Scott88
Hyper Poster
Thorpe Park Fright Nights - 21st-23rd October.
Who went: Me and Stuart.
Overall ride count;
Stealth x25
Inferno x8
Colossus x1
Saw x1
Storm Surge x1
Rush x1
Flying Fish x1
It might look like a poor ride count considering we were there for three days, but we spent time doing the mazes also and queueing 120 minutes for rides we've both done before wasn't an option.
I have been to Thorpe Park for a full week in the past during Fright Nights and got a lower ride count, so overall I am pretty pleased with it.
Maze Count:
The Asylum x3
The Curse x2
Se7en x1
Saw Alive x4
I am happy with the maze count overall, I didn't really fancy doing Experiment 10 but didn't totally rule out the idea. Me and Stuart stood at the exit of the maze for a good ten minutes to see what people were saying, and when grown adults are coming outta there saying "That will haunt me for months", it kinda puts you off the idea and the final call was made when the host at the queue entrance stated the queue was around two hours long.
Saw Alive was the usual funny walkthrough but not at all scary.
My favourite maze of the lot was the Asylum, it's the oldest maze at Thorpe's fright night event and I can see why, it doesn't fail to deliver no matter how many times you do it. Every day we decided to wait by the entrance for it around 3:15pm, knowing it opened at 4pm, so this helped to avoid being stuck in a two hour queue for a five minute walk through. The music sets the scene perfectly, it's loud, it's raucous and it is perfect for the attraction, you can hear it here;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUCubuUQT_4
Stuart was elected to lead the group the first time we did this maze and it's fair to say, he wasn't happy with that choice.
*WARNING, SPOILERS!*
Once you have been given the standard spiel before entering the maze, you go through a caged door and you finally enter The Asylum. You are first confronted with a long illuminated corridor with flickering lights, this scene changes dependant on the actor, the first day the actor just stood there and watched as we walked by, then ran past us all and jumped out at Stuart just before we left that scene. You then come to the main event, a maze which is dominated by strobe lighting, smoke, confusing corridors and out of control actors who will stop at nothing to sh*t you up basically. Again, the actors change all the time and every day it was different, the first time we went through this section, I got tickled and poked on my sides all the way through it by the same actor, knowing they were getting a reaction outta it, yet the following day, nothing really happened to me in there, other people got the digs off another actor. Now for the rest of this section, Stu was confronted by an empty corridor one minute, only to then have a hand appear right in front of his face, so he jumped back and nearly knocked everyone over, which was very funny I might add.
You approach the end of the maze, and a loud air canon sounds, resulting in everyone jumping and wondering what exactly is next.
Once you are out of the strobe maze with the actors, you think you are finished, this is the end and I am outta here. Wrong, very wrong. Like the beginning of the maze, you are walking down a long and straight corridor with low lighting, next minute, you can hear a chainsaw behind you and an actor charging at you, which of course causes everyone to leg it, push through a door and realise they have run straight out into a main pathway, where there is a crowd awaiting your arrival, ready to mock those who are bricking it. A small clip from outside of the Asylum exit, can be found here, sorry for the poor quality, I should start using my camcorder for videos;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5ZyiscT-vU
Another view of the Asylum can be found here, a good video too!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=is1eIOpeRxI
The next maze we did, was Se7en, the queue was slightly longer than we thought and we seemed to be stuck in the middle of a large group of local chavs, who had clearly just learnt a few swear words, as they didn't string more than two words together without throwing "facking" or another choice word in to their uneducated discussions. Se7en is based on seven deadly sin's, the queue is slow and a bit like pulling teeth really, you can hear noises coming from inside the maze tent which builds up the tension perfectly, along with the music which isn't quite as good as the music for the Asylum. Se7en, although a maze which did make us all jump plenty of times, it just wasn't that good. It was far too predictable, enter one room in the right corner, leave at the other side, walk down a corridor and repeat this seven times to the end. I was at the back of the group for this one and all the way through, you can hear the floor boards creeking and foot steps behind you, despite nobody actually being there, so I must admit I was quite nervous about that, at one stage an actor did appear behind me, so I said hello to them and then after that nobody else attempted to scare me from behind, thankfully. :lol:
The best part of this maze is where the actors trick you into thinking you are heading to the exit, what you don't realise is, they are stood in front of the exit and you find yourself locked in a cage, looking for a way out and thinking, will I ever get outta this? It was quite amusing watching the local chavs bricking it in there though, those who in the queue were saying how fearless they were.
