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Very weird year at Fright Nights this year, on paper it should be very strong. (More scare zones/shows and a new maze). It is not strong and possibly very weak. A good line up has had to come with sacrifices which are: The removal of a free walkthrough which was pretty long in favour of a paid attraction. Tenement is good concept and great to see another scare maze at the event. The issue is its location, it’s used a l good space for a long scare zone. There are a few other places it could have gone but would have required a bit more ground work. More mazes are good but I cannot pay for mazes every visit, so I normally do one visit doing them all once and that’s it. I relied on the crows to give me the scare and in its new location, it’s so so short you just don’t get the same experience. To me the current location feels like it’s just been put there with no thought other than they need less actors. There are multiple pathways they’d could have used as a walk through but they decided to cram it in under nemesis inferno. Deaths doors was pretty short but it was extended by the fact you had to knock on each one. The queue was massively long for a 30 second experience, it was very annoying. Lucifiers lair has had the load split up between it and rebel ball Lucifers lair should have just been moved to the launchpad with the same entertainment and that be it. Not remove the entertainment from lucifers lair and then create rebel ball and I’m not really sure what the show is about or what the actors are??? It’s not really the hub of the event and I thought it would be more scare zone when teased how good the launch pad was for events. It’s just random, Lucifiers lair is very very boring and actors were hardly out. Seperate note, trailers is a shell of its former self. One actor per room and they just have a maze host inside the foyer scene. It just needs to go, it relies on having multiple actors per room

I have to admit it does puzzle me why the busiest events in the country (Tulleys and Thorpe) are the ones to utilize this technology, I feel like a medium sized event that requires less throughput would a much better fit! Agreed on Crows and Lucifer, from TPW's video it does worry me that Tenement has just spread the actors out thin. Lucifer's Lair was an absolute highkight over the last few years, this version feels diluted, as does The Crows. I do worry for Thorpe, as over the last 3-4 years or so it has had quite a good series of years, but preview night is indicating maybe having a fifth maze might not actually be the thing we wanted.

I’m avoiding any spoilers till I have a go myself, but I think it’s clear if it’s struggling on press night it’s going to really struggle when the crowds hit. This was only going to ever work in much smaller groups. Lucifers lair and the Crows also look like a huge downgrade, as expected.

Yeah the announcements definitely didn't spark too much excitement. Hopefully the new 2 mazes are better in person than they sound on paper! I guess the Fuel Girls might be the most exciting new thing to me so far! Hopefully preview night delivers

Honestly it takes a hour or so on Canva, so lazy.. In other news it seems reviews for Tenement are mixed. In general we have some raving reviews of last night, and then some others like Scaretour and TPW that seem more critical. I hope this does not foreshadow the run, as preview night is usually when the mazes are at their peak (full casts, loads of energy).

Think it's quite certain that companies literally do not care about using AI imagery.

I agree. It was a good evening due to the atmosphere however organization and management decisions let it down. That is absolutely no reflection on the ride team cause they were great and all out of there control.

Doing the rounds on X, looks terrible and plastered all round the park. I know its likely outsourced, but do these not have to get checked and signed off?

Today, launch platform smoke was switched on during the afternoon, apparently, the upturn smoke will return for Fright Nights.

With the Launch Event tonight for Fright Nights, all spoilers for 25 Years of Fear here! Follow along your favourite Thorpe Park dedicated fansite for all the best coverage!

Yeah because they're all thoosies 🤣

£195 for the cable! Certainly didn't pay that much for my Expedition GeForce one.

I enjoyed the event, was great to see them offer something like this. Whilst I don't want to be negative, I think it is worth saying there was room for improvement. Communication and organisation was pretty poor, from entering the event, to having to literally read out 250 numbers, and whilst the reason for it was clear, holding a 2 hour ride time but closing the queue after 90mins isn't ideal. But these are things that come with experience, and can be ironed out. The enthusiasm was there. The idea is there. It was an enjoyable event with a great, positive vibe and I really hope they look at doing more of these things in the future.

Agreed - great atmosphere all evening and the ride team were smashing it. Seen him having fun on the PA the last few times I've been too - great operator. Bit cheeky they closed the queue at half 7 and can't help but feel there was a little too many people there, but that's expected when they were selling the tickets for £10. It was clearly a success for them and I hope we see more of that kind of stuff!

Same as above really enjoyed the event - nice to see the park celebrate the ride with its model becoming more and more rare I do hope they do everything they can to keep it going as long as possible. Also bought some of the cable - it’s a lot for what it is but it’s presented really nicely and the little extras were a nice surprise too!

Just like any other pit stop crew. Traditional.

I didn't really plan on spending £195 on the cable but I love Stealth and it's a gorgeous piece of memorabilia. I just had to buy it. The cable with a certificate of authenticity and a mug and a Stealth coaster. All in a gift bag.

