JoshC.

If you look back at old park maps, the design usually changes every 2 years. This year was the fourth year of the current design (though you could argue the past two years were slightly different due to the slight 'Swarmification' of the map). So, I do expect the park map to change to some degree, and in honesty, I do think we'll see a notable change, not just slight cosmetic changes. With regards to the FN map, whilst it pretty much was the same, the little characters that were dotted around the map were no longer there, bar a couple 'running away' from the entrance of the BWP. So there was slight cosmetic changes.

^I haven't watched The Purge yet, but from what I understood of the story, it doesn't seem like one which you'd naturally expect a sequel to come out of. Will be watching it soon though! In more scary film related new, the sequel to Woman in Black, which was announced a while ago, has a release date: (From Woman in Black's FB page)

The thing with Face it Alone is the entire experience doesn't just revolve around doing a maze by yourself with 'extreme scares', it in itself has more to offer. Though, it does seem like the actual in-maze experiences use similar concepts and tactics.

I definitely agree with this. However, the thing is, Fright Nights isn't going to be for a family market. Regardless of whether the park as a whole are heading towards a family market, Fright Nights will always be 'that time' suited just for the teens / young adults. Things like pumpkins, draped clothes and spiders aren't going to fit in. If you want good theming which fits in, it's naturally going to be expensive, or there's not going to be a lot of it. We had body boxes by Saw, the mine cart by MBV, and then the usual barbed wires, fake CCTV cameras and a couple of signs about. It all 'fits', but it isn't enough, I grant you. I'd much rather that than loads of spiders stuck onto random buildings. So, for the time being, I'd much prefer to see more money invested in roaming actors (which, let's face it, more people would pay attention to than the odd bit of theming), lighting and audio which help create that Halloween atmosphere (of which lighting and audio were fantastic this year in my eyes). Don't get me wrong, I'd love to see good quality FN theming all around the park, but it's easier said than done, and something which I don't think would benefit the park as much as investing more in park-wide actors, for example.

I think a simple case of boosting numbers will do the job. There's been a obvious boost in numbers for actors in the mazes, so I'd expect as the event grows all the more, more park-wide roaming actors will come about. Hopefully the Lionsgate partnership will continue and there'll be willing to give as much financial support as necessary to make the Fright Nights feel like one of Europe's top Halloween events in the near future. More actors roaming will definitely make the park feel more like a Halloween event. Park wide theming has the issue of feeling cheap, so I'd much rather see audio and actors used to make the park feel 'Halloweeny', for the time being at least.

All the non-working image links for no reason makes me sad; hope you have the time to sort them out! I've heard really good things about Walibi at Halloween; Project Z in particular sounds like an interesting experience, though I'd have huge concerns about any sort of throughput it could have. From what I heard of it last year, it seems like a slightly tamer version of a Face it Alone experience offered at Thorpe. It certainly does seem like a good scare attraction though.

Looks like I'm in the few who would welcome a Saw 8! It's hard to say any more at the moment, as we don't know what direction they'd want to take it in, but I'd be interested and excited by it..

I think people's expectations of the You're Next characters were far too high. They're roaming actors, no different to the clowns from 2011 and the prison inmates for 2012. No one really complained when they didn't see those actors. They're not an attraction in itself, they're just actors going round the park. Their greatest success is also their biggest flaw - they go around in a large pack of people, which makes intimidating, but at the same time, not easy to bump into. I do think the park put a bit more emphasis on the characters than they perhaps should have. Hopefully next year, there'll have roaming actors who go around in smaller groups, so there's a bigger chance of seeing them, or there'll put less emphasis on them, so people see it as a bonus when they find them.

12-9pm over winter? That would be pretty darn cold! Would be nice to see it sometime, but I'd personally want to park to develop a little more, have a couple more enclosed rides / attractions. That way, you're not constantly freezing your butt off outside, but can still make the most of it. Must admit, 'Winter Nights' would be a great thing to do, and they could create a nice feel to it. I'd love to see a February Half Term event re-appear; I think they're getting to the stage where they can have more rides available which are reliable in the colder weather. I'd personally prefer to see them return for 2015, as I expect / hope there'll be a fair amount of general sprucing up done this closed season, and would much rather not see that rushed. Hopefully the 4D cinema will be in use again if the rumours are true, and then there's another attraction to add to the line up. I think after a couple of years of getting a Feb half term event to work, the park would be in a situation to at least try for small winter openings if they wanted to.

From what I've heard, that is the plan. I can see FN slowly developing into our own HHN.

Said it before, and I'll say it again - whilst it's nice to see the park gearing towards an entire family market, I hope they don't gradually lose the 'thrill capital' idea. I still think a park focusing mainly on thrill rides is a great idea; they just need to be a bit more family-friendly about it and still have a few relaxing rides. Also, Thorpe do like to push the fact they have 5 water rides as well. Maybe an Intamin Aquatrax is on the cards?

One reason for the 6 row trains could possibly be the tighter elements, especially when compared to other wingriders. Always surprises me how European parks get their coasters testing a lot sooner than ones in the UK as well..

Didn't Towers have their 'extreme' run on just Sanctuary last year? I think that'll almost definitely return. Face it Alone will have a very small target market, so the park probably aren't expecting many people from it. On my visit, about 10 people did Face it Alone - which doesn't cover all the actors' wages for stay to do FiA. In fact, they probably lose money from running it in the long run. But almost everyone I know who's done it is very happy with it, so I expect it'll continue!

