standbyme

Two of my favorite things in life are Kings Island & Halloween….so Halloween Haunt is heaven for me. (I do prefer FearFest over the new Halloween Haunt name though.) I have been to every Fearfest so far…so I do think I am in a decent position to judge how good this year’s event compares to the older ones. First off let me say that after experiencing it I have come to this conclusion: Cedar Fair is just as good as Paramount for Overselling a new event, just like Boomerang Bay & Italian Job never lived up to the advance billing neither does the new Haunted Halloween. Don’t get me wrong, I had a very good time, but then again I always do at Fearfest. With all the talk of “taking it up a notch” I really had my expectations high…maybe too high. I will say that I saw some very impressive new decorations. The huge skeleton head at the entrance was amazing…and I’m sure not cheap to construct. My favorite new decorations this year were all of the very well made tombstones. The sign department should be very proud of them. But other than that, this year’s event was not much different than any of the years past…sure there may be a LITTLE more blood splattered in some of the haunts, and Club Blood was a LITTLE more daring but overall it was the “same old same old”. I have always felt it is better to UNDERsell something that way when it’s BETTER than people expected they are more happy in the end. (At least I am.) With that said here is a breakdown of my trip, I went Friday, Saturday & Sunday…from opening to close. We arrived Friday just as the park was about to open…as we were walking up to the entrance it was really cool to see an old park tram filled with skeletons…we always stayed at the campground when it was open so I have very fond memories of riding these back & forth to the park during Fearfest. The usual Phantom cars were also up front as well as the old SOB cars this year. Walking into the park you are greeted with a very impressive display at the foot of the fountain. I must admit, even though this year’s display was defiantly more elaborate I still prefer last years. There were also the Halloween Haunt hearses sitting there…and since we don’t live in the area it was nice seeing them up close in person. Looking around you could see LOTS of scaracters running around everywhere. There were at least 2 sliders up front…although they don‘t “spark“ like they used to. (Any of you sliders want to answer this for me: How hard is that on the knees?) Most of the scaracters were just in face makeup and an outfit but there were a few full costumed creatures. My favorite guy running around this year was this guy: The biggest and I do mean BIGGEST disappointment was that Don “The Undertaker” was not on duty either Friday or Saturday night! I had heard that he was coming back this year…so with him not there it was a major disappointment. There was a “host” and I am sure he was giving it his all, and he was not too bad…but he was no where near as good as Don was last year. The big difference between the two in my opinion was that whereas Don seemed to actually be the host of the front of the park, the new guy just seemed to get lost in the crowd. (And no, I do not think I could have even done nearly as good as the “new” guy…so even while I am saying this, I know that this guy is still doing a better job than I could have.) The crowd tonight was not bad at all…it is true what they say about Fridays…they are better….and be warned, Saturdays are a NIGHTMARE! (Pun intended.) We could have done EVERY haunt/maze/show on Friday if we wanted to, PLUS countless rides… whereas on Saturday it was so much more crowded we could probably only get about the haunts done & a couple of mazes…and that is if we were persistent. The first haunt we chose to do this Friday evening was the new “Club Blood”. There was hardly any line so we only waited about 5 minutes. The outside of the club looked interesting…I always like “good” graffiti. (I am curious, can anyone tell me what the big letters on this fence say? I have tried to figure it out but can‘t.) I forgot to mention, I do not take too many pictures inside the haunts because I do not want to affect the atmosphere or hurt the scaracters eyes…so when I do take them it is usually without a flash unless I am “alone” in an area. I thought Club Blood was ok…it did have a few “risky” things but overall it was nothing “over the top” like I was lead to believe by the park’s hype…and a few posters on here. Next we wandered by “Carnevil“…which obviously is just the 3-D Circus under a new name. This haunt was about the same as always…the only minor disappointment is that the polka-dot clown that usually hides against the wall was just dancing around the room, plus the outfit was too short and you could see the person’s white tennis shoes. As we were walking to each haunt I would try & take as many pictures of the displays along the way. In this photo I was about to take a long shot of this whole set-up because no one was in the vicinity when these “idiots” had to step in front of the display! (Just kidding.) After this we went over to the “Tombstone Terror-tory” haunt. This was the haunt that I had high hopes for and couldn’t wait to do. I was also looking forward to seeing if I could pick out “Hauntguy”. Let me say…this haunt was a TOTAL waste. Every person in our group felt the same…I heard several comments near the exit from strangers saying things like “Is that all?”, “That was lame”, “That sucked, etc… On Saturday there was no line late in the evening so we tried it again to see if we just caught it at a bad time…it was EVEN WORSE Saturday! We counted the scaracters throughout the maze…there were 14, and half of them didn’t even attempt to scare anyone. When