Finally, we did the maze called The Curse. We had a long wait for this, with four local ladies who were getting increasingly riled up at the slow pace of the queue and decided to vent their frustrations to me and Stu, and then one of them says ''OMG, you're northern''. Anyway, it turned out we'd be a group of six in the maze, which was great because they were bricking it from start to finish. I have no idea what it was meant to be themed on, it is set in a tent, which inside looks like shipping containers and some of the actors are dressed as if they are on a boat. It was a good experience though.
Overall, I'd say the mazes at Thorpe are probably better than those at Towers, only because the actors can get away with more and the mazes at Thorpe are a lot more jumpy. Please don't take this as a dig at Towers, because it isn't one, I loved the mazes at Towers too, the unpredictable nature of the Thorpe mazes makes them slightly better though. You never know what the actor is going to do, where as with the no touch rule at Towers, you know the worst they'll do is jump at you.
Moving onto the rides, I do take issue with Rush being on a one arm service, instead of two. I thought that was a bit of a shambles really, the capacity is crap anyway, so we only managed one ride on this and that was thankfully in the morning when it was walk on.
Slammer spent most of the weekend closed, but did open late on, on Sunday.
Stealth was once again fantastic, especially at night! I do think that this is second to Furius Baco for me though, considering I have only left a few weeks between getting on both and Rita, I can safely say I rate Furius Baco as my favourite outta the three, with Stealth being a very close second and Rita lacking way behind in third. Single rider queue came in very handy on Stealth, which is why we got a much bigger count on that than anything else, I'd also like to add that the change of announcement from the usual to "Its only a dream, its only a dream, its only a dream" launch, is very effective.
Nemesis Inferno at the start of this year, was poor, lacklustre and made a mockery of all the times I stood up for it saying it was just as good as Nemesis at Towers. Thankfully this weekend, it repaid my faith, it was fantastic, very forceful from start to finish, high speed from start to finish and a very good experience at night. Towers have made a huge cock up by lighting Nemesis up like a football ground, Thorpe haven't made that mistake with Inferno and leave it almost pitch black, which creates a stunning night time experience. I did find this more enjoyable than Stealth in the evening, and it was a very close 2nd to Stealth on overall ride experiences for the weekend.
Colossus never fails to disappoint, it needs new trains, the track seriously needs looking at in places because it's so bumpy, you wouldn't think it was less than ten years old!
Saw was enjoyable, nothing more, nothing less really.
My biggest two complaints are things that could really be improved. Firstly, the staff. The majority of the ride staff looked bored, not interested and didn't have a rushing bone in their bodies. The Stealth team were an exception to this, who were fantastic every day. Nemesis Inferno probably had the worst staff on any of the coasters, slow to load the trains, more interested in chatting with each other and had no control over the public really. I wouldn't like to see that team attempting to work on Nemesis at Towers, considering they couldn't even load a train before the other had returned.
Second complaint, the cost of a bounceback ticket. Far too expensive and makes the offer Towers have got going for Bounceback tickets look very good! On the subject of bouneback tickets, I had several issues actually buying one for Sunday, but thankfully the Sales team manager eventually dealt with it, along with another young lad who looked to be a team leader for Sales.
Thanks for reading my reviews from Fright Nights at Thorpe, my thoughts on Fright Nights have mainly been covered already, but to summarise, it is a slightly better event than Scarefest this year (if Scarefest had been like it was in 2010, I would have to revise that view), they are both very close and both have positives and negatives which will need to be improved.
Now for photos;
As soon as you get to Thorpe, it is very difficult not to notice The Swarm;
Stu is very much looking forward to going on it;
Stealth single rider was there to be abused in the morning;
Stealth;
Stu looking a bit nervous
Single rider was still the best way to get a good count on Stealth, Thorpe was much busier than expected;
Stealth, great ride and I wish we had a rocket coaster like this up north;
Inferno;
Looking over to Stealth from the Inferno queue;
Inferno, home to slow staff and slow dispatch times
I very nearly got to do this in 2006, but never did, so this was the maze I was looking forward to;
Stu was unsure if he wanted to do it :lol:
Colossus, the weakest coaster at Thorpe imo;
Se7en and the Curse are next door to each other;
Me;
Storm Surge, something I don't rate at all;
Tidal Wave, would love to see this at PB instead of Valhalla, but we know that won't happen;
Experiment 10 before opening;
Back to Stealth;
Stu took the stance of "I am not moving until we do it again".
