jessica2

agreed I am pleased with this! It never made sense for me to have a random bitty unrelated land breaking up amity, bigger lands/themes have more impact.

Love it, it's a real Hoot Hoot of a theme.
 
Genuinely though, looks good, hope the concept art comes to fruition. Makes sense with the surrounding area too.

Loved Stitches on Friday 13th, didn't love the 70+ minute queue meaning we were unsure if we'd get all 3 mazes - THAT WE HAD PAID FOR - done.
We did, just about, but only because Josh was oN PaRk and told us Trailers had no queue so ended up going on at 8.55pm as a group of 4, and was an incredible run.
 
Will probably sit out Fright Nights next year unless I can get a ticket for Blue Light day as I begrudge pay-per-maze anyway, and would imagine just the 1 new maze next year.

Oh really? Haha! It was one of our very early mazes. Was wearing a Tulleys hoodie and a black Vault City t shirt last night.
After cutting short our visit on Saturday 7th October due to it being "a certain day" ahem, and complaining to guest services, we got our VIP bands reissued (and vouchers!) and came back last night - was so so different. Fantastic atmosphere and some incredibly intense runs on mazes with lots of actors. Was followed each run through by a blonde actress in the Cellar in the strobe maze section, getting proper close... similarly, was split off in Doom Town by two actresses in the kitchen scene, and Coven was top notch, never seen the witches getting so close and climbing onto the walls so much in the laser swamp, as I call it. If you were on the same first run through of Coven with us, the house scene in particular was very intense, the witches went absolutely bonkers, shouting and ganging up from nowhere, was absolutely superb.
 
I would genuinely go as far as saying our visit last night was one of the best we've ever had in all the years we've been going, and so glad that was the case. Top notch street theatre too, Fanny & Fanny, Brian the Accountant, Romeo & Juliet and also the vampire and vampiress couple all chatted to us, and they are all so so good. Fanny was showing us her pussy which she said now needed two fingers instead of one, and Juliet was proud of her gash which she - and I jest not - said that Romeo had unfortunately double fisted by accident. Lost for words/nearly spat my drink out everywhere 😂🥵
 
Particular highlights also included the zombie with "Choose Life" on his tshirt in Doom Town saying "NO - choose Death!", one of the roaming zombies pointing out to us this was our 3rd run through in disbelief... also, some absolute stonking scares in Creepy Cottage & Cellar (as mentioned previously) - I must reiterate again, actors last night were on absolute top form.
 
We didn't do The Island last night as we'd done it in our aborted visit on the 7th, and it's looooong, and we didn't do Hellements again as - no offence - it doesn't scare me in the slightest to be honest! Only minor comment/suggestion is that Chop Shop is a little dated now perhaps, though again the actors were good last night! Would love that to be changed up a bit next year. I always feel Cottage & Cellar are under-rated by the masses, as we often have the best scares of the night in them, personally!
 
Maze tallies last night (we have VIP, just an FYI!)
Creepy Cottage: 3
Coven of 13: 3
Island: 0
Chop Shop: 1
Clowns: 1
Wastelands: 2
Cellar: 4
Haunted Hayride: 2
Hellements: 0
Doom Town: 4
 
...and from our aborted visit on the 7th, leaving the park about 8pmish for fear of the atmosphere turning more sour considering they'd shut all the bars...:
 
Creepy Cottage: 3
Coven of 13: 1
Island: 1
Chop Shop: 1
Clowns: 1
Wastelands: 2
Cellar: 3
Haunted Hayride: 0
Hellements: 1
Doom Town: 2
 

I went yesterday and will do a more detailed review in the spoilers thread.
 
I also wanted to echo JohnnyRocket's point above, I was very confused as to why the maze queues between 3-6pm were all a good hour or so long (so I imagine many people did not get them done in their timeslot) but when walking past the mazes at 7/8pm there was a 5-10 min queue. This is with the trio of mazes being sold out in both the afternoon and evening timeslots! Also- Thorpe telling people the maze queues were all 0 minutes on Saturday was definitely a load of rubbish as the app said 0 minutes for all of them despite them being around an hour. We did survival games last and interestingly it had a sign up to say to do it at the end of your slot, as it was 'very busy'. Makes me dread to think how it will cope on busier days assuming once the trio packages sell out more people will book one shots.
 