we made it to the end there was some kind of Cedar Fair exec standing there with a clip-board…he asked me what I thought of it…I said it very polite, but I just told him that we all thought it was just awful. (He seemed a little surprised.) I later found out that all minors have to leave at Midnight…so a lot of the haunts lost quite a few people which might explain our Saturday experience, but we went through it at around 9 o’clock on Friday. I would say this is hands-down the haunt that I would avoid. (Sorry Hauntguy) Next up we did “Red Beard's Revenge”…which wasn’t bad but seemed like nothing more than “Cowboy Carnage” taken over by pirates. If I had never been to Cowboy Carnage I probably would have rated this one a little higher. The decorations outside were nice. We were going to go through “Cornstalkers” next but we ended up at the exit and didn‘t feel like going around to the entrance, and since we were near “The Worksite“ we decided to do it. In the past this walkthrough hasn’t really impressed me but this year did. There were a lot of props and quite a few people jumping out plus the fog was good too. Speaking of fog, Friday night was great for fog all over the park, the weather conditions must have been just right for it to stay low and in place. I have not seen it that consistently foggy since the very first Fearfest. (Although it could be just because the weather wasn’t “right” any other time I was there.) From the Worksite we headed over to “Massacre Manor”. Nothing really new here this year but I will give the actors inside credit, they seemed to be putting their hearts into doing a good job. After this we headed over to “Trail of Terror” Along the route down to the woods where you would stand in line the park has set up the house from Winterfest and a “ghoul” heckles you as you go by. When we were walking by him he seemed to be having a good time annoying the “taco guy” who DIDN’T appear to be enjoying it. If you go by him make sure you say something, he WILL say something back.The trail wasn’t bad, there certainly was enough stuff to look at. Another good thing about tonight was that we were being sent through in groups…not the endless conga line like in some years past. From the trail we went over to “Death Row”. I can easily say that this was my favorite haunt this year. I have always liked “Maze Of Madness” anyway, but this year seemed even better. Both of the “hosts” outside seemed to be really enjoying playing in character and interacting with the people in line. Inside the maze the scaracters really did a good job of making sure you didn’t get out real fast by pointing you in the wrong direction. At one point the people in our group got separated and I actually ran into them face to face from the opposite direction from a different pathway. We liked this one so much we did it twice. After this maze we rode Firehawk and then headed for “The Cemetery”…but since it was almost 1 o’clock it wasn’t that happening, it was almost a “ghost town” (Once again pun intended) We did come back and do this Saturday night…it was better, but still not that much to brag about. That was pretty much it for Friday night. Besides being a LOT more crowded, Saturday night was pretty much a rehash of Friday with only one notable event…”Cornstalkers” apparently caught on fire. We were nearby and it smelled like someone was burning leaves…then a fire-truck went by. Cornstalkers was then closed down. Over in Rivertown there were about 4 of the Cornstalkers scaracters hanging out while they were waiting for it to re-open. When it did re-open we were some of the first to go through and the pavement was all wet and there were some kind of regularly dressed park personnel walking around inside…so it wasn’t a very good haunt…makes me wish we would have made it through the night before. It was near 1 o’clock again so tonight we finished with a couple of rides on The Beast…so all was good. We did do Nick-Or-Treat both Saturday & Sunday and it was good…but nothing really worth going into detail on here since MOST people don’t really care about it! I did take quite a bit of photos...but unfortunately most of the time I was "rushed" so I did not get many that I truly think are great, but here are some more photos to give you an idea of some of the stuff around the park: http://www.putfile.com/standbyme/images/150482 Also, you might want to go to the park as soon as possible because I saw SEVERAL cases of the displays being vandalized by the public, lots of broken skeletons & missing parts…it was really obvious Sunday. Gotta love the public. In conclusion let me say that I did think that this years Halloween Haunt was very good…but not quite what level that it was hyped to be. I do not mind if they have an up-charge next year if only because it will keep the crowds in check. Also, as a side note I think that the park is not taking into consideration that people of all ages enjoy Halloween. To make Halloween Haunt so explicit that they (supposedly) do not want anyone under 13 attending yet Nick-Or Treat is for kids up to maybe 7-8 doesn’t make sense. (No 9-12 year old kid wants to converse with a talking pumpkin or “find” a pumpkin in a stack of pumpkins.) What are the families that have kids aged 9-12 supposed to do? I am sure there are several families that had our problem this year, we have kids ranging from 2 months to 16 years. We travel almost 3 ½ hours to the park…leaving our kids with a babysitter in our hometown is not realistic nor is trusting a “stranger” in Ohio. I still think that Halloween Haunt could have some haunts that are just old fashioned “safe” ones and a few marked for teens/adults only. Kings Island has always been a family park and I hope it tries to stay that way.

