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!
Our final visit for this trip was Fantasy Island for their Fear Island event. This event is extremely good value as it includes unlimited rides, a round of 18 hole mini golf, access to 4 scare mazes and a digipass for your ride photos too, all for £35!
I’ll start by saying that despite the good value, I didn’t feel like the scare mazes were left under funded or feeling tacky at all, quite the contrary actually! They were all well themed and had plenty of thrills and scares.
The first we tried was Scream Asylum and was set around the idea of urban explorers breaking into an abandoned asylum and getting caught by the old inmates!
This was a great start to the mazes as it was well themed and jumpy in places, but not over the top either. It did include a crawl space though so it isn’t suitable for everyone, but we managed just fine! Also unique to this scare maze was that it was so dark and you had to navigate it using a glow stick, which wasn’t very bright at all. This really added to it!
The next maze we did was Villa Voodoo. This sees you going through a swamp and finding a villa that appeared to be in the possession of Bwonsamdi, a Haitian voodoo deity who tries his best to keep you safe with his friends on the other side.
Themed mostly to a jungle, there was a really great standout part where you trudge through a swamp, using a mixture of lasers and smoke, it really did look like you were about to sink into a bog waist deep!
The final maze we tried was Blood Bunker. This was the only maze to feature physical effects which was a lift that takes you down to a labyrinth filled with tormented folk who are out to get you!
This featured some very claustrophobic areas and even a point where you are caged up and look to be unable to escape! I don’t suffer from claustrophobia so it didn’t affect me all that much, but I can imagine it would really terrify someone who does!
Besides the mazes, there’s also the chance to ride Millennium in the dark. This entails wearing a blindfold whilst riding and though a good idea in theory, the blindfold did let a bit of light through and you could make out where you were on the ride, so I just closed my eyes to get the same effect.
There was also a pirate show in the Pyramid and a circus show too but we were always doing something else during the showtimes so we missed those unfortunately.
Since this was our first visit this year, there was also 3 new rides to try out, The Guardian, Harrington Flint’s Island Adventure and Wild River Rapids.
I’ll start with Wild River Rapids. This is a road transportable version of the popular river rapids models you’ll see at Alton Towers and Thorpe Park but much smaller in scale.
The boats are much smaller and not quite as enclosed as modern rapids boats are but the ride still gives you all the feelings of its larger cousins. You’ll get a light sprinkling of water, and it even features a small drop. The best way to describe it is a much better version of Storm Surge at Thorpe Park, with river rapid elements.
Next up is Harrington Flint’s Island Adventure, which is a trackless interactive dark ride which features screens and physical props.
This was a great addition to the park, the guns work really well and the screens are excellent. There are only 2 small issues with this one. The first being that one of the screens tries to wrap around you using a pair of curves screens and they don’t quite match up. One is brighter than the other and it makes the divide very noticeable.
Secondly the physical elements you can shoot at are nice and all but they don’t add on to your score and are simply there for set dressing. Its a shame that they don’t add on to your score, but I’d rather it be like that than not have them at all!
Harrington Flint’s is definitely the best new ride this year which leads me onto The Guardian.
This ride is a robotic arm motion simulator with a large curves screens and takes you into a fantasy world to fight off malicious beasts that have come in from another dimension.
The queue line is excellently themed and the attraction features a preshow and this is where the problems start. If I’m being very critical, the CGI and acting are quite lacking here. Once you move into the ride room you’ll be sat down and over the shoulder restraints lowered and belted in place. You can’t do these yourself as the belts are too low to reach and requires the ride operator to do so.
Once you’re strapped in, the arm will lift you up into the air at a steep angle, your photo is taken and the ride rotates, facing you towards a large concaved white screen.
This is the second and biggest issue with the attraction as the screen quality and lighting is quite poor meaning you can’t really make out what’s going on properly. The ride also doesn’t tilt beyond 45 degrees too which was a shame as the over the shoulder restraints gave me the impression there would be a full 360 degree roll or something, but unfortunately not!
