Fright Nights 2014

[jon81uk]

There are plenty of complaints about Fright Nights on TripAdvisor too.

 

The charge for standard annual passholders has been in place for several years now and is needed as otherwise the park would be completely full. As others have said, the park is already closed to day ticket sales within an hour of opening so they couldn't cope with passholders who haven't booked turning up as well. It is printed on the card that the charges apply so there is no argument about it.

 

Althiough, the tickets for passholders have now sold out, but you can still pay £49.99 for a normal ticket? how does that work, surely AP tickets should be available until ALL tickets have sold out!

[Altitude]

Park was very busy yesterday, 120 minutes for the main 5 coasters and mazes, however I was only interested in the mazes. We went to Swarm at 10:30 and it was only running one train all morning! Not sure if they added another later, but it's such a stupid move considering it's a popular event during half term!

 

Me and my two friends did the Face it Alone experience in Cabin in the Woods last night. Very... Interesting haha

[TPJames]

Just a seperate question to anyone who's visited this week.

Does Blair witch continue to open at 7 or does it open at 6 like last year now that the clocks have gone back and it gets dark between 4-5pm?

Many thanks, hoping for Blair witch to be open an extra hour to garuntee entry on Sunday as it was my favourite maze on preview night.

[Altitude]

Yesterday I went on it before 7, so yes it opens early!

 

The queue moves fast however a minute after I entered, there was an incident and we were asked to walk back to the start and wait to begin the attraction again! I have to say being sat in the cold for 20 minutes isn't fun!

[JoshC.]

Well as a matter of fact I have seen complaints on facebook and twitter saying that people had to queue up over an hour TO COMPLAIN at guest services... Certainly when I was there on Saturday 17th, there must have been a fair 300-400people waiting to complain about ridiculous queues because of reservenride.

Just by using that information, it looks like a lot of people are complaining directly to guest services at the park.

 

You see, this is what confuses me about people.

 

You go to a theme park for a special event during half term, so you're going to expect queues.  Having not visited the past week, I don't know just how bad it was.  But, if you're having that terrible a time on park, why would you join a ridiculously long queue / wait an hour just to complain?  If your day is that terrible and there's so many people waiting at Guest Services, I would just give up and go home, and then email the park (whilst emailing is less efficient, if I was having such a terrible day, I'd rather be at home then waiting in a queue to complain...).  And if you are prepared to wait that long to complain, then surely you'd be happy to wait a bit longer and actually experience a ride/maze?

 

Almost feels like people are complaining just so they can benefit from it / to make their day better...

[Altitude]

Josh your last point is very true.

 

When we were held up in Blair Witch last night, lots of people were considering going to complain just for fastpass/free tickets, even though we we're only sat there 20 minutes (after a short 20 minute queue).

 

Yes, it was cold, but not worth complaining about!

[Benin]

So people shouldn't complain just because it's busy?

 

If a park is poor, then a park is poor, to say "oh well you should expect it to be busy" is always a cop-out... Does the park being busy affect the over-selling of Thorpe's Fastrack? Yes, but it's the park's fault for over-selling it in the first place...

 

In the experience of park contact, complaining in person is a lot more efficient than via email... How many people even on here have been struggling to get a hold of a park through sending emails with no response?

 

When I visited Europa in summer it had at least double the amount of guests Thorpe has had this week, yet it was manageable... Perhaps the flaw is that the park being busy is just an excuse to forget the park's shortcomings at being unable to handle such a number of guests...

[Mark9]

Josh your last point is very true.

 

When we were held up in Blair Witch last night, lots of people were considering going to complain just for fastpass/free tickets, even though we we're only sat there 20 minutes (after a short 20 minute queue).

 

Yes, it was cold, but not worth complaining about!

 

This sends alarm bells ringing for me and why Thorpe should endeavour to try and better itself rather then give out exit passes like candy. People are starting to cotton on that complaining about anything gets you free fastracks. This in turn is creating so much more problems and longer queues. 

 

I really, truly wish Thorpe priced these things accordingly. As it stands, fastrack is just too cheap.

[JoshC.]

So people shouldn't complain just because it's busy?

I'm not saying that at all; perhaps maybe I shouldn't have even mentioned about the park being busy.

 

But surely if you're prepared to wait an entire hour to go to guest services to simply complain, you can be prepared to queue 2 hours to go on a ride, which is a much more satisfying experience?  Maybe the park did 'oversell Fastrack' and it made the day more difficult to enjoy, but queueing for an hour to go to guest services isn't exactly the way to try and make the most of a day out.  

