Scare Attractions Oct 2021

Been to an attraction recently? Planning a trip? Tell us about it here or get some hints and tips for your next visit.
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ROYJESS
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It's that time of year when the Ghouls and Ghost come out to scare.

I've already done one scare attraction this season and have a few more to go to.

My first scare attraction this season was a long awaited Scarefest at Alton Towers. Due to covid, it's been 2 years since I last visit.

Upon making the effort to get up early, travelling 4+ hours to get to the park and making sure that I was the first through the turn style to get a good few rides in before the queues build up. Unfortunately, most of the big rides did not get signed off until around 10.30 which left people waiting in the queue lines waiting for them to open. My first ride on the Friday was Wicker Man and I decided to queue up for the Smiler on the Saturday morning.

Like many other attractions that I've been to since covid, I didn't expect things to be the same, and I did expected the park to be busier than usual due to the staycation. So I purchased a gold fast track for the Friday, which I must say that I really didn't need and I purchased the platinum fast track for the Saturday which was a must due to how busy it was. On the Friday, I notice despite the queue lines being long, they did move fairly quickly and I can only assume that was due to the social distancing in the queue lines.

The park felt understaffed with some of the photo kiosk being self service and on Rita, the ride ops where doing two jobs of also managing the loading off the bays as well as checking the restraints. This meant that the through put was slower than usual.

It appears that Thirteen can no longer run when it's wet due to a recent rollback incident. I hear that no body was on the ride when it happened.

I also go to see Duel rerouted queue line in person for the first time. As much as I understand that it was done to make it wheelchair friendly, the pepper ghost effect in the doll house was missing and the entrance didn't feel as good as it was previously. No one appeared to be manning the disable/fast track ramp, so I did feel a bit awkward using it, pushing in front of other people in the queue line despite having fast track.

The rapids were also closed. My first thought was typical Merlin cost saving. But I have been told that this is not the case.

The new flats rides were much a needed welcome, but I hope that moving on forward into the next season, these will get replaced with some appropriate themed ones to fit in with each area.

The scare mazes were really good this year. The attic was probably my favourite. But they all were good. I won't give any away any spoilers here.

The lighting around the park was good this year. However the scarefest atmosphere was ruined by the heavy metal rock music blasting out after dark. I have heard that this has now been reverted back to the old traditional music that they play at scarefest.

It's been two years since I been, I don't know if my body wasn't used to it after a two year break, but I didn't feel great on the first day. I did ended up suffering from motion sickness and I found the rides uncomfortable. I know that I'm not getting any younger. But this is very un like me. However by Saturday evening (my second day) I was beginning to enjoy the rides better. I'm back again for the Fireworks event and hopefully my body will take the rides better like I used to do before covid.

Scarefest is usually my favourite time of the year. I must say that this year fell below my expectations and it wasn't the best. I feel this may be partly due to covid and the fact that I've not been to a theme park for two years (I know that I visited Blackpool last month, but I usually expect the rides there to be uncomfortable as they are old and rough) as well as the heavy metal rock music blasting out. Also having the rides open late as well as the Rapids being closed and Thirteen not operating when wet didn't help make the day enjoyable either. Hopefully next year will be better.

I will be giving a report on my next scare event soon. If you have attended a scare event this year, please feel free to report and post on this thread.
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ROYJESS
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This review my contain spoilers

My second Scare event this year was at Norwich's Roar Dinosaur Adventure Park. It's an event that I've been visiting for the past good few years and the event has change over the years, some for the better and some for the worse.

It is done on a budget, the theming and acting are very basic compared to Merlin parks, but still a good night out.

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Some photos taken outside the park before the turnstiles

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The event is called PrimEvil

The event returned this year after being cancelled last year due to covid

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The music played while you wait to go into the event



I do feel that they could make the effort to dress up the entrance with some Halloween decorations.

The park has a great atmosphere at night with wandering scare actors

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Some dinosaurs models inside

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The bar and food area

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The price of the event depends on the day and what ticket you purchase. A basic ticket will get you one go in all the haunts (scare mazes). You can also purchase a fast track ticket that will allow you to jump the queues. I myself go for the VIP ticket, which works out about twice the price of the basic ticket, you get unlimited fast track and entry to all the haunts as well as a free drink from the bar.

