The Sanctuary

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Thom
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Post reviews of the 2013 version of The Sanctuary scare maze, a preview to the new 2013 rollercoaster The Smiler, here...
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SonOfKelman
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What do folks think of The Sanctuary experience?  I guess most people visit the Towers for the major roller-coaster rides, but personally, I’m a connoisseur of scare-mazes. I’ve been to a few around the country, but The Sanctuary is my favourite.

Unfortunately, I live some distance from the Towers and I’ve only managed to visit twice. The latest trip was last Saturday with some friends on the opening day of the 2013 season. Getting there early, we were grateful for two things – the fact that the rain stayed off (mostly), and the small ques. I won’t spoil it for those who haven’t visited yet this season, but The Sanctuary has been updated a little. But a word of warning: the sound effects in the new Marmalization Room are VERY loud, and the lights almost blinding (epileptics take note!). We also got a bit wet from the rain effect.

Dr Kelman (my favourite character) was on top form. Some people ran out of the building before they even got to the first room, due to the Doctor’s scary story about how he created the Sanctuary. Kelman is one seriously spooky dude and I wouldn’t want to meet him alone on a dark night. I don’t know who the actor is who plays him, but he does a convincing job of creeping people out.  :twisted:  :shock:

I’d love to hear other peoples’ thoughts on the experience. Feel free to marmalize my head with your stories.
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Henry
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I've only experienced it at Scarefest, but I'm visiting at the end of the month, so I hope to do it then, I want to know if it was any better or due to to being at Scarefest.
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I went through The Sanctuary twice over the opening weekend and was very impressed with the whole experience (as I had been before during Scarefest).  I did notice a couple of subtle changes had been made but all good ones and although I don't really get scared by horror mazes, The Sanctuary is creepy and having it inside the Towers adds to its eerieness. 
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Kenzie2012
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I can vouch for what Luce has said there. i was in her group both times and i'll say it again, i did not like Sanctuary once last year.

This year the changes were subtle and almost invisible, but worked well. the standard of acting and scares were brilliant.

i don't really know what has changed so much to make my opinion change too,but i did like the maze this weekend.
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Bullet Hell
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Is anyone able to provide a (written) walkthrough for the maze?

I am desperately curious to know what happens but unfortunately suffered a 'bit of anxiety' last time I was in a scare maze so couldn't go through it when I was there on opening day.

I would love for Alton to do a video walkthrough as an accompaniment to the ride for those of us who can't handle actually gong through the mazes. I feel like I've missed out on some backstory :(
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bensaund
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The problem is a video would ruin it for anyone who has not been on, the whole idea is you don't know what is going to happen.

I did it this week and loved it. But I felt Terror of the Towers was better, but that's my personal view.
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Bullet Hell
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If the maze is closing once The Smiler opens, it would serve as a good piece of backstory for the ride. If no one can experience it after this point it wouldn't matter if it was giving away the surprise elements of the maze.

Unless of course they plan to bring it back for Scarefest.

It would make a nice marketing or viral video. Only a tiny fraction of The Smiler's passengers will have experienced the maze (either because of claustrophobia or they could only make one visit, or it's YEARS in the future, or whatever reason!)

I think it could only add to the ride as a whole and if they've gone to that much effort it would seem a bit of a waste to let it be forgotten.

Failing this, is anyone prepared to do a written walkthrough? I did look through the Scarefest 2012 topic and while they were promised, I didn't find any :(
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bensaund
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Alton is gearing up to one of the busiest years in a long time, I would be interested to see how long this stays open, it may well be open after the Smiler opens (When it has 2-4 hour queues)
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Lets just say I'm a 24 year old guy and the sanctuary bloody terrified me, the actors and the general atmosphere made it an amazing experience. It's amazing what normal people and a made up atmosphere can do to your anxiety
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I'll provide a little insight in to what happens in The Sanctuary. The maze is very extreme in places, so much so that two women ran out screaming yesterday, and another had to be evacuated after having a bad panic attack. Just a warning!

For those that would rather not know about the whole experience, stop reading now!

Here we go...


After being batched in the main conservatory, you make your way to a maze door where you’re given a briefing about the unorthodox methods used in The Sanctuary. Once the light above the door turns green, you start your journey through the maze itself.

