Scarefest was great yesterday! i enjoyed dressing up with my friend who was Th13teen although he did get recognized as a tree throughout the park... We didn't spot any travelers either so that was a big relief. I think the best part of the day was when one of The Smiler staff hugged me because of my costume the staff that work the smiler this season really know how to make you smile but back to the scare mazes. Here are my reviews for all three plus the scare zones.


Some spoilers may be ahead so you'e been warned!



Terror of the towers:

This was actually my first time doing this maze just like the other two and of course we didn't know what to expect.
We walked down the makeshift pathway towards the scare maze and went in one at a time then we had to do the conga line to go through the maze which is extremely hard when your friend is pretty tall and your trying to catch up with the front because they are going too fast. The actors did an okay job but instead of scaring me they mostly made me laugh.
After we finished the maze i also asked my friend what he thought of it and he told me that it seemed a bit boring which was to be expected so then we moved onto our next maze which was Sub species.

Rating for tott: 5/10


Sub species:

This scare maze was a lot of fun! you don't have to do the conga line which was a big relief but as soon as we entered and had the safety talk we entered and my friend got pulled into a room and i got left behind! (i did find him later on) The group that had gone in there previously had gotten lost so our group bumped into them a long they way and we told them they ere going back the way they came so they turned around and eventually found where they were going. after a bit of walking in the dark and running into some friendly creatures we made it to the sewer tunnel where we had to crawl through to the other room where more friends were waiting. I did jump a few times from someone touching my hair (which the actors kept doing!) and then an actor blocked my way so i sneaked under his arm and ran away from him towards the exit where.. another friendly person was waiting with a chainsaw which he decided to put on my butt which made me run from the maze with him chasing me into a huge group of watchers! i have to say though i think this was the best maze of the year and so did my friend.

I rate Sub species 9/10



Skin snatchers:


This was the brand new maze for this years Scarefest and i couldn't wait to try it out. Once we had the safety talk the leader of the line was given a helmet along with the middle person and the back person, after they were given the helmets the actor gave us the story of the mines and his "family" once he was done we were led into the scare maze into a elevator styled room (sub terror nostalgia) where it pretended to move into the lower mine shaft. We entered through a door with cloth hanging over it and met with the other actor who told us a bit more about the story while touching our faces! I feel sorry for one person because the actor stared into her eyes for 5 minutes before carrying on with the story.
We carried on through the maze and went through the corridor of gas masks ( i thought someone was following me until i realized that it was the last two at the back of the line) after to gas mask corridor we had a few jumps and actors and got hit in the head with hanging things made to look like bodies i think? we carried on until we found the exit passing another friendly actor! until we came out of the maze. I asked my friend what he thought and he said it was good but he liked sub species much better.

I rate Skin snatchers 6/10


the scare zones were pretty good especially freak show, i loved the music. Dark Apocalypse was alright for a free scare zone but once again the chainsaw came for me!

I rate Freak Show 5/10 the only thing they could work on is having more interaction with guests. We walked past most of them like we were invisible.

I rate Dark Apocalypse 5/10 same thing with freak show is that the actors need to have more interaction with guests most of the actors were walking around like they were lost but the chainsaw actor made up for it.


Overall it was a great day but i don't think my friend will be dressing as Th13teen again after he got mistaken for obi one kenobi, gandalf, and a tree.

Sorry for the wall of text just thought i'd share my Scarefest experience!

Is Mine Tours a conga line?

S.J_O'Grady wrote:

Is Mine Tours a conga line?

No, Mine Tours isn't a conga line and you can get split up. If you lose the people with the helmets on, you're in complete darkness.

It's really disappointing to see people's reviews of tott.. This has always been my favourite maze and the strobe finale always excites me!
I didn't go last year and will be visiting next week so all other mazes and zones will be new for me.

Anyone think people's opinions of tott have dropped due to the same story being used over again?? The other mazes bring something new and with the touching they just make it look abit weak now? I'm hoping this is the case as I'm still looking forward to it and hoping it hasn't changed too much.

JonDoesTT wrote:

S.J_O'Grady wrote:

Is Mine Tours a conga line?

No, Mine Tours isn't a conga line and you can get split up. If you lose the people with the helmets on, you're in complete darkness.

Good. That's how I like it Thanks

iloveshauni wrote:

It's really disappointing to see people's reviews of tott.. This has always been my favourite maze and the strobe finale always excites me!
I didn't go last year and will be visiting next week so all other mazes and zones will be new for me.

