JoshC.

It's only taken me 4 months to get around the posting this.. Walibi Holland's Halloween Fright Nights is well respected in the scare industry. They pump serious amounts of money into their attractions, and have TONNES of actors to boot. They go all out. And that's one of the many reason it had been on my to-do list for so long, and why I eventually went last year. Now I actually wrote a trip report in Word a while back trying to cover the whole event. That report ended up being over 12 pages of pure text, and that was with me being concise. And that's just down to the sheer quantity AND quality of it all. The event is made of a family friendly daytime event (Spooky Days), with 3 scare zones and an upcharge scare maze, and an evening event (Fright Nights), with 6 upcharge mazes and 8 scare zones. So I won't cover them all, but I'll just instead pick out some particular highlights... The Clinic This has been mentioned on the forums a few times, most recently in my review of their VR experience, Neurogen. The Clinic opened in 2016, and is an entirely alone experience where - for the majority of the experience - you are strapped to a gurney and wheeled around a hospital and, ahem, associated areas. And in short, this attraction is genius - utter brilliance. It's definitely my favourite 'scare' attraction, and I'd say up there with one of my all time favourite theme park attractions. I won't say anything that happens here, but whilst it's alone and marketed as 'intense', it's very different to the UK definition of an 'intense'/extreme experience. Psychological, theatrical and haunting are 3 good words to describe it. The experience stayed with me for days afterwards too; it was always on my mind. Unsurprisingly, it comes in at a hefty cost - €17.50 if booked in advance. But it's worth every cent and so much more. Below The other of the park's 'intense' mazes. In groups of at most 6, you explore a set of sewers looking for vermin...though maybe the vermin are looking for you. And because you're in sewers, you of course go through the entire experience in waders, since you go through most of the maze knee-deep in water! Again, a genius set up, and felt super realistic! Again, a hefty price - this time €15 if booked in advance. And it's super limited (1 group goes in every 15 minutes!). Below suffers in one major way though: it's very short. After getting the waders on and having a walk pre-show (by means of a guided tour), you're not in the maze for long. Arguably you don't want to be in there for too long: despite the waders, my feet were feeling a bit cold towards the end. But having said that, it's still a super immersive experience and a genius set up that I've never heard of anywhere else! (Image from Walibi) Psychoshock and Other Mazes Walibi Holland have 4 "normal" mazes, which you can buy individually or get a combo ticket for €24 (which I did). However, Psychoshock was the highlight of those 4. Before going onto describing Psychoshock, just a quick word on how the normal mazes operate. They're designed to have 1500pph (for comparison, that's about 3x what Thorpe's mazes manage on average), so usually have a continuous flow of people. Every actor has an accompanying 'effects button' which they press, which can set off an array of sound, lighting, smoke and/or water effects to go with their scare. And with a large number of actors, even if you miss one's scare, you'll be hit with another, and not lose any story either. You choose a 30min time slot for each where you have to arrive in the queue for it. Too early? Not getting let in. Too late? They'll see what they can do, but otherwise, tough. Psychoshock is a fairly standard maze in theme: your generic 'laboratory with something gone wrong' vibe. But it's themed exceptionally well (apparently, this 2011 maze was designed by someone who has since gone on to design the theming concepts for stuff like Baron at Efteling), with a very good - and long! - layout. And the group I was in did this maze about half an hour after it opened, which was clearly a quiet slot. As such, out group of 3 was sent in with no one else, before we were split up in the pre show and made to go through the maze entirely alone. The actors are clearly prepared for this and knew full well how to tackle me. A particular highlight was an actor with a syringe squirting water in my face, and then at my crotch making it look like I wet myself...and with no witnesses to say otherwise! My experience of Psychoshock is likely a bit bias because of alone treatment, but I really did love it. Even ignoring that, the set up of the maze is up there with some of my favourites. The other mazes were all set up so they could choose to either 'batch' groups at regular intervals, or to let in a continual flow, and the actors seemed prepared for any eventuality. Was really fantastic to see them by so reactive! Eddie de Clown Eddie is the headline character of Halloween Fright Nights, and has been for 13 years. He's been played by the same person every year. And he's very much synonymous