Inferno and its queue;
Detonator;
Time for the Asylum;
Next up after that, we did Se7en;
Thorpe was starting to get the night time feel;
Thorpe's clowns were out to play;
Stealth in the dark is a difficult thing to take photos of!
It doesn't get any easier, the low lighting on Inferno makes it difficult to get night shots;
The lack of lighting on Inferno is quite evident here;
The lift hill was fully illuminated though;
Colossus;
Stealth;
Day two;
Friday was busy, Saturday even busier and it didn't help that the scanners at the entrance were playing up;
First stop was Stealth, of course;
Inferno already had a horrific queue at that point, so we decided to leave that for a while;
Stuart;
Is it a bird? Is it a plane?
Nope, it's Thorpe's very own Observation tower (Detonator )
Inferno;
Me, giving the Asylum my vote of approval, very good!
Slammer being shut isn't a bad thing at all
"We're not going in there again, are we?"
Inferno;
Stealth;
Saw;
Loggers Leap;
Colossus;
No ride is worth queueing for, for this long when it is on low capacity and a short cycle;
Tidal Wave!!
The Asylum;
Over selling fastrack has always been a problem here, the numbers should be limited much more than they are;
The queues for the mazes were too long and not worth waiting in on Saturday tbh;
Rush;
Colossus;
It is amazing to think that Thorpe does actually stay busy from start to finish with these opening times;
Getting into the Asylum queue early avoids a wait like this;
Victims waiting to enter the Asylum;
I'd imagine it will be easy enough to find better night photos, but here are my attempted photos;
I don't know why, but I do like these two photos;
Stuart;
Finally, it'd be rude to end the photos with anything else tbh, by far the best attraction of the Fright Nights for me and I do hope they retain this maze for years to come at Thorpe.
Thanks for looking, comments welcome!
Who went: Me and Stuart.
Overall ride count;
Stealth x25
Inferno x8
Colossus x1
Saw x1
Storm Surge x1
Rush x1
Flying Fish x1
It might look like a poor ride count considering we were there for three days, but we spent time doing the mazes also and queueing 120 minutes for rides we've both done before wasn't an option.
I have been to Thorpe Park for a full week in the past during Fright Nights and got a lower ride count, so overall I am pretty pleased with it.
Maze Count:
The Asylum x3
The Curse x2
Se7en x1
Saw Alive x4
I am happy with the maze count overall, I didn't really fancy doing Experiment 10 but didn't totally rule out the idea. Me and Stuart stood at the exit of the maze for a good ten minutes to see what people were saying, and when grown adults are coming outta there saying "That will haunt me for months", it kinda puts you off the idea and the final call was made when the host at the queue entrance stated the queue was around two hours long.
Saw Alive was the usual funny walkthrough but not at all scary.
My favourite maze of the lot was the Asylum, it's the oldest maze at Thorpe's fright night event and I can see why, it doesn't fail to deliver no matter how many times you do it. Every day we decided to wait by the entrance for it around 3:15pm, knowing it opened at 4pm, so this helped to avoid being stuck in a two hour queue for a five minute walk through. The music sets the scene perfectly, it's loud, it's raucous and it is perfect for the attraction, you can hear it here;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUCubuUQT_4
Stuart was elected to lead the group the first time we did this maze and it's fair to say, he wasn't happy with that choice.
*WARNING, SPOILERS!*
Once you have been given the standard spiel before entering the maze, you go through a caged door and you finally enter The Asylum. You are first confronted with a long illuminated corridor with flickering lights, this scene changes dependant on the actor, the first day the actor just stood there and watched as we walked by, then ran past us all and jumped out at Stuart just before we left that scene. You then come to the main event, a maze which is dominated by strobe lighting, smoke, confusing corridors and out of control actors who will stop at nothing to sh*t you up basically. Again, the actors change all the time and every day it was different, the first time we went through this section, I got tickled and poked on my sides all the way through it by the same actor, knowing they were getting a reaction outta it, yet the following day, nothing really happened to me in there, other people got the digs off another actor. Now for the rest of this section, Stu was confronted by an empty corridor one minute, only to then have a hand appear right in front of his face, so he jumped back and nearly knocked everyone over, which was very funny I might add.
