JoshC.

Ermmmm... Thorpe x10(ish) Phantasialand x6 Alton Towers x5 Chessington x4 Legoland x2 Energylandia x1 Legendia x1 Flamingo Land x1 Adventure Island x1 Efteling x1 Toverland x1 Bellewaerde x1 So 4 new parks this year (Flamingo Land, Adventure Island and Polish parks). A quieter year for me though. But hey, at least Phantasialand was my second-most visited park - happy with that ?

Couple of renderings of the RMC, who's name isn't necessarily Zadra, but that is just the project name: (Pictures from looopings)

Trying my best not to be triggered... Though I agree Taiga will be a beast of a ride, and I really can't wait to ride it. Good Intamins

Genuinely do not care! I'm always of the mind set that original layouts are better than cloned layouts, but this does nothing to hurt my love for Taron

Sadly not Thorpe, but I'm sure you'll be pleased to hear Wanda Chengdu are building a Taron clone...

I visited Tulleys for the first time last night. I was perhaps a little disappointed by it if I'm honest.. Mazes reviewed in order: Creepy Cottage Nice little attraction. Very dark and nicely themed. The sponge floor was nice. VIXI Not awful. The changes in height in the floor are good, the rope changes are good, the temperature changes are good. The post-hood section is fun. The major issue is the actors making too much noise - making one loud noise to scare one person stops the actor from being able to scare anyone else. Circus of Horrors Good 20 minute show. Like the intimate setting which works very well for CoH. Coven of 13 Loved the swamp at the start; very different and fun. Trouble is Coven goes on too long with not a lot happening. I'm all for lulls and breaks to build tension, but these go on too long with not enough to keep interest levels up. I was ready for it to end at least twice before realising it was carrying on. Haunted Hayride Loved this. Good humour, good interaction, couple of clever scares (putting chainsaws in the benches to make them vibrate - very clever). Twisted Clowns 3D By far my favourite maze of the night. Doesn't take itself too seriously, creating lots of funny moments. And that leaves you more open to being scared. It's so different in tone to every other attraction which makes it feel like a breath of fresh air. Chop Shop Meh. When chainsaws do nothing for you, this maze was always going to be meh. It starts off well, but with the second half of the maze literally being 'strobes, blank walls and chainsaws', it's just very bland. Cellar Cellar was alright. In terms of style, it felt very similar to a lot of other mazes, and there were a couple too many lull moments for my liking. I'd say the last minute of the maze we walked through with no actors. Colony Another extremely long maze, again with not a lot happening at a lot of points. The lulls were almost getting boring at this point. Again, the style of the maze felt very samey to a few others which meant it all felt a bit of a blur. The white room with all the smoke was very good though. One thing which really stood out to me is how Tulleys clearly have their own groove for mazes. "A creepy / distopian storyline and actors speaking non-sensical words" pretty much describes 5 of their mazes, which all feel very blended into one. On top of that, multiple mazes have chainsaws, which just makes the whole technique feel bland. The crowning jewel of Tulleys, however, is their street performers. They are brilliant. I had multiple interactions through the night. The clowns harassed me whilst I was eating (and hurled a couple of phrases I won't repeat on here ?). A guy with a bird-thing interacted with me a few times, always with lots of humour. The live entertainers were brilliant, with street staff encouraging/forcing us to dance along. And the nurses gave us a very rousing personal performance whilst we were at a table.. So yeah, all in all, I found the best bits of Tulleys to be the less serious attractions. Maybe it's just me and what I want from scare attractions, but their 'this is a super dark scary thing' mazes did little for me, with Twisted and the street team, the ones who were more playful and not trying so hard with the scares, being the real highlights of the event.