with Walibi Holland across Europe. He's effectively your standard demented clown who likes to do evil things, and a quick look at things like his Facebook or YouTube pages show the style the park have gone for with him (seriously, watch some of the videos they've produced - they're amazing!!). In recent years, the park have gone all out with Eddie, slowly giving him a more fixed presence in terms of a show and a mini area. In 2019, one of the 4 new scare zones was entirely based around Eddie: Eddie's Festival of Freaks. Taking place in an area outside the normal park, just behind Goliath, it is effectively a mini Festival! Freak show acts akin to the Carnival of Horrors, roaming 'freaks' (bearded lady, strongmen, fire eaters, etc), sideshow games, street meat, a ghost train, etc. This is all complimented Eddie's presence, with him being a ringleader of sorts, and his show: Eddie's Roast Show, where he effectively invites audience members on stage, and roasts them as harshly as possible. The whole area was chaotic, but in a good way. So much fun, and very easy to forget you're actually at a theme park event. The downside is that it's all in Dutch (which sounds stupid given it's a Dutch theme park, but they're very good at being accommodating to English speakers, as well as German speakers too). But even with the language barrier, I really enjoyed the area. Like, really did. (Photo from Walibi) Firepit and Campsite of Carnage If one area highlights the stark difference between Walibi Holland's and the UK's Halloween events, it's Firepit. An American hillbilly area (and, as such, all the actors spoke with southern American accents), the area featured (unsurprisingly) a giant firepit, live music other stalls and roaming actors (most of whom had chainsaws), along with a couple of actors above the entrance arch to the zone. The tone, however, was jaw-dropping. Firepit was all about gross, inbred hillbillies who had no problem thrusting sexual comments in your face, swearing constantly and being on the funny side of rude (just). Nothing is scary; everything is there to shock you. Because of the context of the event, being strongly pushed as a dark, 16+ event, they can get away with it, but it's certainly feels like it's pushing towards "how controversial can we be without getting into trouble?". An example from the entrance arch characters: "Welcome to the f**king Firepit...oh, but we don't mean that how y'all think we do, we mean the literal...f**king...Firepit" (the couple then proceed to imitate having sex). Personally, I found the area absolutely brilliant. It was designed fantastically. It's clear they had a vision, and they've realised it all the way through. A further surprise was Campsite of Carnage - marketed as a scare zone, but was in fact an outdoor (and free!) scare maze. A simple but clever layout, with a lot of chainsaws and sweary hillbillies. Again, it focused more on trying to shock than scare you. The ending, however, truly did scare me. You're chased into an enclosed section (which is effectively a corridor) by a chainsaw, and when inside, the actor plays a sound effect which makes it sound like you're surrounded by chainsaws. Chainsaws don't do anything for me, but when it sounded like I was in an enclosed space surrounded by 10 off them, it made me jump and I definitely picked up the pace! Amazingly, the area is also open during the day for Spooky Days (presumably to just help with capacity), with none of the sweary actors in the Firepit, and a shorter, less-chainsaw-filled version of Campsite designed for Under 12s! (Photo from Walibi) I think I'll leave it there. I haven't touched the park's FIVE other scare zones, which admittedly had varying quality, and could go into much greater detail about the other 3 mazes. Nor the stage by the entrance of the park with music acts. Or all the pop up stalls they have. But I don't want to ramble on forever. But suffice to say that, despite their lack of presence here, even the weaker experiences were still at least 'pretty good'. How expensive is it? Short answer: Very. To book everything costs about €90 on a quieter night. But even then, it could be tight to do all the scare zones and rides. If you go on a busy day and want to do rides as well, you'd maybe want to invest in their Fastpass too, which adds even more cost. The event is strictly pre-book only, but there are some good deals when they first release tickets. How busy is it? Short answer: Very. The park get up to a quarter of their annual visitor numbers in the 3 weeks that the event goes on for. Their quietest days still see them attract 10k people. I visited on a Friday, and it was reasonably quiet until about 6pm, but from then until close (11pm) it was rammed! Is it worth it? Short answer: Yes. Long answer: Yes. Yes! YES! tl;dr - Walibi's Fright Nights is, by a country mile, the best Halloween event I've ever attended. If you like Halloween events, go to Walibi Holland. You won't regret it. The park's 'aftermovie' for the 2019 event, showcasing most of what they offered..

