That's our vote of the week.
If you didn't go to a Halloween event this year, please submit a comment telling us why not. What would entice you to go to a theme park Halloween even in the future?
If you did visit one of the many Halloween events at theme parks around the country, please tell us in the comments what was the best - or worst - moment you experienced at a Halloween event this year.
We started collecting reader ratings on Halloween events this year, and of the events that received at least five ratings, you voted Universal Orlando's Halloween Horror Nights and Disneyland's Mickey's Halloween Party as your favorite two events so far. Which one was your favorite this year?
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My daughter and I also work has haunt monsters at Kings Dominion, so I guess we are not typical.
Personally, I think that Halloween Horror Nights, though an amazing event, is a little pricey to visit every year, especially in today's economic environment. Maybe that is why there are so many smaller haunts popping up everywhere.
Dominick, the scores are most likely averaged (either "mean" or "median"... math terms). So even though one has 5 votes, and the other has 11, if both are 9's across the board, they're both going to be 9's.
But some people enjoy the events, some people don't. All for different reasons... whether it's "they scare me" or "they bore me" or "I don't enjoy them" or "I love them!", none are wrong reasons... unless someone blatantly trolls and says that the events are "stupid" or "only idiots go to them" etc.
As for it being odd or unhealthy, I would disagree on simple psychological terms. Facing fears, committing acts of daring, peeling back the cover on taboos have been part of the human ritual since the dawn of time. This is how we connect and interact with the macabre and the unsettling fact that death and the unknown and violence and danger are all around us in some way shape or form. We do it safely and on our own terms. A haunted house really serves the same purpose as roller coasters and bungee jumping and drag racing do. They all deal with confronting fear on our own terms. Going through a haunted house simply deals with different parts of the fears we experience individually and as a culture.
Weather looks OK for tomorrow down in Jackson, NJ, though!!!
Best Part: walking through the trick or treat lines at Disney with a bag in each hand and getting twice as much candy as last year - I still have some left! At Universal, the In-Between and Winter's Night were the best houses this year and tricking a member of my party who hates chainsaw guys into walking down a street absolutely full of them was brilliant!
Worst Part: Disney has a horrible system of switching from day guests to event guests. They wristband you and then check your wristband at EVERY SINGLE STOP for the first three hours. My costume had long sleeves and being forced to pull it up every 10 feet got real old real fast. I would've rather had to wait until 7pm to be let in after they shut the park at like 5:30 and pushed day guests out or had holding areas similar to how HHN operates. They way they do it now causes bottlenecking at key points and makes the cast members less then friendly trying to get day guests to leave.
Universal has a new drum show this year that on preview and early on in the event caused them to block off the middle of the park for every show, leaving you stranded on one side or the other for the duration. They changed it later so now it only blocks one side and you can walk around the long way if needed. Of course there are the usual drunks and skanks but there's a reason the event is pg-13 and since I knew what I was in for I was fine with it.
Overall, I had a great time at both events. I just wish they hadn't cancelled trick or treating at Downtown Disney this year! Old Town picked up the slack however, so I may get one more event in. :)
The event was entertaining to say the least...but I discovered I'm a bit of a chicken wuss in the process so i'm not sure if I'll be doing the Halloween theme park experince again any time soon....-_-;
Anyway...the scare zones around the park were enough to make a novice like me a bit nervous after dark...and with good reason! These guys practically get their jollys off whenever they make a nervous cat like me scream in fright...and they did so PLEANTY of times!
My only real complaint about the event was the lack of effort they put on their heavily publisized "ride re-theming" for the holiday season. Most if not all the rides that were part of the "Terror Track" revamp were hardly changed...and if they were it was barely noticable...
Honestly, the only revamp that was worth the wait was the long-standing tradition of Colossus Backwards...now THAT'S a re-theme everyone always seems to enjoy!
The second event is Knott's Camp Spooky. Each kid gets a treat bag with a pound cake inside. There is 7 treat stations, but they were less generous. You mostly get hard candy, nothing special.
I enjoyed it a lot. My kid had fun dressing up, and we did our treating for the year. I highly recommend Disneyland for getting treats. It blew me away with how much we got and we only went to 4 stations out of 8(?).
My only real gripe is the fact (and I do not know for the life of me why) the park is NOT open on Halloween. All the haunted houses in the area are making a fortune on Halloween night, but not Six Flags! OK it's a school night and not a weekend night, but with unemployment being what it is, I KNOW they can find help to operate the park more days, including HALLOWEEN! They removed two friday's from Fright Fest a couple years back. Its the incredible shrinking operating schedule.....
Maybe it's just me getting older, but the whole outside area has become less and less scary every year. I miss the days of when there was more fog, the park was darker and the scare characters could slide at you on the ground on trash can lids.
Through the last few years, I've found it to be very difficult to do everything the park has to offer in one night and that really bothers me. I really wish they would keep it open later.
Finally, the quality of The Bill and Ted Show (a comedy show that changes every year to parody recent world, movie and entertainment events and people) which used to be my FAVORITE part of HHN, has gone way downhill over the past few years, whereas it used to be a really funny show every year. I don't mind bad language or dancing girls, and the show has always had some degree of both, but in the last few years, most of the show has just been overly frequent, pointless bad language and a bunch of dancing girls for half the show and random pop icon references with stupid one-liner jokes.
That all being said, this year, I finally gave up on Bill and Ted and tried to enjoy the rest of the park (I can't stand not doing anything for Halloween and tried Howl-O-Scream a few years ago and it was even worse). It seemed like this year actually was more of a step in the right direction. It seemed to be a little more scary than usual and I got to go through all of the houses (although, just barely, and I went in just as it was opening up and got through almost half of it before it even got dark). Overall, my standards were pretty low and I was pleasantly surprised.
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