I do hope they can adjust the ride so it features a roll or two, and the screen/projector gets a little attention so the video is easier to see. I’d love to see the video get a bit more budget too so the CGI looks the part!
The idea is there, the ride looks great, it’s just let down by the video elements. It feels like a poor man’s Flight of the Sky Lion, an attraction I’m already critical of!
Besides the new rides, we had a go on Volcano, Rhombus Rocket, the Balloon Ride, Dragon Mountain Descent, Magical Seaquarium, Jungle Adventure, The Dodgems, The Odyssey, Go Karts and had a round of golf too.
As I mentioned in my Paultons Park blog, the Go Karts there weren’t the best, the ones at Fantasy Island are proper press and go go-karts. The track even has an F1 style overtaking section to make it feel like a proper racing track.
Though this was an upcharge and more expensive than Paultons Park, I much preferred these karts as they were faster, turned tighter and overall felt much more fun!
The other attraction I’d like to talk about is Odyssey. This is the parks Vekoma Suspended Looping Coaster (SLC), and usually that’s a cause for alarm, but not here!
The ride isn’t as smooth as Kumali, but even then it doesn’t smash your head about, and on this ride, neither of us had any issues at all! It’s also the world’s tallest SLC and would have been taller but complaints limited its size to what we see today.
Since our last visit which would have been last year now, they’ve introduced a digipass system to the ride wristbands at no additional cost. It also works differently to how other parks handle theirs as none of the rides feature a manned booth so you get your photos by pressing your band against an NFC reader.
This is a great idea, but some of the readers are behind Perspex screens that mean you can’t get the reader to read your wristband so some of the photos were unattainable. Rhombus Rockets screens were also so dark that you couldn’t make out who was who I’m the photos too.
I really like this idea though, as it not only adds additional value to your visit (as I love ride photos) but it also means you literally scan and go. It’s arguably better than iMagic at the Merlin properties, but iMagic definitely works better overall. Which I’d expect since you have to pay additionally for iMagic, where Fantasy Islands is included in your wristband price.
I hope they can sort out the little issues with the digipass system as it’s great that they’ve introduced and retrofitted the older rides with cameras, some are literally just DSLRs on sticks but it works!
Odyssey and Millennium don’t have them currently but I do recall my first ever ride on Odyssey having a camera on it, so maybe it’s something they can easily add back on?
Fear Island was a massive surprise to us as we weren’t expecting it to be quite as good as what it was. There were more scare mazes here than what Alton Towers put on for their 15th Anniversary, and though there wasn’t as much entertainment as what Towers had, there was more variety here.
We’ll definitely be returning to Fear Island next year to compare and contrast and I hope they do as good a job next year as they did this year. Excellent work Fantasy Island!
With that comes the conclusion of our holiday and a great end to a wonderful week! I’ll be doing a summary post next so look out for that!
Our next visit was to Alton Towers, stopping on site in one of their Star Gazing Pods for 2 days and nights. We wanted two days to make sure we get the most out of Scarefest as well as ride the great selection of rides!
I’ll do a separate little review of the Star Gazing Pods and facilities, so let jump into day 1 of Scarefest!
Day 1 – The Rides
We decided that one day would be ride focused, while the other we’d do more of the Scarefest side of things.
So our first stop was Galactica, purely because we were allowed to use the hotel entrance which takes us straight to Galactica and Nemesis.
Galactica had a late opening, which seems to be a common thing as we’ve had to wait a bit longer every time we’ve made Galactica our first ride of the day!
There wasn’t much to say about our ride here, the queue wasn’t quite as long as it usually is as it skipped out all the top section and the area did have the great soundtrack playing which was something at least! I hope they give this ride some attention during the closed season as it’ll be all alone next year when Nemesis closes.
Speaking of Nemesis, we headed there for our first of a few rides on this Towers staple. I believe both Rita and Nemesis are the only two rides we have ridden at every visit to Alton Towers so far!
Anyway, Nemesis was running very well and you wouldn’t think it was going for a retrack next year with how smoothly it was running over our two day visit. Even our night ride was excellent with no head banging at all!
