Chessington Howl'o'ween

[TarinMaria]

That's the cycle of poor we are currently stuck in though, the mazes can't be that good as 16000 people are trying to do them in a few hours each evening, high throughput, poor quality, long queues. Ticketing is a way out of that. But yeah, if they tried to upcharge for their current efforts that wouldn't really be good enough, I'm not suggesting that!

Of course, if they stopped over selling tickets, that might help... But like I said, I'm happy to pay for quality, but there really isn't the space for much in Creepy Caves, if I'm paying £6 without discount for a maze, I want some length, Pasaje is a great example! And again, it makes little to no sense given the target market

[Flipper]

Am I the only person who's as content with Thorpe's free mazes as Towers' paid ones? I kind of begrudge the paid experience at Towers. I mean yeah, they're longer and more detailed in terms of theming but I don't tend to find the intensity anything different. If anything I think I get more scares and attention at Thorpe than I do Alton - with maybe the exception on Sub for one run last year. I love Scarefest as a whole event but nowadays we go for say one weekend and do the mazes once. Whereas we go to Thorpe and we can do the same maze two or three runs in a night - which we probably wouldn't if it was paid for - but I don't enjoy it any less. I don't do it 'Because its Fright Nights' I do it for the enjoyment factor.

 

But then again I may be a bit bitter; I really dislike the current layout of TOTT. I'm not a big fan of Sub Species as I felt the first year was better (although I only saw the chainsaw ending); and I did Altonville once last year and got badly injured from actors being a bit too 'rough' so I'm not a fan of that maze either.

 

On the flip of that, I still have a vivid; spine-chilling memory from Sanctuary. Ugh.

[TarinMaria]

Am I the only person who's as content with Thorpe's free mazes as Towers' paid ones? I kind of begrudge the paid experience at Towers. I mean yeah, they're longer and more detailed in terms of theming but I don't tend to find the intensity anything different. If anything I think I get more scares and attention at Thorpe than I do Alton - with maybe the exception on Sub for one run last year. I love Scarefest as a whole event but nowadays we go for say one weekend and do the mazes once. Whereas we go to Thorpe and we can do the same maze two or three runs in a night - which we probably wouldn't if it was paid for - but I don't enjoy it any less. I don't do it 'Because its Fright Nights' I do it for the enjoyment factor.
 
But then again I may be a bit bitter; I really dislike the current layout of TOTT. I'm not a big fan of Sub Species as I felt the first year was better (although I only saw the chainsaw ending); and I did Altonville once last year and got badly injured from actors being a bit too 'rough' so I'm not a fan of that maze either.
 
On the flip of that, I still have a vivid; spine-chilling memory from Sanctuary. Ugh.

See, I've not had a good experience at Fright Nights.... ever....
I've always found the mazes laughable, with horrific queues, and had actors get a little to handsy on a couple of occasions, the make up looks cheap, theming looks cheap, and in general there just isn't the quality.
Scarefest however, I've had one of the scariest experiences of my life, Sub Terra almost completely alone last year? Yeah, that was scary, and I would have been happy to pay for it again! I paid for Pasaje 3 times, on 2 different visits, and that's £7 a go.
However, all completely off topic, because Chessie isn't going to suit mazes like Thorpe or Towers, it's not that kind of park.

[Imagineer]

What are the queues like for Towers mazes? I've only ever been to Thorpe / Worked the Chessington mazes so it would be interesting to compare that?

[JoshuaA]

4 minutes ago, Imagineer said:

What are the queues like for Towers mazes? I've only ever been to Thorpe / Worked the Chessington mazes so it would be interesting to compare that?

It depends.

Though usually due to the time slots, you'll be waiting 20 minutes max to get in a maze, though I didn't even have to wait that on the weekend I went.

Though if technical faults/delays happen, it could be much longer of a wait, though I've only heard of this happening on the opening weekend, and the mazes seemed to run smoothly during the peak season.

Back on to Howl'O'ween though, I'm gonna hope that Chessington pull it out of the bag this year.

Howl'O'ween has given us some good attractions, so I'm gonna keep my hopes high, even if it does crash and burn..

[JoshC.]

With people's concerns about length - there hasn't been anything to suggest this is a standard conga line maze is there?  They could easily have it as a more show / story driven attraction, with special effects that add to the scares.  Having a small maze section, 2 story scenes and one big finale section seems feasible for that space.  Would justify making it an upcharge attraction in my eyes.

[Imagineer]

7 hours ago, BaronC. said:

With people's concerns about length - there hasn't been anything to suggest this is a standard conga line maze is there?  They could easily have it as a more show / story driven attraction, with special effects that add to the scares.  Having a small maze section, 2 story scenes and one big finale section seems feasible for that space.  Would justify making it an upcharge attraction in my eyes.

With the history of Chessington's mazes I have no doubt that this will be a story drive attraction in scenes. I don't think that would be enough for me to jusitfy an upcharge though. When you consider that Haunting in the Hollows offered the same for free. I think what it'll probably boil down to is the quality of the attraction. It is is well put together, looks good and is technically sound then maybe it'll be worth it...

