Just my own review of the mazes this year if anyone's interested, spoiler free too.
The Passing -
With Experiment 10 last year, they couldn't go back to a standard hands on shoulder maze, so obviously they turned to the bag-on-head idea. To be honest this added nothing to the experience other than a slight annoyance as it was way to big, and you can see right through it almost perfectly. The maze itself is fairly long, but has little on the way of real theming compared to all the other mazes. And halfway through you reach the horror of a massive glowing fire exit, which actually completely distracted me from an actor trying to grab my attention. Those who remember Hellgate will notice some familiar elements too. All this aside, the maze offers some real genuine scares though, and 2-3 twists that you'll probably yelp "What!? No way!", which is just enough to put it above the others in scare factor. Is it worth £3? In terms of money actually spent producing the maze: No way. It's definitely the cheapest maze on park. In terms of scarefactor and something different: Yes. It's a one of a kind maze for the park.
Experiment 10:
Last year I loved this maze. This year well, I like it, but something about it just seems off. And as for the new twist...well see below.
The queue although short, was a 40 minute wait. I can only assume because they had the option, they chose to elongate the introduction, as we spent a fairly long time inside. The first room remained unchanged with the quirky doctor, although the acting seemed a little out of character, one of the girls was too scared to move through, and she almost desperately said "come on you've seen the queue outside, you're holding it up", which was kind of weird...
As for the decontamination room, what was once a scary dimly lit room was now brightly lit and well...a bit naff really. A tiny puff of smoke comes out with the bright lights still on, then before we can even leave the room, 2 giant noisey extractor fans kick in and suck both the smoke, and the ambiance out of the room.
So into the rooms, these have also changed a tad, from what I gathered from my friends each room had something in it, two of my friends and mine had string dangling from the ceiling making it feel like something was on my head, my other friend had an air blaster. Now coming out of this room also didn't feel right. There was an unknown light source coming from somewhere and you could see the side of the shipping container, which again took away the feeling. The rest remained basically unchanged, the difference being this time solely the actors. I didn't spot any hazmat suites, just patients. That all more or less stood there doing nothing. Now last year all I remember is screaming and a distinct sense of urgency. This year the maze just had a sense of serene quietness to it...
And finally the new ending; I wont bother spoilering this because frankly its not even a spoiler. Unless I'm missing something, you literally just walk past a room with a TV in it. The TV has a doctor dismembering someone and that's it. The end. All in all, I was a little dissapointed by X10 this year to be honest, although because of the separation it still has its lure.
The Asylum:
Not much to say about this really. What was once their flagship maze still remains top notch. The interior was unchanged. The only difference is the queue line which now winds up and down until it meets the carousel, actually cutting off the path so you must was around. The acting was top notch, and the chainsaw seemed to actually be working this year, as last year all he really did was wave it at us.
The Curse:
I went into this with low expectations I'll be honest. To add to this, we had to wait an extra 10 mins as the maze had technical difficulties (to our amusement we spotted someone go into the back door with a ladder, so something had obviously fallen down or disconnected or something). Again the layout is unchanged, but that's to be expected. But the maze itself seemed different. What used to be a clear maze where you could see every dodgy prop in plain site was now full of a haze and clever lighting. Trap doors were out of site and full of actors. I don't know what they did, but the maze was definitely on top form this year. So hats off to them for bringing new life into the maze.
Saw: Alive:
5th and Final maze. I was always a fan of the maze when it ran full season. So I was literally itching to go back inside. Much of it was the same, although they seemed to have addressed one of my biggest annoyances which I was delighted by. The actors were actually in context for a change. By which I mean, they acted out the scene loosely based on the film. I.e the derelict bathroom, the man is actually "sawing" his foot off, the freezer room, the woman is actually asking for help, not just going "I'm actually freezing to death..BOO!", and there was actually a pig mask in there too.
Other than the mazes, we did spot the roaming actors on the bridge whilst riding Vortex, but never encountered them on park.
As for park ambiance, they lighting remained unchanged, I've heard some people moan about THE SWARM's flood lighting, but to be honest, it kind of actually fits in well.
Theming was once again nonexistent, however with a week of non-fright nights days to go, I would say this could be the reason for that, but don't get your hopes up.
And for the first time in who knows how long the park sound system was working 100% glitch free, and it sounded GOOD! Custom FN's dispatch and boarding announcements all worked as expected, the park had a consistent blanket of themed FN's music, with certain queues getting their own FN's track. No crackling or cutting out. So great job whoever sorted that out.
All I will say is by 8pm the park was dead, bar a few of the mazes. Which kind of annoyed me, because Merlin will only use this as justification to cut opening hours. The park was probably not even that busy either, however Colossus and THE SWARM both opened with one train operation, which both led them to having 1 hours queues. Eventually THE SWARM put on train #2 and swiftly ploughed through the queue. But later in the day Colossus peaked at 90 minutes. This is on a relatively off peak day, if they don't sort this kind of thing out by half term its really not going to be pretty...
Anyways, all in all I would say because of EX10's changes, and the missed potential of The Passing, but with the saving grace of a new lease of life to the old mazes, and a fixed ambient sound system, this years Fright Nights is probably just about on par with last years in terms of satisfaction, and is definitely worth a visit.