Anyone think people's opinions of tott have dropped due to the same story being used over again?? The other mazes bring something new and with the touching they just make it look abit weak now? I'm hoping this is the case as I'm still looking forward to it and hoping it hasn't changed too much.

The TOTT has always been my favourite maze too, but this year the maze seems shorter and the final strobe room was not as intense or as long as previous years.

The themeing inside is still brilliant, I still love TOTT, still a great maze, but not anything like it used to be. It is also the only maze where you have to put your hands on the person in front, this can be very uncomfortable, especially if you have a very tall person in front, plus you have the people in front going faster than you and the people behind going slower, you feel like you are going to get pulled apart.

ROYJESS wrote:

The TOTT has always been my favourite maze too, but this year the maze seems shorter and the final strobe room was not as intense or as long as previous years.

The themeing inside is still brilliant, I still love TOTT, still a great maze, but not anything like it used to be. It is also the only maze where you have to put your hands on the person in front, this can be very uncomfortable, especially if you have a very tall person in front, plus you have the people in front going faster than you and the people behind going slower, you feel like you are going to get pulled apart.

I think perhaps the route of ToTT feels shorter this year because of the slight adjustment to The Chapel room The route it takes through the Towers uses the same rooms as last year. I always find it difficult to judge the strobe maze, although I think this year the strobe section does have wider pathways making it seem less intense.

I'd agree that whilst the theming is still brilliant inside the maze does need something to lift it. However, this year the maze has been given a four pumpkin rating which is one fewer than last year's five pumpkin rating - something which has meant ToTT has a lower age recommendation (12 as opposed to 15 for Sub Species and AMT). I suspect this decreased scare rating may be why the tweaks have been made to the Chapel and strobe maze, and also why the conga system remains, despite the disadvantages of the conga line mentioned above.

I do think we could see a change to ToTT sooner rather than later. Whilst I don't want to see the Resort's signature maze disappear completely it would perhaps be good to see a total change in the storyline.

It was good to have met you on Saturday

I'm sure that in previous years, including last year, that the TOTT was on two levels as we always had to negotiate stairs halfway through the maze.

ROYJESS wrote:

I'm sure that in previous years, including last year, that the TOTT was on two levels as we always had to negotiate stairs halfway through the maze.

Yeah, I remember a part last year where you look down and can see another part of the maze that wasn't there this year.

The problem I have with TOTT is the congaline system. The rest of my group this year was basically powerwalking through the whole thing, so me and my friends at the back got dragged through really fast without the chance to properly get into it or look at the great scenery. Apart from that if Towers want to have a paid maze that's a bit less intense than the others I can understand that.

Having been yesterday, Scarefest was great. I don't personally do the mazes but did go thru the Dark Apocalypse scare zone and found these actors very interactive and very intimidating.

The rides in the dark and general atmosphere I found just fantastic. It reminded me why I love Alton Towers. Queues I found low for the event and queues a maximum for Rita when it was open.

I'll be going again Wednesday and cannot wait. If I had to recommend anything to ride in the dark, it would have to be Galatica. Going thru the portal without vr is fantastic. I did do Nemesis, Galatica and Oblivion in the dark. Aiming to try and ride Smiler in the dark.

Sawboss wrote:

ROYJESS wrote:

I'm sure that in previous years, including last year, that the TOTT was on two levels as we always had to negotiate stairs halfway through the maze.

Yeah, I remember a part last year where you look down and can see another part of the maze that wasn't there this year.

That exactly how I remember it last year, when looking down you could see the candelabras lit up in the level below you.

Sawboss wrote:

.

The problem I have with TOTT is the congaline system. The rest of my group this year was basically powerwalking through the whole thing, so me and my friends at the back got dragged through really fast without the chance to properly get into it or look at the great scenery.

This is my gripe with the conga line and the Subspecies and Alton mine goes to show that this conga line is not needed. All other scare events I go to in my area don't have the conga line policy and the scares work really well as well as the group always stick together.

I think Terror of the Towers was an improvement on last year. It seemed like there were more actors this year and they were more in character. The removal of the stairs was welcomed in my opinion. I never understood why stairs would be in a chapel, and I felt it slowed down the pace. The strobe maze was great, but I didn't notice a difference?!

Mine Tours was certainly the best maze on park this year! Sub Species was still very enjoyable but I do think it needs to be mixed up next year. That said, I do think this Scarefest has been one of the best ever!