I really enjoyed the Stealth event. Staff were brilliant, met some lovely and enthusiastic people. Fantastic atmosphere. And I bought a piece of Stealth's cable as my ticket was already picked. The cable is 10 of 205 🙂

It was a great finish. What was interesting to see, as the gates opened. all riders immediately moved forward onto the train sitting down, lowering harnesses and putting buckles in. Staff said it really sped up the operation making it far easier and faster than normal. Stealthlike ritual........Go, Go, Go!

It was an amazing event for sure, I was on the final train of the night and the vibe was immaculate, especially with Amir (operator) paying homage to some of the other Accelerator coasters by riddling off their announcements. It just goes to show how much people love this ride and it's legacy. 10/10 event and I would love to see something like this again soon!

Wow, that Stealth 20 Years of Speed Event last evening. I had to change my mindset as normally I would be at TP to ride, but this was about The Ride. The day was interesting as I was aware that the discussions were about Stealth, our own achievements on it and the staffing, Riders normally are not interested in technicalities; the Event was in fact a great opportunity to meet and be amongst like minded people there to celebrate one thing, Stealth. It gave us the chance to chat, including with various staff members which we don't normally have the chance to, all the operating crew for the evening were volunteers. Some of the staff who work in the background were there and that too was a pleasure to be able to talk to them. I could go on but I am sure that there are members here who will also have interesting comments. Well done to Thorpe Park. Planenut

Some great points raised there. I've done a couple of 'torch mazes' (including Haunted Lantern tech and other), and they work best in small groups and when the torch serves a purpose (ie the rest of the maze is in low lighting). So if Thorpe are reducing group sizes, and so lowering throughput, it does justify the higher upcharge and the fact it is not bundled with the other mazes. It may take some time to get it right operationally. Even just ensuring the torches are working, have full battery, and are transferred from exit to entrance is something which requires a certain air of slickness. My hope is that Thorpe aren't afraid to recognise that, take time to tweak things and don't give up straight away if it doesn't work.

So I have some thoughts on Tenement. The Haunted Lantern style tech is great, and Purgatory is a fun maze, but.. Throughput and batching is glaring issues, which Purgatory often seems to have crazy queues st Tulleys. I do fear for Tenement being in such a big event, is the throughput going to be enough? Also batching is everything, Tulleys were batching us at a 20 second or so interval which was timed on a big timer, and it was groups of 1-4, but bigger groups could stick together. Obviously splitting up is cool! But I hope the maze is not too overpopulated and is batched and designed with that in mind. Purgatory also had some light bleed in its first year, which could be an issue. Cool idea, and if executed well could be amazing. But selling too many tickets for it, batching improperly, and design oversights needed to be dodged. Which is hard!

Well at least the coaster won't be called Minecraft: The Ride. Instead it'll be Escape the Nether. The Azteca Hotel is also being rethemed to a Minecraft Hotel.