 

Totally accept that complaining in person is the best way to do it, but I just can't see people's logic in queueing in a ridiculously long queue so that they can complain.  Unless of course, people do it in the knowledge that they'll get Priority Passes and sparking the never ending cycle of long queues. 

 

[Benin]

I'm not saying that at all; perhaps maybe I shouldn't have even mentioned about the park being busy.

 

But surely if you're prepared to wait an entire hour to go to guest services to simply complain, you can be prepared to queue 2 hours to go on a ride, which is a much more satisfying experience?  Maybe the park did 'oversell Fastrack' and it made the day more difficult to enjoy, but queueing for an hour to go to guest services isn't exactly the way to try and make the most of a day out.  

 

Totally accept that complaining in person is the best way to do it, but I just can't see people's logic in queueing in a ridiculously long queue so that they can complain.  Unless of course, people do it in the knowledge that they'll get Priority Passes and sparking the never ending cycle of long queues. 

 

 

It's going to be that, I think it's pretty much common knowledge that any complaint will be dealt with via the park (be it Thorpe, Towers or Chessie) will result in your group being given priority passes as an apology...

 

The parks need to look at their complaints policies and revisit them, because when the masses complain, then it makes the situation worse...

 

As for the people queuing, the same can be said for those who'll queue an hour to buy Fastrack in the first place (probably exaggerated as much as the GS queue times)... Besides, people won't know how long the queue for GS will be unless they decide to add it to the queue board (which was probably something it needed a few years ago)...

[TPJames]

Yesterday I went on it before 7, so yes it opens early!

 

The queue moves fast however a minute after I entered, there was an incident and we were asked to walk back to the start and wait to begin the attraction again! I have to say being sat in the cold for 20 minutes isn't fun!

Do you know what time it opens? Would like to get there 15-30mins before attraction opening as on Saturday 17th it was a 3hour wait at 6pm when the maze was only opening at 7pm!

[Altitude]

Did the queue boards say 3 hours? Because all of the times were incorrect on all the major coasters and the mazes yesterday.

 

I asked the woman at the fastrack booth when I was there, and she just said it's open when it gets dark, so I couldn't tell you. We only went in Blair Witch yesterday because I was already in Canada Creek to buy noodles, and the queue was long but moved very quickly. 

[TPJames]

No, we asked the lady at the front who manages the fastrack and main queue and she said 3 hours. We presumed this meant including waiting for the maze to open so in reality a 2hour queue however waiting for the maze to open beforehand.

The queue was actually overflowing the rails, it was all the way out of the rails and down to the Canada creek railway(past the loggers leap entrance). So we knew it would take a long time, we went back a little later and the lady said it was 90mins when it was a little shorter so that's why I presumed it was 3hours including the wait for it to open.

I would like to be one of the first in as it's the only maze to open at a later time, meaning there is a massive rush of people to it. I would like to be ahead of the crowd as I don't fancy waiting over 2hours for each maze(might be turning up to my first maze at 2-2:30 and Blair witch at around 5-5:30).

Thanks for your help, I'll check on the day, presume it opens at 6, and will wait depending on how long the queue is. It's the Sunday so it hopefully should be fairly empty by 9pm though however as tickets are sold out for every other day so far, I think that predicted figure of 9000 will be going up due to it being the only day left available.

EDIT: it's actually dark now and it's only 5. So maybe it will open at 5 instead?

[Whatever]

I started quing for Saw Alive at 2:30 outside the unopened queue. When we got let in, there was still a half hour wait ahead of us, though that could be due to fastracks.

[Kerfuffle]

I started quing for Saw Alive at 2:30 outside the unopened queue. When we got let in, there was still a half hour wait ahead of us, though that could be due to fastracks.

Somehow, I don't think that's true. When I went on the 11th, I joined the newly-formed queue for Studio 13 at around at about 2:15...and I didn't get called up to the maze door until around 3:30 or something and I don't remember fastrack users being an issue. So what I'm saying is that fastrack isn't to blame within the first hour of operation - it's throughputs.

[Altitude]

^ Agreed. Yesterday we joined the Studio 13 queue at 2:25, only a few people used fastrack and we still waited about 30 minutes after opening. Definitely not a fastrack issue!

 

Oh and for the record, Studio 13 was awful. 

[TPJames]

^ Agreed. Yesterday we joined the Studio 13 queue at 2:25, only a few people used fastrack and we still waited about 30 minutes after opening. Definitely not a fastrack issue!

Oh and for the record, Studio 13 was awful.

On preview night studio 13 was amazing, it WAS my favourite maze.

