JoshC.

Fair point. I guess it comes down to the park and it's opening hours. Still doubt many people will take it up at Thorpe, but nice to have the option available I guess. I'd be very surprised if they reduced hours back to 9pm. It wasn't a popular decision in 2012 and there were a few nights that the coasters and mazes stayed open till 10 anyway. The park are still opening late with Island Beats, so I don't see why they wouldn't match that with their biggest event? Nothing wrong with the event being a similar scale to last season - last season's event was huge and one of their most popular ever! The Lionsgate films will still be a huge draw, and Towers' re-investment and Chessington's new attraction won't detract that much from Thorpe's crowds. Fright Nights has always had high attendances and low throughput attraction. Reserve n Ride was trailed on 3 days of a 16 day event. Fastrack, on the whole, was probably no worse than any other of the past few Fright Nights. If you really think that anyone who went last season won't have the incentive to go this season, you are very much mistaken! And don't forget, there will be thousands of people itching to go to their first ever Fright Nights, or their first Fright Nights in so many years. Fright Nights has been the park's busiest periods for years, one slightly quieter year won't change that. I also don't think it's wise to right off this season's event yet. In all likelihood, we'll see something done to 'Fright Night-ify' I'm a Celeb. I'm personally expecting Studio 13 (or The Motel) to reappear in some way. If My Bloody Valentine is going to go over to the island next to Swarm, which is a possibility, then they'll probably want a second attraction next to it to make it worth people's while to travel that far. So I do think that we will see something 'new' in some sense. There's still plenty of time for us to be surprised! Also, a serious question for you - if you believe that it will be the case that there's not "much incentive for anyone to return for another go", will you be going to FN again this season? If so, why?

You see, this is the thing I love about the attraction the most. I've done it 6 or 7 times now, and every time, it's been quite different. It makes it 're-rideable', since you're never totally sure what to expect. Unlike with horror mazes, say, where you know roughly what will happen, I'm a Celeb seems to keep you on your toes, meaning it's great for regulars, but also the quality is about the same for new-timers. The changes are also quite cheap as well, so it's not like it's a bad thing to do. I haven't had a scary run through yet, though I do wonder why they're doing it on an irregular basis. Find it even stranger that they're doing that now given you usually only have 1 actor guiding you through the entire attraction!

Ooft, looking good! Sometimes I forget this is actually an Intamin.

I did notice a sign about a buffet breakfast in Fins one morning when I arrived once, but I'm not sure if that was something more aimed at hotel guests that just hadn't been taken away? Regardless, no one goes to a theme park and had straight to a food place for breakfast!