Once we’d done in Forbidden Valley we headed up towards Gloomy Wood to see what was happening with Dual.
We were both well aware that Dual was closed but had seen photos that the area had had a little work done in line with the attractions closure. They have put boards up around the area that have been vandalised by the supposed possessed spirits of the haunted house. This has been done very tastefully and is a great way to theme an attraction that isn’t currently operating.
It is such a missed opportunity for them to have not run the ride through Scarefest and feature it in a scare attraction of sorts. One where the attraction features actors throughout the ride that makes it feel like the haunted house really has been possessed by someone new and it makes it much more dangerous and scary because of this!
Even just keeping Dual open as we remember it would have been better than closing the attraction in my eyes, but for all I know, there could have been something desperately wrong with the ride systems that made it unsafe for visitors. Until next year Dual!
After we’d finished up in Gloomy Wood, we moved onto Katanga Canyon for a ride on Runaway Mine Train and Congo River Rapids.
Runaway Mine train is another favourite of ours at the park, though it can sometimes be uncomfortable when both of us are crammed into one of the cars! The ride operator is always interacting with the trains as they fly through the station, and it seems to have an unofficial system in place that the more noise you make as you enter the station, the more chance you have of going around again, which is fun!
Congo River Rapids isn’t something we both go mad for but is still a fun time nonetheless! It could do with having the waterfalls working during hotter weather though as it does feel lacking when compared with American rapids rides!
Once we’d done with Katanga Canyon we headed around to Wicker Man for our first ride of the visit. Though the queue is always long on Wicker Man, it doesn’t always feel long. This is thanks, in part, to the ride being so photogenic and there is always something going on in the ride area. There’s a lot of energy around Wicker Man, thanks to the decent throughput of trains and Big Bob doing his thing too.
Photo from our night ride later on!
Once we’d had a look around the Wicker Man shop, we headed over to X-Sector for rides on Oblivion and The Smiler. The queue for Smiler was about 45 minutes, but interestingly, so was Oblivions’. Much like Nemesis, Oblivion rarely gets long queues whenever I’ve been but recently there does seem to be batching issues with Oblivion. For one thing the station only uses one loading platform out of the possible two, and the seats on the left side of the train are still not being filled. The camera that photos the whole train before its descent is working again though!
Next stop was Hex, a ride I’d been looking forward to getting back on for ages. This is one of my favourite flat rides here in the UK, and it has had a few issues all season. It wasn’t running the best, especially when compared with Haunted House Monster Party from the day before, but still a great time!
World of David Walliams next and Gangsta Granny. A short queue here and the area is back up and running as it was before the passing of Queen Elizabeth II. I’m glad they haven’t made any changes to the ride or surrounding areas as I don’t feel anything here is offensive or upsetting.
As the park slowly started to get dark, we headed to Spinball Whizzer and then into CBeebies land for rides on Postman Pat’s Parcel Post and Octonauts. All of these are good fun rides, the latter two purely for the photos you can take!
By the time we’d finished on Octonauts, the park was definitely dark so we headed back to Wicker Man for a night ride. We did one last year after the fireworks but unfortunately the camera didn’t take our photo so we missed out on that, thankfully it got us this time around!
Our final two rides were a great backrow ride on Rita and a mid-train on Th13teen. I was looking forward to Th13teen so much after last years ride, but it was somewhat ruined this year by the addition of lighting out in the forest.
Last year, as the train went over the initial lift hill, it was pitch black, then you were blinded by the camera flash and it made the ride a worth while dark ride, but with the additional lighting provided, it took away that element and somewhat dampened the experience.
Day 2 – Scarefest
Day two started with quite bad weather which worked out in our favour as we could do all the Scarefest things and stay dry with our umbrellas and not worry about getting stuck in queues.
The first thing we saw was an impromptu performance from the Alton Ancestors, a group of dancers dresses to look like ghosts of the residents of Alton Towers, very vintage in design and completely monochrome in colour. These were very good, and throughout the day, you’d catch them performing in different areas of the park, no matter how wet it got, true dedication to the job!