I visited Tulleys for the first time last night. I was perhaps a little disappointed by it if I'm honest.. Mazes reviewed in order: Creepy Cottage Nice little attraction. Very dark and nicely themed. The sponge floor was nice. VIXI Not awful. The changes in height in the floor are good, the rope changes are good, the temperature changes are good. The post-hood section is fun. The major issue is the actors making too much noise - making one loud noise to scare one person stops the actor from being able to scare anyone else. Circus of Horrors Good 20 minute show. Like the intimate setting which works very well for CoH. Coven of 13 Loved the swamp at the start; very different and fun. Trouble is Coven goes on too long with not a lot happening. I'm all for lulls and breaks to build tension, but these go on too long with not enough to keep interest levels up. I was ready for it to end at least twice before realising it was carrying on. Haunted Hayride Loved this. Good humour, good interaction, couple of clever scares (putting chainsaws in the benches to make them vibrate - very clever). Twisted Clowns 3D By far my favourite maze of the night. Doesn't take itself too seriously, creating lots of funny moments. And that leaves you more open to being scared. It's so different in tone to every other attraction which makes it feel like a breath of fresh air. Chop Shop Meh. When chainsaws do nothing for you, this maze was always going to be meh. It starts off well, but with the second half of the maze literally being 'strobes, blank walls and chainsaws', it's just very bland. Cellar Cellar was alright. In terms of style, it felt very similar to a lot of other mazes, and there were a couple too many lull moments for my liking. I'd say the last minute of the maze we walked through with no actors. Colony Another extremely long maze, again with not a lot happening at a lot of points. The lulls were almost getting boring at this point. Again, the style of the maze felt very samey to a few others which meant it all felt a bit of a blur. The white room with all the smoke was very good though. One thing which really stood out to me is how Tulleys clearly have their own groove for mazes. "A creepy / distopian storyline and actors speaking non-sensical words" pretty much describes 5 of their mazes, which all feel very blended into one. On top of that, multiple mazes have chainsaws, which just makes the whole technique feel bland. The crowning jewel of Tulleys, however, is their street performers. They are brilliant. I had multiple interactions through the night. The clowns harassed me whilst I was eating (and hurled a couple of phrases I won't repeat on here ?). A guy with a bird-thing interacted with me a few times, always with lots of humour. The live entertainers were brilliant, with street staff encouraging/forcing us to dance along. And the nurses gave us a very rousing personal performance whilst we were at a table.. So yeah, all in all, I found the best bits of Tulleys to be the less serious attractions. Maybe it's just me and what I want from scare attractions, but their 'this is a super dark scary thing' mazes did little for me, with Twisted and the street team, the ones who were more playful and not trying so hard with the scares, being the real highlights of the event.

Let me get serious for a minute.. Returning mazes: -Saw Alive. During Fright Nights, the Saw brand works. It's as simple as that. If you've got the ride, you may as well keep the maze because it's a sure fire success. -Living Nightmare. I'm not keen on this maze, but again the public enjoy it, so why not. Get a decent ending in it though. -Platform 15. It's a solid maze which I think can grow and evolve fairly easily. I love the idea mentioned above about it having it's route reversed - starting off in the tunnel like a blindfolded section or something. I'm guessing logistically it would be extremely difficult, plus it require a lot of changes (and money) to the maze, which I doubt we'd see. I can still dream I guess. -Containment. Change it up a bit so it's fresh, but keep it. New attractions: -Indoor maze next to Crust. Buy more shipping containers. Get a cheap tent. Get an expensive themed tent. I don't care. Just do something. Big Top proved that you can turn that space into a fantastic experience, you just need to be clever. Ideally I'd love to see Big Top return, but I don't know how likely that it is. -Something in the IAC space. Ideally we've seen the end of IAC, so they can rip it out and start afresh. But if not, transform it into a maze. If they insist on Vulcan, actually spend money on it to turn it into a multi sensory experience. -Scare zone. Stealth plaza is ideal for a scare zone, so build off of Amity High from this year (and yknow, add some theming). Look at turning Swarm Island into a scare zone too. -Extreme experiences. If you want to market Fright Nights as extreme, super duper scary or whatever, you need to put your money where your mouth is. Have an upcharge experience like Face it Alone after hours (or heck, even just during the day). Have an extreme maze which isn't just you walking in a group and people jumping out. Just anything. Something different needs to happen. I've heard some people saying Fright Nights needs to go back to basics. But the truth is, Fright Nights was the most basic event this year. Every maze followed the same repetitive formula of 'perhaps too long pre show which does little', 'maze where people jump out at you for a quick impact scare', 'awkward ending which leaves you more confused than scared'. Do something different. Big Top's maze at the start / choice of doors. Cabin's true free flow. Experiment 10's splitting up. Do this and you'll be onto a winner Thorpe.

