Haunt #1: Great America’s Haunt
Alright Haunt fans,
if you are reading this then you must be interested in reading my crazy
thoughts on these great events in late September and October. While I hope to catch a couple more this year,
I doubt I’ll be able to see as many as last year, time and money are disappearing
quickly. But I can’t complain, got two
more planned, and hoping to go catch the USS Hornet too. But we’ll see.
CHEAP SO WHY NOT?
I wanted to take
Anne to her first theme park haunt last weekend and Six Flags Discovery Kingdom
was the original plan. But when I saw
Great America’s Haunt was just an additional 10 dollars more ($29.99 when you
buy 2 for Friday and Sunday nights through the 16th) I couldn’t
resist. We didn’t do the Skeleton Key or
the Fright Lane…and I’m glad I didn’t.
You’ll see why.
OPENING SHOW WAS WEAK
We arrived to the
event to see the pumpkins and the fire launch returning from last year. Our plan was to hit Gold Striker first, so we
stood next to the rope stop and waited…and waited…and waited. Surprisingly, the crowds didn’t really
materialize during that 45 minute wait.
At about 6:55, the
witch (possibly from Wizard of Oz) and some monkey followers took to the top
floor of the carousel. We could clearly
hear the whoops from the monkeys, but what the witch was saying…I have no
clue. I think she was giving some
descriptions of the mazes, but I’m not really sure, but I did see her mouth
moving. Weird that there weren’t any
speakers closer to the rope stop. This
was definitely disappointing compared to the zombie run that happened last
year. The witch stopped talking, then
the rope drop, then the running.
COASTERS, DROP ZONE, AND GETTING WET
Before I get into
the haunts and the scare zones, let me tell you most of the adult rides were
open for the party. But the cool thing
for this first Sunday of the haunt, there was no lines. In 5 hours, we did the following: went on
Gold Striker 4 times, Flight Deck 3 times, Grizzly 2 times, Drop Zone 2 times,
Psycho Mouse, Vortex, and Psycho Mouse.
For Gold Striker and Flight Deck, we didn’t even get back in line, just
saw an empty seat and went again. The
price of admission was redeemed by rides alone.
Now I know the coming weeks aren’t going to be like this, but Sunday
night, it was awesome.
KIDS AND THE NO BOO NECKLACE
The thing about Great
America Haunt is the kids, and there are a lot of them. Even though it is not recommended for kids
under 13 and “whoosies”, there seems to be a lot of families at this
event. This year, they were selling
pumpkin necklaces for $3 that lit up and kept the monsters away…at least I
think that was the goal. In my opinion,
I think it was a beacon for the monsters to attack. The necklaces were not allowed to be turned
on in the mazes, which makes me wonder how the monsters were able to see
them. Out on the main walk ways, we saw
monsters (especially the witch) walking after children with the necklaces
on. Very strange, and quite humorous for
us watching. Wonder how many kids didn’t
sleep that night?
COUNTERCLOCKWISE – MAZE #1: ROADKILL – ROAD HOUSE
While the sun was
still going down, we went into Roadkill – Road House. In all honesty, I didn’t see a damn thing in
this haunt. We got so lost that we kept
being told to go the other way by the exit keepers, and some of the scareactors
had to show us away. It was so dark that
the whole maze was a waste. I have no
idea what I was looking at, it was terrible.
Last year, it was bad, this year…wasn’t worth my time.
MAZE #2: MADAME MARIE’S MASSACRE MANOR
Massacre Manor was a
fun maze and really well themed. The
maze is a walk through of a house. You
go through rooms (dining room, bedrooms, living rooms, hallways with pictures,
etc). In the bedroom, I asked the lady
if I could take a nap, and she actually said it was okay. Then she led me to a chair and had me sit
down. She got angry at Anne when she
kicked a skull out of the sacred circle.
The lady flipped over cards and then gave me one….It was death and she
ran a finger over her neck. We left that
room and went through some gardening areas only to find ourselves with a lady
and a body. She asked us which one of us
would be losing their soul first, and Anne so kindly pointed to me. She waved a light over me and then gave my
soul to Madame Marie’s…I asked for it back…guess it’s Madame Marie’s now. So not cool.
SCARE ZONE #1: EVACUATE
So they took the
opening from last year and made it into a scare zone. The RV they used is up front with cars behind
it. If you’ve been to Great America,
there’s this cave of ivy on the way to Drop Zone, they filled the cave with
smoke, cars and zombies. The atmosphere of
the zone was awesome, but the area needed more people…which was a common issue
with this haunt.
MAZE #3: CORNSTALKERS
Not a fan of this
maze, last year or this year. They did
try to make it more of a corn maze this year by having multiple pathways, they
just didn’t have enough people to man the maze.
There were some good scares, just too many open areas with nobody in
them. The outhouses from last year were
replaced by these really weird boxes. Anne thought we were supposed to look in them,
and I still wonder if we were supposed to.
Very strange, smelly maze.
QUICK THOUGHT: At the point, Anne wasn’t impressed. She said once you go through one, you’ve been
through them all. Luckily the best ones
were still to come.