Our next Scarefest activity was trying out The Invitation. Similar in concept to Thorpe Parks Terminal but executed a bit better.
The concept here is that you’ve been invited to visit a burial chamber and unbeknownst to you, it’ll be your final resting place. The chamber has incarcerated vampires living in the vault that are separated from the world of the living by a cage and they come out to visit you during your stay.
The audio lets you know that you’re not alone here and has the voices of the other guests played out to make it seem like you’re still a group. The vampire then talks to different members of the group, tasting their blood, insulting bad blood and trying to persuade you to open the cage.
As the story progresses tensions rise as the vampire gets more and more persuasive until someone does eventually let them out! The scene comes to an end when he comes close to you and supposedly bites you, causing so much blood to spurt out that you and others around you get sprayed, and you do actually get sprayed with water by the operators, which was a nice touch.
The audio quality is excellent and the voice actor for the vampire did a phenomenal job with his part!
There are a couple of issues though. Firstly it ends so abruptly, the vampires depart in bat form very quickly and there’s no really jump scare at the end. I was bracing myself for the lights to flick on and there to actually be someone in the room with you, but it never came to be.
Secondly, and this might not affect everyone, but I was in the second pod from the end by the exit door, I knew this as I’d seen where I was sat in relation to Tracy who was first in. Now when the vampire escapes the cage, he walks around and you can pin point exactly where he is in relation to you and multiple times did he seem to be talking to someone I knew didn’t exist.
He’d be facing directly opposite you, then to the left, then to the right, and then further right again. If I’m the second in line, that means he’s visited the person directly across from me, the one to the left and one to the right of them, so there isn’t anyone else left to visit to the right of the person across from me, yet he did.
a quick mock up of the vampire scene that breaks immersion. The cage is in the centre and the numbers represent which guest the vampire sees.
It might only be a daft thing but it broke the immersion for me in quite a big way and it’s a shame as the sound effects and voice acting were top notch, just let down by my positioning in the room I guess!
I don’t know how they could fix that apart from making it so certain seats hear slightly different audio to others that lines up with the room layout.
This was much better than terminal though as the physical effects were much better and the audio of better quality. Both are a great start to the idea of having an actor less Scare maze which I like the idea of as I’m still not quite sure how to react when I’m in a Scare maze!
There’s still a lot of room for improvement for these audio based experiences, but for a first time outing, I enjoyed them and I hope they elaborate next year.
Once we’d finished on the Invitation, we moved onto a scare maze I was really looking forward to, Darkest Depths.
When we came on 2020, it was billed as a Scare maze for kids, so we skipped it, but if nothing has changed since the 2020 version, then I wish we’d done it sooner!
This is a very detailed and well crafted story about a band of pirates that set off to find treasure but were attacked on their way by a monstrous kraken that pulled the ship down to the darkest depths of the sea.
Apart from the initial bar scene, the experience plays out in the same fashion as the kraken attack scene from Pirates of the Caribbean Dead Man’s Chest where the Black Pearl is taken to Davy Jones Locker.
That’s all I’ll say if you haven’t experienced it, I don’t want to ruin too much as I thought it was well worth experiencing it before knowing what was going on beforehand.
Once we’d finished in Darkest Depths, we headed back to the lawns to sit and watch the entertainment on the stage. We watched The Ancestors again (which was pretty much the same show as they perform out and about in the park), Sin Bin ImmortHELL, Phil’s Halloween Dance Party and A Vintage Halloween.
The stage shows were good, though a lot were repeated from what we saw of the 2020 version, but they were still entertaining nonetheless. Sin Bin didn’t always hit the mark as some of the performers weren’t the best at singing, but it was made up for by others in the group.
A Vintage Halloween and Phil’s Halloween Dance Party were very similar, but I didn’t mind it so much as the music was decent enough, but there was a lack of atmosphere as there was only a handful of people around us watching. That’s unfortunately the price you pay by going midweek to one of these events, you’ll get smaller queues for the rides, but also less people to enjoy the event with too.
Scarefest was good, but not great this time around. The event was advertised as the 15th anniversary of Scarefest and besides the logo and pin badges showing this, there wasn’t anything that would suggest otherwise!
