JoshC.

Whilst I'm still deciding my Top 10 coasters, have an updated Top Whatever Thorpe Park Fright Nights mazes... 1. The Big Top (2017) 2. Studio 13 3. Se7en 4. Experiment 10 (2011) 5. Platform 15 (2017) 6. Saw Alive (2018) 7. Cabin in the Woods (2013) 8. TWD Living Nightmare 9. Containment 10. The Freezer 11. Blair Witch Project (2015) 12. The Passing =13. TWD Sanctum =13. TWD Do or Die 15. Hellgate 16. Dead Creek Woods 17. The Curse 18. My Bloody Valentine 19. Dead End 20. The Asylum 21. Vulcan Peak For extra context, where incarnations of these mazes would go: Big Top, 2016 - 5th Big Top, 2015 - 13th Blair Witch, 2018 - 13th Experiment 10, 2012 ending - 14th Platform 15, 2016 - 16th

Perhaps the problem is the song choices are too subtle? Not enough people will actively stop and listen to audio to work these things out. People drop in and out of listening to these things, so it's quite easy to miss out on finer details. I know I'm not sure on a lot of it, simply because I haven't listened to it closely enough. It's not necessarily a bad thing, buy if it's leaving people confused or unsatisfied, then it's not a good thing. It also isn't great that the voices on WWTP sound extremely over-edited, making it almost laughably bad. It ruins the believability which the normal loop has, and also more difficult to listen to.

I was in The Netherlands Wednesday, and this was headlining news on radio stations. Efteling is a national treasure out there, and the park does its utmost to stick by its traditional values, keep old attractions, etc (hence why they've done so much to restore Python - work which really has give nit a new lease of life might I add!). For them to remove a ride, especially such a large, older, ride, it is a big deal. I'm not sure how I feel about this. It's rumoured that the rides aren't actually duelling in the sense of, say, Joris, where the trains will be dispatched at the same time, and instead they're simply two coasters which happen to share a queue until the last minute (more like Winjas at Phantasialand, for example). There's also rumours that one of the coasters might be backwards. More importantly, the coasters aren't very inspiring. Efetling concept art is very close to the real thing, and the layouts look boring, they don't have much interaction with anything, and it just seems like a missed opportunity for a set of coasters which should be appealing to the younger market. It's a shame, as they could something a lot more with it, even if it is quite Efteling. As Creek said, the expansion featuring the rumoured launch coaster has just been delayed to 2021, so fingers crossed that investment is as substantial as planned.

