As someone who usually only darkens the doorway of the Netherland's Walibi Holland during spooky season, it obviously had to be something pretty special for me to break that tradition. So when the chance came for me to finally ride my very first RMC single-rail rollercoaster and combine it with a trip to Sam's favourite city in the world at just about an hour away, it was a bit of a no-brainer. Having opened in 2025, YOY is the newest rollercoaster to open at Walibi Holland, the Netherlands' premier 'thrill' park, and features duelling single-rail tracks aptly named 'Thrill' and 'Chill', reflecting the experience of each of the tracks.

Located at the beloved fairytale theme park Efteling, just outside of Eindhoven in the Netherlands, the Efteling Loonsche Land hotel in one of now four themed accommodations at the Resort. At its essence, Loonsche Land aims to surround guests in nature, and promises stays overlooking the "forest, heathlands, and dunes" where guests can "climb and scramble on the various playgrounds, meet and greet the Forest Gnomes, and admire the animals at the Hooijmijt animal shelter."

Like its sister hotel just across the road, the Bosrijk, Loonsche Land consists of two sections: the antler-adorned brick tower hotel and then a Centre Parcs style nature reserve populated with cozy holiday homes, that Efteling boasts are made of natural materials where guests may retreat for a calm, relaxing stay surrounded by nature after a whimsical day exploring the magic of the theme park. I have stayed in the hotel previously but this post will be a review of the holiday homes only from our most recent stay in January 2025. 

I don't think I've ever done a hotel review here on the blog before but as I tend to stay at a fair few I thought I'd look at making it a regular feature, and for that we need some consistent criteria to review against. For these I thought I'd take a leaf out of Four In A Bed's book and mark my stays against the following:

• Facilities
• Theming
• How Did I Sleep?
• Would I Stay Here Again?

So without further ado, my review of the Efteling Loonsche Land holiday home cabins. 

Facilities

I'll start of this review by mentioning the very important fact that these cabins, unlike the central hotel block, are self-catering, and therefore you are expected to do a lot of bits yourself. You won't find daily housekeeping or a turn-down service etc, but honestly for a 2 or 3 night stay I think that's absolutely fine. The rooms come with a small selection of basic cleaning products and a fridge and cooking equipment so you can look after yourself. 

The cabins themselves are very spacious and comfortable, your typical holiday home with nothing really to shout about with regard to theming. They remind me a little of the old Girl Guide huts we would stay in at camp when I was a kid, which I'm sure are really exciting if you've got kids with you but a little more basic than what I was expecting honestly. We visited in January and I was worried about the cabins being cold, but the rooms are all temperature controlled and very quickly warmed up so 10/10 on that front.

Weirdly, during booking the website gave us the option to look at the map and select which cabin we would like to stay in. As Sam and I like to enjoy a hotel bar and wanted to be as close to the park as possible, we chose a cabin up front, right by the main hotel building. When we arrived, we found that our assigned cabin was actually one right at the back of the holiday park, meaning a further 5-7 minute walk on top of the walk from the hotel to the park. Mildly annoying, but we probably wouldn't have thought anything of it if we hadn't been given the option to choose in the first place, so not entirely sure what the point of that was!

The beds are the typical European setup where a 'double' is actually two single mattresses pushed together with two separate duvets - I'm all for the separate duvets however the gap in the mattress is a bit annoying, but I know to expect it now when staying on the mainland!

The bathroom was a real let down. There are no bath facilities, only a shower where the drainage hasn't been thought out too well so you're provided with a squeegee to keep the water spilling out the bottom of the shower door under control (side note: do not leave your clothes on the floor when showering because they will get wet!) There is also no hairdryer provided, something I discovered when I miraculously made the decision to wash my hair the night before rather than in the morning before heading into the park, which could have been catastrophic if that were not the case.

Food-wise, breakfast is not included, but you can order a breakfast service to be delivered to your cabin for a small extra fee. I thought this was a bit odd considering breakfast is included with the hotel just a short walk away and the price is not all that different. The dining room there is small though, so I understand it wouldn't be able to accommodate everybody staying both in the hotel and in the cabins too. 

I will say that, during booking online, it was not made crystal clear to us that the cabins were self-catering and that breakfast was not included - we only found that out through watching vlogs and doing our own research so definitely something to be aware of when booking these and also something I have fed back to Efteling. 

Being self-catering, I would highly recommend stopping off at a nearby supermarket and stocking up on essentials before you arrive. Sam and I planned to do this but forgot in our excitement to get to the park, and were surprised later on to find that Loonsche Land does not have a shop to buy groceries. Instead your only option is to go across the road to Bosrijk instead which, without a car or bike, is about a 15-20 minute walk depending on the location of your cabin. Not the end of the world, but again slightly frustrating when you've had a long day at the park and even stranger that the Loonsche Land itself doesn't have this service on location. 