When Thorpe Parks Fright Nights turned 20, they introduced Legacy, a way to show the rich history of the different events that have been run throughout the years and the whole event seemed so lively and like a celebration of 20 years. There was a lack of this at Scarefest for me.
I didn’t really see many roaming actors, and the line-up of scare mazes was nearly the same as 2020 and 2021 which is a missed opportunity as I’d have loved to see The Sanctuary come back, or even Nemesis Sub Terra! Both of these are something I’ve missed out on and would love to experience them during a 1 off celebration of the events history!
Overall we enjoyed Scarefest, but it wasn’t as good as it should have been in my opinion! The Invitation was good and Darkest Depths was great, but much like the stage shows, it was a lot of things we’ve already seen or had access to. Hopefully next year will see the audio based scare experiences improved and possibly a brand new maze and the return of scare zones?
Our final stop is Fantasy Island for their Fear Island event!
Remember remember the 5th of November, our last ride of Nemesis 1.0. The ride is set to close on the 6/11/22 for a retrack, encompassing everything between the top of the lift hill right up to the final brake run.
I’m a relatively recent first time rider of Nemesis, riding it first in June of 2019. I remember buying a fast past card that got me onto Nemesis, Oblivion, The Smiler and Galactica as Tracy wasn’t quite up to the bigger rides so it made sense to fast pass them to save queueing for rides she didn’t want to try.
I’ve enjoyed almost every single ride I’ve had of Nemesis, with only 1 being a standout rough ride which was Scarefest 2020 in the dark. It rode really badly and I ended up with a bit of a sore ear afterwards, but I still kept riding it after that.
Fast forward to the start of 2022, and despite not riding it during opening weekend or Festival of Thrills, we’ve certainly made up for lost time over the last few months!
Oktoberfest, Scarefest and even last night’s ride have all been excellent. Quite comfortable and no head banging at all allowing you to fully enjoy the full force of the ride!
I don’t feel like I share the same sentiment as the rest of the enthusiast community as I didn’t feel sad that last night was my last ride of Nemesis or even that it was going away. Instead I enjoyed it just like any other ride we’d had on it and look forward to seeing how it changes, if it changes at all, in 2024 when it’ll be due to reopen.
I’ve heard that they’ll be filling in the boxy spine of the track with sand for sound dampening which will take away the iconic roar the ride currently makes as it hurtles around the layout. This is a shame as the roar is as much a part of Nemesis as the monster themed station, the rusted coloured track and the trains themselves.
As for when 2024 comes around, what would I like to see?
I’d love to see the trains be adapted to have Lapbars in someway. I don’t know if B&M can manage that, whether they’ve got some trains already or they’d need to develop new ones, but it would certainly improve the ride!
The station could do with a bit of a tidy up and the theming elements improved upon too. Some of the fake track used in the station is starting to come apart, revealing that it’s made of wood and definitely needs some attention!
Finally I’d love to hear a new score that encompasses parts of the old one. Imascore do a lot of work with Merlin for their attractions and I’d love for them to be drafted in to give Nemesis a sound that’ll hopefully fill the void that the roar will be leaving!
I love that Alton Towers have made the decision to retrack Nemesis and not simply let it run into the ground or be taken down completely. It shows that the understand the value that Nemesis has in the enthusiast community as well as wider public appeal too. Nemesis is as British rollercoaster icon, just as The Big One is, so it having the full retrack treatment is a wonderful thing.
For context, not that many rollercoasters are seen to be worth the investment to be retracked in their entirety so a full retrack instead of a new attraction is pretty big news!
Nemesis means a lot to a lot of enthusiasts. For some it will be the best ride in the world, to others its the ride that started their thrill seeking career. Some will dislike the ride or have no attachment to it and some argue that Nemesis Inferno is better!
Whatever your opinion of Nemesis, lets all come together today to say farewell to John Wardley’s magnum opus, Europe’s first inverted coaster, one of the rides of the year of the UK rollercoaster and of course the worlds most intense ride experience!