I've done the mazes a couple of times now, so here's some thoughts from me... Saw Alive Surprisingly, my early favourite for the event. Saw has been consistently good, and this year is no different. The ending still lacks oompf, but it's generally good this year. Platform 15 I'm not a fan of the new story this year (a train full of wedding guests is crashed into a non-existing oil pit by the jealous conductor who appears at the end) - I preferred last year's incarnation. Nonetheless, Platform remains good this year, with the tunnel having a good number of actors. It still suffers from the same problems as last year - a slow beginning and a weak ending, and it hasn't reached the heights of last year, but it's still good. Living Nightmare I've decided - Living Nightmare is not a good maze. The route is poor. There's only 3 recognisable scenes - hospital bed, Don't Open Dead Inside doors and the prison scene. Anything else, despite being well themed, isn't that recognisable to anyone who knows nothing about the show. The maze isn't set up for scares very well. The pre show isn't as good without getting people to kneel on the floor. The script features a lot more swearing now (which makes sense given how sweary Negan is), but it feels cheap. Actors in the strobe section were good at teaming up on people though. Do or Die How do you describe this. It's good, yet still misses the mark. There's some nice touches with the theming, there's some good story moments, but equally there's black walls which are there for the sake of it, and bits that make no sense - why are we being told to find food or become food when you've assured us this place is safe? There's a chainsaw section about 2/3 of the way through, which just feels like it's there for the sake of it more than anything else. So there's potential there. There actors have a good scope for dark humour which I love. But it just needs more oompf. Dead Creek Woods Dead Creek is okay. It's a confusing, easily lost, story. It has moments which are okay, but equally it just feels very standard Thorpe fodder. Again, a chainsaw 2/3 of the way through, but it doesn't capitalise on it - you just sort of stroll through the rest of the maze. I guess it can't be at the end due to the uneven / sloped floor, but it just makes the rest of the maze feel so...dead. Blair Witch A decent incarnation of the maze. Lots of thick trees and woodland which really works with the concept of the maze. The fact that there's a shed at the start of the maze, which you avoid, before you eventually come back to it at the end was clever (fitting in with the whole 'you go round in circles' idea of the story), though that was actually lost on me at first! Despite the significantly shorter route, it does snake round well. The trouble with Blair is, ultimately, there's not much scope for it - actors act creepy, do creepy things, but you're very much a bystander, until the strobe shed. 2015 still remains, by far, my favourite version of this maze. The route started off open, then gradually got narrower. Actors would appear and disappear. They worked with loud noises, impact scares and general creepiness to build something which did work. But this isn't a bad version. Vulcan Peak Awful. Awful. Awful. From the set up which makes no sense, to the pre show which you can't hear, to the bags you can see through, to the not-atmospheric 'don't look at the locals' announcement that rings through the whole maze, to the bad soundtrack in the maze, to the lack of actors, to the lack of scares, to the ending where you arguably take your bag off far too soon. Basically everything. I'm guessing a large part of I'm a Celebrity cannot be used as a traditional maze, because if people bump into the rock work or walls, it will hurt a lot. And with jump scares and the like, it makes sense that a traditional maze wouldn't work. A hooded maze is a good way around this, but it doesn't work. Bad audio. No exposure to touch or smell. It fails miserably, and arguably is the worst maze Thorpe have churned out. Screamplexx 4D You go into the cinema, and watch one of 5 films which is randomly chosen. These films vary between 2-10 minutes in length and have clearly been cheaply produced. They aren't in 3D. They don't use any special effects. It's a waste. Terror at Amity High It's okay. Literally just actors dancing around. Adds a bit of atmosphere, but not really what they've advertised. Big Top Showtime Ignoring the travesty that Big Top isn't returning, this is okay. Mostly because there's loads of people who hate clowns, so people react very well to the actors, which creates a great atmosphere. But again, not a scare zone. Containment - Apparently the same as the past couple of years, so doesn't warrant me bothering to do it. So yeah, this year's Fright Nights is okay. Some good attractions, a few bad ones. They've clearly gone for quantity over quality and it really shows. Everyone would much rather have 5 quality mazes with good throughputs than 11 attractions of varying quality and questionable throughputs. The event lacks a headline attraction, which in the past has been taken by Asylum, Studio 13 and The Big Top (even if those mazes weren't the best, they were always a clear focal point for the event). To just add - Saw has never been my favourite Fright Nights in any year since it opened. I don't think this year it's been particularly better than other years, so that means - on the whole - quality has reduced across the park. The event needs a massive shake up next year in my opinion. Arguably an event like this should have no more than 1 outdoor maze, and needs 5 quality indoor attractions. An event with Saw, Living Nightmare, Platform, 3 more indoor mazes plus Containment would be perfect for the park at the moment. I don't see that happening, but that's what should happen now. To shorten it up, here's my favourite mazes this year in order: 1) Saw Alive 2=) Platform 15 / Do or Die 4) Dead Creek Woods 5) Blair Witch 6) Living Nightmare 7) Leaving the park, going to Chessington via the M25, going through Trick or Treat Wood, coming back to Thorpe via the M25 8) Vulcan Peak

*chokes on dust from topic* Plopsaland is doing a lot of retheming next year. Their big thing is changing the rapids into a dinosaur paradise thing, currently called Dino Splash... The park are spending 5 million Euros on this retheme, which will feature moving dinosaurs and special effects. It's not clear how the nearby powered coaster, Dragon, which partially goes through the area, will be affected, but there's a possibility that will receive some new stuff too. The ride will reopen in around July 2019. On top of that, they're retheming the Rollerskater, which has just had a generic 'everything around you is supersized' style since opening, into a K3 ride - one of Studio 100's most popular IPs, a Belgian/Dutch pop group. The surrounding area will be transformed into a K3 land. This should be ready for start of season: With a new land and coaster coming in 2020, talks of a big dark ride and a hotel in the pipeline too, it's clear that Studio 100 have the money and the drive to get Plopsa as the number 1 Belgian theme park.