Something we absolutely love that is available for all Resort guests staying at the Efteling is the take-away delivery service. Through the Efteling app, guests may order a take-away to be delivered to the door of your accommodation until 9PM and includes everything from pizza and garlic bread to chicken and salad - it's a great option for if you find yourself stuck and hungry and not bad at all for the price. You can find a full menu for what is available here if you want to take a look before you visit.

The hotel also offers a shuttle bus service to the park which appears every 20 minutes or so and is on loop all day which is really handy if you want to pop back to your cabin to refresh (or warm up a bit as was the case with us!) You can also hire a bike for a small fee for your stay if that's more your style, but personally the bikes were way too big for me to even approach being able to ride it properly so wasn't an option for us but a good service nonetheless. 

Not sure if this technically counts as a facility but something I adore about Loonsche Land is the little farm section next to some cool play equipment that goes across the pond. Very cute, and so lovely and chill to hang out with some chickens and goats as part of your stay - there's even a climbing frame and slide that is built around their enclosure!

Theming

Compared to the Bosrijk, I wouldn't say anything at Loonsche Land is really 'themed', it's more styled to feel like a nature reserve you can live in. The central hotel tower does have the antlers on the exterior which fit the bill, and there's a farmhouse style cottage at the centre of the holiday park that you can actually stay in, but that's kind of the extent of it. 

The cabins are pretty, and feature grassy rooftops and lots of oak furniture and exposed beams but there's nothing that has that whimsical Efteling flair that you get in abundance in the park. Which I guess is nice if you're looking for a break from the intense immersion of the theme park itself, but something I always found a little odd given this is a theme park hotel. Compared with the likes of Gold River at PortAventure or the Phantasialand hotels if you go to Loonsche Land expecting a rich, themed experience you're going to come away disappointed. 

How Did I Sleep?

Honestly, after intense days of travel straight into traipsing around a theme park I usually find it very easy to crash out but I will say we slept very comfortably. Our cabin was located right at the back of the park and we went during a quiet period anyway so it was extremely peaceful and private. The curtains all did a great job of blocking out any light and as previously mentioned it was lovely and warm in our room which helped too.

Would I Stay Here Again?

Honestly, no. I would absolutely stay in the Loonsche Land hotel itself again, but not the cabins. I personally am not a huge fan of the self-catering style of stay and though incredibly practical and I'm sure perfect for larger groups or families, I would have much preferred a hotel room. I just didn't get the sense of whimsy I've come to expect from a stay at Efteling and the little things like how far away the cabin was, the lack of hairdryer, the wet bathroom floor and the lack of shop close by to purchase supplies were all just too annoying for me to want to stay there again.

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What do you think? Have you staying in self-catering accommodation at Efteling before? Let me know in the comments, I'd love to have a chat!

Talk later xoxo,

Fittingly opening on October 31st 2024, Danse Macabre is the newest major attraction at iconic fantasy theme park Efteling in the Netherlands. As the spiritual (pun intended) successor to legacy haunted attraction Spookslot, which closed in September 2022 to make way for the €35 million investment, the pressure was on the park to not only ensure this new ride was good enough to justify the closure of a fan-favourite but also to deliver an experience that would continue to delight park-goers for decades to come whilst simultaneously honouring Spookslot's memory. 

After seven years in the making, in May 2024 Ireland's Emerald Park finally opened their beautiful new Tír na nÓg land expansion. Home to two Vekoma rollercoasters and a Zierer Waveswinger ride, the new land represents €22 million in investment to the ever-expanding sole theme park in Ireland, and as with every addition the park makes represents another step forward towards solidifying themselves as one of Europe's best smaller, regional theme parks. 

The Land of Legends Theme Park located in Kadriye, about 40 minutes outside of central Antalya, is on of Turkey's biggest entertainment resorts. Including a massive water park, a shopping avenue complete with night time show, an on-location hotel and of course, the theme park itself, the Land of Legends Resort has been on many a theme park enthusiast's bucket list since it opened in 2016. When the park's Mack Rides hypercoaster, aptly named Hyper Coaster, opened in 2018, I knew it was somewhere I wanted to visit and so this summer we did something very out of character and booked a package holiday to a bougie Turkish all-inclusive hotel, located just ten minutes down the road in Belek, with the intent on visiting Land of Legends as part of our vacation. 