25th September 2026: Chessington Today was the second day of this trip down South; after a night in the hotel, I spent the day in Chessington! I was interested to get back to Chessington, as my last visit there was in 2023 and before that, my last visit was all the way back in 2014; it’s a park I’ve seldom been to compared to Towers and Thorpe, so it packs a lot more mystery and is likely a lot more interesting to read a report from me about! I had stayed in the Safari Hotel, and previously unbeknownst to me, Chessington still offers ERT to its hotel guests for the entire season. This was a nice perk, so I intended to take full advantage, and as a result, I headed to the Azteca Hotel area to await entry into the park for 9am: Before going in, we were held in the Amazu (?) area, with lots of animals to look at. I’ve never been in this area of Chessington before, and it was quite nice! When entry came at 9am, I headed to the one substantial coaster open during ERT… Mandrill Mayhem Mandrill Mayhem was on an advertised 5 minute queue, and was the only substantial coaster open during ERT, so I decided to take a ride on there. As a matter of fact, the 5 minute queue on there was overstated, as I was batched straight into the airgates; I can never moan about that! So, how was the ride? Well, I hadn’t remembered being a huge fan in 2023, so I was intrigued to get back on there. Truth be told, I’m still not a massive fan, if I’m honest. I was sat on the inner seat of row 1, and to start with the positives, the first swing launch section of the ride is good fun! While it’s hardly the swing launch on Toutatis, the backwards launch and junior scorpion tail provide fun floaty airtime, and the launch back through the station is decently punchy! I find myself liking it less when you get past this point, however; the layout doesn’t do a huge amount, and what it does do I find uncomfortable and/or nauseating. I don’t care for the sustained hangtime of the helix, and the roll is just a bit too slow for my own tastes. While I’m not sure rough is the right word, the ride also isn’t overly smooth, and judders about a surprising amount even in the inner seats. The other trouble is that I’m not generally the world’s biggest fan of shuttle coasters, and for some reason, the backwards portion of Mandrill Mayhem leaves me feeling very slightly nauseous. I find this quite odd, as plenty of far more intense coasters don’t make me feel nauseous and other coasters with backwards sections, like Thirteen and the family boomerangs, don’t make me feel nauseous. Perhaps it’s just the more intense backwards section, as I’d say Revolution and Wipeout were somewhat similar? It’s a shame; as Swarm is in my top 20, I should have been falling in love with the same style of ride at Chessington, but I’ve just never overly warmed to it: After getting off, I then headed back round for another ride. I got front row again and had similar thoughts. After that, I thought I should divvy things up from just repeatedly riding Mandrill Mayhem, so I decided to take an opportunity to grab the credit on the other coaster that was on ERT… Chase’s Mountain Mission The new-for-2026 World of Paw Patrol was also open for ERT, and Chase’s Mountain Mission was on an advertised 5 minute queue time, so as I needed the credit, any notion of me not riding kiddie coasters has well and truly gone out the window after this season, and I figured that this was likely to be my quietest chance (a suspicion proven correct by the 45 minute queues later in the day), I decided I might as well give it a go. I walked straight in… but I didn’t realise that the ride had a whole preshow sequence. And I have to admit that this made the experience particularly excruciating compared to a normal kiddie coaster ride… perhaps I’m too self-conscious, but when you’re stood alone in a tight room filled with young families while you have dancing lights around you or are being addressed as “junior patrollers” by the preshow, I don’t quite know what to do other than look around awkwardly! I think kiddie coasters with preshows might be a genre to avoid… anyway, how was the ride? Well, it’s a mirror image of Farmyard Flyer at Paultons, if I’m not wrong, and similarly to that, the ride was a perfectly adequate, if unremarkable, kiddie coaster, with some mild moments of speed and quite a short track length. It seemed a tad smoother than Farmyard Flyer, and while I can’t speak for the accuracy of the theming to the show as my only knowledge of Paw Patrol is from half-watching it with my Gen Alpha cousins when they were at my nan’s house, it all seemed quite nice: After getting off Chase’s Mountain Mission, I left the Paw Patrol area and closed out ERT with two further rides on Mandrill Mayhem in rows 3 and 4: As 10am was fast approaching, I then decided to get in the pre-opening queue for… Dragon’s Fury I knew that the queues for Dragon’s Fury could get long, so I decided to try and beat the masses into the pre-opening queue. This proved a prudent choice, as I got on within 5 minutes; I can’t moan about that for a popular ride! So, how was Dragon’s Fury? Well, I’m not normally the biggest fan of spinning coasters, but I have to say that Dragon’s Fury was good fun! It seemed smoother than Spinball, the ride span well without spinning excessively, and I find the sprawling layout much more fun to ride than Spinball’s more tightly packed one; you even get a couple of nice bits of airtime on there! Dragon’s Fury was a nice surprise this morning, and I definitely enjoyed it: After Dragon’s Fury, I decided to strike the other major coaster while queues were low… Vampire Vampire was on an advertised 5 minute queue time, so I decided to give it a go while the queue remained short. This proved a prudent decision, as I got on within 10 minutes, and I have to say that the operations on here were stronger than they were last time I was at Chessington; while the throughput will never be absolutely brilliant for a litany of reasons, the operators were getting the trains out with relatively good urgency! So, how was the ride? Well, I remember not overly rating Vampire back in 2014, but I liked it much more in 2023… and I have to say I liked it even more again today! I was seated in row 12, and I have to say that the ride delivers wonderfully as a family coaster; it has some absolutely ace moments of speed and force for a family coaster, those properly swinging trains add a definite additional thrill compared to the bog-standard SFC trains on something like Flight of the Pterosaur, and contrary to what 2014 me said, I also don’t find it overly rough. Overall, then, I thoroughly enjoyed Vampire this morning, and despite it being