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They certainly provided a lot of entertainment over the years! I can't have been the only one who would watch someone struggle for ages before telling them how to turn the tap on? 😆

Opening times for this season have been released on the website. Overall I'd say its an improvement on last season, and its nice to see that Thorpe continue to have the best opening times out of the UK Merlin parks. Less closed days than last season and more 7pm openings, however Oktoberfests seem to have been cut as no 7pm closes during Oktoberfest this year. I've said it plenty of times before and I'll say it again, the only improvement I'd like to see is the return of 10pm closes for Fright Nights. The extra hour in the dark really makes a big difference. I'd love to see the return of a 10pm closing event during summer but I doubt that'll happen due to demand unfortunately. Also, the Sunday opening this year is strange? But I assume thats due to a buyout day on the Saturday.

More details about some of the work happening as park of the 'sparkle project' announced, including repainting Samurai back to its original red and black. Nice to see them spending a good amount of money on TLC. With multiple repainted rides, a new coaster, a refurbished area + more Thorpe is really going to look the best its done in years!

The more I see of this, the more I love it... https://twitter.com/AttractionSc/status/1728394310658162839/photo/1

As much as it'll be nice to have Nemesis back, Hyperia for me. It took me a while to get exited for Hyperia and although I still have my doubts I do believe we could have something quite special here!

Looks like a good replacement - better than I expected to be honest and fits in with the surrounding area well. For anyone wondering, as expected Detonators original soundtrack won't be returning, it'll be a new one 😢

Very true, if they weren't essential and people didn't notice then I guess there was no reason for them to be replaced. I was thinking it could be reliability related, back in the day I used to see Detonator have downtime on every visit pretty much, nowadays I never see it go down. Who knows!

Original black hole soundtrack on Detonator and the pistons back 🤞 I doubt we'll see the pistons back though unfortunately as I imagine theres a technical reason why they were removed

The only answer is more attractions or lower the capacity to help with the crowds really. I've mentioned it many times but the 10pm closes do make a big difference too, and I do hope they find a way to bring them back. More Fright Night dates doesn't really seem to make a difference as the peak nights are the same every year regardless of how many days they're open. I remember in 2019 they started Fright Nights at the end of September, and the first few weekends were dead. It clearly wasn't financially viable as they've never done that again since.

Completely agree. Last time I was there Fury was running 4 cars, which later went down to 3. Most of the time all 4 were in the station/break run. Painful to watch how they were operating it. Tiger Rock, Tomb blaster, Vampire + many more as we know are getting nowhere near what they're capable of an hour. Chessington is a pleasant day out on an off peak weekday, but as soon as they get any sort of crowd its really depressing how they run that place.

As far as I’m aware the unlimited maze ticket holders would have to queue it’s just RAP who would get to skip the queue. I would love to do Stiches again as well. I could see it has big potential but I just had a pretty poor run through on it. I was going to head down yesterday afternoon for another run through and some rides but the heavy rain put me off. Will have to wait till next year now. I just really hope they can sort out the queueing for next year. Anything over 30 minutes is unacceptable in my opinion.

So, its been confirmed retro squad is no more next season. With the loss of enterprise, that means no thrill flat rides apart from Sub Terra, if that counts. I really hope we get at least 1 permanent flat for next year but thats looking really unlikely with no planning gone in yet. Maybe they're thinking with the extra capacity from Sub Terra and Nemesis back next year they're no longer required?

Yep that was you then haha! We were at the back of the group but dropped off after a few minutes so we were on our own. Agree with all your comments. I thought that run through on Coven may have just been particularly good as it was the beginning of the night so all the actors had energy, but that energy was kept up throughout the whole night in all the mazes, and as I said in my previous post, that was the most amount of actors I've seen in all the mazes. Completely agree with your comments about the Creepy Cottage and Coven, Creppy Cottage in particular has always been one of my favorite. I think they get forgotten about because they're a little bit hidden too - someone I was with had been to Tulleys a couple times before, but when we took them to the Cottage they were shocked they had never been on it before, didn't even know it was there. I've heard they aren't doing as well as expected this year and are down most days on numbers compared to last year - maybe to do with the issues they had with the 16+ licensing or no new mazes. Hopefully a couple can get a refresh for next year, I would love to see the end of Hellements and the island personally. They've always been the weakest for me.

Odd decision seeing as pretty much all the Fright Night soundtracks they’ve used for Stealth have all still said heads back and face forwards and a countdown. What a shame. Seems they’ve become more strict since people were asking for ‘blind launches’ every other dispatch. Still doesn’t explain why there isn’t Fright Nights audio on the other flats and coasters.

Love that. It was the standard angry birds soundtrack last Sunday and they didn’t have that lighting so that’s a recent change.

I went tonight and was just as good as last year, if anything there seemed to be more actors tonight than I’ve ever seen at Tulleys. All mazes were the same, the only thing that’s seen changes this year is the hayride. The hayride was playing a mix in the queue which included the old Asylum soundtrack 😄 @MattyMoo Pretty sure I shared a run through with you on Coven if that was you who went on it first thing tonight 😂

I hope so. Its a dead IP now (always was really) and there did seem to be some talk about changes coming to angry bird land in the passholders group earlier this year. Would make sense to do it at the same time as a rebrand. Would love to see the return of the black hole music on Detonator

Yeah I noticed that, its a shame. Fingers crossed it'll return again next season. I love that the original dispatch audio has returned to the station but its ruined by the brace yourself announcement. That appeared after The Smiler incident and hasn't been played for a while.

