Little bit late to post, but went on Sunday and did the full 12 hours and managed to do all of the mazes. Day started being in the queue for Colossus and then nemesis, both of which had a delay in operation before we got there . Overall the park seemed to have a couple of reliability issues, saw a few tweets where someone said “Everything they seem to walk up to closes down”. Queue times app showed a lot of rides were down at times but wasn’t down for too long. This excluding SAW, which closed from around 5pm onwards for the night.
First off, the roaming actors; these were great!! Really nice touch, had a couple come and sit at our table at the pizza pasta buffet and a mime proceeding to sit with us for 5 minutes pretending to eat learnt to just run whenever you heard ‘that’ whistle!
Agree with a lot of the posts about audio/lighting/general theming. Really lacked this year to make it seem like it was a ‘Fright Night’. I did think at times if I hadn’t gone on the mazes whether I’d have even known it’s October! (especially with how great the weather was).
Now the mazes, in MY order of best to last on the night:
TWD: Living Nightmare – ended up doing this twice, the first run through of which was FANTASTIC. Probably was on one of the first 5 groups of the day for this, was put at the front and found it brilliant. Great amount of actors and got a couple of really decent scares from it. Second run through not as great and was in the middle of the group, but still better than others which says how poor they were!
SAW Alive – before we went in I said “can I do it alone?” to which they said “oh you won’t want to, it’s probably the scariest one here” hmmmmm well if this is the scariest then that tells you what they class as scary! Not a lot. Saw is just saw really, and has been for a long time. Nothing new really, had a couple of jumps but nothing fantastic. Still second
TWD: Do or Die – well this is very much improved on last year! At least the actors seemed like they actually was trying this year, last I did not have a great run through. Did this at night but to be honest don’t think it makes a difference even being outdoors because of the bright lighting!! Very average really, but enjoyed none the less.
Platform 15 – just wasn’t great. Felt like a prolonged walk through the woods at night and a couple of rattling pieces of metal (granted it made me jump). The conga, sorry tunnel just too long. That sounds like a broken record the amount of times it’s been said but it just is! There was a couple of actors there which did make it better but just very average.
Dead Creek Woods – just a casual walk through the woods really. Mist effects were really great though, they really flooded the area with it. Had about 5 actors on the whole run through, no chainsaw which I previously have seen mentioned! But to be fair to them they got a good scare out of us and was in no way the worst of the day.
Vulcan Peak – well I can safely say I did NOT expect the bum prodding at the start and made me sharply hop out of my seat Definitely was sat in THE worst position I could for that. Just seemed a bit pointless really, nothing really happened and if this is the ‘improved’ version I honestly dread to think what it was like originally.
Blair Witch – what a disappointment. Was over before I could even blink. Two actors through the whole thing and when we got into the exit by nemesis there was about two other groups there saying “Well where do we go now?? That CANT be it”. Just disappointing and probably says something that I have put it below Vulcan peak and last in my list! Just must have had a bad run through on the day.
Overall as much as this Fright Nights hasn’t been the best of the bunch, it still makes for a really fun day/night out and one which I thoroughly enjoyed. It definitely needs a lot of improving next year but I’m sure Thorpe can pull it out of the bag (maybe that me just being too optimistic)
Sorry if this was long and well done if you got all the way through it