Officially opening on June 10th 2021, VelociCoaster is the newest thrill ride to grace the shorelines of Universal's Island of Adventure and was one of the most eagerly anticipated additions in the park's history. A coaster whose hype was undoubtedly amplified by the agonising extended construction period as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, and one who I'd mysteriously never heard a single bad word said about it. Could it really be THAT good? Is VelociCoaster the best rollercoaster in the world? Counting down the days to my Orlando trip in May, it was finally my turn to find out. 

Five years since the legendary Baron 1898 and Efteling finally decide to increase their coaster count once more. Max + Moritz is a duelling family Mack coaster themed after the German illustrated story Max und Moritz by Wilhelm Busch, and features two mischievous children pulling pranks on one another. So, fairytale? Check. Fun, whimsical theme? Check. Family friendly? Check. It's the perfect theme for an Efteling family coaster, but considering Efteling attractions usually involve a little bit more than your average bear it was hard to see where the magic would come from this almost garish attraction in comparison to something like Baron 1898, that to me is as much a storytelling piece of art as it is a coaster. 

The ride was under construction when I last visited the park in December 2019, and I will admit it was a little hard to see the iconic Bob removed from this gorgeous spot, weaving in and out of dense woodland in what really felt like a magical fairytale forest. The decision to remove Bob and replace it with duelling family Mack coasters upset many an Efteling fan, and it's easy to see why. We go from the muted, subtle colour scheme and unhinged ride experience of Bob to an arguably dull coaster attraction in garish colours offering very little in the way of speed or thrill. Further, being located in a fairly central location, the removal of Bob's structure and surrounding theming and trees leaves quite the chasm, where we can now see the back of the Fabula show building and the spooky forest around Spookslot suddenly doesn't feel as foreboding as perhaps it once did. 

BUT, trees grow, and coaster naturally blend into their landscapes in time. It's always going to be the case with removal of trees and planting of new ones. We just need to be patient and in a few years things will feel a little more overgrown and magical once more. Admittedly it was a little jarring to witness a show building in such glaring daylight in the case of Fabula as Efteling is usually so meticulous in maintaining the magic and illusion, but you soon forget about it.

The ride itself consists of two tracks - a lurid green or garish blue. The layout is...fine? It's hard really to say anything about it as it's very much a 'starter' coaster for families, and much more about the whimsy and mischief of the theming and storyline than it is about the coaster itself. It does a few fun twists and turns, with the tracks crossing over one another to allow for some racing/duelling moments but other than that it's fairly non-descript. 

The storyline is that Max and Moritz are being naughty so their mother, who happens to own a cuckoo clock factory, locks them inside her workshop to keep them out of mischief. But, with all of the clockwork and wood laying around, the rascals create their own clockwork race cars and chaos ensues. Fun! The on-board audio reflects the naughty and cheeky nature of the storyline and of course it wouldn't be an Efteling attraction without ROBOTS, by which I mean animatronics. Depending on which track you choose, you're either treated to a poor man whose face is near enough blown off, leaning out of a window as smoke pours out, or you get farted on by a giant whoopee cushion one of the boys is bouncing off.

Ah yes, the fart jokes. I feel conflicted, because obviously these fit in very much with the Max and Moritz world created by Wilhelm Busch. And yes, I suppose there is a donkey in the fairytale forest that poops gold coins if you give him money, but there's something too low brow about it here that I couldn't help but feel felt out of place for Efteling. It's done well, don't get me wrong. The queueline has an interactive whoopee cushion organ for god's sakes, and the giant whoopee cushion animatronic looks great. But yh, I glance over at the elegance of Baron 1898 and can't help but empathise with those Efteling fans who were so upset by the attraction in the first place. 

The station building is the crown jewel of this attraction for me. Firstly, the tracks face in different directions, so you depart the station facing different ways. I'm not sure I've ever seen that done before, not if it exists anywhere else in the world (let me know in the comments if I'm wrong!) but it's a marvellous piece of design that once again heightens the whimsy and silliness of the whole thing. It feels topsy turvy and chaotic and fun. And the giant centrepiece clockwork theming thing, clicking and ticking away as the boys work together on it, is really delightful. There's something almost Seven Dwarves Mine Train about the whole thing, which come to think of it why didn't they go with Vekoma and get those swinging cars? That would've been so much more fun!

Would I prefer they didn't tear down Bob? Yes. Am I glad I got +2 creds? Yes. Will I ever ride it again? Probably not unless I was extremely bored. It's a fun starter coaster for younger guests but honestly when you've got such excellent dark rides at the park that cater for families it's hard to understand why they bothered. I do hope the trees grow in though, I really can't stand the sight of the backside of Fabula. 

