Coasterfreck
Hyper Poster
It’s the start of the 23rd Fright Nights, so here is my initial review from the first day. This trip was also quite special as it was my friend @TalTheMajestic for their first experience of Fright Nights.
We started over at Colossus, as Hyperia had a delayed opening due to the temperature, and hadn’t begun testing. Colossus despite the colder start was running well, and good start to the day. This was also the day I tried glasses strap for the first time as was gifted by Tal.
Then we headed over to Nemesis Inferno and we got the backrow for the first ride, Inferno did open on one train, not ideal with the delayed Hyperia opening putting extra pressure on the other coasters. While we were going up the lifthill we spotted that Hyperia had begun to test, so after a really solid ride on Nemesis Inferno on the backrow, we head straight over to Fearless Valley.
When we got there we were greeted with a queue that was already forming while it was testing, nervous sat on our collapsible stools watching them empty the dummies and then test with a staff member, thankfully Hyperia behaved and opened at roughly 11:50, although operations were slow understandably due to the one train op, it was running very good, and we got a ride on row 8.
It was then time for lunch at Burger King, afterwords thankfully it being a Friday during term time, things like Flying Fish and Mr Monkey, and Dobble Tea Party were walk on, so we decided to do a couple of laps of the fish after lunch, then did Dobble and then we got to Walking Dead just as it opened and used the Single Rider line for a ride.
The clock striked 3pm, and it was time for the mazes. Out of the four mazes, I chose to only experience 3 of them, due to hearing about the contents of DeadBeat it really put me off doing it. We started over at my beloved SuperSpark Cinema.
Trailers:
Rating: 10/10
Last year Trailers was my favourite maze of the 22nd Year, so this years cast has had a tough act to follow. But with the announcement that it will feature new scenes and the return of the sleepers from my personal favourite maze Platform 15, the hype was there. And the maze delivered with it! Three new trailers and one freshly repainted screen, hidden inside the spoiler, if you want to remain surprised.
Trailer was absolutely phenomenal and the cast was on point just like last year, got so many good jumps scares, and lots chase outs.
After this we had a date with Howell’s Toy Emporium!
Stitches:
Rating: 3.5/10
Stitches was a one and done maze for me last season, I found it very over stimulating, and unfortunately the same thing happened again. I do appreciate the level of detail in this maze, although there is one room where I had to use my face mask to cover my eyes (arachnophobia).
We then headed over to Yvel’s Arena for the games with the assassins.
Survival Games:
Rating: 7.5/10
Survival Games has been hit or miss over it’s past two seasons. With the two runs we had on it, this trend seems to have continued, first run was really good, second not so much. Love the new pre-show sequence, but inside the maze felt the same as the last two years.
On day 1 we didn’t experience any of the shows or zones, because once we were done with our frequent fright night pass hours, then hit up our first dusk rides of the trip, with The Swarm which we rode on the front, always a good dusk/night ride then w went over to Nemesis Inferno, afterwords we went over to Hyperia, we had brought a one shot fast track for it, but because of the backlog from it’s 3 and half hours of downtime this queue moved quite slowly, but thankfully the collapsable stools made their money worth after this we decided to get a couple more rides done on the Flying Fish, including two back to back back row night rides both were five laps to end out the night.
Over the rest of the weekend managed to experience Trailers eighteen times, Survival Games seven times and Stitches twice. For me Trailers over those eighteen runs was the highlight for another year, Survival Games behind it, and then Stitches last. We experienced Creature Campus: Looks Can Kill Show, personally for me as much as the routine worked really well, it really felt lacking with the personalities of Amity High and LycanThorpe not being in it, but the staging was definitely better than last years one.
Hyperia is absolutely stunning at night, both on Friday and Sunday when we experienced night rides both on row 9! Hyperia’s Train 2 very much has held up a strong shift after the last three days of one train operation. Hopefully for Thorpe Train 1 will be back soon and for the start of the second weekend back to full capacity.
It was an brilliant three days, and fantastic start to this years Fright Nights. Can’t wait to experience this event a lot more over the remaining October/November.
