Can fans help lift the curse at this haunted hotel?

August 15, 2023, 4:34 PM · Sally Dark Rides has opened its third new attraction of the year. Following the debuts of Uncharted: The Enigma of Penitence at PortAventura and Treasure Hunt: The Ride on Cannery Row, Whispering Pines Haunted Hotel has opened at Maine's Funtown Splashtown USA.

Here's the backstory: A witch named Lilith was angered when the Whispering Pines Hotel was built on what she claimed was her land, so she cursed the hotel, with her spell trapping the hotel's original three guests.

Personally, if this was Lilith's land, I would say that she has a case, and maybe the hotel really does need to go away. But I feel for the three guests, though, and they deserve to get sprung, so it's time to blast away.

Our tools are "curse eradicators," and an animatronic curse removal specialist sends us on our way into the hotel, with instructions to wave our eradicators to help release the hotel from Lilith's curse and free the guests.

Curse removal
Our curse removal instructor, on Whispering Pines Haunted Hotel. Photos courtesy Sally Dark Rides.

Load
Load platform and ride vehicles

Lobby
Inside the Whispering Pines Haunted Hotel

In addition to the curse remover, other animatronics in the 14-scene ride include Katbattikus the black cat and Croaky Weewing, a frog with bat wings, as well as Lilith herself.

Funtown Splashtown is open from May through September in Saco, Maine, just south of Portland on U.S. 1. The park also is home to Maine's largest roller coaster, the 1998 Excalibur wooden coaster from CCI. I haven't had the chance to get back to Maine this summer, so if any readers have a review or feedback about this ride or the park, I'd love to see that in the comments.

Previous Sally Dark Rides reviews:

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Replies (1)

August 15, 2023 at 5:09 PM

Maine?! You don't see that here everyday. That's pretty cool.

The animatronic lady had me fooled for a bit, I thought it was an actual person for a second there. That's good from an animatronic. Glad to read about this and if I find myself in Maine one day, seems like it's worth checking out.

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