Day 2 of the trip got off to a slightly bad start, with no where around our French hotel seemingly being open for us to buy breakfast (despite the internet and shop signs saying they would be open..). After much wandering around, we found a nice little bakery where I couldn't resist getting anything other than a croissant. After food was sorted, and a nice 30 minute car journey was had, we arrived at our second park , Bellewaerde. Now, before I start, I should probably confess that I hadn't really heard of Bellewaerde at all until Adam suggested it be part of the trip in its early planning stages. I remember hearing about their signature coaster, Huracan, being built a couple of years ago (indeed, if you dig round on the forums, you'll probably find it being briefly because of its epic opening ceremony), but I didn't exactly think anything of it other than "Oh, that's an obscure park I've never heard of and probably won't visit any time soon". Fast-forward to now and I'm here, with said coaster right before my eyes. We were directed to park by the Mexico entrance rather than the main entrance, which straight away took us to the likes of Huracan and some of the other big rides on park. Huracan opened at half 10, so we decided to wait around a bit, and Jack and Peaj went on El Toro, the park's breakdance to pass the time... They weren't overly impressed with it. We joined the queue for Huracan, which was stated to be about 30 minutes. Given this was the park's headline ride, we decided to brave it expecting it to be longer later in the day. The entire queue is indoors and very nice, though slightly boring to wait in admittedly. This is saved by the epic station area, which is nicely themed, very atmospheric and has awesome lighting and sound effects. The coaster starts off with a dark ride section, taking you pass a waterfall and many large temple-like statues. I think the ride is meant to have on board audio, but unfortunately it wasn't working for us. Whilst the theming here was something special, the lack of audio obviously meant something felt like it was missing. The lift hill then takes you outside briefly, giving a lovely view of part of the park, and the warehouse the ride is held in, before dropping you back inside. There's some cool light effects in there, and the layout is fun, but again, without any audio, it feels like a lot is missing from the attraction. The ride ended and left me saying "Is that it?". As an overall attraction, it's probably great when everything is working, but it just didn't do enough for me on the day. A real shame. Entrance / outdoor section Atmospheric station is atmospheric. We then moved over the El Volador, a Topple Tower. Infamous rides really, and whilst I have wanted to try one out for ages, I was a bit unsure on whether the ride would be any good. The ride experience is weird, as it's not dull, not exciting, but it just happens. Very unremarkable in my opinion. I guess for me they're a lot like top spins in that they're fun rides to watch, but that's about it. It was time to move onto another coaster, with Boomerang just around the corner. Perhaps unsurprisingly, it's a Vekoma Boomerang. It's the first one I've done, and I wasn't exactly looking forward to it after hearing many bad reviews. Alas, even if the long-ish queue gave me plenty of time to hear the rattlyness of the ride, I went in with an open mind. Admittedly, I didn't find it as rough as I was expecting, but it wasn't a comfortable ride. Coupled in with the fact that it's an intense ride mean I didn't enjoy that much. To complete of Mexico, we watched a French showing of the park's new 4D film, Le Petite Prince (we could also have watched it in Dutch if we wanted, but chose against it. It's got a fair few special effects, and the fact we were told to keep our bags away from the seats should have been an indication of what to expect from the film. The seats move in all directions an awful, awful lot - the effect is a lot more over-used than any of Angry Birds' effects, for some perspective. The film itself was alright though. After about 2 hours in one area of the park, we finally moved along to the Far West to do River Splash, the park's log flume. It was a very warm day once again, so I was hoping for a reasonable splashing. Unfortunately, despite having a nice bit of theming and style to the ride, it was quite short, relatively dry and all in all, just a bit meh. Final drop Adam insisted I take a photo of the bin, because "no one would believe they have themed bins here if we didn't take a photo". After a spot of lunch and making priorities of what we should get done, we headed over to Jungle Mission. Bellewaerde is a theme park and zoo integrated into one another, and Jungle Mission is one of those rides that mixes theme park and zoo perfectly (sort of like what Zufari tries to do at Chessington). It's a boat ride that lets you see multiple animals exhibits, but also has a variety of special effects that make it feel like a fun boat ride. It was my favourite attraction of the day probably, with the effects being great, the theming being great, and decent views of the animals too. The station area had loads of these cobwebs on the ceiling - I'm still not sure if they're theming or real... Next up was Houdini, a Vekoma Madhouse. The pre-show was interesting with lots of good bits of theming, and I think we were able to be able to pick up the general gist of the story. The actual ride section was alright, but not to the standard of Hex, unsurprisingly. Still, a fun ride in its own right. This was followed by the Bengal Express - a train ride that takes you through lion and tiger enclosures. Again, another fun ride, but the heat meant that the (obviously enclosed) train carriages were quiet warm, and the animals themselves were more lounging around staying cool. With time ticking on, we went to the Canada area of the park, with a Shoot-the-Chute style ride, Niagara, on the cards. Now, I'm not someone who likes get drenched on water rides unless I'm in the right mood (for context, I haven't done Tidal Wave since 2009 or 2010, despite many opportunities to). So I gave this one a miss, but did queue with the group. Somehow we were lucky and skipped a good 60 minutes of the 80 minute queue when a staff member from the station shouted for a group to come forward to fill up a row (why they got a group from near the end of queue instead of the front I have no clue, but I guess we weren't going to complain...). After seeing everyone after the ride, they didn't look that wet and I kind of wished I done the ride now, but ah well... Looking pleasantly wet-ish. A go on Screaming Eagle, a Shot n Drop tower, followed. Once again, it's a type of ride I'd never done before, but had wanted to try. It was okay, but I think I prefer ordinary drop towers to be honest - they provide a better, and more comfortable, experience really. With 5pm approaching, we headed over the Gold Rush Stunt and Dive Show, new for this year. It was really good fun, with great special effects, a decent run time (25 minutes or so) and some good stunts of course. Being a stunt show meant it was very easy to follow as well, an added bonus for a park which is trying to cater for 2 different languages. It bought back some memories of Thorpe's stunt and dive show too; forgot how much I missed it! With the show over and the 6pm close looming, there was only really time for one more ride, and we opted to do Bengal Rapid River, unsurprisingly a rapids ride. It was a really fun ride, with it being quite 'rapidsy', a good level of wetness, with some nice bits of theming and scenery scattered around the course. Also slightly strange to see a rapids ride have its station on a slope (though, as we'd find out during the trip, not exactly uncommon!). First time I'd seen a rapids ride with the 'wedge seat' boat design too! Final Thoughts: Bellewaerde is an odd park in some ways. It's a mixed bag between having some quality attractions (Jungle Mission, Bengal Rapids), but then some attractions which feel like they have missed opportunities (Huracan, River Splash). Maybe on a different, slightly quieter, day, I'd feel different about the park. But even then, I still feel like the park needs a little bit more to feel complete. It's a park I'm not exactly desperate to go back to any time soon, but a park I'm glad I've done. One final thing I want to mention is how friendly and generally great the staff were - also an added bonus that many spoke English, which was much appreciated after some of my failed attempts at speaking French! We then set off to head to Brussels, which was meant to be a relatively nice journey. Unfortunately, roadworks on the motorway had other plans. A journey which should have taken us just over an hour ended up taking us 2 and a half hours, thanks to single file traffic and an accident. Joyous. Fortunately, when we arrived at the Meininger hotel in Brussels, we were greeted by great staff, a huge room and a Hard Rock Cafe a very short walk away! Would highly recommend this hotel for anyone planning to go to Brussels. There was also a fabulous atmosphere in the city centre with many celebrating the closure of roads happening in the area for an 8 month trial period (to help the atmosphere around that area or something; not too sure on the actual reason). A beautiful panoramic shot of the group in Brussels