As part of my Poland trip, a group of us visited Lost Souls Alley - a scare attraction in the heart of Krakow. This visit deserves its own trip report, and probably a fair amount of rambling pre-amble too... For those who don't know me, I love scare attractions. I haven't visited as many scare parks or done as many attractions as I'd have liked to, but I genuinely love doing these attractions. I've done more extreme stuff, like Face it Alone at Thorpe, other alone experiences and some quite physical attractions. I also know my limits. Any attractions which cause pain is a no go for me. Another no go for me is being force-fed stuff. That sort of stuff goes beyond scaring, and borders on torture / weird kinky stuff. With this in mind... We found Lost Souls Alley online whilst looking for stuff to do in Krakow. It had excellent reviews and seemed really up our street - a 20-30min long interactive scare attraction, based on various scenes from horror films. Due to some translation issues, we weren't wholly sure what to expect, but we visited the place to ask for some extra details before booking. It turns out there are 4 different options / version you can choose, with different "fun", "intense" and "pain" thresholds. Pink - Actors do not touch. Mild fun, zero intensity, zero pain. Green - Actors can touch you, but will not harm you. 100% fun, mild intensity, no pain. Amber - Actors can heavily touch you, and there will be some pain. Mild fun, 100% intensity, mild pain. Red - Actors can do anything to you, lots of pain. Zero fun, 100% intensity, 100% pain. Green is the recommended version, but pink is apparently done by an awful lot of people. After confirming what sort of touching actors could do - we were told light grabs, nothing more extreme than say Sub Species by the sounds of it - we opted for Green, and booked a slot for a couple of hours time. The attraction operates a bit like an escape room and a scare maze rolled into one. Each room you have to find something (usually a key or a code) to move onto the next room, but the puzzles are incredibly simple. The first room you have to find a torch to guide you on the way. The pre-attraction spiel of don't annoy the actors, etc, etc was the same as any Merlin maze, and we were in. We were given a safety word, but warned that there must be at least 2 people during the experience at any one time for it to continue (and we were in a group of 3). The first room is pitch black, and you have to find the torch. Except there's nothing in there until an actor decides to lob the turned on torch at you. You then go through into the next room. An actor dressed as Hannibal sits behind a locked door with just a small hole for you to see him through. Beckoning us closer, he - quite violently! - swipes at one the group's face, and then encourages them to put his hands through a hole next to the door to retrieve a key to escape the room. Retrieving the key meant his hands were cable-tied (extremely tightly!), and set the actor free. The actor was very rough with the group, putting us in choke holds, slamming us against walls, trying to drag us away, etc. It was full on, and certainly more than we'd bargained for. We went into the next room, which featured a dead body mannequin and again a locked door. The two actors from the two previous rooms were watching us from the room we just left. And at this point - only a couple of minutes into the 20-30 minute experience - I felt super uncomfortable. It was rougher than I expected, and I just didn't know what would happen. And all these feelings were bad. This wasn't a good "what could happen next", this wasn't a good 'scare maze uncomfortable'. This was a genuine fear of safety. I approached the door where the actors were watching, and explained I did not want to continue. The other 2 were happy to continue, and I explained that. I was egged on to say the safety word, which I, defeatedly, said. I'd never said a safe word before. I'd never planned to say a safe word in any scare attraction. This was a personal defeat for me, something which I hated doing, but I had to. After saying the safety word, I was dragged away by an actor (and I mean dragged - they tightly wrapped a hand round my wrist and dragged me!) through the previous two scenes and chucked out the entrance. I thought the rest of my group were going to be fine with the attraction though. Wrong. A couple of minutes later, out they came, having also said the safety word. I don't know the ins and outs of what happened, but the man handling had continued in the room and the room that followed. The actors had clasped their hands around their heads. They were threatened and cornered by an actor with a live taser (stun gun!). We were told that the Amber level featured tasers which could be used on you on a light setting. With the man-handling that had happened already, which was more than we were promised, there was no trust in the attraction any more - they didn't know what level of intensity they had. The woman at the front looked into what had happened. It turns out the Hannibal actor was a bit rougher with us than he should have been. However, the strong grabs, the being cable-tied, and being threatened by a taser were all legit parts of a 'Green' experience. Very full on. In fairness, we were offered a refund, and the opportunity to experience it later, but we had lost trust in the experience. It's a shame too, as the ending featured being chased by a chainsaw into a wall which you have to knock down yourself, and that sounded quite fun! But yeah, this experience really left me shook. I genuinely felt uncomfortable about my safety. Even a couple of weeks after, it still leaves me thinking about it a lot. I can only imagine how I'd have reacted if I was threatened with a taser. And I get why some people react so badly in 'normal' scare attractions now. It's a shame, because this attraction has been going for about 5 years. But they've only recently changed it to include the different intensity levels. And they seem to have turned all but the 'Pink' version into 'how close can we push you into saying the safety word?'. Reading reviews of the 'Amber' version, there was mentions of 'repeat tasering from the second room', 'being tased in the butthole' and being dragged away. That's not scary, it's not enjoyable, it's shocking (pardon the pun!), and nothing more. If you want context for what I'm talking about, checking out their Facebook page. They've got videos from people doing the Green version, and the actors do manhandle them there (we originally thought it was footage from Red!). So I wouldn't recommend this attraction if you're ever in Krakow. There's plenty of other stuff to do there (pinball museum!). But if you really like scary stuff, and you don't trust a scared guy from the internet, have fun and good luck - you're going to need it...