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Have you ridden Max + Moritz at Efteling? What do you think of the park's newest coasters? Let me know in the comments, I'd love to have a chat. 

Talk later xoxo,

OK so firstly let me apologise for taking six weeks to getting around to finally writing this but hey, that's how life works unfortunately. So, Movie Park Studio Tour then, the Intamin multi-dimensional coaster and brand new for 2021 attraction to open at my beloved Movie Park Germany in Bottrop. As I wasn't actually expecting to be back at Movie Park as recently as I was, I actually hadn't paid too much attention to Movie Park Studio Tour, to the point where I remember asking as we boarded the trains "wait, who even manufactured this thing?" I really was going in blind, which in my opinion is the best way to do these things as you get a 'purer' reaction to the thing as opposed to one that's tainted with pre-conceptions and biases. 

Before I get into this review properly, there's a few things you need to understand about Movie Park and their rides first. The first is that even with their newer attractions like Star Trek and Van Helsing's Factory (new for me means built in the last decade), everything had a slightly 'retro' feel. For me, their attractions are how theme park enthusiasts would build movie themed rides on a budget, there's just something really wholesome and home-grown about everything they create, even things that have large IPs attached. It kind of feels like really good cosplay - you know the standard is excellent but you can also tell there's something slightly unofficial feeling about it that you can't quite put your finger on. 

The second thing you need to know is that they're batshit crazy. It's the reason I love the place so much, if you go in blind to any of their attractions there's no way you're ever going to accurately predict everything they will throw at you because it's all so bloody out of the box. And it's for this reason I was particularly excited to ride Movie Park Studio Tour, even though I knew little to nothing about it. And consider this your warning - there will be spoilers ahead!

Built upon the location of what was an Ice Age themed boat ride the first time I went to the park and a Wrong Turn themed horror maze the last time I visited, Movie Park Studio Tour takes the idea of multi-dimensional and runs with it. This is not a ride that is all about the coaster elements, nor is it all about the theming. It's about as close to a perfectly balanced themed coaster one can get. It's the perfect 'flagship' attraction for the park, we literally get to, to nick Universal Studios' old slogan, ride the movies, and it's a blast from start to finish. 

The setup is exactly what you would expect it might be - a big movie director is creating his newest feature film and we get to have starring roles! What is the storyline of the film? Who knows! Why are we on a rollercoaster train? Who cares! We board the train in a typical 'Hollywood' themed station with classic Hollywood iconography and begin on a tour backstage through the studios, and proceed to make stops on various film sets including: a disaster movie set where a tornado blows the roof off a house and we're launched backwards, a close-up monster movie set where we come face to face with definitely-not-Kong, get lost in a prop closet that included some sneakily hidden Gremlins props as a throwback to the old dark ride, and my favourite part, a Fast & Furious style racing movie where we race sports cars out of the studio building in a fun little launch. 

And that word 'fun' is optimal here - the whole thing is fun. Fun, fun, fun. It is the PERFECT family attraction for Movie Park Germany that showcases their brand expertly. The coaster itself isn't big and scary like maybe Star Trek would be for younger riders, but the backwards sections and launches ensure it isn't dull either. The many show scenes add an extra layer of excitement to an already fun experience and there's a bunch of great movie easter eggs for film nerds like me to get excited about. My one beef was that we were maybe going just a tiny bit too fast in the not-Kong scene to really appreciate the scale and detail of the set, but that's me really digging for something 'negative' to say.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE! So, remember I said I had no idea about anything this ride really did? OK so, a lot of the effects are screen-based. The pre-show is a recording, the visuals we see in the queueline corridors are screens and a fair few of the big show scene effects are screen based. They're blended well though and whilst yes, we would all prefer less screens, that would mean Movie Park Germany wouldn't have been able to change the entire attraction to a horror theme for their Halloween Festival. Yes, you read that right. After dark, the team take about 20 minutes to switch all of the screens over to a spooky overlay and fill the queueline with horror actors. What...the hell?!

Where once we were blown away by a tornado, we were now escaping from a hoard of zombies. The wholesome clacker board mascot has now turned into a ravenous beast who...from what I can gather decapitates the director?! This is Europe remember so they don't shy away from madness like this. The corridor screens from earlier were now showcasing extremely grisly and gory scenes of bodies in various states of...disrepair and we even see another train of riders being savaged by zombies. The whole thing is absolutely mad, completely unexpected and like nothing I've ever seen in a theme park before. It was really excellent and a great example of 'little' things Movie Park Germany do with their attractions to give them that bit of elevation beyond your average regional theme park. 