The opening scenes feature a day room and kitchen, with bent cutlery and musky odours. Actors (some on crutches) roam around, engaging in playful mockery, and warning you not to go downstairs. A huge fireball can be seen in the chamber across the room.

The next scene features a dimly lit ward, with periods of total darkness. Actors jumps out at you from behind screens and make light of your impending “correction”. 

The Marmalisation room features a narrow curtained corridor with multi-coloured lights and LCD screens. Guests are told to wait and view the screens. The screens themselves feature random scenes from woodland to pigs, and subliminal-like slogans flash up asking guests to “joins us”. The room is suddenly filled with mist, while leg ticklers and water spray creative an interactive effect. Loud sound effects follow as you are ushered forwards.

What follows is the downstairs section…

After navigating two flights of stairs, you come to the mortuary and operating theatre. One actor tells you that he’ll “cut the smile into your face”, while another shouts at you to keep it moving, as he performs an autopsy on a dummy. What follows is a very narrow triangular tunnel.

Once through to the other side, you’re faced with a caged tunnel system. Actors in clinical attire jump at you and blow in your face, while strobe lighting creates a very disorientating atmosphere.

Another walled section follows…

The strong smell of rotting cheese now fills the air, and a rather insane dialogue by Dr. Kelman himself accompanies the whole ordeal: “You’re the failure - they’re the failure – join all the failures behind bars. Join us; get corrected”.

The maze now draws to an end.
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DanM3
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Went on this today, never done a scare maze before and didn't think it would be my thing. But I loved it, actors were great. It was creep and scary, made me jump lots of times. It's a shame they are not keeping it for long
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Went on the Sanctuary today and I love the subtle changes they've made from Scarefest. Fantastic experience, very well executed.
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Spoilers Ahead

After walking through the cattle pen fences we arrive at the conservatory, on boards we see MOJ Posters and tv screens with messages from Kelman and The MOJ, After waiting listening to 50's Music we enter briefing.

Briefing
We Sit down on benches after being stamped with the smiler logo, we are told not to touch the patients and staff and in return they have agreed not to touch us.
We stand in a line, arms on shoulders in front and wait in front of big metal gate. The light goes red to green followed by a loud buzzing noise..and in we go.

The hallway.
The hallway leads the to check in point of the sanctuary, on the green walls are doctors portraits and musty smell in is the air. We arrive in a dark check in area and are greeted by doctor kelman, who explains that the sanctuary was shut down due to his experimenting on patients. He swings the door open after the light goes green and tells us to go inside and meet our fellow patients.

DayRoom
In the day room there are lots of deranged characters, a girl sits rocking on a sofa talking to us about smiling, other lunatics sniff our faces and tell us not to go down stairs.And we should smile and get marmalised.
We exit into the kitchen.

TheKitchen
This is a long rectangle set with potss and pans bubbling over, a cook with an evil grin runs up the side of the line flicking water telling us to try his soup, in the far corner fire erupts in a fireball catching those offguard.
We turn 180 in this room and find our selfs on the other side of a table which the cook jumped on and sat staring into our faces. We Then move on to ..The Ward

The Ward

We go round a tight corner and find ourselfs walking up a very tight space with sheets to our left and a wall to our right, Patients jump out to our left and usher us foward, we turn round at the end to face the centre of dim lit ward, patients are milling round the beds and some crawl on the floor, The lights go out every so many seconds and the patients sneak up on us, one told me to get corrected and pointed to the next room.

And here we go into
Marmalisation.

After pushing through some white plastic flaps we enter a mist filled corridor glowing from red to green to blue, a loud buzzing noise is in the air and dank musty smell, we turn the corner at the end of this corridor to turn back on our selfs and inline with ariel tvs showing subliminal messages, a staff member waits at the end of the corridor smiling telling us to stand still. The buzzing all of a sudden gets louder, The light flash to multicoloured strobes and images with join us and conform flash across the screens, A spider is shown and our legs are touched and then very cold water starts spraying down about 3 times over head add to this the air blasts to our sides and we are well and truly messed with.The actor tells us to go downstairs...

Downstairs
There is an patient with a wide stretched smile that gets right in our faces and staff member who tells us to go downstairs, and down we go into the darkness

The Surgery/Mortuary
The room is very dark and doctors and nurses are shouting things like scalpel time
There is a body on one table with there mouth wired and cut open and surgeons tell how they will cut a smile into our faces. Some also shout CUT in you faces.

