scarefest

There’s no doubt about it Halloween has become big in the Uk. From the increasing popularity of “Trick or Treating” (we can clearly remember doing this for the first time with our two and their friends and having a party in our garage) right through to the latest imported thing – the Pumpkin Patch. Don’t worry if you haven’t heard about this one yet you will do over the next few years.

One of the family traditions that it has spawned is the regular attendance at Alton Tower’s Scarefest. For a number of years we attended this as a day trip but a few years ago we discovered an absolute gem of a B&B right outside the front gate. Trough Ivy House is run by Terry and Carol and is literally a 3 or 4 minute walk to the entrance booths at the park – as opposed to a 20 minute plod from the car park or a 20 minute queue for the monorail from the car park. And it’s got a great home from home feel too, clean, licensed - it is just a comfortable place to relax after a hard day at the theme park!  So now instead of having to leave early and miss the unique experience of riding the coasters at night and all the associated creepy goings on we can relax and make the most of things knowing we have a comfy bed to walk back to.

And what about Scarefest itself? As well as the availability of late night rides (they’re open until 9pm) and Nemesis at night really does scramble the senses, the big attractions have to be the scare mazes  - only available during Scarefest. This year there were 4 on offer including a brand new one called “The Welcoming” themed around the new wooden coaster opening in 2018 and inhabited by a group of people best described as a cross between medieval pagans and the locals from Deliverance.
If you’ve never been in a scare maze they are not for the faint hearted and can genuinely make you jump as people pop out of nowhere, whisper things in your ear, you enter pitch black rooms, strobe lit wire mesh mazes, get chased by people with chainsaws and the latest thing is to be grabbed by the “cast” and pushed into various bits of mazes that you wouldn’t probably go into by choice.

Scary , yes but also great fun too.

So just 11 months to next Halloween and plenty of time for the warped minds behind the mazes to create even more terrifying things for 2018.

Bring it on!