Would have thought you of all people would have realised a sarcastic post when it's slapped across your face. Clearly not.

We love interacting with our followers! Especially when they're extremely annoyed by the park!! And we love them so much we give copy and paste responses! These don't always answer their problems! Sorry if you feel disappointed by this! - CC

The major issue I see is the lack of foresight from the park. It was known that the weather would be cold. Thorpe know that they have these restrictions about rides not being able to open in cold temperatures. Yet they probably had somewhere between 16-18k people come through, knowing that sooner or later a good proportion of major rides would close. And their response on social media boils down to 'Fright Nights is popular, the weather is cold, not our fault, soz m8'. The park have taken zero responsibility for this. And yes, weather is out of their control, but they can control communication. A forewarning on Thursday/Friday about the weather, giving guests tips on how to make the most of their day, etc, advising people the park will be busy and consider alternative days if possible (the latter of which they did at 2pm yesterday..). The attitude of the park stinks in this situation. Then telling guests 'you couldn't possibly do all Fright Nights attractions in one day, you'll have to come back to experience them all' is a disgrace. And when they only have 3 indoor mazes (5 indoor attractions if you count Screamplexx 2D and upcharge-Containment), it screws the park up even more. People are told to wait till night time to do those ones as they're scarier, do some coasters in the evening as their quieter, etc. But when it's cold, and the coasters aren't open, indoor attractions are no doubt more preferable over outside ones. The park were able open the 3 indoor mazes at 12pm yesterday, which shows they at least had some thought go into yesterday - "oh, Saturday will be busy, let's open 3 mazes early to increase the park's overall throughput per hour and give people more chance to go through the mazes". But in some ways, it's worse, because it makes it seem like they thought that would be enough to compensate for everything else that could go wrong. The kick in the teeth for people will also be how the park said "we are not at capacity". Given the numerous complaints, it's clear the park did not handle the numbers yesterday. Imagine having a terrible day at park, and being told 'sorry, but the park can be even busier than this, so it could be worse'. On top of a lackluster maze selection, the park have - arguably, once again - screwed up Fright Nights again from a customer service / satisfaction perspective.

News for 2020, which will be a new themed land featuring, as expected, an RMC, which appears to be called Zadra (Polish for splinter)... Key facts: Area name: Dragon's Castle Rides: Zadra, dark ride, junior coaster, kids monorail and a couple of others Will also include shops and restaurants Located at the back of the back of the park, sort of behind / between their Vekoma launch and SLC (previously just unused space) Opening date: In original documentation, it was mentioned the RMC had to be open "by 6th April 2020", so Spring 2020. Work is already happening on the site, so that seems realistic Nolimits video of the RMC, including a POV, from about 1 minute onwards with artwork from about 3 minutes Really good to see Energylandia go for a themed area. Their early investments were very much 'plonk rides down', but lately they've been thinking about theming more, so a cohesive area is only a good thing. Dark ride appears to be a trackless dark ride similar with vehicles similar to Symbolica / Baszylisk, and appears to be a shooter too (good thing, since their current dark ride is beyond terrible). The junior coaster is potentially a Zierer or Vekoma, hard to tell, but based on the artwork, it doesn't look to be a relocation of one of the park's current coasters... Current rumours suggest the following: -2019: Vekoma mine train of a similar size / scale to Colorado Adventure at Phantasialand -2020: RMC + junior coaster -2021: Vekoma multi-launch over water -Beyond 2022: Vekoma tilt coaster, plus whatever else they decide to chuck in. The park currently has 12 creds, putting it at the 2nd highest in Europe, only behind Europa (13). If Ankapark in Turkey ever opens, that'll have 17 though. Though I'm sure by the time they open, Energylandia will be smashing them...

Oh Steven.

