested!
I can’t wait for next year’s Halloween events to roll around as I hope to be doing something similar to this next year too!
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