JoshuaA

Agreed on most of your review. Phantasialand has moments of class mixed with areas of complete rubbish. For every Taron there's three rides begging to be destroyed. I can't say the same for Europa Park where every ride has a purpose and is looked after to the highest degree. Yes even snow bench the ride. I value capacity highly and I could rip my hair out waiting for either of the Winja brothers. 

Phantasialand on the whole is generally a great park and one of my favourites. A lot of their rides such as Taron & Chiapas I consider masterpieces in their own ways.
 
There is definitely room to improve the offering further and a lot of it comes down to the entrance setup and older attractions. I think China might be getting redeveloped next but the entrance setup is definitely a challenging one as Josh’s points mention. 
 
As for food, I consider it arguably the best park for food, from quick service to sit down restaurants. I do recommend Rutmoore’s Tavern if you return or the ice cream place near Chiapas if you fancy a snack.

Entering Phantasialand is a weird one as there's actually 3 'main' entrances. 
 
Entrance 1: Berlin. This is the most "main" one in design,  but practically anyone who drives won't use it, since there's basically no parking for day guests. You enter with the carousel directly in front, and then look down Berlin street towards Wellenflug. It's small and tight but pretty cool. 
 
Entrance 2: Mystery. Probably the most used one since the car park is accessed by using the road under the park next to the main entrance. 
 
Entrance 3: China. The car park for this is found by driving past the main entrance, turning left at the roundabout (going past Hotel Matamba) and following the road along.
 
Neither Mystery nor China entrance is great, in the sense that you just go straight into the park. It's a very harsh contrast (like a lot of Phantasialand's transitions between areas). They're practical, certainly not memorable. 
 
Crucially, the park do know these areas all problems. They want to expand the land they own so more people can use the Berlin entrance, and so they can make it a bit grander, but they have experienced issues getting permission to expand.
 
They don't own the land of one of their car parks (I think Mystery, but could be China). It's owned by a local who effectively leases it to the park and refuses to sell. A couple of years ago he tried building his own train through the car park... So it makes it hard to do work there. And even then, there's limited space to expand their car parks, meaning any work done to improve entrances outside the current perimeter costs valuable car parking spaces. 
 
They do have plans and do want to improve, but their hands are very much stuck at the moment. 
 
On top of that, each hotel has a dedicated entrance into the park (though Matamba's only happened this year). None of them are particularly great either. 
 
 
I agree about Maus being on the long side. It is certainly an arm workout!
 
It's probably a toss up between China and Crazy Bats/Hollywood Tour for what sees the chopping block next. Given the investment in Crazy Bats and current rumours, it's more likely going to be the China area that goes first.

Your thoughts share similarities to my own when I visited.
 
Cologne is an interesting city with quirks but definitely not the best looking by any means and if anything industrial. The Cathedral is ace though! The Chocolate museum looks nice and I hope to visit there if I return again.
 
2020 has been an unacceptable year, surprised that statue hasn’t been more vandalised.
 
 

Agreed with Inferno being the best. It runs really good these days, love how intense but smooth it is.

Definitely agree with some attractions there. Cabin and Festinos definitely had some unique elements included there.

Interesting opinions there, thanks for the upload.

A lot of my opinions are completely opposite to yours. I find Superman proper dreary compared to Air. Considering what it could do and what it does do, it's a real let down for me. Especially as its one of the busier rides there, it doesn't deliver. I liked Raging Bull and was gutted we only got on it once. Different enough from the other hypers to make an impression. V2 is tedious to me. Goliath on the other hand excellent, Batman the Ride sublime.
 
We suffered a power cut unfortunately so will have to go back..

I like Cedar Point and can say it is one of my favourite parks and arguably the best place for coasters in the world.
 
Would say most of the above is agreeable, Steel Vengeance is fab, Maverick great, I love Millennium Force, Rougarou surprisingly good and Magnum is better than Big One.
 
I like Raptor and didn’t find it too tough on both times I’ve visited, but probably still prefer Nemy. I like Gate Keeper.
 
I think Valravn might be the biggest letdown in terms of major rides there, I just find it seriously lacks something and never seems to get going. Oblivion has the best drop of the three dive machines I have done.
 
Its tricky to say what the park’s next coaster will be and where it’s going? They demolished the old staff dorms but they have Monster trucks there and their old flume/dinosaur area is now Forbidden Frontier. Cedar Creek going is speculation  I keep hearing, but then again the ride has much history too, so it’s tricky.

?
 
The more I ride Wodan, the more it cements itself as my favourite wooden coaster. It's just utterly relentless. It's the perfect antithesis to Blue Fire which feels so controlled and perfected.

Will hopefully be doing Kings Island’s ‘’Fastrack equivalent’’ when I’m hopefully out there again in a few weeks. I’ll let you all know what it’s like. 
 
From current experience, Port Aventura is the only park I’ve gone full out on ‘’Fastrack equivalent’’ only because of their diabolical batching ratios and that their clientele can’t seem to grasp the basic concept of queuing. 

I went to my first Scarefest last week - already done Fright Nights since 2013, and did Tulleys a few weeks ago.  Totally agree with you about The Welcoming.
As for Sub Species - that's the only scare maze that has truly terrified me to the point that I ran out and burst into tears whilst having an asthma attack and bad anxiety - I'd probably do it again in the future despite it being fricking terrifying - but it achieved for me an actual scare - the dude with the chainsaw at the end was bloody terrifying ?