I love the park...but I am not blind to reality. The only "demographic" Kings Island is attempting to attract is ANYONE with money. I think overall that the park is over-hyping this event to sound a lot "worse" than previous Fearfests in hopes of getting people's hopes up that it is just so amazingly over-the-top that you don't dare miss it...when in reality it is NOT that much different than years past gore wise. (There are some really nice new decorations though.) And as for saying that this is not intended for children period...then please try and explain this, if the park cares so much about not upsetting the children under 12 why is it on both Saturday & Sunday during the regular park hours when children ARE expected to be in the park does the park still have graphically bloody items on display? (Examples are the HUGE display case of the bloody skeletons as you walk in the entrance, the cook-out set-up of body parts over near Larosa's. (I was walking by and heard a little kid asking their parent what the scene meant.) Then there is the keg party, stripper skeletons on International Street, the body bagged person on the bandstand,etc... All of this is out when children are expected to be out & about in the park. I know the park did cover-up about 4 things that they considred worse...but I don't buy that the park is THAT worried about what the children might see or not see, otherwise they would ENFORCE an age limit instead of just recommending it. It all comes down to the money. (Mr. Krabs would be proud!) And as for trying to discourage parents from bringing their children to Halloween Haunt by not allowing re-entrys how customer friendly is that, and logical. With this set-up I picture some parents making their kids endure it once their in because they know they can't take them home and come back. I went Friday, Saturday & Sunday and I will post a trip report with pictures when I get a little time.

Or people who shop on Ebay!

The only thing I see most people complain about (including me) on this board is the high food prices and mediocre quality. Why should it take anytime at all to get those "right". It is not as if CF is not already in the park business. They should already know what the market value & quality of food should be. It's as if they were using us as guinea pigs..."Let's see if they'll pay THIS much for food"! I can see where some things need time to get the bugs out...but food service seems like they already should have that down...but maybe i'm wrong.

It does not HAVE to be a kid's holiday...but why can't there be a middle ground with some haunts marked as good for kids and others not...why must it be all adult? Yes, I know Halloween did not originally start out as a kid's holiday....but it has basically been a kid's holiday in America for over 100 years. P.S. If it comes off that I am arguing these points I am not...sorry if it appears that way, I am just giving my opinion.

Halloween IS a children's holiday...since when did it have to become so explicit and gory that it wasn't appropriate for a family? I have been going to local haunted houses since I was a child...and enjoying them. In this day and age is it not possible to scare anyone without showing an extreme amount of blood and mutilated nudity? I am not a prude...I just don't think that that is what a haunted house is about...it is about being scared, not shocked.

