Coaster

Thorpe Park Fight Nights; dare you try to navigate the park after dark? We have live fights in the queuelines, smoke effects (people smoking in queues) and for that extra scary experience brave the queue jumpers - most commonly heard saying "jump over dat fence m8 I ain't standing in no queue"

That MUST be a joke, surely?!

Oh dear...

I hope they don't put a maze at the end, it just doesn't fit rides and IMO scare mazes should be saved for the Halloween season. I know the concept is completely different but imagine coming off a coaster and having to go through a maze; it just wouldn't work. My point is, with a dark ride, the ride/attraction should be good enough in itself without needing a random maze bolted onto it.

Why would they be looking to add something else when what's there already needs urgent attention?

* left to rot

There are so many better things they could have done than relying on ride hosts, the only reactions I've seen is people jumping, only to realise it's a person and sit back neutrally; apart from one occasion where the staff member was literally grabbing people's legs and pulling them - but that's not fun at all, it's just plain weird.

My point is, they shouldn't need to simulate someone grabbing your leg! They've spent £30 million on this attraction, it should entertain/scare people without ride staff having to poke you, the whole idea is just ridiculous IMO.

^ I hate the interaction from the staff on the train, a £30 million pound investment should be good enough without some random person walking around poking you - it's laughable really.

Yeah, it is. EDIT: Deleted post above by accident!

Bubbleworks appealed to everyone. Gruffalo doesn't interest me in the slightest, and it won't last (CATCF anyone?) whereas Bubbleworks was, as an idea, timeless.

"We know you've all been waiting to solve this puzzle" No.

Not too bad, it was surprisingly quiet and by the evening they were nearly walk-on (with the exception of Smiler). The bad weather in the morning probably put people off.

True, but my point is that it looks awful just sat there rotting away. Completely agree regarding the closed rides, it has damaged the park hugely IMO.

I enjoyed my visit to Alton Towers yesterday, but the park really has lost its 'spark", the atmosphere was nonexistent and the park really suffers for the amount of rides (and restaurants!) closed IMO. The Flume looks dire just left there, especially when on the Skyride, it's crazy that nothing has happened in that area yet!

The throughput was utterly awful last weekend, there were times when it didn't move for well over 20 minutes (which may have been shutdowns?), however even when it was moving, it was extremely slow.

With the Halloween season now in full swing, I thought it'd be a good time to create this topic. What is, or was, your favourite scare maze of all time?

I hope they fix everything, however it shouldn't need fixing on this scale - especially when you consider the scale of the investment, the amount of factors that either ruin the experience, or make it an operational nightmare, are shocking. My favourite thing (or rather, the only thing I like) is the cleverness of how the ride system works, however the effect is completely lost on 99% of riders. Next year, I'd like to see a much bigger deal made out of the fact that you've moved, as that feature in particular does have potential to be good, however at the moment they rush you past the second station and the illusion is completely lost.