Short twitter video from 'Unilad' shows some footage of Altonville Mine Tours, and also actors training and putting makeup on. It contains some spoilers for the maze though, if you don't want to know anything.

https://twitter.com/UNILAD/status/790569475590545408

Visited at the weekend, great atmosphere and rides in the dark as usual. Enjoyed the score zones too, freak show is a nice addition.


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Chris Carter, Head of Entertainments and Scarefest at the resort has asked me to compile some feedback from members.

If you have experienced the mazes, and would like to share your thoughts then please email me at Chris.Belvin-Bailey@TowersTimes.co.uk.

Comments should include what you thought went well, not so well, suggestions and possible improvements. It can be regarding the mazes, park, staff, pricing etc.

Thanks!

Well I experienced Scarefest for the first time this weekend and I must say I am very worn out!

In regards to the mazes I felt Terror of The Towers to be the weakest, I enjoyed it up until the strobe section which began to make me feel physically sick due to how disorienting it was and having wandered into multiple actor runs. I'm sure most have done this maze before so I won't go into much detail. I'd give this a 4 out of 10.

Now, Sub-Species. I will say outright that this was unfortunately probably the biggest disappointment of the weekend for me as I didn't really find this maze all that interesting. My hopes were reasonably high and I loved everything up until we were sent through into the main maze section where it all went down hill. I won't say exactly what happened however I was pushed up against walls at multiple points for fairly long time periods, which to me made the experience boring as it just wasn't scary and broke up the flow. I even tried to get myself lost to make it more interesting. To be honest I did have a feeling that I may feel this way purely as I'd been told this was a more 'intense' experience which to me isn't scary in the slightest and I haven't really found this as memorable as the others mazes, I prefer more creepy story lead experiences personally. I'd give Sub-Species a 5 or 6 out of 10.

Finally we have Altonville Mine Tours and all I need to say is I absolutely loved this maze, and it's probably one of if not my all time favourite maze. It had everything I enjoy; theming, a story, humour and it was scary in places. I wasn't expecting there to be points where actors literally pulled my t-shirt over my head and told me to run but it happened! Just a brilliant experience, with the only things not so great about it being the ending and 'lift' scenes that I'm sure will be fixed eventually! I give this 9 out of 10, it would be 10 out of 10 if only the ending was a bit better!

Once again it was a great event, however I agree with Justin that Sub-Species especially needs a rethink for 2017.

The problem with reviewing a scare maze is that you never know if you've just had a bad run, unless you do it twice. Last year I did Sub Species and thought it was good but not as good as I'd heard, then I decided to do it again and found it way more enjoyable. I only did Molly Crowe once and thought that was terrible and totally boring, but then maybe it was just a bad run for me. I'm visiting Scarefest tomorrow so I'll post my experiences then

The thing is those in my group said it was amazing - it all comes down to personal preference at the end of the day and I just didn't really enjoy it as much as I'd hoped I would which is a shame - but I look forward to what they do with it next year!

I experienced the Alton Towers mazes for the first time this year. And I was impressed. With any maze I did this year as it is the first year I have done them. I had ear plugs in due to my sensitive ears. I'm unsure as to whether this might of made my experience worse.

Terror of the Towers I felt was good because I was at the back. With looking behind me to often find an actor following me and the actors whispering in my ears and making fun of my height. I felt the cage bit to be good as it added disorientation to the maze, which I like.

AltonVille Mine Tours was brilliant. The level of detail and theming in there was outstanding. I enjoyed the consistent leg grabbing and amount of touching involved, as it is one of the things I think mazes have lacked for me, especially at Thorpe Park, but this is my first year.

Sub Species I was the most nervous for, but it didn't really live up to it. I enjoyed being pulled through the doors at the start, but after that it felt too forced, there weren't enough scares and it felt rushed and short. No actors were chasing me around like I expected. The good bit was the pitch black rope, as an actor jump-scared me from the dark.

Overall, I feel that Sub Species needs to be ramped up, and AltonVille kept the same. Good job alton

Also, what is your opinion on the age restrictions? I bought my ticket, didn't say anything then, and then was queried at the entrance. Annoying but they eventually let me in.


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I have noticed that they are enforcing age restrictions this year, even if parents are happy to let their child in.

I do think age restrictions are a good thing, as it allows the actors more freedom. I know some members of the public react in different ways which may be unsuitable for younger guests to witness/hear!