That IS sad. A lot of those costumes were a work of art...they should have been preserved for posterity. These costumes are definitely a part of Ohio pop culture. (I am sure Disney is stashing away a lot of theirs.) Think of the hundreds of thousands of people who have photographs in their homes with these "characters". Except for possibly standing in front of a park's "landmark" and getting your picture taken nothing says "amusement park" like a photo with a character...and if you can combine the 2 you are all set! (It is amazing how even a grown person's personality changes when they see one of these characters walking around...you really can get a once in a lifetime photo opportunity.) I can totally understand that they wouldn't be allowed to walk around and make appearances in the park because of licensing rules but there should be a way to preserve history. Americans are into pop culture. People visit the Smithsonian Museum to see a lot of inatimate objects from their favorite movies & TV shows that bring back good memories...it tells you something when even our (inept) government knows that these types of items are worth preserving. (Yes, I know that the park's costumes are not nearly on the level of the costumes in most movies & TV shows.) It is a crime that they have all been destroyed because they can never be brought back...replicas don't count. The park should have an agreement with the companies of these characters that they can not be "used" after the license expires...but the park retains ownership of the costumes. I am sure that some kind of an agreement could be made so that these costumes could be seen every now and then on display by the public. (Whether it be at Kings Island or a local Ohio Museum.) If aren't old enough to know what I am talking about, just wait 20-30 years...then you will wish that you could just see what Spongebob or Scooby looked like "in person" just one more time! Obviously all of the costumes from my youth are gone...but hopefully things might change for everyone else.

I thought this topic was going to be about that awful smell that hits you over by Delirium every now and then!

I wish you would of swore on SOB...then I wished that you were lieing!

I voted for 16-20...I think $15.99 would be fair. I was shocked that somebody actually would pay $30.00 plus!

So, do you know if the Captain Caveman costume is actually still hanging out somewhere at Kings Island? Also, when was the last time it was seen in public that you know of? I can go ON and ON about this.. but capt. caveman does not exist i know this for a fact Hi Tassles, guy1115 already confirmed that the Captain Caveman costume is gone... But do YOU know what became of it...was it given away, sold, sent back to Hanna Barbera or destroyed? I have asked this question a few years ago but so far nobody actually knows for sure the fate of it. Thanks

I can tell Ryan is getting frustrated NOT being able to tell us what the park has planned in order to calm us down...I bet he's just counting down the minutes until the KI makes their official announcement.

Well, I think it took me about 10 times longer to "hunt n' peck" my original post out than it did for you to come up with somewhere which had written proof! I am sorry that proof actually existed. I was hoping that the park had already planned on charging for "Fearfest" and had covered themselves by not advertising it would be free...that's why I went to the trouble to research the stuff I had in order to "help them out". I must say that since you have come up with this "proof" I begrudgingly fall into the crowd of it is not right to charge for something that you originally advertised for free...just renaming it doesn't count, otherewise every year that Fearfest improved they could have changed the name and charged extra. The irony is that I am THRILLED that they are (probably) charging extra! I have hated the large crowds the last couple of years.

First off, I probably should have just added this to one of the other Fearfest related topics…but I didn’t want it to get buried. (a little Fearfest pun) and I also wanted to make sure that everyone would notice it and possibly give me a chance to be proven wrong. I have noticed in a couple of the other threads that season pass holders are upset that Cedar Fair is (probably) going to be charging to go to the “Halloween Haunt” this year. They are stating that the park advertised that Fearfest was free with a season pass. Being the pack-rat that I am with Kings Island memorabilia I decided to see if I could find it actually in print anywhere. *I went back to every e-mail that I have received from the park starting with August 2006. In NONE of those e-mails all the way up until now does ANY of them even mention Fearfest. *I have had 2 Season Pass brochures mailed to me trying to sell me a season pass (even though I had already renewed) one of them was sent during the winter…I believe before Christmas, and the other one in the spring. Once again NEITHER of them even mention Fearfest. I know that in the past there have been signs up at the park saying something like buy your pass today and start enjoying the park this year, including Fearfest…but those signs as far as I can remember were always up late in the year, not spring. So saying something like that is not actually promising Fearfest the following year but the one that is coming up…it was just a way to get some early season pass sales. (Personally, I have always thought that letting people start using their following year’s pass early was very generous of the park to do…for the people who did buy a season pass in October it was like you were getting an extra month free. ) So, from what I have found, Kings Island has never actually claimed that this year’s Halloween event would be free to season pass holders…it could be that we have just been spoiled for so long, and assumed too much. (And you know what they say about assuming!) Can anyone come up with anything in print that says the park advertised/promised Fearfest to season pass holders for 2007? If not, I don’t think it’s fair to bash the park for something it never even claimed to offer.