You approach the end of the maze, and a loud air canon sounds, resulting in everyone jumping and wondering what exactly is next.
Once you are out of the strobe maze with the actors, you think you are finished, this is the end and I am outta here. Wrong, very wrong. Like the beginning of the maze, you are walking down a long and straight corridor with low lighting, next minute, you can hear a chainsaw behind you and an actor charging at you, which of course causes everyone to leg it, push through a door and realise they have run straight out into a main pathway, where there is a crowd awaiting your arrival, ready to mock those who are bricking it. A small clip from outside of the Asylum exit, can be found here, sorry for the poor quality, I should start using my camcorder for videos;
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5ZyiscT-vU
Another view of the Asylum can be found here, a good video too!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&v=is1eIOpeRxI
The next maze we did, was Se7en, the queue was slightly longer than we thought and we seemed to be stuck in the middle of a large group of local chavs, who had clearly just learnt a few swear words, as they didn't string more than two words together without throwing "facking" or another choice word in to their uneducated discussions. Se7en is based on seven deadly sin's, the queue is slow and a bit like pulling teeth really, you can hear noises coming from inside the maze tent which builds up the tension perfectly, along with the music which isn't quite as good as the music for the Asylum. Se7en, although a maze which did make us all jump plenty of times, it just wasn't that good. It was far too predictable, enter one room in the right corner, leave at the other side, walk down a corridor and repeat this seven times to the end. I was at the back of the group for this one and all the way through, you can hear the floor boards creeking and foot steps behind you, despite nobody actually being there, so I must admit I was quite nervous about that, at one stage an actor did appear behind me, so I said hello to them and then after that nobody else attempted to scare me from behind, thankfully. :lol:
The best part of this maze is where the actors trick you into thinking you are heading to the exit, what you don't realise is, they are stood in front of the exit and you find yourself locked in a cage, looking for a way out and thinking, will I ever get outta this? It was quite amusing watching the local chavs bricking it in there though, those who in the queue were saying how fearless they were.
Finally, we did the maze called The Curse. We had a long wait for this, with four local ladies who were getting increasingly riled up at the slow pace of the queue and decided to vent their frustrations to me and Stu, and then one of them says ''OMG, you're northern''. Anyway, it turned out we'd be a group of six in the maze, which was great because they were bricking it from start to finish. I have no idea what it was meant to be themed on, it is set in a tent, which inside looks like shipping containers and some of the actors are dressed as if they are on a boat. It was a good experience though.
Overall, I'd say the mazes at Thorpe are probably better than those at Towers, only because the actors can get away with more and the mazes at Thorpe are a lot more jumpy. Please don't take this as a dig at Towers, because it isn't one, I loved the mazes at Towers too, the unpredictable nature of the Thorpe mazes makes them slightly better though. You never know what the actor is going to do, where as with the no touch rule at Towers, you know the worst they'll do is jump at you.
Moving onto the rides, I do take issue with Rush being on a one arm service, instead of two. I thought that was a bit of a shambles really, the capacity is crap anyway, so we only managed one ride on this and that was thankfully in the morning when it was walk on.
Slammer spent most of the weekend closed, but did open late on, on Sunday.
Stealth was once again fantastic, especially at night! I do think that this is second to Furius Baco for me though, considering I have only left a few weeks between getting on both and Rita, I can safely say I rate Furius Baco as my favourite outta the three, with Stealth being a very close second and Rita lacking way behind in third. Single rider queue came in very handy on Stealth, which is why we got a much bigger count on that than anything else, I'd also like to add that the change of announcement from the usual to "Its only a dream, its only a dream, its only a dream" launch, is very effective.
Nemesis Inferno at the start of this year, was poor, lacklustre and made a mockery of all the times I stood up for it saying it was just as good as Nemesis at Towers. Thankfully this weekend, it repaid my faith, it was fantastic, very forceful from start to finish, high speed from start to finish and a very good experience at night. Towers have made a huge cock up by lighting Nemesis up like a football ground, Thorpe haven't made that mistake with Inferno and leave it almost pitch black, which creates a stunning night time experience. I did find this more enjoyable than Stealth in the evening, and it was a very close 2nd to Stealth on overall ride experiences for the weekend.