Brilliant blog, I can't wait to go back for Fireworks Night (third time this year).
 
The atmosphere and roamers are just insane at Shocktoberfest, and the mazes are all of a fairly good quality this year too!

Just a normal ticket for the evening was all I had which gave me access to all the attractions and evening entertainment minus the rides. Longest queue was for Hayride but only 30 minutes maximum after it just opened after sunset. Was quite surprised actually how fast the queues were moving during the evening, mostly due to minimal number of Fastrack users I presume.

Would be interesting to see what their fireworks display is like after this event, although, Alton's one has me occupied for next weekend this year. Will consider it next time though! 

Haha, I was the exact same after riding Steeplechase and Wild Mouse- I tend to have a will prepared before riding them 
Couldn't agree more on Infusion though, its rare for me to not enjoy rides, heck I even find some enjoyment in Colossus and Saw, but Infusion.. Holy jeesus is that thing a abomination!

Euromir can run up to 9 trains! 5 Would be a really quiet day 

The final cut was my favourite too!
 
nice review

@imindetonator Yeah exactly, its all down to previous experiences, expectations and the type of person you are. Compared to when I went last year the event was nowhere near as busy yet the park still had a great atmosphere. I was also shocked about the lack of strobes, a good strobe maze ending (TOTT) would still have been nice to see as they are truly disorientating. 

I believe I'll be at Alton the same day as you, be interesting to see if we have similar experiences then.

@tomathy I guess it really depends on the actors and perspective when it comes down to these attractions.
For me the only attraction that seemed to lack actors was Bloody Mirror, which I only saw like one actor.
For me I was a tad disappointed with PearlyWhite not being in Festino, but the three actors holding our group hostage for a few minutes was more than enough!
I guess the event overall is a tad more technical than other events from my experience, as most of the mazes are very theatrical compared to what
you'd get at Fright Nights/Scarefest.
For me a lot of jump scares came from large props or special effects in some of the rooms, actually, I was shocked too barely see any strobe lighting used in the mazes at all. I think this really made the event unique compared to other events, it was completely different to anything else I've experienced
The event from my observations was dead at opening, but the event got quite busy the more the event went on.

I went to Screamland last year and had a great time aside from the fact that my trip through the final cut and dead and breakfast were ruined by being in a group of 50 odd people to get rid of crowds. I was really looking forward to experience those attractions properly this year and so made a trip there yesterday as well.

Its safe to say we had very different experiences in the mazes aside from Bloody Mirror.
 
SPOILERS AHEAD

My group didn't meet a single actor within Festino's Forgotton Funhouse until the knife thrower. We were expecting to meet Pearlywhite the clown at the end of the maze yet the advertised character did not appear to be there. Instead there was a single clown above us with a chainsaw which sounded more like a hair dryer and we simply walked straight through and out.

The Paradise Foundation was very similar in the sense that we only saw a couple of actors after opening scene. One was a bandaged woman who was standing in the middle of a corridor and screamed as we went past, which would have been scary if we hadn't have already seen her. Then there was just one other actor that let us into the finale scene which left us a little bit let down. We also found that there was far too much light throughout most of the scenes.

The Final Cut was by far the best attraction we experienced during the night, loads of actors who seemed to come from nowhere. The sets were pretty well thought out with the entrance through the cinema screen being a personal favourite scene. 

Dead and Breakfast is exceptionally well themed throughout, and I agree, Fag Ash Lil is a fantastic character. Her boyfriend again did appear to be everywhere in the maze and the ending was carried out very well. Great performances all round.
 
I guess it just shows how two people can have completely different experiences on the same night at places like this. For our group it appeared that because the event wasn't all that busy (despite selling out fast track tickets) that therefore the actors didn't need to try as hard. The roaming actors were very good, they even chased a few groups around parts of the park shouting and screaming. However I feel that they would have been better placed inside of the mazes to allow for more scares where it counts. Hopefully it was just a case of my group and I being unlucky. 

I should also point out that even though I personally don't rate the mazes very highly and my review sounds rather negative, I did still have a great night. The atmosphere in the park was great, loads of smoke bellowing out from the Ferris Wheel and the Screamland sign. I love the vintage rides within the park and every single member of staff I met was incredibly helpful. Overall a great night regardless of the experiences I had in the mazes and would still recommend the event despite the criticisms. 

Great review, can't wait for my first visit to Tulleys next weekend!

Out of all of the ones I have done, Xtreme is by far my favourite Halloween event!
 
Especially the opening break out fun!
 
VIDEO0112-2.mp4
 

Glad you enjoyed yourself... I was the Chopshop's mohawk chainsaw hillbilly and I'm glad you have had another fantastic experience at Shocktoberfest! Everyone puts in an incredible amount of work to keep up the standard and improve year upon year... And also thanks for the constructive feedback as you have said this was the first night of real guests and improvements can and will be made.
 
 

I'll be doing all of those (except Screamland) plus Xtreme Scream Park and Legoland fireworks. 
 
It will be a first time for all of them for me (except Fright Nights. I think I'm most excited for Scarefest personally. 

Excellent, thank you very much. I trust that you enjoyed your visit? Great pics, and info..