Last year it was £44 for the 5 mazes; 2015 it was £30. Last year, the one shots for the mazes were £10 for Walking Dead mazes, £8 for others, so it wasn't actually a saving, just a convenience. Based on the pricing structure, it looks like all mazes will be £10 as a one shot, and the package serves as a £2 saving. Blair Witch has a built Fastrack queue I believe, so will likely be available as one shots and in the unlimited thing. Also, when it opened, it had huge throughputs and a very quick moving queue, which might be why they've decided to not include it on packages. It's interesting they've created fixed packages. Given the 'pick and choose' style they went for with the packages this year, I'd have thought they would have done 'x number of mazes for y price', and you choose how many mazes you want to do from there (so 3 mazes of your choice for £28, etc). Of course, that's a nightmare to deal with in terms of numbers, but heyho. Fastrack price should be high though. Make them too cheap, and it defeats the point of Fastrack. If there was going to be another new attraction, it would have been announced by now. I don't doubt they had a 12th attraction planned to some degree (looking at that promo with leaves covering stuff), but they haven't used that graphic yet and quietly swept it under the rug. Containment has a very low throughput - I believe at most 2 groups can be in there at any one time, so roughly a group every 10 minutes. So at most 60 people (and if they have any sense, they'd sell 5 time slots an hour, so 50 people an hour, as a buffer). You can't have that as a queued system, and you can't have it as free tickets, otherwise they would go too quickly. Hence the charge. £8 / £10 is reasonable for an escape room, albeit a high price given the length of the attraction.

Oh FFS... So is Wicked Witches Haunt at Thorpe. So is Corkscrew at Towers. So is Prof Burl's Bubbleworks at Chessington. It's been removed. It no longer exists. Get over it.

Let's look at what someone from Thorpe's marketing department say: http://www.cupcakesandcoasters.com/2018/09/halloween-2018-most-anticipated.html?m=1 People will expect what they're told to expect. They're told Terror at Amity High is a new attraction, and clearly fits the bill of being a scare zone. Don't blame people for expecting what they've told.

With the Annual Pass preview event today, we can expect reviews of mazes old and new to come rushing in. Please post them here and not elsewhere!

Given it's listed as an attraction, surely it's fairly reasonable for people to expect a scare zone at the very least? Though arguably 'roaming actors in a specific area' is the definition of a scare zone in the first place... But if they're listing a set of roaming actors as an attraction, then that's pretty poor, and shows how much they're scraping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to listing an attraction.

