The Sanctuary, so Altons new maze is here but is it any good? The maze is very well themed, you queue into the conservatory where TV screens show you a video of the head of the MoJ introducing the chief medical doctor of the facility. He tells you about the work of the Sanctuary, there is brief mention of SW7 but its nothing major. You are then batched by some nurses into groups before lining up to begin.
You enter the maze and meet the doctor from the video (I assume they have contingency for when he's on break). He adds some more about how his work is misunderstood by the medical profession. This guy is a great actor and set the scene well. You then enter the facility into a huge room that's well themed, it seems to be some sort of day room and a patient watches an old TV before leaping up at the group. You then enter a canteen where some staff taunt you. These two areas are not too scary but quite atmospheric.
You then come to a ward which offers some great jumpy moments due to the many drapes, the staff taunt and tell you to come to be Marmalised. This scene is fantastic, a claustrophobic white fabric corridor with TVs above that show disturbing images. You are sprayed with water and air and things touch your legs. It's very unique and very affective. You then descend to the surgery.
Here more staff taunt and scare you, it's standard scare maze fare but again well done, there then follows a morgue with a body on a slab then some claustrophobic corridors where patients await. You approach the finale which is a cage maze but with bolt holes that the actors can leap through. The SW7 face flashes on the walls and the actors played this area really well.
Overall this is a fantastic maze, it tries to do more than the obvious scares and the theming is A1, you also start the maze in huge rooms but then the scenes get smaller and smaller becoming more claustrophobic.
We met the Ents manager in charge of the mazes after the run through, they mentioned lots of tweaks they want to make and a few key features where not ready for the preview so these improvements should take this great maze to an amazing maze. It's better than this years ToTT!
I feel like i have missed bits to talk about it was that manic and obviously there will be changes before Saturday.