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!
Fright Nights is another event that we’ve done before, as we did Fright Nights 20 last year. We really enjoyed last year’s offering so we’re expecting good things from this year!
Changes from last year were a lot more noticeable than there were with Chessington. Firstly, Platform 15 has gone now, replaced with Survival Games and The Terminal this year.
Secondly, Deaths Door also joins the Crows of Mawkin Meadow as a free walkthrough scare zone and a bigger feature of Fright Nights 21st celebrations and its Locksmith character.
Finally there’s the return of Legacy: A Fire and Light show. This is bigger and better than last years and I’ll go into detail about it a bit later on.
We’d stayed in the nearby Ramada once again for two nights with our first day being Fright Nights. We were expecting it to be quieter than last year as it was a Monday outside the school holidays and for the most part it was. Most of the rides stayed under 60 minute queues all day which was great!
We started our day on Stealth and we got our first front row ride on this beast. Front row really does give it something else as you have all the wind and force straight at you, as well as uninterrupted views as you climb and crest the 205ft top hat. Such a great ride!
Next we headed round to Swarm as this seems to be a ride that Tracy shows a little affection for. Despite it featuring a bit of hangtime on the first inversion, as well as 4 other inversions, Tracy seems to really enjoy it.
The more I ride the Swarm, the more I enjoy it. It never gives a bad ride at all, and though some rides are more intense than others, it’s a truly excellent coaster with some great scenary and set pieces.
After Swarm we had a go on Flying Fish before making our way to Nemesis Inferno, another one of Tracy’s favourite rides. Though I definitely prefer Nemesis at Alton Towers, Inferno is still a great ride in its own right and probably the more intense of the two as I usually need a bit of a break after Inferno, something I don’t need after Nemesis.
Throughout the day we got a couple of rides on Saw, Depth Charge, Walking Dead, The Dodgems, Rumba Rapids, and a few more rerides on The Swarm, Nemesis Inferno and Stealth. We managed night rides on Saw, Stealth and The Swarm too.
In between the rides we also tried out Deaths Door, the new scarezone walkthrough attraction. This sees you knocking on doors to see what’s on the other side. Usually it’s an actor that will do their best to scare you or a blast of air but sometimes you’ll get nothing at all and move onto the next door.
I had in my head that it would be a progression type of attraction in that you had to go through the doors and into the next room and so on until you’d gotten through the whole attraction. However it’s more of a collection of doors built into few wooden buildings which to me made it feel like you were trick or treating. I don’t know if that was what they were going for but I sort of like the idea of it being an adult trick or treating thing, where there are no treats, just tricks!
I didn’t really get much out of Deaths Door though as the scares weren’t that great and there was no atmosphere about the place at all. The Crows of Mawkin Meadow was full of atmosphere however. Much like last year, the walk through was covered in smoke which gave it a very eerie and sinister feel, which is excellent. There was also a branching path that takes you through the old Saw Alive queue line that’s been converted into a farmhouse scene.
So Deaths Door wasn’t as good but The Crows certainly made up for it. Another great thing to see was the roaming actors this year were primarily The Buckwheat’s of Creak Freak Massacre. These were very entertaining and really did come across as deeply unhinged and savage.
To accompany them was their returning scare maze, Creak Freak Massacre, the final cut which as the name implies is its final outing this year. We didn’t do this scare maze as we did it last year and by the sound of the surrounding area of the maze, they haven’t changed too much in there!
We did however give Terminal a go. This is brand new audio based scare experience and has you put on headphones and listen to a set story whilst in a pitch black room.
The experience starts when you’re bundled into a lift room built into shipping containers. Though the room is stationary, the audio does make it feel like the room is moving ever so slightly then another door opens and you move down a corridor into a wooden cubicle, sit yourself down and put the headphones on.
The premise is that you’ve been selected to go to an alien planet and it’s so far away from earth that you’ll need to enter cryosleep to be able to get there. Complications arise when the ship is boarded by aliens who feed on you and your group, sucking your brain out through a hole made in your head. It does sound quite gruesome and the audio definitely did it’s best to portray this but it was lacking something to make it truly great.