[Mega-Lite]

Whatever this is, it won't make up for firstly ruining The Mystery of Hocus Pocus Hall and then removing it altogether.

[Jack]

Can somebody please explain what the new 'scariest attraction yet' is? As I haven't seen anything about it yet.

[Jack]

Sorry for the double post, but does the attraction have an age restriction yet? If it is 12 like Thorpe's or 15 like towers' then I don't think it will go down very well as not many people who visit will be in chessies target market age range 

[TarinMaria]

Sorry for the double post, but does the attraction have an age restriction yet? If it is 12 like Thorpe's or 15 like towers' then I don't think it will go down very well as not many people who visit will be in chessies target market age range 

Recommended for ages 10+ apparently

[Jack]

Oh thanks

[JoshuaA]

I think Chessington and Thorpe generally don't have age limits in that its more of a recommendation.

Alton though do seem to strictly enforce their age limits, though then again, I'm 14 and did Scarefest just fine for the last two years.

So even at Alton, if you look 15, you'll probably get into the mazes no problem.

[HermanTheGerman]

All this talk about Haunting in the Hollows just reminds me how great it was. Why can't we have things like that anymore? 

[dk3]

On 05/08/2017 at 9:02 PM, Mega-Lite said:

Whatever this is, it won't make up for firstly ruining The Mystery of Hocus Pocus Hall and then removing it altogether.

Can you explain what you mean? What did they do to TMOHPH? Cheers

[Mega-Lite]

I'm sure someone on here is the one I got this from, so they can eleborate more.

 

First year it was outstanding! Top notch acting, fantastic special effects, THAT THEME, audio and lighting were spot on too.

 

Then I read that a lot of the people involved in that master piece left the park, can see why.

 

Following year it was crap. Just about everything great about it's first year was ruined. Shell of it's former self.

[TraX]

The team who designed and built it all had background in theatre and worked on the project the entire season, whilst additionally working on The Vampire/Hollows attraction.

 

After the fire hit creaky cafe, the original team left and the entertainments department didn't have anyone creative, or with the technical experience to pull it off. It's 2nd year was out sourced to the studios to rebuild, using a theming guide left from the original team and the new technical guy didn't have the experience to recreate the different zones of audio/triggered lighting effects, or scenes that were cued by an actor.

 

It was pretty upsetting to see the standard slip so steeply during it's second year and the attraction really suffered. It was pretty shocking that only one of the IMAscore tracks were used and the whole attraction felt static as lights weren't programmed and were just 'on'. It was a poor state and I guess the difficulty was too much for them, hence why Scruffy Dog came in to create something new, as the entertainments team weren't up to it themselves.

 

[yeah]

"Creepy Caves: Unearthed"

So we can gather from the promo picture and the logo itll have some sort of zombie thing going on.

EDIT This has also popped up by the old fire exit. All thats visible construction wise is the bridge by the crocodiles (?) deconstruted in the exit.

[StevenVig]

1 hour ago, ChessingtonSam said:

I can hear the theming team now, "That'll do" :rolleyes:

[HermanTheGerman]

 

Quote

EDIT This has also popped up by the old fire exit. All thats visible construction wise is the bridge by the crocodiles (?) deconstruted in the exit.

Jesus... that looks tragic. 

[yeah]

Here's the website https://www.chessington.com/halloween/creepy-caves.aspx

 

Judging from that, this door will be the entrance which would make sense as it leads straight into a staircase. The website includes an interesting sounding storyline, £6 sounds a hell of a lot though.

New for 2017 and with a 'three bat rating’, Creepy Caves Unearthed is our scariest attraction yet.

No one knows why the famous reptile and creepy crawly exhibit in the Zoo closed its doors at the end of 2016… until now.

[JoshC.]

So Chessington do some low key theming and advertising outside one of their mazes and get slated.  Thorpe and Towers do nothing but fencing and shipping containers outside and that's cool.

 

Never happy are enthusiasts..

[Benin]

They're all crap...

[HermanTheGerman]

1 hour ago, BaronC. said:

So Chessington do some low key theming and advertising outside one of their mazes and get slated.  Thorpe and Towers do nothing but fencing and shipping containers outside and that's cool.

 

Never happy are enthusiasts..

So you're saying this cheap and zero effort decoration should be encouraged because its better than nothing at all? That's silly. This thing looks so bad its crude... The 59p roll of Halloween caution tape from the Tesco seasonal aisle is frankly laughable much like this whole campaign. 

 

Disney, or any other company Merlin claim to be in league with, must be shaking in their boots. 

[yeah]

25 minutes ago, HermanTheGerman said:

So you're saying this cheap and zero effort decoration should be encouraged because its better than nothing at all? That's silly. This thing looks so bad its crude... The 59p roll of Halloween caution tape from the Tesco seasonal aisle is frankly laughable much like this whole campaign. 

 

Disney, or any other company Merlin claim to be in league with, must be shaking in their boots. 

It's a little advertisement in a corner, which I walked past about three times and didn't notice. If the actual maze looked like that, then fair enough, but all it is is an advert. It's not like they're going to spend thousands on something as small as this, which will only be there for about two months max.