Overall though despite that I thought it was the strongest fright nights in a very long time and I don't think any element/attraction was bad at all, which is a first, and we managed to do everything pretty much. Highlight had to be the crows, I love the theming and the atmosphere was spot on! But genuinely thought all the mazes were quality this year for different reasons, just a shame about the queueing but hey that's thorpe for you!

Went to Fright Nights yesterday, was a bit busier than expected but then Ride Queue Times site considers it “quiet” at 39% crowd level so really can’t see how it’s worth doing on days that are 80%+! But anyway that’s a whole other discussion.
 
Really enjoyed the day. I think they’ve got the pricing and timeslots wrong unfortunately. We hedged our bets and went for the afternoon slot 3-6pm, we queued over an hour for each maze. We didn’t get into the second maze until 6.10pm so anxious we wouldn’t get into the last maze. We asked a manager on our way in to the 2nd maze if we’d be OK doing the 3rd after the time slot finished. She said lots of people had asked her about this and had radioed ahead to our last maze to allow people in from the afternoon slot. So we got in just fine. 
 
But if they’re already getting backlog issues with afternoon people having to be let in during the evening slots on a “quiet” day then I honestly don’t know how it’s going to work on peak days. Also not helped by the queue times for the mazes saying 0 minutes on the app all day so it’s hard to plan
 
Once it got to about 7pm, the queues for the mazes were incredibly short. We kicked ourselves for not just paying the extra £6 for the evening slot. So if you’re going on a quieter day, absolutely do the evening!
 
Trailers was OK, same as last year. Think it’s time for it to change now though. The novelty of the throwbacks was fun but now it does just feel like a bit of a disjointed incoherent maze of random things put together. 3/5 for me
 
LOVED Stitches, definitely our favourite of the 3. Great length, and loads of clever ways of getting a scare (don’t want to give anything away). Theming quality very high, great atmosphere. It’s my favourite type of scare, the unknown and anticipation of something about to happen. Would honestly give this 5/5 - a very worthy and superior replacement for Creek Freak Massacre
 
First time doing Survival Games. Heard so much about how intense this was and how terrifying it is, our group was actually nervous about this one after hearing about being pushed and shoved. Turns out, at least for us, it’s really not that bad. I think for me the actors talking to you and kinda nudging you about takes the scare away from me. But I still thought it was very very fun. We actually did this one again as we found it a laugh, and 2 of us managed to stick together for the first half which to be honest made it even more enjoyable for us. We kinda played hide and seek in there, was in for ages (which I’m sure is frowned upon!). Obviously theming’s non existent which is a shame. Would give it 3.5/5

Now since everyone seemed to be queuing for mazes in the afternoon, it meant short queues in the evening but queues for the scare zones instead!
 
The Crows is brilliant this year. Great use of space. It’s honestly better than some of the outdoor mazes we’ve had in the past. Didn’t bother with Deaths Doors as the queue was so big, did it last year and it’s a fun attraction and can’t complain with it being free. 
 
Didn’t see the Amity show but got glimpses of the Lucifers Lair shows. That area’s great, absolutely full of actors from all angles. It’s the best this area has been.
 
All in all, probably the strongest Fright Nights in years! So glad it’s back to its best.

I like it, it's cool. Is it the best name ever? No. Would I have preferred Icarus? Sure. But it sounds cool, rolls off the tongue and is punchy enough. Sure it sounds similar to Hyperion (which was named after a moon of Saturn), but heyho, 90% of people won't know or care. And loads of names are met with resistance at first...in a year, most people don't mind. A couple of years, and no one cares.
 
The style is fab. The music is fab. The 'find your fearless' seems to be a spin on phrases like 'find your happy', which I'm fine with. Marketing a 236ft tall, inverting coaster with lap bars with an upbeat theme to the UK market is no easy task. This seems like the best way forward.
 
In short, happy with this. And VERY excited.

Yay the press night so we can all hear that the event is the best it’s ever been then go ourselves hand over £50 and find out it’s utter rubbish

Keep an eye on your favourite Thorpe Park fansite's social media for updates... 😉

God he's good. Must be why he's a mod.
 
Waff zooooooom splosh splish splash I was takin a bath rub a dub dub things are lookng UP.
I'm desperate, so where can I.P.
We need more time, lord.

I predict that construction for Project Exodus will go vertical on Monday 9th October. I reckon the first supports will go in sometime between 11am and 1pm that day. 

I've got scheduled Youtube videos predicting that vertical construction will commence the day after tomorrow for the rest of the week therefore I'll be correct for sure #Influencer #MTYMOO

Soz for double post, but the new 16+ restriction for admittance to Tulleys is coming as a shock and disappointment to people online it seems... they do keep posting about it mind you...
 