I think for me it would have felt more real if when the aliens are supposedly feeding on you that you’d feel a sensation on your forehead or something that lines up with the audio. There were air jets that made you feel like you were being gassed with cryogenic substances but that was it for physical effects. I’ll touch on this a lot more when I talk about Alton Towers’ Invitation but for now, it was ok. Nothing spectacular but not bad by an stretch!
The other two scare mazes were Trailers and Survival Games. We did Trailers during Carnival and though it was quite good we felt that having done it this year, there wouldn’t be too much different so skipped it. As for Survival Games, I haven’t heard great things from this one which put me off a little, but ultimately we didn’t try it because we’d already done plenty at the resort.
Birthday Bash made a return this year and was as comical as last year’s offering. Though some of the actors were a bit off with their singing, the rest of the show was alright. It could do with some splatterings of fake blood to really up the gore value though in my eyes!
It would be remiss of me if I didn’t also mention the great work put in by the vampires and werewolves of Amity High and Lycan Thorpe by Stealth. I could spend all of Fright Nights here listening to the stellar 80s rock tracks while the flash mobs chase people around the area, all the while Stealth launching in the back ground. This is utter bliss for me and one of my favourite parts of this holiday in general!
Finally there’s Legacy to talk about. Much like last year, this is a free show that has audio playing to a light and fire show but this year they’ve added a screen for extra visuals. This is a good improvement over last year’s and though it told the same sort of story of Fright Nights, it was enjoyable and I hope they elaborate on it further next year too.
Once the sun had started to set, the park got busier which helped with the atmosphere of the place. There was plenty going on, plenty of shows to see and rides to ride. The only real negative of the day was that there was a dire lack of food options at around 8:30pm. Most of the food places had closed, and those that were open had a lack of options. It wasn’t enough to spoil the day but it was worth mentioning!
I don’t think it was nessecarily better than last year but also not worse either. I think there were things that didn’t hit as well as they could have this year such as Deaths Door and Terminal, but Legacy and The Crows were improved upon as well as the actors and the scale of the event feeling bigger. Another great Fright Nights!
This year, we thought it would be a good idea to have a week away visiting various parks for their Halloween events. We were impressed with Alton Towers Scarefest in 2020 and last year’s Fright Nights at Thorpe Park, so it makes sense to have a tour of the big parks!
The parks we’ve decided on are Paultons Park, Chessington, Thorpe Park, Legoland, Alton Towers and Fantasy Island. The Merlin parks are a given as we’re annual pass holders, but Paultons Park at Halloween, as well as Fantasy Island’s Fear Island event will be new to us.
That’s before we try out both parks new attractions, with Farmyard Flier at Paultons and The Guardian and Harrington Flint’s Island Adventure at Fantasy Island!
We’ll be stopping at The Annex In Totton for our first two nights, Ramada at Cobham services for the next two and finally we’re stopping on site at Alton Towers in their Stargazing Pods for the last two.
I’m not sure we’ll get around all the scare mazes on offer this year, especially with there being a few repeats, but there are a couple of other things to look forward to! The Scare Zones are returning and look to be good this year, as well as Farm Yard Flier at Paultons and the two new rides at Fantasy Island.
One of the other things I’m really looking forward to is Millennium Darkness at Fantasy Island. This will be a ride on Millennium, but blindfolded! I’m quite looking forward to this unique experience of what was my very first inverting coaster!
I’ll be writing up blogs for each of the parks and comparing it to other visits we’ve had, and tips I notice, as well as a good sprinkling of my opinion on things!
Having tried Scarefest for the first time at Alton Towers in 2020, we made an effort to see what Thorpe Park, Chessington and Legolands events were like, starting with Thorpe Park.
We once again stopped at the Ramada at Cobham services for four nights, meaning we could initially do two days at Thorpe Park, two at Chessington and then Alton Towers on the way back, however we changed plans after we’d visited Chessington, more on that in another blog!
We arrived at Thorpe Park for our first day on Friday, expecting a really busy day but to our surprise, it was arguably the quietest day we’d ever had there. That’s not to say it was dead by any means, there were still plenty of folk about, but queues were topping out at 40 minutes or so meaning we got on plenty of rides!
Our plan was to ride rides on the Friday and do more of the Fright Night events in the Saturday when riding would mean longer queues. This was the right way to do it when we saw the queues on Saturday morning!