There are 5 haunts (scare mazes). They usually have scare actors in and some will also contain some animatronics and electrical effects that can make you jump.

My first Haunt was the Circus Of Terror, Freaked Out

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This is like a fun house with scare clown actors inside. You will go through two revolving tunnel, a ball pit, a large turn table floor room, a air wall tunnel, a giant puppet clown that moves towards you, rooms with multiple doors and you need to pick the only one that opens and a chainsaw wielding clown

My second haunt was Mayhem Manor Hotel, Blackout

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You are given a lantern to hold and you make your way through different themed rooms. As you pass through different rooms, the lantern changes colour, strobes or goes out. There are scare actors waiting to jump out at you.

The lantern was new this year and was a nice touch

The Crypt, Repent Your Sins made a return this year.

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The outer building is nicely themed

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You make your way through some dark corridors where you can't see anything, total darkness until a scare actor dressed up as a nun suddenly lights up her face inches in front of you. They extended the maze by adding an outdoor section which I felt did nothing to add to the maze. There were no actors in the out door bit.

The maze also have a few animatronics scares too.

Insanitorium Infected entrance was move to a new location this year.

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You are given a pair of large headphones that you wear, these blast out base music and you make you way through a large marquee that contain strobe lighting, smoke and zomies scare actors. You exit the marquee and then enter the large farm barn with more of the same with strobe, smoke and zombies.

Route 666 was probably the biggest disappointment for me

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This haunt takes place along the dinosaur trial which is a long walk from the bottom of the park up a hill to the top. Usually this haunt has various scare actors throughout the walk with a firepit half way up being manned by a scare actor.

This year I only had a couple of actors jump out at us for the first part before we were told to put on a hood and hold onto the rope beside us. The hooded part was a new thing they were trying out this year, but I felt it didn't really work for this maze. The hoods wasn't fully opaque and you could sort of see through them with the lights shining through them. So you could see the few scare actors near you which ruined the surprise/scare. For most of the hooded section, there appeared to be nothing really happening, you wore the hood for what seem like an eternity with nothing happening and it made up most of the long stretch of the walk.

I felt that the hooded section would have been better made use in the Crypt Haunt (mentioned in a couple of haunts back on here) on the outdoor section where there wasn't anything really going on there either, they could have utilised one actor with multiple scares where the outdoor section of the Crypt double back on itself.

So back to the Route 666, after the hoods have been removed, there were a few scare actors camouflage in tree outfits that suddenly jumped out at you. The best part of Route 666 was the village that you go through before you exit. It has numerous scare actors including actors wielding chainsaws. Just one last scare as you exit, a hog like puppet monster suddenly appears out of the shack with its eyes lit up and bellowing smoke.


This year I felt that overall, the event lacked the usual number of scare actors in the mazes, but then I felt the same with Alton Towers Mazes. OK the Event is on a budget and the acting are by the staff, but none and less the scares are there and it is a fun event to do.

I certainly wouldn't travel across the country to visit PrimEvil, but it is right on my door step and it is the best that Norfolk has to offer in the way of scare event. I certainly will be back next years event.
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ROYJESS
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On Friday, I visited my third scare attraction for this season.

"The Trail of Terror" at Colchester Zoo

I've been a regular visitor to the Zoo for many years, often visiting every other week during the winter season when all other main theme park attractions are closed. Colchester has to be my favourite Zoo. It usually takes us the whole day to get around it. The Zoo usually puts on a great Halloween and also a great Christmas event. The events are usually run and organised by the staff. They do a great job in putting on these events considering that they are just simply Zoo keepers.

In previous years, the scare event used to be free with the price of your Zoo entry ticket. They would have a few scare mazes, Halloween shows, and a ride on the road train with actors jumping out at you along the way. In recent years, they started to make the Halloween evening attractions, an chargeable extra of £5 for a wrist band.