Our fourth stop for this adventure was Legoland to revisit them for their Brick or Treat event. This year presenting the Monster Party!
Our visit intially felt very rushed. We’d gotten to the park early enough so we were queuing to get in but by the time we were in and on the hill train, queues had started to form at some of the parks bigger attractions and it highlighted an issue with the park for me and that’s the lack of access around it.
Very briefly, with a park like Alton Towers, the gates are opened around 9:30 which allows you plenty of time to get to the first attraction to be waiting ready for it to open. Legoland isn’t like that. It opens dead on 10:00am and everyone has to use the same 2 methods of getting down into that park. Either the hill train or walking down the hill which means crowds rush to Flight of the Sky Lion right at the very back of the park so it always gets long queues. Shame that but anyway back to our day.
As mentioned our first ride was Flight of the Sky Lion, an attraction we’ve only done once before and the awfully lengthy queue somewhat ruined the overal experience we had. This time we were in a queue that kept moving and wasn’t as bad at all so I could concentrate more of the ride itself and not the queue beforehand!
Flight of the Sky Lion is a good solid attraction that has a big flaw, at least for me and that’s the screen. Couldn’t the do anything to wrap the screen around you above? I’ll be giving Sky Lion its own dedicated blog in due course but needless to say it was as I remembered, a great ride system and visuals let down by a break in immersion due to the edges of the screen!
Once we’d done on Flight of the Sky Lion, we headed back up the park to get on Ninjago, the parks ART/Triotech dark ride. I still have issues with the ride system and feel that the motion only based controls are lacking. I’ve tried multiple times to try and get the thing to control as the instructions dictate but everytime I try it the energy balls on screen don’t seem to like up with what I’m doing with the controls.
Put guns on it or something physical to interact with please! Other than the irritating controls, everything else about the attraction is excellent! From the ride vehicles, to the story, the 4D elements and the screens.
After we’d done on Ninjago we headed down to Laser Raiders for a ride on possibly the most accurate shooting ride in the UK! These guns require absolute presicion to hit the targets, unlike Tomb Blaster or Sherrif Showdown that allow a bit more flexibility. Despite this I really like how Laser Raiders works!
The targets interact with physical effects such as lights or moving parts which sets it apart from a lot of the other interactive dark rides I’ve been on. The targets are quite difficult to hit and the guns can be a bit tiring on the fingers but nonetheless this is a great ride!
From Laser Raiders we headed down to the Knights Kingdom to ride both Dragon Coasters and try out the Monster Street Halloween walk through.
I’ll talk about Dragon later so first up is Monster Street and much like last year is essentially trick or treating in Lego fashion. Unlike last year though, the stations aren’t in 3 different parts of the park and are instead all in one place, which means you can’t miss them! You’ll get pop badges, a chocolate bar and a small kit of Lego that builds into a pumpkin. Definitely no complaints from me, especially for free!
The street itself was filled with alsorts of pun named shops and stalls themed to the Lego Monsters and is very bright and pleasant and child friendly.
Once we’d done in Monster Street we headed into the Dragon for the first of two rides as there was no queue at all and our first photo didn’t go so well!
Back row is definitely where you want to be on this coaster as both lift hills give you a great amount of ejector airtime as the train crests the hills and gains speed. The initial dark ride section is great too, but it would definitely be better if there were some more Lego models in the outdoor section too!
Dragons apprentice next and though it’s a junior coaster, it features on ride photography and can be a right laugh for posing for silly photos!
Once we’d done in Knights Kingdom we headed off towards the bottom of the park to see one a bank of three joking skeleton heads that were put in place right by the hotels. There were advertised on the map as one of the many different things to do for Brick or Treat so we headed down there as it was on our way towards Lego City anyway.
Our next attraction was Lego City Deep Sea Adventure and my thoughts on this attraction remain the same in that it’s a very inovative way of doing Sealife at Legoland, but the windows are too low or the seats too high. It’s definitely better enjoyed sat on the floor!
After we’d collected our photos we moved onto the main event for this visit, Haunted House Monster Party, the parks Vekoma Madhouse!