The first thing that caught my attention with that sign is that it looks like, again, there will be a focus on events in 2019. No mention of a new attraction. So there's a decent chance there could be nothing 'new' in terms of rides, mazes, etc for next year. Also going to address 2 points which keep bugging me... Loggers Leap. If this thing was going to be opening next year, we'd have seen some work to it by now. We'd have heard something. Anyone saying, thinking, wishing, whatever that it'll open next year is living in dreamland at the moment. And it's still very much a case of 'if' it will open again, and not 'when'. We need to be realistic with expectations there. I agree they need to make a decision and stick to it though. Slammer. Slammer is gone. Dead. Finished. It ain't coming back. I agree it would be nice for them to dismantle it. But, realistically, it won't be dismantled until something replaces it. What do I want for 2019? -Thorpe to start truly focusing on presentation. Having a proper budget to fix and maintain stuff, repaint things and make the park look and feel good. This shouldn't be part of an advertised 'Thorpe TLC' programme like Towers do. By all means call it that behind the scenes, but don't advertise it - just do it. -A solid event line up. It's scary to think it was 10 years ago, but in 2009 and years around then, the park had a solid events line up. You would have a big buzz for opening. Easter holidays had something. May half term had something different. Summer had something. Then you had Fright Nights. They tried that this year, but it fell flat due to the Year of TWD being advertised poorly, the conflict with that and Love Island, and scary stuff not working outside of the Halloween period in theme parks (shock horror!!!). They need to bring back a solid, varied, events line up, to give people reason to visit. Hopefully this is on the cards. -Fright Nights. Fright Nights is poor this year, but it shouldn't be. It is the park's headline event and should be their best time of year. Go for quality over quantity. Actually spent time designing mazes, putting a budget in to build them, rather than just giving actors a space and hoping they can scare people. -A vision to go forward on. Once again, we find ourselves asking "Who does Thorpe Park cater for?". They've had The Year of TWD, Love Island Lates and the scariest Fright Nights ever. Yet families still come to visit, Thorpe push families a lot. They've got out of their way to keep Timber Tug and Lumber Jump open during Fright Nights. They kept the beach open till the end of September. If Thorpe are ready to accept that families will always visit, show that in the brand, attract more in and make them welcome. -Signs for the future. Related to the above really. The park needs a new roller coaster. It's what Thorpe do best, it's what everyone expects from Thorpe. We need to know that it's going to happen, and that it's going to happen soon. If they don't want a coaster just yet, get a log flume (confirm what's happen with Loggers) or a shooter dark ride. Just something big, substantial and good. Please

Tried out the new Vulcan Peak today. It's less awful. I believe they're continually making changes, but what I noticed: -Use of the bum prodders in pre show -Hooded section ending at what was Chamber of Horrors -A non-hooded section through a slightly different route of I'm A Celeb -A couple of actors, wearing black cloaks and UV make-up -A finale, featuring one actor asking if anyone has been marked, before a 'big reveal' of an actor jumping out to scare you (think Platform 15, but less good) So yeah, less awful. It will get some more positive reviews I'm sure, and scaredy groups will die at the ending. If it had opened like this, it would have been another 2018 Thorpe 'it'll do to up the attraction number' maze, rather than be the laughing stock that it was. It still ranks very low down on the list of Thorpe mazes though. If you see anyone saying that they've given this maze "the Big Top" treating, they're lying. Frankly, it's an insult to the Big Top and the people behind the newer versions of it to even suggest that. What Thorpe have done is realised they created a big, steaming pile of turd of an attraction, grabbed a couple of baby wipes and polished it up a bit. If they actually took some time to do this maze properly, rather than sticking a rope in I'm a Celeb and hoping for the best before retrospectively throwing in some questionably KKK-looking actors in after 2 weeks, they might have created a decent attraction. It wouldn't have been my cup of tea, but the hooded element and creepy voodoo nature has a lot of potential.

His name is hardly a secret - as I said, any Divisional Director's name appears in basically any piece of marketing. A link to an article with his name was posted in a different thread too. I stand by my comment that I don't know how appropriate it is to discuss this, but if the discussion is going to carry on, it's only fair to have more balanced facts than just guessing and going on hearsay.

I'm not sure how appropriate it is for us to be commenting on specific people and their jobs. People at Divisional Director level are there to take charge of the park, yes, but outside of having their name - and occasionally their face - associated to press releases (where quotes are normally written by someone from the marketing department), their not in the public eye. Seems a bit unfair for us to comment and speculate what is effectively someone's livelihood based on hearsay. Dom Jones had a lot of experience with Thorpe Park, the theme park industry and senior management roles, in and out of Merlin. We simply do not know enough about the situation at Thorpe to form any sort of opinion about it all, in my personal opinion.

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.