No creds or parks to report on in this blog post, but there'll be a few visitor attraction things. So yeah, still give it a read... Monday morning came and, for whatever reason, no parks seem to open on Mondays in Poland during off peak (Legendia only opened Friday-Sunday, Energylandia closed on Mondays). So, in an unusual twist for my trips, we planned a full day of non-theme park stuff and culture. The first stop of the day was Auschwitz, which was just over 30mins away from Legendia. We didn't go for a guided tour, instead opting to tour the area ourselves. I won't really go into any more details, as I don't think I need to explain just how harrowing of an experience that is. We spent a couple of hours there. We then made the hour long drive into Krakow, where we were going to general touristy stuff, bit of sightseeing, eat at the Hard Rock etc. A bit of research the night before gave us some really interesting-attractions to visit: Lost Souls Alley - a horror maze / escape room style experience Krakow Pinball Museum - a 'museum' where, for a small fee, you can play over 40 different pinball machines and classic arcade games as much as you like After a bit of wandering round, we found a third attraction of interest - Exit Room, an escape room. Exit Room https://www.exitroom.pl/ We stumbled upon Exit Room whilst trying to find Lost Souls Alley, and decided to book a room. They had 8 to choose from, and we opted to go for the Wolfenstein themed room. Not related to the video game series, bit sharing the same story. You are locked in a room, have an hour to escape, and the way to escape is to find the pieces of a gun to shoot an animatronic Hitler(!). It also started out quite nicely, as we were blindfolded at the start to disorientate us, and one of us was locked in a separate room to escape from as well. We didn't escape, and sadly there was no timer to give us the encouragement, but it was a very well presented escape room, and staff spoke excellent English! Krakow Pinball Museum http://www.krakowpinballmuseum.com/aboutus.html This place is a real fun little gem! For about £8, you get unlimited access to lots of machines and arcade games (some classic, some new). It's a really chilled out, relaxed atmosphere, not busy, etc. Drinks were also cheap as well (everything in Poland is cheap, but in comparison to the rest of a city centre, the drinks were cheap too!). The best part was you were given a wristband, and could pop in and out throughout the day. We really got our money's worth! It's a little bit geeky, maybe a guilty pleasure for some, but it's definitely something I'd recommend looking into if you're spending the day round there. Lost Souls Alley http://www.lostsoulsalley.com/index-en.php I don't even know where to start with this. This is an experience which will probably stay with me for the rest of my life, and not in a good way. I didn't want to write a dedicated thing about it, but I think I'm going to have to. It requires so much explanation and set up to truly understand what this attraction is, and why it haunts me so much. So yeah, suffice to say I didn't like this. Standby for more details; I'll link the thread when I've written it... Krakow was a wonderful city to explore in general though. Lots of pretty buildings, the people were brilliant and the food was ace. The day we visited happened to be the anniversary of the Soviet Union invading Poland in the lead up to WWII (1939), which is also when the country's President and Prime Minister fled the country. There were memorial services throughout the day in various locations, which again were pretty hard hitting. Another standout feature of Krakow, which sadly I didn't get a decent photo of, was a fire-breathing dragon statue by the river. Completely random, but very cool. We left Krakow in the evening to go to our nearby hostel, which was very nice and simple. As I've said, it's a wonderful city, and it was nice and different to for me to spend a fully doing non-theme park stuff on a theme park trip... Coming soon, Energylandia, with it's 10000000 creds, and other random stuff.

I still feel like they should have called Lumber Jump Loggers Leap. Perfect fit for the ride. Would have been even better if they made a big deal about it and said 'Loggers Leap now open' on social media, with a photo of the logo proudly placed on top of the ride, but not showing said ride.

^^We saw someone come off Dragon Riders just before us who looked extremely pale. Fairly certain the ride had a designated sick bucket too.. Very much an endurance ride and, yes, horrid is definitely a good word. Creek - if you're tossing up between 2019 or 2020, you may as well wait till 2020. That's not to say the parks are bad in their current state, but 2020 will be a lot more rewarding tbh