MAZE #4: TOY FACTORY
I think of all the
mazes, we had the most fun in this one. The
music is so freaking catchy and we found ourselves dancing our way through the
maze. Not sure what the monsters thought
of these two crazy people dancing, but we didn’t care. I have to say the Angry Angry Hippo was
pretty cool. And there was a doll room
that a lady did a really good voice and kind of freaked me out. Then there was the Shark Man who looked like
a big doll. Great haunt, only one we did
twice…sadly, we didn’t get to vote for it to be the best, but it was a close
third.
MAZE #5: ZOMBIE HIGH
This maze is pretty
cool. My problem with this one: not
enough people working it. They should
have zombies walking around everywhere.
I love how each “room” is a classroom and is really decorated well. The walk ways are walled off by stacked desks
or something else you would see in a school.
There’s the chemistry room, locker room, prom, library, etc. In one room, a guy jumps down on bungees, I
turned to Anne and said watch this, she was impressed. We waited the longest for this haunt, maybe
10 minutes, so it’s very popular.
On a sidenote, they
tried to do the “picture” thing in the queue, but the picture booths were away
from the actual line so the workers were begging the people to come over and
take their picture. Very strange. Could have been fixed with some roped
walkways that led you straight into the picture booths and then continued to
the line, instead of off the beaten path…”hey little boy, want to get your
picture taken?”
MAZE #6: WAX MUSUEM CHAMBER OF HORRORS
My favorite haunt of
last year, I was excited to show Anne this one.
Unfortunately, the maze was knocked down a couple of steps. First, the wax creatures were much smaller
than the humans, so the humans were easy to see. Plus their skin gave them away. Another way to tell is when the wax creatures
were missing from their post. Where’s
Swamp Thing? Oh, why is here standing
over there? Really weird and
disappointing. Got to see Jack the
Ripper, that was cool. And the
mannequins in the back rooms weren’t moving at all. Sad to see this one pushed aside, it was
really awesome last year.
SCARE ZONE #2: KILLER CLOWN TOWN
This one is easy to
miss. You have to walk off the beaten
path to see this zone, it’s a loop around the Snoopy kid zone, but there’s
nothing back there to do, just walk through the clown infested area. But it’s definitely worth it. Tons of clowns doing creepy things. There was one clown just standing off the
path staring at you as he slowly sharpens his knife. Another one had a huge hammer and would chase
you. One had bubbles and when you said
anything he would make this loud noise that would scare the crap out of
you. I even watched a couple of the
clowns chase the security people, which was awesome. That shows you how slow it was, the
scareactors were scaring the security staff!!!
There was also a
sideshow stage with a fire dancer. We
watched for a little bit, then moved on.
SCARE ZONE #3: LOCKDOWN
While Lockdown wasn’t
scary or creepy, I thought it was placed nicely right outside the Insanitarium
maze. Why don’t they do this more? Have scare zones themed to the mazes so it’s
one big environment? The scare zones had
lots of huge boxes, fog, and mental patients running around. One patient even recognized my Shining shirt,
which was pretty cool.
MAZE #7: INSANITARIUM
Anne voted this one
the most frightening, and I would have to agree with her. You enter the Insanitarium by the way of the
doctor’s office. Then you walk through a
very clean Mental Hospital with patients walking around looking crazy. Some had needles, others just stared at you. About half way through, the hospital changes
and you start seeing blood and destruction.
You go through the same exact rooms that you went through the first
time, but everything is destroyed. And
the mental patients are ready to kill.
It was a haunt with a story, and I thought that was pretty cool. Anne and I got freaked out when a loud noise
was played a guy jumped out, well played.
I think the final scene should have been the hospital burned down with
smoke and dead bodies. That would have
been complete…but the Scare Zone outside wouldn’t have made since.
MAZE #8: DIA DE LOS MUERTOS – DAY OF THE DEAD 3D
YOU HAVE TO BUY THE
$1 3D GLASSES, it’s a must. If you don’t
it’s just another maze with people scaring you.
With those glasses, you are transported to a world of beauty and
life. If there was ever an artistic
maze, this would be it. When I first
experienced one of these mazes, I was stopped in my tracks, Anne did just
that. The maze is so beautiful you
really just look at the environment and ignore the actors, unless they enhance
the maze, which some did. I’ll never
forget watching Anne try to kick these flowers on the ground because they
looked like they were above the ground.
We turned one corner and there was tons of flowers on the wall and I
heard “oh wow.” At the very end, she
went up to the worker to tell him great job, and one of those bungee guys
jumped down and said thanks, lol. We
would have done it again, but it hurts the head when there’s so much to look
at.
IN CONCLUSION…
I think Great
America’s Haunt is one of the best in Northern California. It’s a great way to see the park at night,
some great haunts, and it’s easy to see the rides they have. I think the park is in transition, and I’m
not sure it’s worth a full day. But for
the haunt party…check it out. As you get
closer to Halloween, the Fright Pass will be needed. For last weekend, it wasn’t. This weekend…you might start thinking about
it. I’ll be interested to hear what the
skeleton key rooms are this year, so if you read this, please let me know. Or listen to the Season Pass, I’m sure Doug
will have some information. Until next
time…
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