I visited #TheChills yesterday with three people from TowersStreet - here's what I thought... (spoilers inside)
On arriving at the park at about 11am, I met up with the others near Rattlesnake and judged their reaction to the park... They thought it felt odd, probably due to the sheer amount of empty space the park has to work with, though they did enjoy the fact you could just peacefully sit on a bench in the middle of grassland and chill out. They'd already ridden Rattlesnake and Wipeout once so we moved on and took a bit of a wander towards the kids area.
First up was the Pony Rail, which was a good laugh and seen as a quirky yet bizzarre ride by the others (who had never visited the park before). We then took a spin on the Veteran Cars before walking around towards Enigma. Instead of going for a ride, we noticed the time was nearly 12 and thought we would head over to Hobs Pit: X-Scream for our first 'horror' attraction of the day.
Now... I was rather disappointed. The atmosphere in the queue was still great and the walkthrough portion of the ride was atmospheric, jumpy and fun too but the main ride portion let the experience down. The number of actors was really good and they played on jumpy (if obvious) scares to create atmosphere and tension, however the lighting lacked imagination and caused many of the fun effects that are normally present to be unnoticable or non-existent. For example, the falling barrels, jumping boxes and 'train coming towards you' effects were completely wasted. The finale also lacked as the moving model with the drill did not work and the actor employed for the pre-ORP scare did nothing to make us jump. Kudos however to the actors in the exit who made us jump and chased us out of the ride! Overall though, I didn't really feel like the ride was any more extreme as it lacked effects and I felt the actors could have maybe done more.
Moving on from Hobs we caught some lunch in the Merry Mariner (quick, friendly service and reasonable food) before heading towards Enigma. It really is starting to look a bit of a state but it is forgivable due to the work that will happen this closed season! The group really enjoyed the ride and were glad that an old Schwarz is getting the love it deserves. It was still fun and enjoyable and good to see that some newbies liked it too! Unfortunately Jolly Roger was closed due to wind so we couldn't ride it and so moved on for the next scare attraction: Horror Express.
Horror Express makes use of the train carriages that have laid empty for years so its fantastic that they are finally being used for something! The theming inside was of very high quality and the story of an abandoned/pyschotic/haunted train ride type thing was good. Also good was doing it in 2's as it added to the claustrophobia. The actors put lots of effort into their work and were clearly into their roles, however they just did not come across as menacing or scary which made the whole situation comical rather than terrifying. The spinny section in the middle would have worked better were it not obvious that the actors were (struggling to) turning it and the ending would have been more menacing had the chef really rushed you out of the door. It was a good effort though and looked great inside - but was just lacking in scares or any kind of real terror. More laughs than frights to be honest.
I can't really remember what else we did in the park (in order) so will just skip to the other Halloween stuff:
Satan's Circus: Well the showstopper attraction on park really was the best thing there. A well-themed, well thought out and decently long maze. It was (I'm told) basically a 'smaller and cheaper version of Alton's Carnival of Screams'. Featuring lots of actors and lots of different areas and theming set pieces the maze was really good fun and also pretty jumpy too! I really enjoyed the doctor guy, the black and white strobe area (did not see the actor coming at all!) and the ending with the rabbit. Dead good fun, really entertaining and jumpy enough to be a good scare. The theatrics, sound, mood and theme were great for a park like Pleasurewood. This should be the benchmark of any future Halloween attractions on park. Lots more like this please! One negative though was the nut allergy warning at the entrance... We asked the host how bad it would be and were given next to no information which led to one of the group deciding not to experience it just in case. Some more info wouldn't have gone a miss there!
Moving on, we rode Tales of the Haunted Coast towards the end of the day and it truly hit home how dire the ride is without the actors. The actors inside brought the story to life and genuinely made me jump twice! However, without them there it would have been absolutely awful. The boats can also now only hold 4 and not 6 maximum and we clocked a stunning average throughput of 100pph ;) - it was good fun for halloween but needs some *serious* work in general.
The Trick and Treat doors looked great and attracted LOADS of attention during the day - although the reaction times of opening them were pretty slow as people knocked many times on them, sometimes without a response. However, seeing Vampire Woody and also Ronnie appear from them frequently during the day was great :) Moving on to park-wide theming, the place looked great. There were tonnes of pumpkins everywhere and some really nice set-pieces like the pumpkin skeletons on Main Street, 'blood' fountain next to TOTC and the skull on the water wheel by the Castle. The park had a nice charm to it and I really liked it. Plus, hearing that there could be more to come will be great for those visting the rest of this week.
The group loved the shows on park. We only caught the Sealion and Parrot shows and I think that the Sealion show for sure has been expanded and improved since I saw it last year! The newbies to the park really enjoyed them and I think it is the shows and things like that which really give Pleasurewood an edge over other small parks :)
The end of the day was soured a bit by the shop (which I mentioned in the Chills thread itself) as these new visitors wanted to buy at least a keyring and Woody bear between them but were told they could not as it was closed - despite the door being open, lights on and two staff members inside. The time was between 5 and quarter past and so the park was still open for another 45 minutes! Shocking that the main gift shop doesn't stay open until closing and at least £10-£15 of extra revenue was lost there!
Overall a really great day was had by all (and one in particular loved being able to ride The Missile from their childhood once more)! The three who had never visited enjoyed their day and thought the park was good and were glad it was currently in good hands. Personally, the Halloween effort has been great and I hope it pays off so it can grow next year. The attractions themselves were more laughs than frights and could do with being developed further and generally made scarier, but what was there was great for the park and done very well on the budget that was given.
Pleasurewood should be proud and have set a benchmark for themselves to improve on for next year...
I have said before how much money they are losing by not having food or shops open at chucking out time - the amount of people who go into harvester to eat or Tesco's is no ones business.
I've said it before and will again when we had the exit kiosk at the front it had to stay open until the last people were out of the park....was a good little unit
I think too many people want to be terrified and that's not what the idea is. There is a very thin, line between horror and comedy.. if there's a line at all and very few people can get it right. Horror is Comedy because it's so over the top, and extreme. The idea is for people to have fun, you just can't do it seriously, And it's easier to scare kids, adults are far too critical.
While I've not been, I consider what you've said about the Halloween attraction to be positive and spot on, and how it should be approached. Although it's a shame it relies so heavily on live actors.. I guess that's alright for a one off special even.
Really sad to here they closed the shop 45 minutes before park closed.... now that is bad management.
I would guess most people like to check out the gift shop prior to leaving (something I prefer to do at the end of the day)
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It's always the cracked ones that let the light in.
If they close the shop early best to pay the office a visit and make a formal complaint.
Enough people do that they will soon change they're policy, and as coolskin says they're loosing money.
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It's always the cracked ones that let the light in.