It feels like half of the European coaster community has decided to venture over to Poland this month, following the opening of that small coaster Hyperion, and with rapid expansion taking place at the two major Polish parks - Legendia and Energylandia. But how do they actually fair? We flew to Katowice on a Saturday evening, arriving at our hotel late, giving us the perfect opportunity to arrive at Legendia Sunday morning. Legendia is based in Silesia, an old mining district of the country, and now in the process of truly being redeveloped into a tourism hot spot (indeed, around the area are plenty of mining headframes which have been turned into prettier sites!). With Legendia being bought by a new owner a couple of years back, it's clear the park aim to capitalise on this. To our surprise, Legendia is very much a city park, literally just based off a main road through the city, and all the surroundings just being standard city stuff. Interestingly, the park operates a one-price ticket system, for 99 zloty (about £20). However, you're only allowed to leave for 15 minutes, and if you want to return after that, you need to buy a new ticket. Clearly a tactic to keep people in the park as long as possible, eat on park, etc. The park also has VERY good opening hours (minimum 10am-8pm, with park gates opening between 9 and 9.30), meaning people can pop in at various hours of the day. The park opens with a little show, where kids are handed out free sweets and balloons and encouraged to take part, whilst adults are given free fudge! The park has 4 coasters - two Zyklon Galaxis, a Soqeut looping coaster, and Lech, a new-gen multi-looping Vekoma. The Zyklons are bog standard, with some okay facades, and the Soqeut was closed due to it being rethemed for next year (plus the track looked in HORRID condition). So let's get down to Lech... Lech Coaster Lech is mental. The layout features a very steep drop (maybe even beyond vertical, I couldn't really tell), 3 inversions (one going through the station), plenty of airtime, twists, turns, and is partially over water. It flows so well, is incredibly smooth, the airtime is fantastic, and the vest restraints are surprisingly comfortable (and feel almost necessary with the amount of airtime you get!). And, finally, the first drop and inversion is intense. Extremely intense. I greyed out on every ride I did. We did 2 rides back-to-back, and that was a mistake as I felt quite wiped out afterwards. It's at a point where it's arguably too intense, as it put me off wanting to re-ride it too much. Nonetheless, it's still a fantastic ride, a truly brilliant investment (just over 4m euros) and something which has put Vekoma back in people's attentions, and rightly so. Bazyliszek The park's new for 2018 ride is a shooter dark ride. Themed around a house with lots of monsters, where a Basilisk has escaped. Trackless, and a combination of work from ETF, Alterface and Joravision, this is actually something very special. The queue is spectacularly themed. The ride features interactive sets and screens, which is transitions between very well. The shooting aspect isn't the only focus of the ride, with some story driven points too. It is genuinely astounding. There are a couple of minor issues though - it's never really explained that you have to hit targets multiple times before they are destroyed (I only realised this mid-way through my second ride!), and some of the real theming looks quite basic, and thus tacky and out-of-place compared to the other. Aside from that though, this is a true winner of an attraction, a real gem, and one of my favourite dark rides! Dragon Riders Dragon Riders is bloody mental. I have no idea who designed this ride, how many of these there are in the world, or any general clue really. But I imagine anyone who's thought "this is a good idea" has been on some hardcore drugs. To try and explain the ride. You sit in your pod, with nothing more than a - rather loose! - lap bar to keep you in. You then start going round in a circle, like you would in a carousel. Your pod then starts to spin / roll continuously. Think of Slammer, but faster, in a smaller radius and for a lot longer. You do this for a while, then go in the other direction. And this lasts for about 3 minutes. Due to the loose lap bar, you bounce around in your seat, getting slammed every single way, and it's just general sickening. And unlike with many spinning rides, this doesn't have a 'warm up' period - it just seems to go straight to max speed! I felt queasy for a good few hours afterwards. I'm not a huge fan of spinny rides, so I knew it would leave me feeling meh. But with something this insane, you have to try. You may regret it after, but you have to try it. The rest of the park is pretty average to be honest. They have a log flume / boat ride thing which has terrible throughput, has staff specifically instruct you to brace yourself on the drops so you don't slam into row infront, and is generally a burden to ride, but has decent splashes. There's a few other funfair style rides, run incredibly well, but nothing that stands out. We ate at one of the newer restaurants by Lech, and the food was decent and well priced (I believe I had a main meal, drink and dessert for about £7.50). And you do get wonderful views of Lech too. Speaking of food though, one thing which really stood out was how they didn't serve any snacks or bottled drinks at any of the shops - they were only at the food places. And the food places had very long queues from 1-5pm. The park, surprisingly, has lots of shops with lots of ride merch though! Two things really stood out to me with Legendia. 1) This park isn't a full day park. The park was, admittedly, very quiet when we visited, but even when busy, I can't see you needing more than a 10-6 day at the park. Given how the park's ticketing works, this is a bit disappointing, as it means you can't enjoy the park at it's opening and at it's closing (ie - night rides) without either buying two tickets, or having a very boring lull mid-way though the day. 2) Legendia has a future, and a very bright one at that. The park has a fantastic infrastructure and is clearly set up to hold a lot of people (Lech and Basilisk's queues were HUGE too). All the staff we interacted with spoke perfect English (and they even have flags with what languages they can speak on their name badges). They've got a fantastic entrance area. They know who it is they want visiting, and they know how to attract them. The thing that's missing at the moment is quality. Lech and Basilisk fill two very obvious holes, and have done so quickly and reasonably cheaply. A new water ride is coming in 2020 (hard to know what it could be based on the location, but a proper log flume or rapids would suit the park perfectly right now). And with the new ownership, they've clearly got the money to be able to bring in the new, high-quality additions. So yeah, give this park 5 years, and I have no doubts they'll have a solid line up with some great filler attractions. In 10-12 years time, though, I really do see this having the potential to be one of Europe's most charming, most fun parks - a real gem in the making! We left the park at 5-6ish in the end, after really dragging out the day. We spent some time exploring Katowice (and sadly, basically nothing was open because the Sunday we visited, EVERYTHING WAS CLOSED), and then got ready for a day of Polish culture...coming to a blog post near you soon...

