Tag: Howl'o'ween

Blog, Reviews

Halloween Holiday 2022 summary

Loops&Lapbars

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:

  1. Darkest Depths
  2. Villa Voodoo
  3. Blood Bunker
  4. Scream Asylum
  5. The Crows of Mawkin Meadow
  6. The Invitation
  7. Vile Villagers
  8. Deaths Door
  9. 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!

Blog, Reviews

Chessington World of Adventures – Howl’o’ween 2022

Loops&Lapbars

Howl’o’ween 2022 will be the first time we’ve been back to a Halloween event for a second year so we can compare it to last year, as well as to other events we’ve been to.

Not a lot of big changes have occurred since last year, the same shows in the same locations, but of these shows, a few have definitely been improved. The most notable improvement was certainly the Banyan Circle of 8 show in Wild Asia.

They seemed to have increased the amount of pyrotechnics used for the show, and the number of performers looks to have doubled to 8 from last years 4. There is even a decent story about the 8 protecting Banyan from evil witches trying to steal Banyans power over beauty and wisdom. Quite the enjoyable show here!

Vile Villagers over by Vampire doesn’t seem to have changed all that much besides having 3 tiered scare intensities. The first tier (which we did) was very mild up to 3pm, then it got a bit more intense, until 7pm when it became and upcharge and even scarier apparently!

The same can be said for Creepy caves having 3 tiers of scare rating (as well as 3 tiers of pricing too). We didn’t do Creepy Caves this year, even though it’s the final year it’ll run as we did do it last year. I’m thinking we should have possibly tried the most expensive after dark version to see how Chessington could possibly ramp up the terror, but an opportunity missed here!

We did manage to catch a couple of the shows, Banyan being one and the Misadventure of Wilf being the other. The Wilf show is very child focused and was a very pleasant, non offensive show to watch and lasted only around 10 minutes or so. The costumes were great and the inclusive message was lovely too.

Other than the shows, there were also a lot more roaming actors than I recall last year too. There were the Witches roaming around the park, usually being based in Adventure Point, and we also caught pirates roaming around the new Shipwreck Coast area too.

Later on in the evening whilst walking from Dragons Fury to Vampire we even walked passed a parade, something that wasn’t advertised at all, or was present last year, at least that we could see!

The atmosphere of the park was great, especially as it got darker and it would be great to see Chessington open up later next year, especially once Jumanji is open! I don’t see this happening though as I think they have very strict rules on late night noise levels from the surrounding residents.

As for the rides, we had a much better run this year than last. We didn’t have any breakdowns at all and queues were kept short enough.

We started at Dragon’s Fury which was about 20 minutes of queuing, then onto Zufari for another 20 minutes or so. Photos were working in the queue line though which is great to see!

Next was Tomb Blaster which was advertised as 20 minutes but was a walk on. Throughout the day we also rode Croc Drop, Jungle Rangers, Rattlesnake, Gruffalo, Vampire, Tuk Tuk turmoil, Tiger Rock, stopped for some dinner and did Sealife too. We did manage to get back on Tomb Blaster and Dragon’s Fury again for second rides before ending our day with another ride on Vampire.

I recall last years Howl’o’ween being a bit of a disappointment in my own mind, not a bad event at all, just not quite fitting in with Chessington. This year however, I think they’ve got it spot on. I look forward to seeing what they’ll cook up for next year!

Next stop, Thorpe Park for Fright Nights!

Blog

Halloween Holiday!

Loops&Lapbars

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!

First stop is The Annex and Paultons Park…