When I answered the survey last year (or the year before?) I didn't want them to change it, I like the current logo and I'm more of a 'don't fix what isn't broken' type of person. But you know what, I'm looking forward to seeing this. By the sounds of it, they're going all out here. The current management seem to know what they're doing and this has genuinely been my favorite season in a long time, so I'm looking forward to what they've come up with. I just hope its here to stay and its done properly. Looking forward to hearing the new entrance music. Hoping ride music stays the same though. Original Colossus and Inferno music please, that certainly isn't broken.

I personally can't see Scorpion going, its much needed throughput for the park. It's been testing within the last week and is a popular attraction I don't think Rattlesnake has much long left. It takes up a decent amount of space and is the last 1.4m left now I can't see them removing anything without a replacement. They've made an effort to add attractions the last few years to increase capacity so I can't see them removing any without plans for a replacement

No, they haven’t done the last couple of years unfortunately

Yeah I agree, its not a priority for them and thats fine, I'm just someone that has always enjoyed Fright Nights audio so its something I picked up on. Even if they're not creating new audio, loads of the previous Fright Night overlays would work fine. It makes a huge difference to the atmosphere in my opinion. Good idea about keeping the coasters and Fright Nights attractions open till 10, would mean they could still send a good amount of staff home earlier. Fright Nights and Coasters are what the majority of people will want to be doing in the dark anyway really. Its just such a shame they make a good effort of making everything look good in the dark and then not even having the time to see it all anyway, even on a quieter night. I did notice a lot of people feeding this back in the passholders group as well, so I'm hoping they pick up on this and can look at bringing it back for next year as they seem to be quite good at listening to feedback recently. If they've done it before, they can do it again. I think as long as they keep the same number of free attractions/shows, people wouldn't mind paying for another maze. If they start to takeaway some of the free zones and replace these with paid mazes, I can see people not being too happy, understandably. I would be happy if they keep the current number with 3 mazes, as I think they have a great variety of attractions now. But if they do I would definitely like to see Trailers replaced, its nice to have a fresh maze every year. If I was to see anything replaced it would be Creature Campus. I'd much rather see a new scare zone or maze instead of a dance show. But I can see why they've kept this as theres clearly a demand for it, people seem to love it.

I've personally never waited more than 15 minutes for a Towers mazes over the years, so my experience with queues there have been a lot better. Maybe I've just been lucky. One thing I did notice though is that Towers open the mazes at 1pm on peak days. Maybe thats something Thorpe can look at doing to help spread the crowds out?

Last year was the first Fright Nights I hadn't done since 2012, meaning both Survival Games and Death doors were completely new to me. Survival games was my favorite of the mazes. Me and a friend got split up and didn't see eachother the whole time. It was quite funny talking about it after having completely different experiences. This one definitely seemed to get the best reactions of people coming out of the maze too. Trailers was basically the same as when I went on it a couple of years ago. Great sets and a good amount of actors. Stiches was my least favorite of the 3 mazes, which was a shame as I was looking forward to this one. The length of the maze and sets were amazing, but just felt it lacked any sort of scares and lacked actors in places there probably should've been actors. I do think I may have had a particularly bad run through on this so if I get myself to Fright Nights again I'd like to give it another go. I was also at the back of the group which didn't help, as most effects etc happened before I got there. I didn't watch the Creature Campus show as thats not something that really interests me. I thought the Lucifers Lair area was great though. Absolutely packed with actors and just in general a great atmosphere in the middle of the park. Everyone really seemed to enjoy this area, was constantly busy. The Crows scarzone was great, felt more like an outdoor maze than a scarezone. The lighting, audio and smoke was great. I liked that they were sending you in batches as it meant it wasn't too crowded in there but I'm unsure how this will cope on the busier nights. It created big crowds at the entrance with no real queueline. It was impossible to hear what they were saying on the megaphone with Saws area music in the background 😄 I also really enjoyed Death Doors, which was a pleasant surprise. Something completely different and it was a good laugh. Few other points: - The park in general is looking great at night. Would be nice to have a couple smoke machines around though, like Samurai and Colossus has done on previous years. - None of the rides had Fright Nights audio this year which is a shame. Not sure if they just haven't had the time to do it yet or they aren't bothering this year? This really adds to the event normally so I hope they get that sorted. - There really isn't enough time in the dark. The park looks great at night and its a completely different atmosphere. I know the park aren't keen on bringing 10pm closes back due to a number of reasons like staff welfare etc, but it seriously makes such a big difference. I'd much rather them do an 11am-10pm if its the extra hour which is an issue. Bring 10pm closes back!!! - Wasn't a fan of the parkwide Fright Nights audio this year. Overall though, the best Fright Nights I've been too in a long time. They have a great mix of attractions which are all high quality. Its clear they're putting a lot of effort into the event again and the budget it there. Next year id like to see them add a 4th maze to the current lineup. I'm sure they'd like to as well as it will help with queues and its an extra income for them. Not sure if they'll be able to do that though space wise until they get rid of black mirror. If a 4th isn't an option next year then I'd like to see a new maze to replace Trailers.

I echo the comments about queueing for mazes above. When paying for the mazes, it would be nice to have a timeslot and get straight on/little queue. An hour queue for a maze when you've paid for them is unacceptable in my opinion. They know the throughput of the mazes, and they know how many tickets they're selling. If theres an hour queue, they've clearly oversold. We got to trailers a little after 6 and they originally weren't letting us on telling us we've already used it. Had to argue our way onto a maze id paid for because I'd been stuck in queues for the others...