So, is Movie Park Studio Tour the hottest new coaster in Europe? No. Is it totally fun and a fantastic addition to the park both from attraction line-up and an iconic branded ride experience perspective? Absolutely. It's completely nuts in a way only Movie Park Germany can pull off and I would love to see more parks follow suit with multi-dimensional attractions that can be adapted for different content/seasonal overlays. 

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Have you ridden Movie Park Studio Tour? What did you think? Did you know about the horror version of the ride? Let me know in the comments, I'd love to have a chat!

Talk later xoxo,

I would apologise for the fact that all of my recent posts have been attraction reviews, but seeing as this one has been six bloody years in the making, I shan't. A few weeks ago I finally got my act together and headed to what is probably my most-visited of European airports, Cologne Bonn, to visit Phantasialand. Yep, the time had finally come for me to F.L.Y!

Well, it's been a while since I've visited a new-for-me park to review, and whilst I don't usually veer into the world of water parks I figured I'd make a special exception for Siam Park in Tenerife. Heralded by many (including Trip Advisor) as the best water park in the world, Siam Park which opened in 2008 is the top attraction in Tenerife. The water park boasts world class water slides, outstanding theming and landscaping and gorgeous beaches and animal enclosures. It's also easily the most hyped attraction I've ever visited - the minute I mentioned I was going my mentions were flooded with people telling me how incredible the place was, eager to hear my thoughts. So I guess I will get stuck in then!

2020 was certainly a year packed full of postponed projects and cancelled theme park visits, among them the delay of the much-anticipated Tornado Springs - a brand new themed land coming to Paultons Park in Hampshire. Having kept a beady eye on the construction of this project for years, hearing it was delayed really took the wind out of my sails in terms of my anticipation (despite knowing this was absolutely the right thing to do given the circumstances) and as such I've really not paid much attention to it until the parks started re-opening this year and my excitement returned. A new land! With new rides! To explore! Very exciting indeed. So of course once I was safely able to do so, I made plans as soon as possible to get down to Paultons Park to check out Tornado Springs for myself. 

This past weekend has seen me finally able to start getting back to parks again, and of course being the Southern gal I am I hit up my two home parks first with Thorpe Park and Chessington World of Adventures, the latter of which boasted the brand new for 2021 family drop tower ride Croc Drop. Having followed construction of this thing over the past year I was very excited to try it for myself and suffice to say it is really excellent. It's perfectly thrilling without being too intense or scary, so fun and infinitely rerideable and, perhaps most poignantly, it is absolutely stunning to behold. It's an absolute knock-out of a new attraction for a park like Chessington in my opinion and between not being able to put my camera down and running around for endless re-rides it made an instant fan out of me from the offset. 

Whilst I didn't get to ride many new for 2020 attractions, I was lucky enough to be able to visit Erlebnispark Tripsdrill to check out their two new for 2020 roller coasters Volldampf and Hals-über-Kopf during my German road trip back in October. Whilst it was certainly a fabulous little family coaster, this review will not be discussing the Family Vekoma Boomerang coaster Volldampf and will instead focus on the park's new, larger coaster the first of its kind brand new Vekoma Suspended Thrill Coaster Hals-über-Kopf. 

Of the shit sandwich served up to spooky season this year due to COVID, the undoubted silver lining has been that the amazing teams behind our favourite terrifying attractions have been forced to think outside the box a little to be able to deliver scares in a COVID safe way. This has led to many changes across scare attractions all over the country, from an increase in scare zones at our beloved theme park Halloween attractions, to horrific masks instead of make-up to keep actors safe, there hasn't been a scare attraction operating in 2020 that hasn't seen some sort of adaptation or amend to the product and honestly despite it obviously being far from ideal, it's nice to see something huge like this encourage a bit of a shake up in the industry as it means we get to experience things we otherwise might never have seen, Which brings me nicely to Road to Hell. 

A great idea we saw spring out of many a scare attraction creative's arsenal was the idea of a drive-through scare attraction. Essentially operating like a drive through safari but with ghouls instead of giraffes, the drive-through scare offers the perfect solution to keeping both punters and actors safe whilst delivering a simultaneously terrifying and brand new offering to the UK scarescape. Although we unfortunately did not see all of those drive-through scare attractions announced this year through to actual operation, one that did press on was Road to Hell located in the grounds of the Heart of England conference centre in Coventry. 

Presented by AREA 51 and Scare-Projects, Road to Hell is a 20 minute, 1.5 mile long trail that takes fearseekers through a series of terrifyingly entertaining scenes from the safety of their own vehicles. It's something I've personally never experienced before but something I knew I had to try once they started popping up all over the UK so I was so excited to manage to snap up a ticket for last Thursday evening to see for myself just how terrifying a drive-through horror experience could be. 