Thanks for replying...I have been curious about the Captain Caveman costume for a long time. (This costume has a very special memory for me.) Also curious, when you said they got rid of them...were they sold to someone/park, destroyed or returned to Hanna Barbera? Thanks again.

So, do you know if the Captain Caveman costume is actually still hanging out somewhere at Kings Island? Also, when was the last time it was seen in public that you know of?

I'm embarassed to say that I know your movie quote...and I don't even come close to being a "Trekky"...so after you fill in the names of James T. Kirk & Spock I will opt for your second prize of the burning torch!

The website is up now...although there are still quite a few "Coming Soon's"...but it does seem to imply that there might be tickets, unless they just mean a regular park ticket. http://www1.cedarfair.com/kingsisland/spec...aunt/index.html P.S. Firehawk is listed as one of the open rides.

When I saw the title of this topic I figured I would probably be #1 or 2 for the farthest away. I am about 220 Miles from the park but there are quite a bit of people who are farther...it's cool that so many "enthusiasts" of the park are not just the people who live nearby...I think it says something about the quality of the park. From where I live Six Flags Great America is closer...but it is pretty much a dive and I never want to go back there. (Not to offend anyone.) Six Flags St. Louis would be about the same drive as Kings Island for me but I have only bothered to go there once.

There's also those pesky "Truth In Advertising" rules to contend with!

Good Luck trying to find anyone that you would truly annoy by knocking IJST! As for your "Why does EVERYONE hate SOB?" comment...doesn't it tell you something about the ride when even you notice that most people don't like it?! (Do you think that "everyone" is posting negative comments just to annoy you...quite a conspiracy theory.) If you like SOB more power to you...and great health insurance. As for a new name, an appropriate name would be: "Closed For Repairs".

I was surprised that they dug up "Twisting By The Pool" by Dire Straits. I also thought it was hilarious that they used Billy Idol's "Dancing With Myself". Most people don't realize what the song is actually about...so to see just the guys up there while it was playing was funny... When theres no-one else in sight In the crowded lonely night Well I wait so long For my love vibration And i'm dancing with myself

I agree the good FAR outweighs the bad...but it just bugs me that he is considered to be THE symbol of wholesome family entertainment when he did some TERRIBLE things...shrewd does not describe them. He seemed to excel at setting high standards for OTHERS to lead their lives by while not thinking he should also follow suit. He (wrongfully) ruined some people's lives...I just think that if someone can take the praise they should also be able to take the negative too. The author describes how the "Disney machine" tried to stop the book but (obviously) failed. Like I said, the book is an interesting read.

The "Walt Disney: Hollywood's Dark Prince : A Biography" is an interesting book to read...it does dwell on the bad side of Walt, but mostly because everyone knows the "good" stuff, so this book is enlightening. You will never look at Walt quite the same way. It really is not surprising that Walt is not the saint that most people think he is, after all, as the saying goes "Nice guys finish last"...and we know Walt did NOT finish last!

Same here...I was in the very back seat. If SOB has improved it is so miniscule I could not tell...before you say it, let me beat you to it...I know it's a wood coaster, I know it's "supposed" to not be real smooth...but I also know that it is SUPPOSED to be an AMUSEMENT ride...you should enjoy riding it, not counting the seconds until it's over. When I rode it on the 4th, right in front of me there were 2 boys about 9-10 years old. After the rosebowl one of them turned around towards me, he was crying with tears streaming down his face...when we pulled into the station I heard him tell the other boy "I don't feel well, it hurts". THAT is amusement? I felt so sorry for him.