Chessington’s oldest coaster, I would say it’s still easily their best (for me at least); it’s a great ride, and I think is proof that old can still be great: After getting off Vampire, I initially pondered an instant reride after having enjoyed it, but the queue had gone up to 20 minutes at the entrance and was later announced by the operator as 35, so I thought that riding something new was probably the better course of action. As such, I decided to head for… Croc Drop Croc Drop was on an advertised 5 minute queue, so I decided to take a ride on there. The queue time board was true to its word, and I was indeed on within 5 minutes; I can never moan about that! So, how was it? Well, I’m a fan of a good drop tower, and while Croc Drop is hardly one of the more intense ones out there, I still think it’s quite good fun, with some fun giggly drops that provide mild lift! I also quite like the theming and audio on there; I think all the mist and music gives it quite a sense of occasion: After getting off Croc Drop, I decided to head for a ride I hadn’t ridden since 2014… Zufari Zufari was on an advertised 5 minute queue time, so as I hadn’t ridden it since 2014, I decided to give it another go and get a fresh opinion. The ride did have a single rider queue, but it made little difference as the truck was waiting for people to board, so I hopped into an empty seat at the end of a row. So, how was Zufari? Well, I’d remembered it being good fun in 2014, if not quite on the same scale as Kilimanjaro Safaris at Animal Kingdom, which I rode for the first time a month after my last ride on Zufari. However, I’m going to ask a very blunt question after my ride today… was Zufari always that rubbish? Or did Kilimanjaro at Animal Kingdom just ruin it for me? I’d remembered it being shorter than Kilimanjaro… but today, it felt like you passed only about two animal species before you hit the finale, which by safari standards is pathetically short. And I feel like I remember the cave at the end doing something in 2014… but today, it made no sense whatsoever as we literally just drove through a cave with some pretty plants. It was fun to see a few animals, but I’m not sure I’d waste my time riding it again unless it was on a very short queue like it was today: After getting off Zufari, I decided to head for a dark ride… Tomb Blaster Tomb Blaster was on an advertised 5 minute queue time, so I decided to have a go on there. The queue took 10 minutes, so I got on in relatively little time, which I can never moan about! So, how was it? Well, it was good fun! I do have to say that that ride has some very impressive physical scenery and quite a nice storyline, and some of the scenes are really quite nice! The lighting could be improved in some scenes, though; I wonder if a Curse-style revamp, where they reuse lots of the scenery and just modernise everything a bit, might go down well on here in the future: After Tomb Blaster, I headed for another reride on Mandrill Mayhem. The single rider queue was unfortunately closed today, so I queued for around 10 minutes in the main queue. I was in row 1 this time, and similarly to earlier, the ride had a fun launch, but I’m not its biggest fan overall: I then headed for another reride on Vampire, on an advertised 40 minute queue that took 35. In the queue, I was behind two boys who were using Nokia flip phones; I had no idea those were still a thing, let alone still in fashion! As for the ride itself, I was in row 11 and it was once again great fun; it’s such a great family coaster, and I definitely didn’t appreciate it enough before: After Vampire, I pondered a spot of lunch, but I noticed that everywhere was either closed or had a big queue, so I decided to take another ride on Croc Drop to wait for the queues to die down. Once again, the ride was really good fun: After getting off Croc Drop, I decided to brave the queue for Drop’n’Chicken, which ended up taking about 30-45 minutes out of the day when you combine the queueing and the eating! I then had a reride on Dragon’s Fury, which was once again good fun! Although incidentally, why is it that they faff around with weighing groups and such on here when they don’t on Spinball? The procedural difference seems odd: After Dragon’s Fury, I went for another reride on Mandrill Mayhem. I waited 20 minutes and was in row 3; very disappointingly, I never got further back than row 4 all day, despite wanting to get further back to try the backwards row: After Mandrill Mayhem, I closed out my day with not one, but two back-to-back rerides on Vampire. One took an hour, as the ride closed for “essential cleaning” when I was at the end of the queue and the queue was advertised at 40 to begin with, while the second took only 10 minutes as I took advantage of the depleted post-closure queue. These were in row 11 and row 12 respectively, and they were terrific fun once again; the ride had warmed up nicely over the course of the day, with some brilliant whip in those corners!: After getting off Vampire, I hadn’t realised that it was already past park close; I had foolishly thought that the park closed at 5pm, but it had actually closed at 4pm. As such, I dashed out of the park to try and catch an earlier train out of Chessington South. This later backfired, as I had to buy a new ticket and while everything ran well up to London Paddington, my train between London Paddington and Bristol Parkway was ultimately delayed by nearly 45 minutes, thus meaning that I didn’t get home much earlier anyway (in fact, I may still be in transit depending on when this report is posted!): So, that just about wraps up my day at Chessington and this trip down to the southern Merlin parks! I had a really good day at Chessington; it’s not a park I’ve been to much compared to Towers or Thorpe, but there are some really good attractions! My favourite in the park is definitely Vampire, but there are some other fun bits too and I do have to say that there’s a wider range of non-coaster attractions than there is at Alton or Thorpe, if that’s important to you. If I were to say what they should get more of, I would say that they could do with additional headline ride capacity, and I do think Minecraft could be a step in the right direction. The coaster looks very good, and if it’s anything like Uncharted, it should ride pretty well too! I shall definitely be back to ride it in 2027! Thanks for reading; I hope you’ve enjoyed this report, and the series of reports from this week! I think I’m unlikely to visit another park in 2026, so I shall likely see you all in 2027 trip reports-wise; after a somewhat quiet 2025, 2026 has been a terrific return to form for me, so I hope that 2027 maintains the momentum!