I won't talk you through scene by scene in the interest of not getting repetitive, but I will say this - it was absolutely terrifying! If you've ever driven down a long, dark creepy road at night you'll know the sense of unease, and Road to Hell take this and turn it up to eleven. We discussed afterwards why this was so terrifying and we came to the conclusion that our cars, in our heads at least, are a safe space. They're kind of an extension of our homes where we feel comforted and like no harm can come to us, so for this safe haven to suddenly be transferred into the danger zone is wholly uncanny and uncomfortable, and therefore the sense of terror is heightened. 

Each scene had its own different theme, from demonic priests to killer clowns to my ever-favourite chainsaw-wielding maniacs, it was all typical scare attraction stuff but experienced slightly differently from behind the 'safe' doors of a car. The way the actors played with our sense of space and sightl ines was great - tons of misdirection only for the actors to sneak up from the other side of the car to make us jump out of our skins. Vehicles flying towards our car at seemingly high speeds before swerving away last minute, ghouls chaotically tugging at the car door handle trying to get into the car. It was like nothing I've ever seen before and my heart was racing through each scene as I had no idea what was coming next which I absolutely adored. 

And don't worry about your car getting dirty from all of these hideous beasts smearing their filthy mitts over the windows - the final scene is a spooky twist on a car wash where your vehicle will be hosed down and your windows squee-geed to remove any excess filth. It was also a great way to end the horrific 20 minutes on a slightly lighter note to calm our nerves before driving home.

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Overall I was extremely impressed with Road to Hell. I have no idea what I expected from this but I certainly didn't think it was get my heart-racing quite as quickly as it did. There is just so much potential for a setup like this and I really hope that we see more of these pop up and develop in the years to come as I'd love to see how Heart of England update it moving forwards and how other scare operators would do things differently. 

Did you manage to try out a drive-through scare attraction this year? Was it what you expected it would be? Let me know in the comments, I'd love to have a chat!

Talk later xoxo,

At this point I'd consider myself a bit of a Thorpe Park FRIGHT NIGHTS veteran. I've visited pretty much every year since 2006 and over those past 13 (wow, 13, god I'm old) it's been fantastic to watch the event adapt, change and grow with the different horror trends and technology. In the UK, Thorpe Park FRIGHT NIGHTS is an iconic Halloween event and easily the best known Halloween event across the country. I'm excited every spooky season to see what changes will come to FRIGHT NIGHTS, probably none moreso than this year. With the impact of COVID-19 and many other scream parks having to cease operation for the year, I was very interested to see what affect this would have on the UK's premier Halloween event and what changes we'd see as a result. This is my top five most favourite things about FRIGHT NIGHTS 2020!

At a time of year where I'd usually be back to back with visiting scream parks and scare attractions all over the country, you can be sure that I was rejoicing to the Halloween gods that one I'd planned to visit this year had managed, through some miracle, to remain operational during these (say it with me now) strange and unprecedented times. I speak of course of Melton Mowbray's iconic den of debauchery that is Xtreme Scream Park. 

Located inside Twinlakes Park, Xtreme Scream Park is a hardcore scare event featuring five live action horror mazes. Repeatedly nominated as the UK's Best Scream Park at the Scar Awards, Xtreme Scream Park sets itself aside from other UK scream parks with it's more intense attraction offering and generally meaner and angrier vibe - extreme by name, extreme by nature! I've visited this event twice before and usually like to take a year off between visits so that I can guarantee there's some newness when I revisit, and this year I was excited to check out the brand new Belvoir Manners as well as enjoy some old favourites like Ash Hell Penitentiary and Pie Factory. Let's get stuck in!

I've called this roaming entertainment but really I'm talking about just anything spooky going on outside of the mazes. One downside of this event taking place in a park that hosts a family friendly spooky event during the day is they're never able to go too OTT on the spooky decorations, lest they face the wrath of the parents of a screaming child they've traumatised. Which I get. That said there are a few spooky scarecrow guys dotted about here and there as well as some bonfires which set off a nice autumnal ambience (especially if it's not absolutely pouring down which unfortunately it was when we visited!)

Absolutely adored the spider-person creepily contorting themselves in front of their web background and the fire-dancing lady who heroically carried on her act even throughout the downpour. It's little touches like this that I think really help elevate scream park events from good to great and these guys certainly helped keep us entertained between mazes. 

Highlight for this year absolutely has to be Joe Erotic, a roaming character inspired by the Tiger King himself hurling Joe Exotic style insults at pretty much every guest walking past. Absolutely hilarious and one of those things that really helped inject a little more personality into the event - walking into a scream park and being called a bitch by a spooky Midlands interpretation of an iconic 2020 pop culture figure certainly helps frame your expectations for what's coming next!

