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PhotoTR: Brad and Andrew do Frightwater Valley


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Last Saturday Andrew and I went to Lightwater Valley for their Halloween event Frightwater Valley.

 

The park operated as normal from open till 1PM where Raptor Attack was transformed and discount ticketed entry started. The crowds really started to come in around that time and it was the busiest I’ve seen the park in a long time.

 

Frightwater Valley is only a two day event and had 1 scare maze ‘Dracula’s labyrinth’, and they adapted one of their coasters ‘Raptor attack’ to become ‘Raptor attack Live’. Both attractions were well done and made excellent use of the property.

 

In ‘Dracula’s labyrinth’ they enclosed parts of the hedge maze allowing for a unique experience with the dirt floor, hedges, and the smell making really feel like a haunted forest. There were quite a few good scares and the chainsaw attack at the end made a lot people run out of the exit screaming. With the maze opening at 6PM and the park closing at 8PM it meant the queue was long from about 5:30 until it had to be cut off around 7:30.

 

‘Raptor Attack Live’ added zombies to queue and exit. Although there aren’t many places to hide the actors still managed a few scares and made for a fun family attraction. For the whole afternoon the queue was a good hour long.

 

Later that night there was fireworks display over the lake. There was some sort of story to go along with it but with the crowds we couldn’t really here what was being said over the PA system. The show was extremely well done and exceeded what we expected from the park with about 20-25 minutes of fireworks!

 

The new for 2011 Skeleton cove area is looking very good and is really the parks only properly themed area, filled with a couple of rides previously based at Loudoun Castle plus a swinging pirate ship which means the park now has 2 although you can longer get to the old one.

 

Overall it was a very good day and proved that Lightwater Valley can hold a good event. If anyone is looking for Halloween events next year this one is worth checking out.

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Frightwater Valley.

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Theming was everywhere.

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On the main path between the trees was a small scare zone.

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Creepy clown masks.

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Zombies do exist.

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I was quite surprised with how much they had done.

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Next up was Twister.

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Where we found the ride sign they finally added this year.

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We headed down to Skeleton cove. You can still see the old Swinging ship.

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The new Huss Ship.

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Plus ride sign. Hi Larry.

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Skull Rock.

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Even the kiddie swings were themed to the max.

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The first of the 2 ride bought from Loudoun Castle. Powder Kegs.

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A really fun ride.

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The second was the Black Pearl.

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At 1PM we went over the experience Raptor Attack Live. Or is that the Lightwater Valley Mining Experience?

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The Ultimate was there too. And you could tell the crowds were picking up.

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All the way up until it met the Raptor queue. Glad we rode it before 1PM.

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The whirlwind has found a new home in between The Ultimate and Raptor Attack.

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Are we at Lightwater Valley or Alton Towers?

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Eagles Claw was next.

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Drop kick may of been needed.

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As darkness falls Dracula’s labyrinth opens.

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Slightly later the fireworks started.

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A surprisingly long display.

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Time for some rides in the dark.

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In the dark the Park just got spookier.

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Scottish Steve would of loved this place.

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The lighting worked really well.

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Overall it was a great day and something I will be re-visiting next year.

Edited by cfc
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Damn, this park has really grown in the 6 or so years it's been since I've been there. Looks like they've got at least 3 major flats now, which is great. I don't remember them having any to speak of when I was there, save for an enterprise or something that wasn't even open. Why did they get another swinging ship 50 meters away from the old one? Was old-one too worn out or something? Also, what happened to that bear coaster? It was there for like 1 season, but it looked like they put so much work into it.

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It was running on two trains and even out the door it took little more than 30 minutes to shift.

 

Basing a scare attraction around Raptor Attack was a mistake, as its throughput is terrible.

 

Opening Dracula's Labyrinth for two hours also makes me wonder if everyone in the park wanted to experience it actually managed to?

 

Overall I did enjoy the event though and it was good to see the park busy.

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The flat ride collection certainly is growing, although the enterprise was down on our past two visits. I'm pretty sure the new swinging ship is from Loudon Castle as well (probably some sort of package deal) and it was probably easier to place it in the new area than move the other one.

 

As for the queue on The ultimate being ridiculously long. The were using both trains all day which kept the line moving. We didn't feel like waiting that long to get bashed around for a second time though.

 

^ I wouldn't say throughput was terrible on Raptor Attack. Sure it was longer than normal, but it opened early in the day and allowed for most people to ride. The same cant be said for Dracula's Labyrinth, when we saw them cut the line off there were at least 50+ people who had to leave. It should have remained open longer or at least opened a bit earlier.

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Good to know LWV ran The Ultimate with 2 trains, otherwise the queue would of been very tedious.

I've rarely seen the park run 2 trains in recent years, hence my question.

 

Like you say, it's nice to see the park so busy.

Did not manage to get to LWV this year, hope to make up for in 2012.

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As Andrew said they were running 2 trains on The Ultimate. However even with both train when we got to it in the morning we started queuing just over halfway in to the queue inside the station and it still took us almost half an hour to get on to the ride. Really glad we got it out of the way before the crowds came in.

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Good job with the TR, Brad! Can't believe they finally got a ride sign for Twister. Someone is clearly looking out for Larry.

 

Glad to see some of those Loudoun Castle rides showing up here. Quite ironic since I'm pretty sure about half of Loudoun Castle's rides came from Lightwater Valley in the first place!

 

It's good to see more halloween events showing up in UK parks, even if it is pretty low key like this.

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Glad to see some of those Loudoun Castle rides showing up here. Quite ironic since I'm pretty sure about half of Loudoun Castle's rides came from Lightwater Valley in the first place!

 

Is it some sort of recycling program?

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Blimey, that was a real big queue for The Ultimate, was it running with 1 or 2 trains ?

1 train would of been 45 - 60 minute wait ?

 

Build by British Rail and must be one of the worst coasters I've ever had to go on - bumpy and very very slow.... So pleased I spent my Halloween at Alton Towers. Don't know how Lightwater Valley can really class themselves as a theme park as they have almost no theming at all. Thanks for the trip report very interesting. Hope Lightwater Valley continue to improve but feel that they have a big uphill battle. If you compare Flamingoland and see how they keep growing in comparison as the next local geographical park then Lightwater Valley have to do a lot better than buying in second hand rides from a defunct park. Lightwater Valley depend far too much on cheap school trips to get their numbers.

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They need to bring back the Toad Hole--the most amusing water ride ever.

 

Checked out the following wiki link and surprised not to see references to Toad Hole

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waterborne_diseases

 

Suggested to my kids that we try Lightwater Valley next Halloween in preference to Alton Towers and got a range of reactions:

 

After they stopped laughing and falling around came the comments - how cheap can you go and finally - no way even if the tickets were free we wouldn't go. Obviously the youth of today have at least some level of good taste?

 

You need to remember we have to travel past Lightwater Valley on our way south for a number of hours to get to Alton Towers. Think Lightwater Valley need to do some customer research on what younger guests expect using my kids.

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