Please be aware the following will contain SPOILERS. Having not done Scarefest for a good few years I was looking forward to see what had changed; in particular, the new scare mazes! Here is my review based on my experiences on Sunday 16th October; Scare Mazes (in the order we did them); Terror of the Towers Having enjoyed this maze in the past I was looking forward to seeing how it had changed. The maze had a fantastic atmosphere throughout, with a good use of audio and low-level lighting, as well as various items of theming and a few larger scenes; the church scene in particular was fantastic, really effective! The maze has a completely different route to when I last went through it, and unfortunately feels much shorter. A lot of my favourite scenes have gone, and it felt like there were a lot of corridors with not much going on; there was also a lack of scares, with the actors opting for the "creepy" approach instead. The strobe maze was also a disappointment, as it was much shorter than in previous years and lacked a sense of chaos. Overall, I'm baffled. When this was free, it was in excess of 10 minutes long with loads of huge scenes, as well as a long strobe maze finale. Now that it's a paid maze, it's much shorter with less scares, and felt disappointing overall - though as mentioned, it was very atmospheric. 5/10 Altonville Mine Tours Our second maze was Altonville Mine Tours, and wow! The maze is themed to a mine where you are going to uncover "the legend of the Skin Snatchers", and as such features lots of small corridors, but also some highly detailed scenes as well! Scares were very good, with actors having lots of places to hide; the lighting made for a very disorientating and intense experience, with actors being very full-on in terms of pushing you, and holding up the person at the back (me!) on multiple occasions. For me the biggest scare came from a scene near the beginning; corridor after corridor full of dummies with gas masks! The fact that I hate the things, combined with the fact that I was on my own at that point meant that for the first time in a while, I genuinely felt scared! The close proximity of the dummies also meant that you had to push your way through them, which added to the fear factor. In our group three people were given miners helmets with lights on; my helmet changed its flash rate throughout - at points it was static, whereas at other times it was flashing frantically. Personally I wasn't a fan of these, it felt like a gimmick and having a helmet on made me feel less vulnerable. My only criticism is that the ending was very weak, consisting of a room full of fog - after which we just walked out without any "final" scare. Overall I was hugely impressed with Altonville Mine Tours; the scares are brilliant, the theming is top notch and with a few adjustments it could be one of the best scare mazes in the country! 7/10 Sub Species After all the hype I was looking forward to this, but unfortunately it didn't deliver. Firstly, the soundtrack for this is great; it's intense, loud and raucous and sets the tone well for the attraction. The preshow was first, however we couldn't hear the spiel (on the TV's) due to the music playing in the corridor behind us, as the door was left open! Just before the end of the speech an actor came and closed the door; but we'd missed the entire thing by then. The first scene was fantastic with a number of doors; the lights went out and everyone was sent through the first door, but we were then pushed through the door immediately on the left. Following this was a series of black corridors with no theming, hardly any actors and no scares. It felt like we missed most of the theming as there were times when I'd see a themed room ahead, only to be pushed the other way into yet another dull, empty corridor. In addition to this, we went the wrong way at one point and saw an actor in a fantastic 'alien' costume; however we completely missed out on this scare as it was aimed at the rest of the group who were on one of the other routes. I feel that one of the biggest issues with this is that it's a multi-route maze, which means that you can essentially miss the best parts (as we seemed to). Considering that this is an upcharge maze, I feel that you should see everything in one run-through. Near the end there was a crawling section which was good, and provided a good jump scare as there was an actor in the tunnel! After this we reached the finale. Now I hate to say this, but this was diabolical. It's a chainsaw finale, however due to the exit door being open there was light spilling in and we could clearly see the actor sat on the chair before we reached him, which completely removed the element of surprise. For me there were two positives; the soundtrack was good, and the scene with the doors was effective. I found the layout boring, consisting of corridor after corridor with nothing to see, or to scare us! It felt like we had a bad runthrough, but in all honesty when you pay to experience an attraction that's not good enough; they get one chance to impress and as such it should maintain a high standard all the time. 4/10 General event The theming around Towers Street was good, however there wasn't much around the rest of the park, aside from a few items here and there. There was lots of themed music playing around the park which was good, for example in front of the Towers. Lighting was much better than in the last few years, with Nemesis lit up red, and the Towers lit up in a multitude of different colours; really effective! I don't like the fact that, since we last visited, more attractions are paid yet the quality has (IMO) reduced. Terror of the Towers used to be free, and was a much stronger maze than it was on Sunday. In addition, the Zombies Scare Zone was much better than the two there were today, which were good, however they were 'themed pathways' rather than attractions.

That's nice for you - but surely if the train crash wasn't working then it's not at the same standard? On the rides I've had since my first go there have been a multitude of different issues including; - VR footage jerking awkwardly, 'flipping' over and a bar appearing across my screen. This has happened A LOT. - Green mist screen for over 10 minutes on more than one occasion - No audio on VR headset, or on some occasions audio, but inaudible - Mist effect in train carriage not working (only seen this work once!) - Train crash effect not working and awful attempt to 'hide' that meaning that we missed the part with the shadow as well! - Interior audio and queueline music not working/cutting out Then there's the general underperformance of the attraction; there is one ending despite us being promised multiple endings in the advertising, the huge number of breakdowns, late opening most days, and of course the delay(s). Also, the fact that on multiple occasions I've spent 10 minutes waiting in the section between the preshow and main building - no theme park attraction should be a queue in itself! Finally, the throughput seems to be getting worse and worse, queueing for it last weekend was unbearable. Whilst I personally don't like Ghost Train, I understand why people do, but it fails to deliver in every way at the moment IMO.

It's awful that a NEW attraction is already running with entire elements not working, as well as the main element (VR) not working properly, but in all honesty it doesn't surprise me. For those who wondered why I was sceptical about this attraction and, more relevantly, whether the standard would be maintained, THIS is why. Out of interest is the live action scene working again yet?

Derren Brown's Ghost Train

Are they actually deleting people's reviews?! That's shocking!

But the shop's the best part! I'd much rather see the elements already there brought up to scratch before they look at adding more.

That's a nonsense excuse from Chessington, if they were 100% certain that they were operating rides safely then there would be no reason to slow down operations. In my opinion slowing down operations for "safety" makes it look like they have no confidence in their rides or staff, which actually makes them appear more unsafe - the rides there have run on much higher throughputs for years without any issues, so unless safety standards are worse, why would they have to implement such a strategy?