Depends on the family. If you're a family with kids aged over 8, you could feasibly have just as fun a day out at Thorpe as at Chessington. If you're a family with kids aged over 10, Thorpe looks more and more like the better option of the two. Thorpe has plenty of family rides, it just has a thrill focus - nothing wrong with that!

Their target market nowadays is families with older children / up-for-it families. Press releases make it seem like it's children of age 8+, which seems to fit. Island Beats seems more aimed at a slightly older audience than that to be fair, but it would be nice to see even more variety in the acts.

Nothing exciting in particularly, but in case you didn't pick up on any hints, next year's woodie is confirmed to be GCI: http://plopsafansite.be/Nieuws/2015-07-20/werken-houten-achtbaan-plopsaland-starten-na-zomer/ Still not much known, but I'm feeling a trip pack here next year when it opens up.

1) Baron was getting very big queues at the start of the day whilst we were day (peaked at 150 minutes). Could be down to the fact it opened that week, but I reckon most people will still end up going there straight away in November. I'd personally recommend going at around 2-3ish to Baron. 5) It took us about an hour to travel from Toverland to Efteling by car, and there were very few obvious public transport systems near either park. Google maps is suggesting it's about 3 hours by public transport to get there from your hotel. If you were prepared to go through the hassle of travelling, you could do it, since you wouldn't need 8 hours on park to get everything done in my opinion. To be honest though, the effort and cost of that travel probably wouldn't be worth it!

True; which is why I said official opening time. They weren't under any obligation to open at 9:30 until now to be fair to them. As bad as it sounds, I do hope this is more just Merlin cost-cutting to help get the money back lost from Towers' closure, as opposed to the parks struggling.

https://www.thorpepark.com/resort-information/getting-here/ Changes to opening hours for August - park now officially opens at 9:30, but chooses at 6 (an hour earlier than previously advertised). Only half an hour lost, and technically makes Summer Nights better. A shame about earlier standard close mind! :/

Does this mean we'll get months of hype from enthusiasts about the Air tunnel being sorted out, only for them to leave it blank due to budget cuts?

It's been back for quite a while now; was only removed for a week or two I think.

I'm banning the shovel you use to dig out all these dead topics.

Despite his username's suggestion, the above member is, in fact, not a toothpick. I was personally distraught when I found out about such deceit.

Thanks for a fun day folks. I applaud your efforts.