Anyway back to Friday and initially we were going to head straight to Saw: The ride and get the longer queue out of the way first, but due to technical difficulties it wasn’t ready for us when we got there.
Instead I rode Samurai alone as Tracy didn’t like the look of it. I enjoyed the ride and it does looks a lot more intense than it actually is. It was pleasant, gives enough force to make it interesting, but not so much that you feel ill or don’t enjoy the experience. The music while queuing is also so calming and beautiful, and during the ride it’s more aggressive and upbeat, really well done here!
Colossus isn’t as bad as I thought!
Next we queued for Colossus, and we waited about 30 minutes or so, partially because we waited for a front row (something I didn’t know was offered). This was my second ride on this Intamin 10 inversion machine, and it exceeded what I remembered from my first ride!
I didn’t really rate it that well after my first ride on it as I felt it was a bit dull and the heartline rolls are unnecessary at the end. I still feel that the heartline rolls are unnecessary but this time we both agreed it rode well, wasn’t rough at all and was generally quite enjoyable! Even though it was Tracys first ride, she said she’d do it again, so plus points here.
Once we’d finished on Colossus, we had a go on Saw, which was now up and running. Another first ride for Tracy and we didn’t wait too long before we were in the station building taking in all the scenery. Unfortunately we ended up on the first train which meant Tracy missed the little interaction with Billy the Puppet at the start of the ride, but a second ride later on rectified this!
Saw ran well, it still has its rough parts here and there, though Tracy did say she didn’t feel any roughness or headbanging at all, so maybe that’s the height difference between us causing me issues?
Black Mirror Labyrinth
This time around we’d managed to get timed tickets for Black Mirror Labyrinth as we’d missed out on them in our earlier visit. The attraction was decent, certainly better than Ghost Train, but not something that I’d be wanting to queue much for to reride. I knew nothing of the TV series before visiting the attraction, similarly with Saw and The Walking Dead, but only Saw has made me actually want to watch the shows the rides were based on!
Next we headed off up towards Quantum and the other flat rides here. We only ended up riding Quantum but took a breather and a few photos before we went off to Swarm Island.
By the time we’d gotten to Swarm Island, the Fright Night events were starting to take place, as actors start to pop up at various places in the park. For The Swarm, there’s The Swarm: Invasion, which sees a group of tin foil hat survivors causing mayhem about the place, and a couple of Swarm infected military personal keeping things creepy.
The ride itself rode well once again, we managed a front row, which Tracy was excited for until she realised how long you end up hanging at the top of the hill! Back rows for her from now on I should think!
We then stopped for a little dinner break at Burger King over by Nemesis Inferno. One thing that would be nice to see is Merlin and their franchises in their parks acknowledging those who have refillable drinks, and offer meals without a drink so you don’t feel like you’re paying for something you don’t want, just so you can get a burger and chips cheaper as a meal than individually. Little niggle but I thought I’d mention it since we regularly have refillable soft drinks in the Merlin run parks.
A little note actually on the refillable drinks. Firstly, Tracy’s cup had managed to get a crack in the bottom and they exchanged it without any quarrel at all which pleased her as she got a Fright Nights cup as she’d wanted one. Secondly, the machines seem to stock a special drink, or choice of drinks for Fright Nights. We found this to be the case at Brick or Treat at Legoland too. I didn’t notice whether Alton Towers does this though. The option is in the bottom right of the touch screen and both had different flavoured offerings!
Our next visit was Stealth, again for a first (and probably last) ride for Tracy! I have a high opinion of Stealth, I love the ride, its trains and how it operates, however, Tracy does not. She loved the launch but the top hat was a bit too much for her!
Stealth also has actors around the ride area as part of Amity High Vs LycanThorpe: Love Bites. This was brilliant! Such a good atmosphere all the time here, and actors that not only look great, but interact with you and were chasing people around and scaring folk all the time. I could have sat here all day and just watched what was going on, but other rides beckoned!
Once we’d moved on from Stealth, we had a go on Nemesis Inferno, The Walking Dead: The Ride, Flying Fish, The Dodgems and Timber Tug Boat. The second day we only rode Storm Surge, Rush, Derren Brown’s Ghost Train and Mr Monkey’s Banana Ride.