The renewal price is really good tbf. Even normal rates are good. New the passes are £179 (renewal is saving £60 / 33%) and £229 (renewal saving £70 / 30%) Just for comparisons to other passes: Flamingo Land : £135 / renewal £90 (33% saving) Paultons Park: £140 / renewal £132 (5% saving) Blackpool: £150 (no renewal rate?) Phantasialand: €195 (£162) (no renewal rate) Europa Park: €225 (£192) (no renewal rate) Given you get unlimited entry to 3 theme parks + Legoland, it's really not that bad. Hopefully the lack of sale is a sign of Merlin no longer giving away passes, making them a bit more exclusive again so they can manage things a bit better when it comes to ticket sales.

Sadly wasn't an announcement, but just another teaser, which shows a backwards POV... What this could mean is still anyone's guess. Entirely backwards coaster? Switch track? A voting system like Fury at Bobbejaanland?

Not to mention water rides cost a lot to keep the water clean too (especially stuff like Valhalla where so much is dumped on you). Tidal Wave is like the most or second-most expensive ride to run at Thorpe for example. Actually figures of how much Valhalla costs to run are pretty meaningless as we don't know a scale of the numbers. If £250k per month is accurate, how does that compare to a roller coaster? Or to Tidal Wave? Or anything else? We don't know - it's just a number.

Whilst most of it was reused props, there was new stuff too of course. But it's not just that, it's the costs of designing it all and the time spent on it which all add up. Plus it did use actors in it too. Not strictly true. 2019 events were designed in mind of steadying the ship if you will after the old director left. 2019 was never going to be a big budget year anyway, and we may have ended up with something similar even if there wasn't a change in upper management. But the ideas were never 'inherited'; they were there to do *something* whilst giving the option for paving the way for the future (having Jungle Escape return, testing the waters to see if there was demand for a GameFX type event yearly, etc etc).

The space was originally set up for shows. It had a small stage and an open area where seats could be placed. The maze space itself was more of a backstage / storage area originally. Our friends at Memories at Thorpe Park show the type of shows that were put on there. Even where The Freezer first opened, the space was still used as a show throughout the 00s. The stage was removed for I'm a Celebrity, but the entrance door for it is roughly in the same place as the stage door!

Interesting development. Jungle Escape was at one point in time meant to be returning this year, and I'm fairly certain that was still the plan quite recently. Obviously things can change though. If the rumours are true that Thorpe are using the Living Nightmare space for a season-round attraction then they're obviously down an indoor maze location and Jungle Escape makes the most sense as a space to use. So that'd be a positive. However, if that all happens, it would once again highlight Thorpe's short-term outlook and terrible decision making. Jungle Escape was thought of as a way to continue to make use of the I'm a Celebrity space for years to come, making use of the solid sets they have there, but lasts less than year because they need the space to replace another indoor space they're using for probably an equally short-term investment...

Another day, another photo:

95% of people with common sense: "I hate it when people write Merlin with the 'e' replaced with a '£'. It's silly" Me: Puts that phrase on a word filter Martin Doyle: ...

PowerPark are teasing their new coaster now, seemingly with an announcement due 3rd February (Monday)... Much excitement! Annnnd I can't justify double posting within an hour, so an edit to show a construction update:

Work on the entrance portal from the main road outside the park continues: Source: https://www.phantafriends.de/topic/1646-neu-20xx-rookburgh/page/157/?tab=comments#comment-146623 Some suggestions are that the colour is temporary and a result of some form of anti-rust material (no idea if that's plausible?), and other suggestions are that more theming will be added. Presumably the hotel name will be back-lit and the theming featuring underneath will receive some sort of effects though.

I'll stick this in a new post because why not... The European Coaster Club have some concepts for Wakala: They have said there are two lift hills: the first, which is standard, and the second which will have "slight acceleration". Curiously, there's no mention of a launch, which one would expect given the spike and the flat piece of track before it which will have to double up as a brake run too. A very odd coaster for sure.

@Mark9 will be pleased.

Track is going along nicely: (Both images from the park) Officially speaking, the park aren't saying anything regarding the Mine Train, but it's still expected to happen (although possibly 2021). The Tilt Coaster has seen delays but is still thought to be a thing; the delay could be a Vekoma-thing rather than a park thing though..