Ever since it's been utter crap.

[Kerfuffle]

Oh and for the record, Studio 13 was awful. 

Well don't blame Thorpe - blame the acting! First two times I did it, it was "meh", and the two runs I did on the TPM Meet, it was A LOT better!

[OldFarmerDean]

Studio 13 I done twice Friday 17th and really enjoyed it. Although didn't really hear the chainsaw chase on my second go... Done it last night and was great again still, definitely felt like it had more strobe lights, and coloured ones at that (red and blue).

[Whatever]

I think strobes ruin it a bit- It reminds me of the final scene in Bubbleworks!

[TPJames]

Studio 13 was very understaffed in terms of actors on Saturday 17th.

There was no girl who greets you at the maze door.

There was only one chainsaw man, not two like on preview night.

The maze seemed rushed and there were no actors in your path, we just walked through most of it being blinded by strobes with no scares.

I loved it so much on the preview night, however from reading reviews and personal experience it seems like it has got so much worse. Wish the actors would actually put effort into it as all the mazes seem to have gone down in quality.

Blair witch undoubtably has to be my favourite this year. Absolutely brilliant, love the use of space and there were long moments of tension before actually getting scared by actors. I would then say cabin follows second in my opinion, however it was more actors blocking my path than any real scaring. I love how you can spend as long as you want in there by looping round but way too crowded. Then I would put studio 13 and saw alive joint next with MBV in last. None of these mazes had high standards this year, yes I did get scared, however acting was poor and the mazes overall were far too rushed with no real concept and lack of scares.

It's just my opinion but it feels like the quality of the mazes has gone down especially since preview night, the actors are no longer explaining the 'storylines' at the beginning and the mazes as a whole have become very rushed, due to long queues I would imagine.

[Kerfuffle]

the actors are no longer explaining the 'storylines' at the beginning

What storylines?

[Whatever]

It's just my opinion but it feels like the quality of the mazes has gone down especially since preview night, the actors are no longer explaining the 'storylines' at the beginning and the mazes as a whole have become very rushed, due to long queues I would imagine.

scared, however acting was poor and the mazes overall were far too rushed with no real concept and lack of scares.

 

Yes, I agree, as when I first went on Saw: Alive, an actress pointed a gun at my mum's head (a moment I'll never forget) and asked her to press a button, which gave us a preshow of Billy. Last time, she just gave a very breif explanation and chucked us out the door.

[TPJames]

Last year I got the pre-show of billy which lasted a couple of minutes. However, this year the actor just told us to 'run as fast as we can' and pushed us through the door. Unsure how this was meant to link to saw in anyway possible...

What storylines?

That's why I said 'storylines'.

On preview night we got told all about how the director had made a series of movies which were all the previous mazes at thorpe park studios. We then got told about how studio 13 was the new maze being filmed at thorpe park and how we were the ones who were auditioning to be part of it. This was all before moving through to the reception and took about 2-3mins.

However, on Saturday the 17th we walked straight through to the reception, before getting sent straight into the maze. No explaining of what was happening, it was just a very rushed experience to try and keep the 4hour queue to a minimum.

Same with a MBV, last year when the queue was 0mins we got an explanation of how we were being chased by whoever and whatever. However, this year, the lady chucked us into the maze and told us to 'run as fast as we can' without any explanation at all.

Thinking about it now, the lady in the saw alive preshow could have well be the same one as the one in the MBV preshow...

[JoshC.]

I loved it so much on the preview night, however from reading reviews and personal experience it seems like it has got so much worse. Wish the actors would actually put effort into it as all the mazes seem to have gone down in quality.

Ouch.  The actors put a lot of effort into their jobs and really do love what they do.  Many of them come back to work for Fright Nights year after year.  Some are professional actors too.  If you look on Twitter, some actors will favourite / retweet good reviews on the mazes they act in, so some of the actors really do put a lot of effort in their role, and ensuring that they please guests.  To say they're not putting effort in is a bit insulting really..

 

It's just my opinion but it feels like the quality of the mazes has gone down especially since preview night, the actors are no longer explaining the 'storylines' at the beginning and the mazes as a whole have become very rushed, due to long queues I would imagine.

What storylines?

 

Can only go on my experiences, but there was a very obvious and clearly told story line during both my run throughs of Studio 13.  My Bloody Valentine had the pre-maze intro (which wasn't as good as last year, but still there).   Saw had an intro too; no worse/better than normal.  

 

I guess as the event has gotten busier, there's a balance between keeping the queue as short as possible and making sure the maze is still to the quality that the park wants.