Brick or Treat and Monster Party go hand in hand so this attraction really stands out during the event. The ride system is still as good, the cast of characters entertaining and the music is just as good as it’s ever been. Little more to say other than its arguably the best ride at the park, at least for me. Possibly Laser Raiders but that’s an argument for another day!
Once we’d done in Lego City, we headed into Miniland to look out for letters that had been added around the area that spelled out a word. Work out the word and get a pop badges from The Brick, so we wandered around, found the first two letters and I guessed it straight away but we found the remaining ones to be safe. It was Monster by the way!
Another pop badge in hand we headed up for our very first visit to the Legoland 4D cinema to watch the exclusive The Great Monster Chase 4D film.
This was possibly the most underwhelming 4D cinema I’ve ever been in! We sat on the side as all the middle benches were wet so we missed out on the water effects but even still the screen was far too dark to really take it in properly and there lights in the room were a bit too bright which didn’t help matters.
It was great to see actual fire used as an element, as well as a snow machine but otherwise the cinema itself was a bit poor when compared to other parks offerings, sorry Legoland!
After the cinema we had a slow wander around the park, dropping in on Fairy Tale Brook, Ninjago and Laser raiders for second rides before making our way to the shop and exit.
Disappointingly the park was closing at 4pm, which meant we only had 6 hours of time in the park to get everything done. We lost a bit of time at the start as Sky Lion is so far away but I wanted to get that queue out of the way first. In all we had a great time though and despite having only 6 hours, we still got on everything we wanted to and saw all that Brick or Treat had to offer.
The park did seem to be a bit quieter than it’s usually been, but we did go on a Tuesday when only parts of the country were on half term, which probably helped!
Next stop is Alton Towers for the next two days for Scarefest!
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!
I feel like I should write this blog about Drayton Manors Apocalypse. The ride is a 177ft Intamin Drop tower, the first of its kind to feature stand-up gondolas when it opened in 2000, a feat it held onto until 2005.
2 years after opening it was converted to have a 5th tower around its central column to facilitate a floorless standup gondolas.
Today, the 30th of October 2022 marks the last operational day for Apocalypse and it holds a special place for me. Alongside its distant cousin, Cliffhanger at Flamingo Land, these two are the two towers that setup my fear and eventual conquering of drop tower style rides.
In 2017 I rode Cliffhanger at Flamingo Land as the very first drop tower I’d ever do and it terrified me. It was a great feeling in some ways but scary in others as the ride reached its maximum height and began to fall back, my bum left the seat and despite being restrained properly, I’ll never forget that feeling of true terror, something I’ve yet to replicate on any ride since.
Anyway time passes and 2019 rolls around and our first visit to Alton Towers. This is the visit that cements my love for theme parks and is the trip I’ll officially state as the beginnings for Loops and Lapbars.
2020 comes around and COVID restrictions hamper access to parks but soon after we’re back at parks again. Besides Thorpe Park though, no Merlin parks have any drop towers so I begin to forget about my dislike of them as I choose to ignore Detonator and Ice Blast at Blackpool Pleasure Beach.
Our first visit to Drayton comes in 2021 and with it my first ride on Apocalypse. I’ve heard so many great things about this ride from plenty of other enthusiasts and it brings drop towers back to the forefront of my mind. Will I still feel the fear or will my understanding of how they operate make it easier to ride them?
I queue for Apocalypses alone as Tracy doesn’t want to try it, and I actually wanted to try the standup section first but found myself in the sit-down queue.
I board the gondola, get sat down and start to feel the adrenaline rush going somewhat into the unknown again. The ride starts and takes us all the way to the top and then holds us there for a few seconds. Tension mounts as you know it’s coming but nothing happens.
Then as quick as a flash the gondola drops and I feel the rush as we free fall back down to earth, reaching speeds of 50 miles an hour. Back in the station before I really knew what was going on, I get off and look back up at the tower. That was exhilarating and thrilling but not at all scary!
I don’t know if it’s something Apocalypse did different to Cliffhanger and I gather the restraints are different (and I’ve gained a bit of weight too since 2017), but whatever the case be, I really enjoyed the first drop on Apocalypse.