Not exactly. Personally, I'd suggest not looking at the POV again to try and figure it out, otherwise you're just going to spoil the it when you experience the attraction as a whole. I never heard the White Women on ride. However, when you're near the drop, you can hear them singing from the hole.

It wasn't a maze section really - it was just a longer queue line very similar to the current queue line. I walked through it once or twice but it wasn't anything special; it had a spinning tunnel but that was about it. However, back when Fright Nights first started, the queue line extensions was turned into a maze (Freakshow 3D), and since then that space has been used for other mazes too (Hellgate, Passing, Cabin in the Woods). On a different note, X's music was very quiet today. Hope it gets sorted soon!

No fire effect that I saw, though not everything was working, as SCB mentioned. However, I don't think a fire effect would really work; it doesn't seem like to would fit in with what happens in that area to be honest!

I think Towers' rule has always been "The actors will not touch you" (was definitely like that on my visit in 2012), but I guess they'll sometimes touch older guests who look like they won't kick up a fuss about it? I certainly had actors come into contact with me in the past, but nowhere near Thorpe's touching level for example. I know that my views on TotT won't be shared by many. I really hope that I just had a bad runthrough, but I found the maze to be lacking in actors, having a fair few dead spots, dragging on and not really having a consistent theme. I guess it coming back gives me a chance to see if I did just have a bit of bad luck! I can see what you're saying about the sweeping changes, but I think that once in a while, they can be good. I think it worked well for Thorpe with Lionsgate for example. Towers seem to have drawn inspiration from a few different attractions and put their own twist on it, and have completely new attractions is probably the best way to rejuvenate the event a bit more. Hopefully it works out for them and they can then build upon these attractions year-on-year from now on.

You mean this 26million - http://www.26million.co.uk/ ? Thorpe do have some outside clothing brands in their stores; not entirely sure why, but it's been the case for a long time now. Can't see it changing any time soon either!

Great that people can fill up their quenchers there; I wasn't expecting something like that from Merlin! Presumably you can buy just the one cup too, but I'd expected a premium price in all honesty given it's a dedicated shop just for it!

Fixed that for you. Thorpe do plenty of new things to be fair It's a very interesting line up. The Haunting of Molly Crowe reminds me of the Black Trilogy that has run at Warwick Castle the past 3 years (with last year's attraction, Blackout, being nominated for Best Halloween Attraction at ScareCON this year...). Great to see them being a bit more daring and straying away from the classic conga line maze as well seemingly, what with the blindfolding. It would also suggest that actors may be allowed to touch you some sense, a first for Towers? The scare zones sound a lot more like traditional 'zones' in that it looks like they'll take up areas rather than be a set pathway (which all of Merlin's previous zones have been). Hope it works out for them, as it would be a great thing to see happen in the UK! I'm disappointed that in all this, TotT is returning. I get it's a staple, but I think it's just time to move and try something completely different. Maybe a new storyline would help I guess, but it's understandable that major changes aren't happening to it given everything else that is going on. Will be interesting to see where the two new mazes go. Molly Crowe sounds like a good fit for the Sanctuary spot in my opinion, but SUB-Species is a weird one. Certainly sounds like it should be an indoor maze as opposed to an outdoor one, but where else it could go is a different question. It sounds like it should go near Sub Terra though, for obvious reasons. Intrigued and excited by the line up. Certainly enough to want to make me go to Scarefest this season. Hope they work with the pricing strategy of one free maze and two paid for mazes again, as that's seemed to work for them in the past. From what I've gathered, Scary Tales was a very last minute investment to Scarefest. Indeed, I've heard that a major overhaul to Scarefest like this had been planned for a while now, but budgets and such stopped it happening. Scary Tales seemed to get mixed-to-positive reviews, but I just don't think it was a long-term thing for them,

Don't get carried away. A 40 minute queue for Slammer is about 200-250 people. That's like a 15-20 minute queue for the likes of Rush. Also, next time you go to Thorpe, listen out for people talking about Storm Surge. You'll probably here equally many positive words for that as Slammer. If you listen for it, you'll hear it!

This image was also tweeted by Chessington's Twitter, which heavily suggests that we're seeing either some sort of special version of Tomb Blaster (Tomb Live maybe?) or an attraction themed around Tomb Blaster... Said it before, and I'll say it again. For them to be advertising a Halloween attraction now, it better be special to be worth the attention.