We visited yesterday for Scarefest and I thought I'd share my views of the mazes (no spoilers).
Firstly we did Darkest Depths, I really wasn't very impressed with this maze on my run through, the actors seemed to be few and far between and we couldn't hear what they were saying. I realise it's more of a family maze but there wasn't really any scares throughout and some of the effects weren't working correctly, although the new ending looked good it wasn't scary and didn't pack a punch that it should. I also preferred the original location.
Ry Reviews (1/5)
Secondly we moved onto The Attic, this ended up being my favourite of the four this year, the atmosphere was on point throughout the whole attraction and apart from the distancing between the actors and ourselves appeared to be as full on as last year with plenty of scares and jumps.
Ry Reviews (5/5)
Next up was the new Freak Show: Toxic Junkyard, I had pretty low expectations of this maze with it being promoted to be an all outdoor maze and seeing the clips of it being set up, it did literally look like a load of crap piled on top of each other (not in a themed sense), but I was pleasantly surprised! Baring in mind we did it after dark, the lighting really made the maze and I was glad to see there was quite a bit of theming making up the walkways as opposed to just crates and trollies. The finale also took us all by surprise! My only niggles are that I feel like the maze could have been slightly longer with a few more actors and maybe used the shipping containers just to add a small indoor section. Again I do think the lighting enhanced the maze and it wouldn't be worth it in the daylight. Ry Reviews (3/5)
I'd been looking forward to Altonville Mine Tours all day with it being a firm favourite from previous years (although I do think it's run its course now) and with it now being late there was a great atmosphere throughout the queue line. Covid wise I was disappointed to see people we allowed to queue through the tunnel in pitch darkness which was a distancing nightmare, I'd have liked to have seen this controlled. I was disappointed to see the removal of the second pre show as the other two mazes had one so there wasn't really an excuse to remove it but other than that the actors were on top form with a decent amount of scares. Again though I felt the finale lacked and people were just walking out the end. Ry Reviews (4/5)
Barr Darkest Depths I feel like all the mazes are as strong as previous years and haven't really lost any scare factor due to Covid which I thought would have happened, so that was a pleasant surprise. My only negative on the whole was the batching of groups, Freak Show aside. I don't think it's problem that three groups enter the pre shows together however there was no attempt at separating the groups from then on with each group following the other straight away from the first scene.
Apologies, I only planned on writing a few lines...