Tuesday, 09 October 2018 19:11

Alton Towers Scarefest 2018 - review & photos

Alton Towers offered us a VIP experience at this year's Scarefest and with a brand new fourth live action scare maze in 2018 we gladly accepted.

The theme park is open 10am - 9pm every day throughout the event - giving you a whole 11 hours of scares. When night falls, it's an incredible opportunity to experience the best rides at Alton Towers in the dark, including Wicker Man.

Alton Towers Scarefest is the most well-rounded Halloween event at a UK theme park, with something for all ages and levels of fright, combined with a world-class collection of roller coasters and several other rides that are perfectly suited to the season.

The four live action scare mazes:

  • Sub Species: The End Games  Situated within Alton Towers’ deepest darkest basement, this maze is a huge post-apocalyptic game for your creepy hosts whom through a clever pre-maze show bet on your survival chances for the race ahead. Once in the maze itself you may find yourself split up and all alone as you try to avoid the ‘dead ends’ and wrong turns through a seemingly unending number of well themed rooms. Not to mention coming face to face with some of your hosts throughout the journey. Each guest can experience a different route but is sure to meet the same fate in the end…

  • Altonville Mine Tours: Uncover The Legend of the Skin Snatchers – Also situated inside the Towers, this maze takes on a very different theme of a reopened mine. With selected guests placed in hard hats with authentic lamps, you are really not sure what to expect as you begin to descend into the darkness – let’s just hope those helmet lights last as long as you! With unexpected events at every turn and truly terrifying and immersive scenes this scare maze is not to be missed. Clever use of lighting, smells, props, and of course scares, help make this a very welcome return for this attraction.

  • The Welcoming – Be Chosen – The theming of this maze is incredible! As the only open-air maze (in large parts) we definitely recommend waiting for the cover of darkness for extra ambience and it was certainly worth the wait. Join the followers of the Wicker Man as they celebrate your arrival with dancing and singing as they usher you from tent to hut within their village. Continue on your journey and you may find that the followers appear to have something very different in mind for their guests. The use of pyrotechnics really adds to the effect especially when riding the Wicker Man during the same evening.

  • Project 42 (New for 2018) Billed as the parks most extreme scare maze we had eager anticipation of what lay ahead for us in Project 42. Housed within the recently unused ‘Nemesis: Sub Terra’ building, you are first shown a pre-maze video with the objective of explaining the back story for the attraction ahead. The use of the original ride scenes and strobe lighting effects help make this experience really intense with plenty of scares along the way. Coupled with the enthusiasm shown by the victims of the infection and numerous tight passageways and low ceilings, this is a great addition to an already impressive 2018 lineup.

Terror of the Towers is not part of Scarefest in 2018, and we did miss it, but there is so much else on offer and the organisers have clearly put a lot of effort into maximising the quality of the attractions rather than just on the quantity.

There is even more for families to enjoy this Scarefest including:

  • House of Monsters  An extended family attraction that combines show, game and maze elements. Fun for the whole family but especially the younger guest. Join an online vlogger who looks to host you in his newly discovered haunted house, before others take over! Navigating through a number of larger rooms, guests need to complete a series of family friendly tasks before being able to move onto the next challenge. With very well themed scenes and a great back story it was great to see Alton Towers investing as seriously in younger scares as they do the major attractions.

  • Freaky Fun Zone – This has returned and with a brand new friend for Phil, Franklin, Skelvin and Patch as ‘Gretyl the Witch’ joins the Famous Freaky Five. The stage is located near the Towers and includes a packed programme of live entertainment all day and into the night including Skelvin's Spooky Storytime, Gretyl's Spell School (New) and Phil & Franklin's Ghoulish Games (New).

  • CBeebies fans can dress up and join all their favourite characters for their first Halloween Party at the CBeebies Land Monsters’ Ball in Big Fun Showtime.

Thanks to the VIP experience provided by Alton Towers not only were we able to experience all of the above, but we also enjoyed a number of rides on TH13TEEN, Rita, Hex, The Smiler, Oblivion, Galactica (with and without VR), Nemesis, Duel and of course Wicker Man (by day and even better by night).

Alton Towers Scarefest continues on 13th - 14th and 19th October - 2nd November 2018.

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