I won't be, unless the park specifically say on here people are allowed (which I doubt). From what staff told me, they were really keen on having the experience return next year, and I expect there'll be similar tactics used each year, so it's best to not have it spoilt.

Bet it'll be open this evening or tomorrow. Smiler has had loads of these accidents, bet the park are used to it.

I did it for Saw Alive! It really is an amazing experience, and it's great to hear other people are liking it!

Gawd, really not with it this morning! Basically what I was trying to say was I guess there's a chance they could try and link it with Swarm's story, but to do to that depth to link two rides together would require a story which requires knowledge of a back story. Swarm and Smiler have back stories, but you can understand them fine and dandy without knowing their back stories. I was thinking that there would probably be a need to have a bit of knowledge of the back story to 'get' it fully. So, err yeah, probably just better to ignore me now; not even sure what I'm trying to say now... XD

Oops, did mean to say it probably won't. Vague idea is some monster attacking a town and locals sacrificing people or something? Probably could have a slight link to Swarm in a back story if they wanted, surely? Mutated aliens and what-not. Though Merlin don't do back stories, so that's why I doubt it. Just something I thought I'd throw out there really

Don't get me wrong, I totally appreciate it's only going to be noticed by the minority, but still, it would be nice to see a whole new train design, right? We want the Merlin parks to be the best, but I think pretty much duplicating theming elements of other rides they've used feels like they've cut a couple of corners (though probably saying it's lazy is a bit of a step too far...) It does feel almost perverse to be complaining about something like this. Not even a few years ago, any theming detail of this calibre on a coaster train would be instantly loved. For all we know, this wing coaster may even have a slight link with Swarm story-wise (which would be amazing). This is, in my view, the best design of a wing coaster yet as well, so it's not even a bad choice But if this coaster ends up with a separate identity to Swarm (which it probably will won't, I guess?), then of course I'd like to have seen a completely new design; would just be great to see. Okay, it's not that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things, but every little detail counts.

For comparison, here's Swarm: Literally the same bar a different colour on the fangs, and fangs replacing LEDs. How lazy. Unless they're going for a continuation of Swarm, building on the story of how this alien race is spreading (which I would actually LOVE, but no doubt), it will be disappointing to see Merlin reusing things like this - even though I feel really bad about complaining; after all, it is a fab design <3

Where did you find that?! Nice to see Merlin being nice and creative if this is the case. Don't get me wrong, it's a great design, but basically copying Swarm's train is just silly...

So, I had a lecture timetabled for 6-7pm at uni today. It was meant to be a one-off, information lecture about the 'Second Year Essay' all Maths students have to do; giving us ideas for topics and a chance to ask questions and such. Yet, no member of staff turned up. No email saying it has been cancelled or anything, just a complete blank of information. It's quite frustrating really, as even though I've chosen my topic, I have conflicting information from my Tutor and the updated Module Webpage, meaning I can't actually start doing any work on it (after planning to start it a couple of weeks ago). There are people who are in worse off situations, as they still are unsure about what they even want to do their essay on... Now normally my Department are excellent with organising things and they usually are really friendly, informative and everything you'd ever want from a university department, but it's just been a complete muck up with this which is just really annoying...

And favourite FB comment of the year goes to this... It's a shame that, once again this season, the weather is adversely affecting the park, especially at such a busy time of the year. Hopefully the park will be able to open up later!

I was hoping to get a little Trip Report done for my FN trip last Friday, but don't think I'll be getting round to it any time soon, so may as well just chuck in a few words about the operations-side of things from then... -The park did seem quite busy when I arrived just before 6ish, but everyone was evenly spread around the park. All mazes seemed to have 60+ minute queues from what I could gather. -BWP seems to open at 7? Website still says 6, so they probably should update that. -Speaking of BWP, I noticed Rocky was still open long after I got there, so it looks like the various closing times for rides aren't set in stone. -People may shoot me for admitting this, but I cashed in my Priority Passes I got from last Fright Nights (which, somewhat ironically, I got for complaining about Fastrack...). When it comes down to it, with only one visit to FN a year, and really wanting to do all attractions this time, I felt it as a necessity. Now, the park actually seemed to handle Fastrack quite well; there were very minimal queues for Fastrack queues (as it should be), and usually it was just one Fastrack group let in at a time. Naturally, this led to only a few minutes wait. This IS how Fastrack should run; a premium service whereby some people are able to skip queues, whilst the masses use what should still be a quick-moving queue, with no noticeable affect to their queue experience. It's a shame as, based on what I heard from people who went, this was not how Fastrack was running yesterday. -Most of the ride queues seemed to die down after 8/half 8ish, with only the mazes having substantial queues (ie 30+ mins). Despite this, the coasters still seemed to have trains flying out pretty quick. -When I did Swarm at about half 8 (I think), there was no queue outside the station. Speaking to a couple of people in the station area, they said they had bought Fastrack for it, and the staff member "refused" to accept it, as there was no queue. They said they were going to GS after their ride to see if they could get a refund. Good on the staff member for refusing it, as it does leave them with a chance to keep something back from it (I dunno if the staff member recommended they got a refund though!) -After half 9, the park seemed quite quiet, no queues looked above 10 or so minutes. Hopefully this isn't a regular occurrence; it's a shame to see the park reopen till 10, and yet many guests not take full advantage of it. So all in all, park operations for this FN were A LOT better than last year's event!