We started over at Colossus, as Hyperia had a delayed opening due to the temperature, and hadn’t begun testing. Colossus despite the colder start was running well, and good start to the day. This was also the day I tried glasses strap for the first time as was gifted by Tal.
Then we headed over to Nemesis Inferno and we got the backrow for the first ride, Inferno did open on one train, not ideal with the delayed Hyperia opening putting extra pressure on the other coasters. While we were going up the lifthill we spotted that Hyperia had begun to test, so after a really solid ride on Nemesis Inferno on the backrow, we head straight over to Fearless Valley.
When we got there we were greeted with a queue that was already forming while it was testing, nervous sat on our collapsible stools watching them empty the dummies and then test with a staff member, thankfully Hyperia behaved and opened at roughly 11:50, although operations were slow understandably due to the one train op, it was running very good, and we got a ride on row 8.
It was then time for lunch at Burger King, afterwords thankfully it being a Friday during term time, things like Flying Fish and Mr Monkey, and Dobble Tea Party were walk on, so we decided to do a couple of laps of the fish after lunch, then did Dobble and then we got to Walking Dead just as it opened and used the Single Rider line for a ride.
The clock striked 3pm, and it was time for the mazes. Out of the four mazes, I chose to only experience 3 of them, due to hearing about the contents of DeadBeat it really put me off doing it. We started over at my beloved SuperSpark Cinema.
Trailers:
Rating: 10/10
Last year Trailers was my favourite maze of the 22nd Year, so this years cast has had a tough act to follow. But with the announcement that it will feature new scenes and the return of the sleepers from my personal favourite maze Platform 15, the hype was there. And the maze delivered with it! Three new trailers and one freshly repainted screen, hidden inside the spoiler, if you want to remain surprised.
These are The Sleeper Express for the Sleepers, Creek Freaks for the Buckwheats and Knock Knock (Death’s Doors), and one changed colour room inside Bozo’s Playhouse, which really disoriented me on the first run.
Trailer was absolutely phenomenal and the cast was on point just like last year, got so many good jumps scares, and lots chase outs.
After this we had a date with Howell’s Toy Emporium!
Stitches:
Rating: 3.5/10
Stitches was a one and done maze for me last season, I found it very over stimulating, and unfortunately the same thing happened again. I do appreciate the level of detail in this maze, although there is one room where I had to use my face mask to cover my eyes (arachnophobia).
We then headed over to Yvel’s Arena for the games with the assassins.
Survival Games:
Rating: 7.5/10
Survival Games has been hit or miss over it’s past two seasons. With the two runs we had on it, this trend seems to have continued, first run was really good, second not so much. Love the new pre-show sequence, but inside the maze felt the same as the last two years.
On day 1 we didn’t experience any of the shows or zones, because once we were done with our frequent fright night pass hours, then hit up our first dusk rides of the trip, with The Swarm which we rode on the front, always a good dusk/night ride then w went over to Nemesis Inferno, afterwords we went over to Hyperia, we had brought a one shot fast track for it, but because of the backlog from it’s 3 and half hours of downtime this queue moved quite slowly, but thankfully the collapsable stools made their money worth after this we decided to get a couple more rides done on the Flying Fish, including two back to back back row night rides both were five laps to end out the night.
Over the rest of the weekend managed to experience Trailers eighteen times, Survival Games seven times and Stitches twice. For me Trailers over those eighteen runs was the highlight for another year, Survival Games behind it, and then Stitches last. We experienced Creature Campus: Looks Can Kill Show, personally for me as much as the routine worked really well, it really felt lacking with the personalities of Amity High and LycanThorpe not being in it, but the staging was definitely better than last years one.
Hyperia is absolutely stunning at night, both on Friday and Sunday when we experienced night rides both on row 9! Hyperia’s Train 2 very much has held up a strong shift after the last three days of one train operation. Hopefully for Thorpe Train 1 will be back soon and for the start of the second weekend back to full capacity.
It was an brilliant three days, and fantastic start to this years Fright Nights. Can’t wait to experience this event a lot more over the remaining October/November.