I’ve only actually ridden the ride 4 times since starting regular theme park visits. Only once have I done the standup side too as it’s been closed a lot since I got my first ride but that was on another level!
It’s in part thanks to Apocalypse that I enjoy drop towers as much as I do now. Since my first ride, I’ve now tackled Ice Blast at Blackpool Pleasure Beach, Cliffhanger at Flamingo Land again, Detonator at Thorpe Park and Vocalno at Fantasy Island.
I’m not sure if Detonator would have done the same if I’d ridden that first over Apocalypse, and I can speculate that it would have, however I rode Apocalypse first and not Detonator so Apocalypse gets the special treatment today. Detonator is a great ride though and I’ll still be able to ride that next year. Apocalypse is sadly going after the end of today and that’s a shame.
I will miss the big guy and to be honest I hope a smaller park buys it and adds it to their line up, renovates it and has it running at it’s best once again!
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!
As I mentioned in the previous blog, out first stop was at a homestay called The Annex in Totton, just outside Southampton.
Very briefly, the property was excellently finished and there was everything we needed and then some! We had a bed and the usual things, but also access to an ironing board and iron, mini fridge and a booklet with as much information about the local area as they could cram into it. Very impressed with our stay here!
There was a lot of care by the host to make your stay as comfortable and convenient as possible, there was a parking space right by the front door and access was by a key safe so you can arrive at any time you like, which was great for us.
I’d definitely recommend the Annex to anyone who has to travel long distances to visit Paulton’s Park, or even Southampton and the surrounding areas.
Paultons Park
We’ve been to Paulton’s Park a few times now, and this is the second visit this year. Every time we come, the park just seems to look tidier and even more well presented than the previous visit. I’ll probably say that again after our next visit too, it’s just so well looked after.
Anyway, for the season, the park was covered in literally thousands of pumpkins and given a Halloween makeover. As with other things the park has done, it was done very well. There were an abundance of photo opportunities all around the park too, which is always fun!
There was a lack of attention given to the area where Cobra sits though as there wasn’t a single pumpkin or any Halloween themed scenery at all over that way. Lost Kingdom had a few pumpkins here and there but not quite as much as the other parts of the park. That’s about the only real negative for the day, and its a stretch to even call it a negative!
The changes didn’t just include scenery though, a lot of the soundtracks to the ride have been altered to give them a spookier atmosphere too. These are the little details that put Paulton’s on my radar and make it incredibly easy to recommend the park too.
Our first stop was Storm Chaser. This is by far my favourite ride at the park, and it even hits my top 10. I just enjoy the forces it gives, the spinning means all rides are different and it’s smooth as glass to ride too. If this ride were longer, then it would definitely rank it higher than Icon, I enjoy it that much!
Next was our first ride on Farmyard Flyer. We just missed out on the opening of this ride when we went in March this year so I’ve been looking forward to trying this attraction for a good while!
The queue line, station and ride area are well themed and I remember there being a lovely smell in the station too though I can’t remember what it reminded me of!
As for the ride, it was very tame. Even for a junior coaster, there wasn’t much force to it, but it was nice and smooth and a good time. Probably better than Cat-o-pillar coaster, but not quite as good as Storm Chaser, Flight of the Pterosaur or Cobra, but it’s really not fair to compare junior coasters to family offerings!
After Farmyard Flyer we visited all the other attractions at least once, though we did Cobra and Flight of the Pterosaur twice as they’re such great rides. We even had a go on the upcharge Go karts, these were fun but not the best Go Karts we ended up paying for on the holiday!
We stayed in the park all the way until closing, and I wish they had stayed open longer so we could have had even more rides, as well as rides in the dark! They do have late night openings, but only 3 nights and none of which were nights we could attend unfortunately!
The conclude our visit, we had a great time! The park was beautifully decorated, for the most part, and operations were great. We managed a new ride with Farmyard Flyer and got back on our favourite rides for the last time this year! Hope to be back sometime next year Paulton’s!
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!
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