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Current Status:  

  Operating

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The outside is blue, interestingly, but obviously shows a hotel that is less then welcoming. Expect no travelodge comforts here. Though it has an old rusting AA recommendation sign, this is no 3 star hotel. The lobby has some rather ugly characters welcoming you to your stay in the hotel, as well as some wax work bodies. We either pay with our tickets or insert our armbands into the scanner, and we pass through.

The walkthrough consists of the old Haunted Hotel and is little changes from its original route. Some newer scenes sit with the old, but they merge together nicely. It is very dark, and there are soft floors everywhere with hanging bits of string from the roof. The scenes are actually rather detailed, and can be quite disturbing if you look at them carefully. Examples are a man dead in his bath and other rooms where characters are less then alive. As you go upstairs and pass more scenes, there is one rather nifty window where you can look down onto a scene on the ground floor, and view passers by earlier on in the route before they experience the horrors within.

After a while, you enter a dark room where a sign above a door asks you to wait for you host to let you in. Wait you do, though threre is a disturbing noise of whooshing and screaming from the other side. For those who do not know what a Tagada is, this will get the imagination running wild - and it is unlikely they will guess what they are in for even when they get inside. If you do not know what a Tagada does, I urge you not to read the rest of this text - as the element of surprise really works in the rides favour.

The door openes evetually, and you either get a silent host starring at you to enter, or you get a chirpy fellow being nice to everyone - which actually really ruins any suspense buily up in all honesty. You walk over a bridge, and take your place in a large ring of seats. There is nothing to hold onto, and no restraints so what will happen is anyones guess. The room is wood panelled with some rather unplesant statues here and there.

In the middle of the ring of seats is a dinner table laid out ready for a meal - though whether this is for you is as yet, uncertain. With no warning, the gates into the ring close, and your banquet is about to begin. The lights dim or go black every so often, and suddenly you start to spin as a quiet music track bursts into life. You don't pick up much pace, but the small room around you with the dim and flashing lights really really cause some disorientation. As the lights go black, a strobe suddenly picks out one startue which has suddenly spurted large wings and is flapping them ominously. Suddenly, with a hiss and crack of pneumatics, the seats bounce violently. With nothing to hold on to and nothing holding you in, you rise off the seat and land back on it, still spinning. This continues with bounces becoming faster and more violent, and some spurts of water are even added into the mix. Just before you think you are about to land on the floor clean off the seat, it slows, the lights come up and there is a deadly silence as the ride steadies itself and you exit.

I rather like this ride. The walkthrough basically now acts as a very well themed queue as the number of people to enter it is not restricted. The ride is very good if you don't know what the resulting finale is. Having said that, it doesn't work on the same way as Hex for example. There is some very good theming and some intersting effects, but the lack of decent loud music and the fact that the banquet and the bouncing seems rather random means that it isn't the complete storyline it could be.

But its good honest fun. I would imagine the two offer a far more satisfying exprieince then being seperate, and the indoor Tagada works better then outside as the cramped surroundings offer an enhanced senstation of speed and atmosphere.