Colossus never fails to disappoint, it needs new trains, the track seriously needs looking at in places because it's so bumpy, you wouldn't think it was less than ten years old!
Saw was enjoyable, nothing more, nothing less really.
My biggest two complaints are things that could really be improved. Firstly, the staff. The majority of the ride staff looked bored, not interested and didn't have a rushing bone in their bodies. The Stealth team were an exception to this, who were fantastic every day. Nemesis Inferno probably had the worst staff on any of the coasters, slow to load the trains, more interested in chatting with each other and had no control over the public really. I wouldn't like to see that team attempting to work on Nemesis at Towers, considering they couldn't even load a train before the other had returned.
Second complaint, the cost of a bounceback ticket. Far too expensive and makes the offer Towers have got going for Bounceback tickets look very good! On the subject of bouneback tickets, I had several issues actually buying one for Sunday, but thankfully the Sales team manager eventually dealt with it, along with another young lad who looked to be a team leader for Sales.
Thanks for reading my reviews from Fright Nights at Thorpe, my thoughts on Fright Nights have mainly been covered already, but to summarise, it is a slightly better event than Scarefest this year (if Scarefest had been like it was in 2010, I would have to revise that view), they are both very close and both have positives and negatives which will need to be improved.
Now for photos;
As soon as you get to Thorpe, it is very difficult not to notice The Swarm;
Stu is very much looking forward to going on it;
Stealth single rider was there to be abused in the morning;
Stealth;
Stu looking a bit nervous
Single rider was still the best way to get a good count on Stealth, Thorpe was much busier than expected;
Stealth, great ride and I wish we had a rocket coaster like this up north;
Inferno;
Looking over to Stealth from the Inferno queue;
Inferno, home to slow staff and slow dispatch times
I very nearly got to do this in 2006, but never did, so this was the maze I was looking forward to;
Stu was unsure if he wanted to do it :lol:
Colossus, the weakest coaster at Thorpe imo;
Se7en and the Curse are next door to each other;
Me;
Storm Surge, something I don't rate at all;
Tidal Wave, would love to see this at PB instead of Valhalla, but we know that won't happen;
Experiment 10 before opening;
Back to Stealth;
Stu took the stance of "I am not moving until we do it again".
Inferno and its queue;
Detonator;
Time for the Asylum;
Next up after that, we did Se7en;
Thorpe was starting to get the night time feel;
Thorpe's clowns were out to play;
Stealth in the dark is a difficult thing to take photos of!
It doesn't get any easier, the low lighting on Inferno makes it difficult to get night shots;
The lack of lighting on Inferno is quite evident here;
The lift hill was fully illuminated though;
Colossus;
Stealth;
Day two;
Friday was busy, Saturday even busier and it didn't help that the scanners at the entrance were playing up;
First stop was Stealth, of course;
Inferno already had a horrific queue at that point, so we decided to leave that for a while;
Stuart;
Is it a bird? Is it a plane?
Nope, it's Thorpe's very own Observation tower (Detonator
)
Inferno;
Me, giving the Asylum my vote of approval, very good!
Slammer being shut isn't a bad thing at all
"We're not going in there again, are we?"
Inferno;
Stealth;
Saw;
Loggers Leap;
Colossus;
No ride is worth queueing for, for this long when it is on low capacity and a short cycle;
Tidal Wave!!
The Asylum;
Over selling fastrack has always been a problem here, the numbers should be limited much more than they are;
The queues for the mazes were too long and not worth waiting in on Saturday tbh;
Rush;
Colossus;
It is amazing to think that Thorpe does actually stay busy from start to finish with these opening times;
Getting into the Asylum queue early avoids a wait like this;
Victims waiting to enter the Asylum;
I'd imagine it will be easy enough to find better night photos, but here are my attempted photos;
I don't know why, but I do like these two photos;
Stuart;
Finally, it'd be rude to end the photos with anything else tbh, by far the best attraction of the Fright Nights for me and I do hope they retain this maze for years to come at Thorpe.
Thanks for looking, comments welcome!
