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Alton Towers Scarefest 24/10/13

silenthillXD

Hyper Poster
Seeing as the Scarefest period had started, I thought I'd leap at the first opportunity I had to go to Alton Towers. Thankfully I have Thursdays off at uni this year, so thought I should visit then to avoid the horrific weekend queues. I also thought it'd be a great opportunity to test out my Halloween costume (One of the Smiler Operators) First I'll post my spoiler free trip report then maze reviews and walkthroughs later on.

I started off the day in my favourite are of the park X-Sector. Obviously I headed straight for The Smiler so I could pick up some rides before the queues flocked in. I managed to pick up two rides on single rider and neither wait was over 10 minutes. My first ride was on the front row and was amazing, easily the best ride I have ever had on The Smiler, whilst the train was rattlely it was smooth, forceful and seemed faster than previous rides. The second ride wasn't as good, but was still a great ride. It was on The Smiler that I first had comments on my costume, apparently they liked it, one operator event went so far as to offer me to switch with him as my costume was so convincing. Must admit the staff on The Smiler are amazing, they always seem to be up for a laugh.

After Smiler I headed over to Dark Forest and surprise surprise, Rita was sending round empty trains. An Intamin with significant periods of downtime?! Wow, never heard of that one before! Anyway at least Thirteen was open with no queue. Not the biggest fan of this ride but asking as you are near the back it is worth at least one ride. Surprisingly the outside section was rather fun, and the inside section was fun as ever. Still, it is a massive disappointment to the SW name.

Seeing as Rita had picked up quite a queue I headed over to the sky ride to get to Air and Nemesis. Before I rode the SW's I headed onto Ripsaw, one of my favourite flats. Obviously it wasn't on a great setting, but it was still fun. I don't think we flipped though, which is disappointing, but there was a lot of swinging. One negative though, on a cold day, why have the fountains on. Thankfully I avoided them, but still. Anyway seeing as I wanted to get Air out of the way I headed to the entrance, only to realise single rider was closed and only one station appeared to be in operation. Yeah, there was no way I was prepared to wait that long for the ride. Oh well, it's not much of a loss considering Nemesis is so close. To make matters better it had no queue, though I stupidly decided go go for single rider, the staff were great though and kept chatting to me whilst I waited for a space and let me on quickly. Once on I finally had another amazing ride on Nemesis. For the last few times I have been underwhelmed, but this time it was as fast and as forceful as I remember my first ride was. It was great fun!

I then decided it was time to get one more ride over at X sector then I was going to go over to start the queue for Carnival of Screams. That was the plan but Oblivion had the longest queue I have ever seen for the ride. Event the single rider queue was long! I decided to leave it as, as much as I love Oblivion, I wanted to be at the front of the Carnival of Screams queue so headed over to the fried chicken co to get some lunch. Surprisingly enough the food there isn't too bad!

As soon as I finished I headed straight for Carnival of Screams. It was rather early so I had to wait, but I was right at the front of the Fast track queue. (Got to love the freedom pass) Nearing the time there was a Clown breakout. The clowns are a lot livelier this year and have even turned the park rangers vehicle into their own twisted vehicle. They create such a great atmosphere, but I can imagine the clown who pours sugar on people can be quite annoying. Thankfully the clown that came to me was the hilariously gruff sounding, "Viva la reviocion!" Clown. Anyway once the clowns had been rounded up it was time to go in.

The maze was similar to last years maze but with quite a few significant changes. I really enjoyed it, I feel it's the perfect midpoint of fun and scary. I definitely think it's probably one of the jumpiest mazes at Scarefest. And to top it all off it now has a plot and a fantastic new ending! I really can't stress enough how improved this maze is this year. All I will say is it has a rather unique way of getting you to run out the exit. 9/10

Seeing as I loved The Sanctuary so much last year I headed over there next. I will say it is less scary than I remember it, but this is the only maze that I find scares me on a psychological level. It always seems to disturb me. Anyway I managed to get Dr Kellman at entry, and he really didn't like my costume. Just to warn you, if you wear anything Smiler related he will tear you to shreds. On my multiple runthroughs I had everything from "I dislike that" to him taking my coat off dramatically and showing my Smiler t-shirt as an example to others and him even saying "Looky here sonny Jim, the only way for complete marmalisation is through surgery! You won't get corrected!" Thankfully I told him The Sanctuary was the best and as I exited into the maze he kept yelling at me, The Sanctuary is the best! Ah the joys of being at the back! Anyway brilliant acting from Dr K there, must admit his improv skills are just brilliant! Every time he said something different to me.

The maze itself hasn't seen many changes from last year, I assume the changes I saw were the ones that came in earlier this year. But it is still a unique and atmospheric maze, whilst not the most intense the Actors were great in their roles and proved to be uber creepy. The only problem I have with this maze is the ending is rather weak and left me wanting something more than a ToT rip off. Even though the ending is a let down the maze is still great. 8/10

After The Sanctuary I headed over to get marmalised on The Smiler again, managed to get in two rides using fastback and again had two great rides. Seeing as I had one maze left I headed back to the ruins to get my scare fix.

So, last year Terror of the Towers left me disappointed. I felt it had some atmosphere but I didn't enjoy the theme too much. This year was different though every run-through was amazing and I class it as the best maze there this year. Though as great as my run-throughs were none of them were as good as my first run-through. It was early in the day and there was no queue, so I got sent through at the back of a group of three... Oh my god, I have never had such a terrifying experience. There seemed to be a ton of actors in there and they were relentless in attacking us! It was just crazy. And that final scene... I was seriously panicking, let's just say one of the actors chased me throughout the final scene and kept getting worryingly close. I have never been so glad to leave a maze in my life, mind you I have never had so much fun in a maze in my life! 10/10

After terror I returned to the other mazes and had multiple run-throughs. Each time I attempted to get to the front or to the back. I must say Sanctuary is definitely best at the back, I really enjoyed my run-through where I had a doctor chase me for what seemed like ages yelling things like, "Yes I am still here! He wants me to stop chasing him, but I won't stop till I cut him" every time I turned around. That was some great acting there. Carnival was great anywhere, but the final scene is the best if you are at the front. Let's just say I had an actor attacking me whilst I was stuck trying to leave the jammed up exit...

Other than the reruns of mazes I tried out the Zombies scare zone which really disappointed me last year. Thankfully it has been completely changed and works so much better. The old ending is now the entrance and the props have been moved around, and a lot of money has been spent on new props. And I must say the actors are far livelier than last year! I will post up a video of my experience later.

Unfortunately due to the awful public transport links between Leicester and Alton I had to leave around 18:20, so I managed to fit in one last run-through of The Sanctuary. Then I realised that I had missed out on something, something massive. I still hadn't ridden Oblivion! So I ran to X sector only to find it had no queue. Win! I managed to get on my favourite seat too, the far right seat on the back row. Anyway I got to the top and realised, it had been hours since my last ride on anything. Now I don't know about you, but I find the longer I leave between rides the more intense the drops are... Wow, that drop was crazy without warming up on other rides. Got to love how intense that ride is! Still my number 1 alongside The Smiler.

After that I left before it even turned dark. But still it was an amazing day out at the towers. Have fun on the live everyone, the mazes are amazing this year.
 

furie

SBOPD
Staff member
Administrator
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Wow, you really went all out with that nurses uniform :shock:
 
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