I reckon it could make quite a difference to crowd levels, potentially.

I know we noticed some teens filming in mazes on Snapchat and the like, but I'm not saying that's limited to under 16s (over 16s would obvs be on Facebook xoxo)

Pleased to confirm that I'll be on the ISLAND LIKE NO OTHER on Friday 13th, officially the sPOoPiEsT day in the world for FRIGHT NIGHTS, and I look forward to having an incredible experience in the mazes, with 15 actors surrounding me at all times, each referring to me by name and then the one off the posters escorting me to a secret maze within the maze where Russ Gaines then greets me with a Coke freestyle of my choosing and a selection of doughnuts from DOUGHNUT TIME, before handing me a real life Easter Egg with the words THE CURSE on it, a nod to the maze THE CURSE if you don't know, before then returning to the maze via the - relocated - new Tidal Wave fire effect room, upon which Alice off the videos jump scares me out of a MACK RIDES timber box, where I then run out of the maze and am given an Ultimate fastrack wristband and a bespoke game of DOBBLE.
 
Jokes aside though - echoing what my m80 Jessica says, considering it's £10 a maze, I will genuinely - for the first time ever - go to guest services and moan if a run through is ruined by numpties. Or, hopefully the staff just forget to scan our booking like they did last year.

Theme of new maze could be good as I guess scary/creepy dolls can be effective. Not sure how you make an entire maze out of it (e.g. in the attic at AT there is a toy scene which is cool) but I guess we will see.
 
It does also put me off going to fright nights nowadays the fact that you get one chance (unless you're buying multiple entries) at having a good run through on a maze, so I tend to go on what I predict will be the quietest day (maybe the first Sunday), and STILL the couple of times I've gone I've ended up in a huge group with a load of teenagers and there's hardly any actors in most of the rooms hah. Go figure... 
 
I will say, mazes like asylum with strobes, loud noise and general chaos meant that, even though you were going through in quite large groups in a conga line, you still always got good scares and in a way it didn't matter so much about where you were in the group, it was still intense. I think thorpe may now be missing a maze which has an intensity like asylum (and to some extent creek freak) had, but who knows maybe stitches will bring that. Haven't done survival games so can't comment on that.
 
I hope they do consider things like this when designing mazes, I.e. how will it perform in sub optimal conditions, rather than when one influencer goes round with the full cohort of actors.

I think these signs are supposed to be ski slope related which is vaguely ish related to Oktoberfest as they have some skis dotted about the area and a ski lift you can sit in.

BAN THIS MEMBER FOR BEING ANTI-MERLIN. You must not criticize this incredible ALL NEW addition to 2023 FRIGHT NIGHTS.

Maybe next year they'll add goblins.

Thorpe Park's socials are on a roll today - they've just posted the next FN announcement before the "official reveal" at 7pm, but with a picture of Colossus.
 
Creature Campus sounds like something from Chessington.

I delved into the plans for Exodus and had a look when we might see things go vertical: https://thorpeparkmania.co.uk/news/28-08-2023/When+Might+Project+Exodus+go+Vertical
 
In short:
-Vertical construction looks set to start mid-next month
-Set to finish before Christmas
-Testing to happen from late January
-Potentially ready to open in time for Easter holidays

Dear God, I appreciate that when you have props etc. it makes sense to use them, but Merlin are obsessed with passing off old toot as "Easter eggs" and such aren't they?! It always screams "What rubbish do we have kicking about that we can make look old and abandoned, throw it all together, new attraction innit"
 
 

Tulleys gonna love lording that over Thorpe come SpoOpy SzN.

£10 a run through, with no discount for the beloved annual pass holders, is a rip off.
And that's from someone who's never held an annual pass in their life #FakeFan.
 
It's just too much money for your one and only runthrough to be ruined by absolute cretins (Tulleys now 16+...)  and/or not enough actor interaction.
I know the days of non-upcharge mazes are long gone but I begrudge it. However, all that said, fair play on afternoon runs being cheaper.

Very true - by contrast, Tulleys VIP is now £102 each including fees, if you order on Black Friday. Last year we managed 26 run throughs in total using that - when you factor in the fact we got a £10 food voucher, £5 drinks voucher and £15 merch voucher - even discounting the merch, you would almost certainly eat and drink on a visit, so £82 for the ticket, £3.15 a maze represents good value to me.

How about an Angry Bird?