Covid came a long last year and change things. They decided to do away with the individual Halloween attraction and decided to turn the whole Zoo into one giant scare maze with a one way system path. They also up the charge for this to £20 per person. I missed it last year due to shielding my wife from Covid, but the feedback from the guest that attended were overwhelmingly positive. So this year they decided to go along with the same format.

The following may contain spoilers.

Jess and I arrived at the Zoo on Friday morning and entered it at 9.30am when the doors first opened to visit the Zoo to see the animals. Usually on a late night Halloween, they didn't close the Zoo, they kept it opened until late closing. This year, the Zoo closed at 4.30pm and we had to leave the Zoo and wait in our car for a few hours until later that night.

The Trail Of Terror was a pre booked event only with timed tickets. I initially booked mine in for 6.30pm entry, but realised that it wasn't really going to be dark enough at that point to get the full effect. So I was allowed to change my entry time to 7.15pm (I made this time change last month).

The timed ticket say's that you had a window of 15 minutes to enter the Scare attraction. I arrived at the entrance at 7pm expecting that I would be able to queue. But was told that only the 7pm tickets were allowed to queue. There were only one staff member there directing the guest. While I was waiting to join the official queue line, it wasn't long before a long queue formed behind me as more and more people arrived. 7.15pm came and there were still a long queue of 7pm ticket holders still waiting to get in. I was nearly 7.30 before I was allowed to join the main official queue line and because it was taken longer to get in than our advertised ticket, it meant that people started to push in front of me and other people. I felt that there should have been more staff organising the queue lines, and if they were going to be very strict in letting time tickets in one by one without any leeway either side of your time, then I felt that they should have have multiple queue lines set up with staff members directing people to the appropriate queue line subject to your timed ticket. Getting into the event was probably my only grumble about the event.


Once inside the entrance, you were greeted by staff members in Halloween outfits. They scanned my ticket and I was ushered by scare actors through the entrance that had hessian type fabric forming a make shift corridor. I did bring my camera to take some photos, but I didn't take any whilst on the route.

As soon as I came out of the entrance building, you are greeted by creepy actors. Before you know it, there were a few scare actors hiding in the bushes giving you an unexpected scare.

I liked the way that they used misdirection along the paths, you will see a creepy scare actor ahead of you, whilst you are focused on the actor ahead, a scare actor hidden in a bush beside you would suddenly jump out at you. This happened many times around the park, and I fell for it each time with a few **** words coming out of my mouth.

It wasn't long before the path lead me to the haunted manor. The first corridor was well themed with a wardrobe that suddenly rocked from side to side. I also recognised a painting on the side wall, it was the same one used in the start of Duel, where the lady turns evil and back again. This one had a sudden loud sound effect to it which makes you jump. You then enter a maze of complete darkness with actors waiting to jump out at you.

After leaving the haunted manor, you follow the path around the Zoo, again with actors ahead and jumping out from the bushes. The trail led you through the sealions tunnel, up to where the church is. You then negotiate the maze path around the old church with care actors jumping out at you.

After the church, you follow the path back out via the sealion tunnel, the path leads you to Sunbear outdoor viewing area which is under cover. This section had a make shift maze using hanging fabric, which you negotiate with more scare actors waiting to jump out at you.

You then come to your first safe zone which had a couple of close up magicians performing magic, refreshments were on sale.

I carriage on, more scare actors jumping out from the bushes. The path leads you down the elephant walk where you are greeted by the hillbillies who tell you to be careful of the crazy ones along the route. The large car/truck behind me suddenly and unexpectedly lit up and made a large noise. Walking along the elephant walk, you are met with more scare actors and those jumping out from behind the bushes. You are then faced with what I can remember what look like a caravan, with two musicians playing banjo type instruments. Your turn right into the old road train path and then directed up into the woodland walk with more scares waiting for you.

There were plenty of scares along the route, along with the usual chainsaw wielding scare actors, air cannons

You then board the road train and are taken on a ride along a circus themed route. There are scare clowns that jump out along the route. The train takes you pass some fire eating and aerial hoop circus performers.