Bellewaerde's family Gerstlauer launch thing has started construction, and also has a name: Wakala Cool name, ugly track colour

I believe that during winter maintenance a major fault was found with the ride which couldn't be repaired. The park wanted to keep the ride but a replacement ship couldn't be gotten in so quickly, especially as the budget had already been spent elsewhere. So a quiet removal followed by a quiet reintroduction was decided upon. Presumably it'll be of a similar size and scale to Black Buccaneer.

You could have a 3-way race with Mission Ferrari in Abu Dhabi tbf Not that it matters, because Energylandia will have built 5 coasters, 2 cheap flats and a dozen kids rides by the time any of them open

The name of the company is Aroma Prime though

Apparently there's been issues with groundworks and the placement of footers, specifically around the cobra roll, which is causing a sizeable delay to construction. What this means in terms of opening remains to be seen...

I know you're joking, but I've seen some escape rooms / self-driven story experiences have this exact concept! And it doesn't work, because people respond to and identify different smells in different ways. And a strong concentration of an artificial smell doesn't always smell how it should, especially if it's designed to be filling a room. Aroma's announcement is clearly just them saying they're working with Thorpe on whatever is happening this year. It'd be no different to a vague announcement from IMASCORE or Scruffy Dog. My guess is that, once again, it's a small experience which probably only has a short life span, so Thorpe aren't planning on marketing it majorly. But getting companies they're working with to mention it lets those who would dig around online know something is happening. Arguably it's a lazy tactic. But not as lazy as their current social media competition of 'get enthusiasts to submit their videos to go on the park's website'.

Correct. So too has Ocean Park, and presumably any other Hong Kong parks / major tourist spots.

Aroma Prime, I'm fairly sure, are just a rebrand of Dale Air. Thorpe have used their scents before, particularly for horror mazes (Saw Alive and Cabin in the Woods spring to mind, no doubt others too..although I think a different company was used for Big Top? Anyway I digress...) and maybe for some rides as well (I'd hazard a guess at Ghost Train off the top of my head, but who knows) The rebrand to Aroma Prime saw them go down a similar route to IMAScore in some ways, in that they're really trying to connect with fans and make themselves seem desirable in their own right. It's not different to what they offered years ago as Dale Air really, but they've just improved their marketing ten-fold and been more forward with parks. What this is for is anyone's guess. If the park do something new for 2020, maybe they'll be involved. I wouldn't get hopes up for 'area smells' though. The trouble is that every ride within an area has it's own distinction - there'd be no 'one smell fits all' idea. And artificial smells are such a subtle thing that you can't really give every ride in an area a smell which is similar as it'd all just blend into one. And having smells outside in pathways is much more costly than one might initially think. Doing that for every area (something which the park did consider a few years ago) is just too impractical.

Wasn't sure where to mention this but here seems good enough... Due to the Coronavirus outbreak which is majorly affecting China, a large proportion of Chinese theme parks have closed completely. These include: -Disney Shanghai -All OCT parks (which includes the Happy Valley chain; a total of 15 parks) -All Fantawild parks (17 total) -All Chimelong parks (3 total) -Most of the Sunac parks (14 parks owned) -and many more. This is of course all happening during the Lunar New Year, which is a Top 3 holiday in China. Most parks in China on in the eastern area of the country, which is also where the greatest spread of the virus is (and, unsurprisingly, the densest part of the country). It's unsurprising that this precaution has happened, but it's good to see it's happened quickly and efficiently all the same.

Rumours are circulating around that FLY has made it's first test run this week. Still no word on an opening date of course. But I'd reckon either start of season (April) or June are the most likely times right now.

Close. You "win" a day if you receive more positive reacts over any other single person. Positive reacts are the 'Like' (heart), 'Thanks' (trophy) and 'Haha' (laughing face) symbols. The other two possible reacts, Confused (confused face) and Sad (crying face), are neutral reactions and do not increase your Reputation Score. This is because these reactions are usually only used when someone makes a confusing post (ie - one which shouldn't positively contribute to a member's reputation) or breaks sad news (say about a ride closing, or Thorpe's continuing painful existence with little signs of improvement...), and again isn't something which needs to positively contribute to a member's reputation. In other words, it's a silly system, and as such is one that should definitely be in the header of your LinkedIn profile, CV and any other formal thing where you just chuck is loads of superlatives to make yourself sound amazing and #sick