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I'll be making my television debut and appearing on classic quiz show Countdown! My debut is this Friday (Oct 28th), airing at 2.10pm on Channel 4, and of course available on catch up after. There'll also be a bit of geeky chatter and roller coaster puns, because of course they run with me being a roller coaster enthusiast and turned it into my entire personality (not far wrong tbf). Would be lovely if anyone gave my episodes a watch!

Annual visit to fright nights for me and my family was on Monday, typically we also go to Alton Towers for Scarefest but considering the lineup hasn't seen much change this year we haven't bothered. Apologies for any negativity, try and frame it as a bit of sarcasm where possible. Trailers Overall we had a better run through of Trailers this year than we did last, there were more actors in place this year in our run. Only changes we noticed was the lack of the original actor meeting you back in the lobby before the finale of the maze, I assume this is to increase throughputs though, not exactly a change that I was at all bothered about. Without the hype that it had last year I really enjoyed it, it's not the strongest maze for scares but the sets are really nice and the actors were giving it their all. Creek Freak I don't know if its just me but this seems weaker than it has been in previous years. There didn't appear to be too many actors in there, however when they were present our group did get some really good scares. Just a pity that we wandered through most of the middle portion of the maze without seeing any actors at all. Like I said, I don't think this was Creek Freaks strongest year, still enjoyable but was hoping for a much more intense experience within Survival Games. Survival Games I was really looking forward to this maze, the reviews had mostly stated that it was fairly intense and that it had been jam packed full of actors. Firstly, the story seems pointless with the current guise of this experience, I understand this could just be teething issues with it being its first year but nobody else in my group was at all aware of why they were competing in the "Survival Games" or what it was for. After being pulled (and by pulled I mean somebody gently placing a hand on my shoulder and asking me to come with them) I fairly quickly caught up with the person who was taken before me. I only saw one other actor between this part of the maze and the main arena. Once in the arena it was clear that far too many people had been allowed in at once, there was a steady conga line of people making their way through the maze with most of the actors simply standing still and waiting for people to interact with them. I, by chance, made it straight to the exit room and was sent towards the runout which again contained no actors. For what is being sold as the most extreme (and most expensive) fright nights attraction to date I feel that this was a particularly weak experience. I'd love to say that I'd give it a second chance but paying another £10 for what could be another poor run didn't really appeal to me. Legacy Better with the screen, would be even better if the fire effects were working. A fire and light show without the fire does suddenly feel like you've walked into a particularly odd nightclub that only plays music that could be loosely linked to thorpe/halloween. Why does this feel like an advert for the park? Crows of Mawkin Meadow Great to see this expanded, the actors here were doing a great job within both sections of the walkthrough. The use of the Saw Alive queue seems so obvious that I don't know why it wasn't done before. Deaths Doors Surprise highlight of the event for us, not because of scares though but instead down to one unfortunate actor who managed to get his poncho stuck in the door that he left from. Watching him shouting "GET PUMPKIN MAN!" repeatedly to get the other actor to let him out had us and quite a few others in stitches. Later on we asked him if he still had his poncho only to get a very snappy "NO" back from him. Fantastic interaction, and well played given the unfortunate situation. Overall I noticed that the mazes all have queue times listed within the app, however this is only useful if they are moderately accurate. Trailers for example was listed as 0 mins on the app, but we queued for 40mins at 15:10. This wasn't helped by the fact that there wasn't a member of staff checking tickets at the start of the queue. From what we gathered, plenty of people didn't have tickets until later in the day but were joining the queue now anyway. Survival Games was listed in the app as a 45 minute queue, upon arrival there was no queue at all, nor was there a queue when we left the area, still listed as 45 minutes. Ride queue times were vastly inaccurate as well. It's a shame to see the event in the way that we did, I understand that in some cases we were unfortunate but when you're paying £10 per person per maze you do somewhat expect the experience to be a little less flawed. TLDR: Trailers was fun, Creek Freak had some decent scares but lacked actors, Survival Games really lacked actors, Legacy exists but unsure why, Crows was much better, Deaths Doors was great, queue times were being silly.

....and maybe rename Fins again for good measure?

Similarly, I didn't do Fright Nights last year - the pricing structure of mazes sort of turns it into a 2 year affair for me now it would seem! Although, maybe I should have gone last year as my run on Trailers this year was pretty awful to be fair...