After the train, you get off, the path leads you through a couple more themed indoor areas with more actors, and then along the path back to the entrance/exit, with plenty of scare actors along route.

When you came to the end, you are at your last safe zone, with refreshments that you can buy, and a band playing live music.

I was apprehensive about paying £20 for an event run by the staff. The whole route took me nearly one and a half hours to complete. The event was a lot better than I imagine and the Zoo staff did a great job. The event was better than any previous Halloween event that they have ever put on. I will certainly be doing it again next year

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ROYJESS
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My final Scare event took place at Great Yarmouth. It wasn't just the one Halloween attraction that I went to but a few throughout out the day. Because I've taken so many photos, I will break this post up into several posts.


First stop was Great Yarmouth Sealife Ascarium

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The idea is that you go around the attraction looking for letters and rearranging them into a word. If you get the words, you are given a sweet. A bit of fun for the kids

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The inside of the attraction was loosely decorated in Halloween theme using mainly spiders and cob webs. They also had those talking/singing projection pumpkins.
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My next stop was at Great Yarmouth model village. The village was decorated with Halloween skeletons, ghost and a few Halloween animatronics. The attraction did open later for illuminations, but we didn't return for the evening as I had another main attraction booked for the evening.

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ROYJESS
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Our next stop was a walk around the waterways. Not a scare attraction, but they are currently running a Fire On The Water Experience which takes place after dark. All dates have now sold out. But we were able to take a walk around it during the day to take some photos

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There were a lot of gas cylinders, looks like the garden will be lit up at night with fire, including fire archways that you walk under among other strange art work

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Jess and I did return later that night to get a glimpse of the event from over the fence. By the time we got back, the event had finished, but what we could see with the way it was lit by bulbs, but no fire as the fire effects were turned off, it did look like beautiful.
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ROYJESS
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Our next stop was St Georges park. There were a travelling funfair setting up which runs every evening from tonight until Halloween night.

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ROYJESS
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My final and main attraction of the day was Fairground Frights at Great Yarmouth Pleasure Beach.

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The first event was last year. Due to covid, you can no longer walk around the Pleasure Beach. Now you have to pre-book a three hour session.

On the way to the pleasure beach, I passed the upside down house that had been renamed to the haunted upside down house just for the Halloween season. Please note that the upside down house is a separate paid attraction owned by the Pleasure Beach and is not included in with your rides.

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With this event, I wasn't expecting anything more than a few rides in the dark and a few scare actors roaming around the park.

Also for Wednesday night only, there were also going to a fireworks finish.

Setting up the fireworks on the beach

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From the gate where I was waiting for them to let in the guest, I could see Rob Setchell from ITV Anglia News filming. I thought it would be about the event, but when it aired, it was about yesterday's budget and how it could potentially affect the East Anglia.

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The Scare actors all gathered together before they let in the guest

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One of the scare actors came out to mingle with the queueing guest waiting to be let in

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Smoke and DJ's playing music around the park

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DJ at the top of the fun house playing music

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The quality of the scare acting was really good and I also didn't expect them to be lurking around inside some of the rides waiting to make you jump

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They even turned a workshop into a scare maze where you made your way around some ride carriages, props with scare actors waiting to make you jump

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This scare actor wanted a selfie and she knew who I was. She knew my daughter

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There were chain wielding actors, fire eaters

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Fireworks final

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The night exceeded my expectations. It was a really good night. I got quiet a few ride in the dark. The park did get busier as the night went on. The Rollercoaster surprisingly was quiet quick to get on. The big queues of the night was the flats and dark attractions, especially those with live actors in. The Log flume was also walk on all night, not surprising as it's a wet ride, with this time of the year being cold.

I was lucky to get on the snails, haunted hotel (ghost train), the scare maze and the fun house first thing when the park was quiet before the queues got big.

The fun house didn't have it moving floors operating, due to the attraction being dark and having smoke with live actors inside.

I'll certainly will be doing this event again next year.

I had to post everything that I did yesterday over several posts. This is it for me and this years Halloween events. It's been a good season for Halloween this year.

Thanks for reading

Roy
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