Dar she grows!

A fair assumption to make, no?

Certainly would be a shame to lose the IMA Score transition we've seen recently for Fright Nights. The 'Sound of the Island' should be a focal point for all future soundtracks in my opinion, Fright Nights included. And it worked well last year (just a shame it was stolen for TWD The Ride). Though it will be nice to see more rides given Fright Nights themes - let's hope they're good.

That is correct, yes.

So with Dead Creek Wood presumably taking place in Zombie Hunt's route, I'm guessing Blair Witch will take place from roughly the Zombie Hunt exit, and ending at the shed. That creates a very short attraction.. My bigger concern is how congested that stretch of the park will be. You'll have Blair Witch and Vulcan Peak in the same area, Dead Creek exiting there, and then further along, you've got the entrance to three other mazes all in pretty close proximity. It seems like it could be a recipe for disaster. They really need to find a way to use the beach again. I know they had major flooding issues, among other things, in 2015 with Big Top, but it was more or less okay 2008-2012 with Curse and Se7en. Yes it will almost definitely require tents, yes it will require a lot more money, but it'll spread attractions round the park and utilise a massive space prime for an indoor attraction.

Went here yesterday. I'll do a report thing in a few days, but let's talk Hyperion. Rode it three times (first train of the day, back row, once in row 2 and another ride in back row). And it's a great coaster once it warms up. First ride was alright, 'fun' at best, but nothing special. But in the afternoon, it's a different beast. The airtime really chucks you round and makes you thankful that Polish staff are taught to really staple you into your seats. It whips round the turns really quickly. It's just, generally, very good. However, the back is quite rattly and vibratey, especially in the second half, which takes away from things a bit. The park are onto a winner with this. It's the headliner the park needs right now. It looks intimidating, packs a punch and is great fun all round. One thing to note though - the batching process is weird. There's 4 batching rows, confusingly labelled 1, 2, 3, 3. These lead to doors which open to the station area. Row 1 lets 4 people in at a time and is for front row. Row 2 is for 'individuals' and lets in 8 at a time. The two row 3s let in 8 at a time each. When waiting at the doors, Doors 1 and 3 open, so people find their rows. Once everyone has found a seat, Door 2 opens and the 8 people fill up the gaps. Very weird system, poorly explained (the explanation is at the front of the batching area, which can't be seen when there's people there!), yet was sorta working? I don't like it though. Also, on my first ride, I got SOAKED by the splash. I was literally the only person to get wet, but I got properly drenched. My other rides were fine and I never saw anyone get as wet as me, so I dunno if it was just an unlucky go or what. Anyways, tl;dr - Hyperion is great. Reckon most will enjoy it. Go ride it if you can.

Thorpe have said that "selected mazes" will be open next Saturday (29th) exclusively for AP holders. The park will be open to all guests till 8pm, with the mazes open to AP holders presumably from 3pm.

To be fair, scare zones aren't necessarily meant to be scary, just add general atmosphere and introduce people to the scary stuff who don't necessarily want to go in the mazes. That's the issue with giving mazes numerical ratings - anything that's low is instantly rubbished. I liked last year's rating guide ("intense", "spooky" and "gorey" I believe?), as it didn't lower any maze, buy gave them a category. Interesting mix though. Saw and Living Nightmare being the two scariest yet already opened this year, putting a lot of pressure on Sanctum 2 to deliver. They can never make their minds up with Containment either (seesawed between 5, 2 and intense, now an ambitious 4). Vulcan Peak already sounds over-hyped though sadly.

Damnit Benin, stop making so many good posts that I have to keep liking...

Vulcan Peak teaser video: