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Scarefest 2019

Been on park today, and it was a great day for coaster riding, got plenty in including night rides on everything! I’m not a maze guy myself and neither is my friend so it was perfect when the queues dropped completely late on, Wickerman was running the best since I’ve been on it today. And Nemesis was raucous as ever.

Noticed Lighting has Improved (along with smoke) this year and the dreaded generators are few and far between and do seem quieter too, they are still lacking in atmosphere throughout the park, this could be massively aided by bringing back scare zones and roaming actors. The only actors we saw all day (and this is coming from someone who doesn’t do maxes) were the ancestors when we arrived.

Few honourable mentions:
-Th13teen really is the perfect scarefest famiky thrill attraction! I love it even in the day, so night rides are great!
-the smiler is in dire need of some attention, I mean just look at the state of it. It is laughable.
-Staff were excellent today, really good on requesting back row or front etc and banging trains out at a good rate all day.

Overall an improved scarefest on last year, but there is still so much more than can be done. Money I guess is always in Merlin and Towers eyes so it would be unreasonable to light up the whole of the gardens and have smoke machines everywhere for example, but surely scarezones and slightly more thought about atmosphere wouldn’t go amiss.
 
Visited yesterday and i have to admit i was surprised by sub species. I haven't been a fan in previous years but this time it was a lot better. We were batched in a large group but everyone was split up, the actors were quite intimidating (and there seemed to be a lot of them). At one point i was thrown through a trick door after being sent down the same dead end 3 times and dragged back through a tunnel to stop me joining a group of people.
 
Had a great day yesterday and Darkest Depths was excellent. Theming was top notch and the actors were good.Will definitely do it again next year if it returns and would like to try The Attic if that also returns. Did Obivion, Thirteen and Wicker Man in the dark, which were awesome. Staff were great too. :)
 
Had a great day yesterday and Darkest Depths was excellent. Theming was top notch and the actors were good.Will definitely do it again next year if it returns and would like to try The Attic if that also returns. Did Obivion, Thirteen and Wicker Man in the dark, which were awesome. Staff were great too. :)

Glad to hear you enjoyed DD! How did you find the scares? Did you have kids in your run through? Not sure if a more extreme version because no kids in the queue, but for me it was intense with a couple of good scares, no less scary than any of the mazes I'd say.
 
Glad to hear you enjoyed DD! How did you find the scares? Did you have kids in your run through? Not sure if a more extreme version because no kids in the queue, but for me it was intense with a couple of good scares, no less scary than any of the mazes I'd say.
Was only us four in the maze and I was walking in front of the others. I got a few good scares bu tI think the rest of my group got more. Scares were, well... scary, but not too much. Think I jumped more in the Dungeon tbh. :tearsofjoy:
 
I have to compliment the ride operations at Scarefest this year. When I was there, most queues (except the Smiler) were moving very fast and there was minimal breakdowns. I feel this year's Scarefest is one of the best.
 
Sorry but I'm going now, anyone know?

(Sorry)
If there is a queue then maze groups would usually be the same (10/12 in previous years, depends on maze) day or night makes no difference, the only time you would usually get smaller groups is if there is no one else waiting.
 
Can't wait for 40-90 min queues next week. Sounds exciting
:( oh well, what can you do?

Also... maybe I’m just used to Disney parks, but a 40 minute queue isn’t that bad for a decent ride... is it?
 
40 minutes is not that bad for Scarefest, particularly at the weekend. I've seen queues reach 3 hours at times last year.
 
Just went in the Darkest Depths as part of a small group, it was quite good but I suspect it was a sub par run (15min after opening)
So here is a weirdly and hastily written review!

There was light leaking in, in both the Inn (preshow) and the last turn before the final.

The pre show was quite good but could have used 1 more effect.

The 1st half on the maze was perfect but the transition from the ship to underwater was really abrupt!

The underwater scenes were not as good as the ship and was all pretty uneventful.

The shipwreck was slightly better but the treasure room looked really cheap, it looked like one of those homemade haunts you get in the States.

The final had the same issue as the welcoming where I had to stand and wait for it to trigger!

Overall, quite good...


Here's how it can improve!

I think that next year, it needs a slightly alterd story. Maybe an extended Inn scene where your told that the ghost pirates haunt the inn and need victims to take their place so they can escape the depths.

It needs a bridge scene to split up the cellar and the ship.

I think it needs another show scene at the end of the ship to show it sinking, maybe retheme Venus from HoM into a kraken!

It needs more variation in the underwater scenes, maybe include the Black Bart character from Sharkbate Reef.

I can't really see a final working without it being a show scene, what could work quite well is something like the farmhouse from Field of 1000 Screams with 1 friendly character(maybe RogerRamRod or Sir Edward England) helping to raise the ship while the ghosts attack or something. Somthing to stop it ending at the bottom of the sea!

Anyway, sorry this was poorly written, I rush typed it!
 
If Project 42 does not return next year and Subspecies does, I think it would be a really good idea to add the big squeeze from Project 42 to Subspecies near the end to make it even more intense leading up to the chainsaw ending.
 
I went in TotT tonight at 8:20ish and it was quite the letdown, after my run through of Darkest Depths (in which, I was in the middle of a small group) I can say that TotT...is genuinely less scary than Darkest Depths.

I was at the front of a group of about 10, and after the...ok preshow, we went up the stairs and into a very well themed attic...so well themed that the designers felt the need to send us through 3 copies of said attic, after this, we went through a toy room, bedroom, then spent the next few min walking through identical hallways until we got to the fireplace. Where we continued to walk through identical hallways until it just...ended!?

I'm not sure if it was just a bad run or what but it was less scary than the pirate maze, the scares were on par and there was more than DD, but...the "monsters" were just happy little children and a friendly old woman...and that isn't scary! (There was also the men in the fireplace but even they seemed more friendly than the pirates in DD) I also wasnt touched once and the actors didn't get nearly as close as the ones in DD.

Some other issues are...

The utter lack of story
After the preshow there was zero story at all it was just walking through a spooky attic...and then hell...

Scene diversity
The vast majority of the maze was spent just walking through nondescript hallways with the same drawing all over the walls...and walking through nondescript hallways with black tentacles all over the walls.

No escalation
Nothing ever seemed to escalate, the final scene was just as slow paced as the start. And hell...felt exactly like the attic hallways, even presenting the same style of scares as the pre-fireplace hallways.

The ending
There is non, you just walk through some hallways no different from the ones before then you leave!

What I think needs to change first and foremost, is the ending. It is currently dire! What i think could work (while not feeling out of place in the hell scene) is a multi route curtains maze.

Other than that, maybe the story?
Its too close-ended...as the preshow said, the nanny had an affair and got locked in the attic...and theres a demon in the fire...okay?
Where do the riders fit into that?

Anyway, think I just had a bad run?
 
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If Project 42 does not return next year and Subspecies does, I think it would be a really good idea to add the big squeeze from Project 42 to Subspecies near the end to make it even more intense leading up to the chainsaw ending.
Am I the only one who finds the "squeeze through a pair of airbags" thing bloody annoying? Not remotely scary, and breaks the flow of any maze it is inserted in to.
 
I wonder if the Attic is supposed to be fill your pants sort of scary though or more of a creepy experience. To me I find it the latter (thankfully). However I find each run through completely different, first time I did it, the experience was excellent, second time, not so great.

It reminded me a bit of "Scary Tales" if I am honest in that the actors were not so much scary, but just creepy!
 
Am I the only one who finds the "squeeze through a pair of airbags" thing bloody annoying? Not remotely scary, and breaks the flow of any maze it is inserted in to.

Most of the time it doesn't have any relevance to the scene. The only time I've seen it where it work was a few years ago at Screamland when it was a cinema scene and the usher lifted the screen so you could 'enter the movie' via the airbags.
 
Most of the time it doesn't have any relevance to the scene. The only time I've seen it where it work was a few years ago at Screamland when it was a cinema scene and the usher lifted the screen so you could 'enter the movie' via the airbags.
Even then it was annoying!
 
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