We kickstarted our evening with the new for 2020 Belvoir Manners, which replaces the old Stilton Hall Hotel & Spa attraction. In the past this has been one of my favourites and I've always been a huge fan of how extensive this maze is both in terms of length and theming. Sadly for me Belvoir Manners didn't live up the Stilton Hall length-wise, with the entire upstairs section no longer taking place. I appreciate I'm approaching it from the perspective of somebody who has experienced the previously excellent attraction that was here before but it's hard not to. That said, I think the theming is still excellent and I love the attention detail and set dressing in each room - stand out for me was the games room playing a really creepy 1970s bingo song leftover from some tragic holiday park. Everything about it feels quintessentially British and there's something in my brain that really appeals too, especially when it comes to Halloweeny things where British attractions can tend to lean on the American side of things. 

I'll be honest...I'm still not particularly sure what the storyline of Belvoir Manners is. I've read the backstory online a few times and can gather that it is some kind of care home where the elderly residents replace any aging body parts with those of younger 'donors'. A fantastically original concept for sure, but it's a shame that this doesn't come across too clearly within the attraction. That said, it's still bloody scary and kind of gross feeling - it's not hardcore terrifying like other attractions at Xtreme Scream but there's a general sense of morosity that carries through the entire attraction which any self-respecting haunted house would be jealous of. 

Returning for my third visit to the iconic Ash Hell Penitentiary and one of my favourite scare attractions in the UK was certainly foreboding. Scare mazes are fickle beasts and when you love something as much as I love Ash Hell there's always the worry that this time it won't be as good, especially with that gloomy COVID cloud lingering overheard. Needn't have worried. Still intense. Still angry. Still vicious and brutal and full of rage. You can feel the fury resinating out of the building as you queue outside and wait for the terrifying moment where you're next to enter this angsty hovel, I suppose that carries through the soundtrack mostly but I swear to god there's an aura of hatred that pulsates from the building itself. 

For me it's all about those first few rooms - it feels like you're on the set of some gritty torture porn movie on the dark side of the internet. It's so bleak and violent, and from the instant you set foot inside you're being screamed at from every angle, accompanied by that hatefully slow light that flashes on and off and keeps you lingering in darkness just a little too long. It's honestly like torture, and it's the perfect set up to get you into this horrifically vulnerable headspace that primes you as an easy target for terror throughout the second, arguably lighter half of the maze once you get into the inmates' cells. It's high-octane, white-knuckle, heart-racing scares from start to finish and fantastically enjoyable for sadists like me who enjoy that kind of thing. 

Out of the hell in a cell that is Ash Hell Penitentiary and into the opposite side of the scare coin that is Hoodoo Voodoo, arguably a much light and more update attraction themed around the Voodoo Queen of the New Orleans Marie Laveau. I've never much been one for bag on head mazes and I certainly was intrigued to see how they'd get around that in COVID-land. Turns out blindfolds essentially do the same thing in terms of restricting the senses that a bag on the head does so issue solved there. The first half of this maze really isn't for me. Having fallen over in a maze similar to this in previous years I'm really not a fan of being blindfolded then being forced to walk across uneven floors, especially in the rain. I'm scared for all the wrong reasons - not because I think the Voodoo Queen is going to steal my soul but because I think the platform Dr.Martens are going to betray me and I'm going to end up being airlifted to A&E with a broken ankle. 

The second half of this maze, or the non-blindfolded section, is where the magic happens for me. A kaleidoscope of colours and an upbeat Voodoo-inspired soundtrack leads the way and each scene is vibrant and alive but still packs the scares in too. I love that there are so many layers to this maze - one minute we're in a blacklit room filled with voodoo dolls, the next we're traversing a rickety bridge through a swamp before truding through a swamp infested with Voodoo witches into a solemn New Orleans graveyard. There's a really clear story being told and although I don't find it particularly intense or frightening, I do enjoy it visually and physically because it does so much with the space. 

In the past Pie Factory has been one of my favourite mazes at Xtreme Scream Park. It's a PORK PIE themed maze at a park located in MELTON MOWBRAY for god's sake! That will never not be hilarious and amazing to me. But yes, I love a good butcher/gore themed maze and I love Pie Factory's particularly unique take on this scare maze genre. It also manages to mix in that musty gloom present in Belvoir Manners alongside an autumnal country farmyard vibe which I'm also a big fan of. On paper it's very much up my street and in the past I've really enjoyed this attraction both for its intensity and its originality. Sadly this year there was something a little lacking. I don't want to be too harsh because the reality is I have no idea how much of an impact COVID has had operationally for these attractions, but the cast of Pie Factory just didn't really seem to have their hearts in it. Compared to the vicious intensity of Ash Hell, Pie Factory seemed a little lacklustre which is such a shame, especially the chainsaw finale - I was expecting to be chased screaming but instead our guy kind of stood behind a fence and waved his weapon at us unenthusiastically. 

