By Rahima Miah

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There are plenty of theme parks in the UK offering a thrilling day out for families, friends and couples. It’s also common for schools to arrange trips to theme parks during the summer so people from the UK of all ages are familiar with them. These entertainment venues attract tourists and those not originally from Britain as well, such as Matt Giffen, a man from Canada who moved to London. He recently went to Alton Towers for the first time as its famous annual Scarefest has returned for Halloween . This event includes night time rides, funny and spooky attractions for all ages and mazes. Matt went to the theme park in Stoke-on-Trent with his girlfriend, Summer, and turned to TikTok to share his experience. He said: “We’re at Alton Towers for the first time. Guys, this is the craziest thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life. Look at how mental this looks.” The Canadian expat flipped the camera to show the Halloween setting with lots of pumpkins and coloured flags. Matt and Summer started their day with Edge of the Forest, a new scare maze at the theme park this year. Before he went in, Matt thought it was “not going to be scary at all” but the attraction left him screaming and declaring: “I’m never doing anything like that ever again.” The TikToker then shared one thing that amazed him about Alton Towers: “This is why I love the UK so much. “In your theme park there’s just a massive f****** castle like why not?” What Matt was referring to was Alton Towers, the historic estate owned by the Earl of Shrewsbury in the 19th century, which the theme park was built around. The grounds at Alton Towers were first opened to the public in 1860 and by 1890 crowds of 300,000 came to watch acrobats, lion tamers, elephants, bands and fireworks. Alton Towers became known as a theme park in 1980 with the introduction of the Corkscrew rollercoaster. Continuing to explore the site, Matt stopped to take a look at visitors on a water ride that he compared to the Pirates of the Caribbean film series. The couple then got some nachos before going on the Wicker Man rollercoaster. The TikToker added: “Apparently there’s an aquarium here so we’re going to go check that out. “We don’t really like big rides. So funny, we’ve literally come to Alton Towers, went on the Wicker Man and now we’re going to the aquarium.” After seeing a starfish and some other aquatic creatures, the couple picked up some of the well-known warm, soft sugar doughnuts and Matt had his first taste, hailing the sweet treat “phenomenal.” Ending the TikTok video, he remarked: “That concludes my first ever time out here in Alton Towers. A lot of food was eaten. Not a lot of rides were rode.” The clip has garnered thousands of views and likes and hundreds of comments. A number of viewers were surprised that Matt didn’t go on many rides and found it funny that he called Alton Towers a castle. One user highlighted: “The ‘castle’ literally is Alton Towers.” Another said: “As a local this made me laugh – it’s a gothic manor house, not a castle and haunted FYI.” A third viewer commented: “You didn’t go on the rides!?! At Alton Towers!!!!!!???”