Ghost Train is awful
I think now is a better time than ever to talk about Derren Brown’s Ghost Train. We’ve ridden it twice and had pretty much the same experience both times. The VR is clunky and weird to put on, and I’m no stranger to VR having played PS VR and Oculus games at home.
The story line itself is quite a good one, but under utilised and just feels a bit cheap in places. The ride mechanism is good, and the set pieces are well designed too. I like how it really does feel like you’re on an underground train and the VR and physical elements do work something like well together, such as windows breaking and feeling the wind rushing in.
That being said, the experience on the whole is dire in my opinion. It should be so much more than it is and I think a lot of the issues could be sorted by removing the VR elements of the ride and having the video play out on the windows of the train. It would remove the isolated feeling that VR brings, but I think it would be offset by the experience running smoother on the whole.
To me, it’s a good set piece, with a bad VR section, a walk around a cheaply built underground section, followed by another even worse VR section, and finally a surprise element, which is arguably the best bit!
Such a shame as the ride could be so much more, and in its current state, I would advise riding it once, and then leaving it a few years like we have. Go on Ghost Train at Pleasure Beach for a better experience!
Night Rides
Our first night ride was on The Swarm, and though it rode the same as it does during the day, the darkness did add a little the experience! The surrounding area also came alive at night too! Shame the fire effects haven’t worked in a long time, as night rides would be excellent if they were to work!
Next was Stealth, which a night ride offered great views of the park all lit up, and the atmosphere around the ride ramped up to 11, otherwise it felt the same as a day ride for me!
We then headed off to Nemesis Inferno, which was excellent at night! We waited for a front row and both really enjoyed it! It would have been better if it hadn’t got quite as many lights about so it was darker but it was still a great night ride!
The real star for night rides here was Saw: The ride however! As mentioned earlier, we were on the second train, were taunted by Billy the Puppet and had a great ride in the dark! Once you head off into the trees it’s very dark and a few of the drops you can barely see, especially on back row which really helped it be my favorite night ride here!
Scare Mazes and Scare Zones
As I said earlier, our second day we didn’t ride that much and instead focused on the Scare Mazes, shows and zones about the park.
Legacy – A Fire and Light Display was a great free show that goes through the 20 year history of Fright Nights, something that will mean a lot to regular Fright Nights attendees!
The Crows of Mawkin Meadow is a walkthrough attraction with live actors posting as scarecrows that really do a great job of scaring you as you walk through their attraction. This was a great little zone, and even more so considering its included in the price of admission!
Following on from Mawkin Meadow, the Crows regularly walk about the park, scaring park goers when they least expect it and they looked excellent!
The first proper Scare Maze we did this year was Platform 15: End of the Line. It started with a hefty queue but soon moved on as you were kept in a dark tunnel waiting to enter. Your photo is taken, which is an extra charge unfortunately, before you start and then you are led into the attraction itself.
The story told is that of a train that derails, its passengers perish and are lost, frozen in time. You follow the route of the Sleeper Express and find the remains of the train and its passengers. The maze features the actual train that used to run around Thorpe Park in years gone by, and you can also see parts of Logger’s Leap too!
I enjoyed Platform 15, it wasn’t too scary, more creepy in my opinion, but was pleasant, and well executed and well worth the price of entry and the time to walk through it! Shame that the photo wasn’t included in the price though.
The other Scare Maze we tried was Creek Freak Massacre. Set inside the old station building for Logger Leap, this maze shows you a family of hillbilly lumberjacks that have turned from chopping wood to chopping unsuspecting human victims! It features smoke, loud sounds and live actors wielding chainsaws who aren’t afraid to swing them towards you! It’s perfectly safe of course and they won’t hit you, nore are the blades running, but it still made me jump out of the way!
In my opinion, this one felt a lot more intense than Platform 15 and on par with last years Altonville Mines, from 2020s Scarefest at Alton Towers. Great theming and a genuinely foreboding atmosphere, and though filled with jump scares for the most part, it was a great time!
I think I preferred Platform 15 though, it felt more traditional Halloween, still scare in places, but more atmospheric and creepy!
So this was a long blog! We had two days filled with plenty of rides, scares and fun, genuinely enjoyed Fright Nights for their 20th anniversary. Though I do feel Alton Towers 2020 Scarefest was a bit better, I’d like to come back next year and see what returns, and what’s new for 2022!
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