It wasn't wholly without it's good moments though. The vile pig puppet in one of the first scenes is still to this day one of my favourite gags at a UK park and this year I got a full face of it which conjured up full blown 80s kids movie nightmare fuel vibes which I am all for. It gets me every year but also the butcher pig guy bursting out the the fridge, excellent, amazing, iconic. Xtreme Scream are really good at creating sets where the actor hidey-hole isn't obvious so, especially if it's your first time, it's really easy for them to catch you off guard by bursting out of something that as first glance appears just to be part of the set.

The Village was the new hotness when I last visited in 2018 and although I enjoyed the attraction I didn't quite get the hype others were giving it, so I was intrigued to get back into this cursed scarecrow cult fuelled nightmare too see what I was missing out on and...it's just excellent isn't it? I adore the fact that it's HUGE and spans multiple scenes through multiple buildings, it really does feel like walking through a cursed village and I love both its ambition and originality in that. The benefit of splitting the attraction up into multiple buildings means you get to experience that pre-maze apprehension you get at the start of a haunt over and over again which is both clever and cruel (in the best way). 

For a maze so spaced out you'd expect there to be some dead (pun intended) areas but not so, the areas between each building are also themed and even if they're not they're pitch black so still creepy as hell. The scares come thick and fast - my favourite being the first room with a double scare from both the front (scarecrow out of nowhere) and the back (curtain blowing at the window that Conor got properly entangled in to the point that I have the hilarious image of my husband flailing and screaming burned into my brain forever for my enjoyment). The creepy school building is a highlight for me, particularly the kid's toilet block with the ominously slamming doors. Vile. 

The finale is as grotesque as ever, I love the building sense of foreboding as we slowly wind our way through the pews inevitably towards the lead scarecrow knowing some doom awaits us. It's an agonising build up and certainly a different way to end an attraction like this that I'm yet to experience elsewhere. 

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All in all a fantastic visit to Xtreme Scream Park. It was a real shame about the weather as I'd have liked to have hung out around the bonfires for a bit and maybe had a drink and soaked up some of the atmosphere but alas it wasn't to be, and it certainly didn't put a dampener on the spooks for us! As with all scream parks that I visit over and over again, I do begin to tire of some of the older attractions so I'd love to see further updates to the likes of Pie Factory and Hoodoo Voodoo but I'm sure those will come with time, and it was great to see that even with COVID measures in place the park were still able to operate a fantastically terrifying and extreme Halloween event. 

Did you visit Xtreme Scream this year? Which attraction was your favourite? Let me know in the comments, I'd love to have a chat!

Talk later xoxo,

Last week saw Conor and I (magically somehow) head over to Germany for a ten day long trek across the country visiting theme parks and tourist traps alike, and of course it wouldn't be a theme park trip in October without visiting a few spooky events! Much like the rest of Europe, and indeed the world, many of Germany's premier Halloween events have sadly been cancelled this year meaning we weren't able to get to as many as we would have hoped, but luckily Belantis Halloween Abenteuer was able to operate as advertised, so last Saturday we headed down to the family theme park just outside of Leipzig for some coasters in the dark and light-hearted spooks!

Ever since I got back from my trip to Italy a few weeks ago I've been thinking of a way to get down my thoughts about the truly unique and wild theme park that is Movieland Studios. If you've been to this park, you'll know that it's very much its own brand of insane and very difficult to put into words exactly what the park is about because honestly, I'm not sure it even knows itself. Regardless, please indulge me as I try to piece together for you what Movieland Studios is actually like to visit as a guest and what its deal is.

After eleven years I got my butt back over to Italy to finally ride Oblivion - The Black Hole and complete the full set of European B&M coasters! When I last visited Gardaland in 2011 Raptor, the park's B&M wing coaster, was the new kid on the block but since my last visit the park has developed a fair bit, included the construction of multiple resort hotels, dark ride updates and entirely new kids themed lands attached to some pretty huge IPs (Peppa Pig and Kung Fu Panda if anybody wanted to know). I absolutely adore B&M dive coasters - I think the drop element is terrifying and thrilling and there's not really much opportunity to mess that up so largely they're a pretty great coaster type across the board (ignoring YOU, Valravn...)