Triangle corridor

This is strange section which is a tough fabric triangular corridor, with strobes and air jets.
But leads to the

The First cage section

. Doctors and staff jump in your face and call you fresh meat, while patients try and grab you from behind bars, This close encounter section leads to the finale.

The Cage Maze
is more of a tight route of bars with wide open slots which patients try to grab you from, added with sudden blasts of air and high power strobes this becomes a very intense experience, add to the mix projected smiler logos-smoke and a loud sound track of kelman telling us to Smile Always and Get Corrected and more importantly that we are amongst the failures, its not long before we truly want out, but with no end in sight and yet more and more cage to cover, with closer contacts with patients and staff, the music seems to get louder one final push and we escape to a big black board with the smiler logo and Smile Always....

I dont think we would dare do other wise.
So glad i got to do The Sanctuary before its closure, this will go down in history.
Last edited by Ripsaw Raver on Mon Apr 08, 2013 11:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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bensaund
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Shame they are closing it before my next visit, not impressed with this Alton at all.
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bensaund wrote: Shame they are closing it before my next visit, not impressed with this Alton at all.
I can only imagine they are re-deploying the actors involved to work on The Smiler launch and get everyone excited in X Sector. They can't always have everything for everyone.
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Enjoyed the 'ride'. Theme is brillaint. Shame Dr K is the only person you really get to meet, could have done with more 1:1 interaction rather than a fleeting visit through each room whilst the actors shout / scream at you.

Really wanted this to work badly, because I don't really enjoy many of the rides anymore (getting old and all that), but once you have made the mental jump that the people you meet are all actors and (to quote the Oblivion) this 'ride is perfectly safe' you see it for what is physcially is, and not what you want it to emotionally be. I really wanted to be scared...I just found it funny! However I acknowledge the fault is with me, not AT...

...However my tan year old (who on instruction from his father, told a big fat fib to get in) was scared witless, and we agreed never to discuss Dr Kelman or the Sanctuary again...He spent the rest of the day on the Squirrel Nutty Ride...
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Having been a few times this year with the sole purpose of going through The Sanctuary I was very dissopointed on Sunday.

The maze has been brilliant this year. Dr K was spot on, as was the man in the second room with the glasses.

On Sunday despite it not being very busy the maze felt rushed and groups seemed to big. The chap with the glasses had been moved to the body room and was wasted.

Hopefully it was just winding down as it was the last day but I hope it can get as good as it started this year again for scarefest.
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DynamiteDaly
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My last memory of the Sanctuary is getting frickin soaked in Marmalisation. I'm about 6'6 and was at the front of the line, and the spray nossle was around about an inch from my hair line. I basically got sprayed in the face for a few minutes.
Was funny though, as my girlfriend was behind me didn't get wet at all and didn't even know there was spray until we got out and my drowned rat look appeared.
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MissEmiB
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SonOfKelman wrote: What do folks think of The Sanctuary experience?  I guess most people visit the Towers for the major roller-coaster rides, but personally, I’m a connoisseur of scare-mazes. I’ve been to a few around the country, but The Sanctuary is my favourite.

Unfortunately, I live some distance from the Towers and I’ve only managed to visit twice. The latest trip was last Saturday with some friends on the opening day of the 2013 season. Getting there early, we were grateful for two things – the fact that the rain stayed off (mostly), and the small ques. I won’t spoil it for those who haven’t visited yet this season, but The Sanctuary has been updated a little. But a word of warning: the sound effects in the new Marmalization Room are VERY loud, and the lights almost blinding (epileptics take note!). We also got a bit wet from the rain effect.

Dr Kelman (my favourite character) was on top form. Some people ran out of the building before they even got to the first room, due to the Doctor’s scary story about how he created the Sanctuary. Kelman is one seriously spooky dude and I wouldn’t want to meet him alone on a dark night. I don’t know who the actor is who plays him, but he does a convincing job of creeping people out.  :twisted:  :shock:

I’d love to hear other peoples’ thoughts on the experience. Feel free to marmalize my head with your stories.
The main Dr Kelman actor is called Gerry Cannell, and you can read about him here - http://www.towerstimes.co.uk/scarefest/ ... dr-kelman/ - It's quite interesting!
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