Halloweekends 2011

Its gonna be chilly up there on Windseeker tonight!

^Yes is will be, but I'll be bundled up!

Only 3 more hours until I leave for CP! :-D (and then there's the 4 hour drive there...) At least I'll have 1 future and 2 past scareacters with me on the way there.

How did you guys like the new attractions? :D

i really enjoyed it today, very very short lines for the coasters at night!

I would like to thank the screamsters for doing a very good job last night. They were very good at scaring for the first day. There were a few who weren't doing anything though. They were just standing talking to one another.

Blood on the Bayou was very good IMO. Screamworks was basically the same exact thing as Fright zone. I still enjoyed it though.

It seems like there is a lot let fog in cornstalkers this year than in previous years. There were a lot of foggers that were not running in there. Hopefully they will fix the kinks in them soon.

I can't wait to go again next Friday!!

how was the asylum this year? (i forgot the new name already) lol

Last night was a great night to kick-off Halloweekends. Crowds were very light and the weather was a little cool, but beyond perfect fall weather for Ohio.

Most haunted houses had very short waits ranging from 20-30 minutes. A handful of rides were walk-ons including Dragster, SkyHawk, Magnum, Wicked Twister, and more. Maverick and Millennium Force both had about 20-30 minute waits.

I thoroughly enjoyed CarnEVIL moreso this year than in past years; the costumes seemed a tiny bit more elaborate and it seemed like they really started focusing on more detail. The Fear Faire dragon at the start was not working and the vortex in the asylum wasn't spinning (is that normal?) and "the surprise" at the end of Happy Jacks wasn't on.

There seemed to be less Halloweekends decor around the park than in previous years, but no complaints since there still is a lot to be grateful for. Only the diehard Halloweekends fans will notice a few things that may not be out yet for the start of Halloweekends.

Blood on the Bayou is a great addition. It wasn't crowded or congested at all, and there are a lot of nice props to look at and some great scares packed in. It seemed longer than I expected to be and really had some fun music and excitment packed into it. Nice work, CP.

Screamworks has some really great props as well, but other than that, that seemed to be just as similar to the Fright Zone. Screamsters did great in that zone, and CP seemed to utilize more of Starlight Experience this year than I remember in previous years. I hoped for a bit more from this zone, so overall, I was not extremely impressed with this scare zone. I'd prefer the Fright Zone to it.

Cornstalkers continues to struggle a bit; a lot of screamsters just walking around, out of costume. No one really tried to scare us and we made it through just walking with no one jumping out. Understandable that sometimes this happens, but there just seems to be so much potential there which has yet to be capitalized.

Terror Island, Club Blood, and Eerie Estate continue to impress this year with great scares and are becoming classic favorites. Again, last night was a very enjoyable kick-off to a great Halloweekends season.

^I don't think the asylum has the vortex anymore.

And Connor, the assylum is exactly the same as previous year. It just got a name change.

I would agree that the Screamworks change didn't seem completely necessary. There was a simple purity to The Fright Zone that didn't need an explicit theme. I appreciate that they made up the set pieces and all that but ultimately it doesn't add much to a zone that has been working fine for years. Still, the additions don't detract much from the overall experience, except for maybe too much light around Fort Sandusky and the "airship".

Blood on the Bayou is rather cozy and generally well-done. I wish they could bring more of that kind of detail and atmosphere to the park year-round. They seem perfectly capable of doing so.

I think that even despite any drastic thematic changes, it makes sense to give Fright Zone a proper, unambiguous name. I could see the old generic moniker confusing some guests.

"Where do you want to meet later?"
"Let's meet at the entrance to Fright Zone."
"Which fright zone?"

naw, it was just like ohio state.

"Oh, I go to Ohio State?"
"which one?"
"THE Ohio State."

ok not really but i'd always liked the name because it went back to the days when it really was the only fright zone.

RacefortheSky1234 said:
Blood on the Bayou is a great addition. It wasn't crowded or congested at all, and there are a lot of nice props to look at and some great scares packed in. It seemed longer than I expected to be and really had some fun music and excitment packed into it. Nice work, CP.

Screamworks has some really great props as well, but other than that, that seemed to be just as similar to the Fright Zone. Screamsters did great in that zone, and CP seemed to utilize more of Starlight Experience this year than I remember in previous years. I hoped for a bit more from this zone, so overall, I was not extremely impressed with this scare zone. I'd prefer the Fright Zone to it.

Cornstalkers continues to struggle a bit; a lot of screamsters just walking around, out of costume. No one really tried to scare us and we made it through just walking with no one jumping out. Understandable that sometimes this happens, but there just seems to be so much potential there which has yet to be capitalized.

See I had the opposite. Blood on the Bayou was really lacking when I walked through it. When my group went through there was a lot of screamsters just standing next to props talking about why they were there. The guy next the the gators said something like "don't let my gators get ya!" Oh, good one dude. It was just very uninteresting when I went through.

However, the best one of the night was Cornstalkers. Great hiding spots, lots of fog, and very claustraphobic. Overall it was excellent.

Screamworks I didn't really get. I know I saw a lot of people asking what they were walking through. Not very many people understand the "theme" and even if they do, it isn't very frightening. Besides the airship, the only props were large golden barrels.

Friday night was a great day. Saturday was packed!

welcome to what a lot of people said in advance. I knew from the start that most of the general public wouldn't get "steampunk" and those who knew and like steampunk would look at it and not be satisfied with what the park did. Ultimately I think it will come down to the monsters, there are still a lot of great vets in that zone who will work with the new folk and new theme and they'll find some way to make it work, but in my opinion it was just a weak choice. Looking at it as a whole they didn't even add much in the way of theme-ing so it is still about as sparse as when it was the wild west with the stage coaches. When I saw the first pictures it was a huge let down.

What seems to hurt Screamworks most isn't so much the somewhat half-baked theme but the amount of light coming off the Starlight Experience equipment that is being used. With that much light, especially around Fort Sandusky, it really doesn't hold the usual fright zone atmosphere well. Hopefully in the coming weeks they will tweak and adjust things accordingly. It's still early.

josh88 said:
welcome to what a lot of people said in advance. I knew from the start that most of the general public wouldn't get "steampunk" and those who knew and like steampunk would look at it and not be satisfied with what the park did.

Impressive that you can pass judgement on an attraction after the first weekend of the attraction's existence! Too many people waste their time not having knee-jerk, unsubstantiated reactions to things like this.

Why in the world do they have starlight experience lights on? That's idiotic.

See I had the opposite. Blood on the Bayou was really lacking when I walked through it. When my group went through there was a lot of screamsters just standing next to props talking about why they were there. The guy next the the gators said something like "don't let my gators get ya!" Oh, good one dude. It was just very uninteresting when I went through.

!

With all the themeing that has been done in the Bayou, not everyone is someone who is going to scare, every zone has people who are distractions or who are in more of a theatrical role. A long with it being the first weekend a lot of the new people are still trying to get adjusted and getting use to being someone they're not. As you come back throughout Halloweekends you will see a progression in all the zones involving better scares and deeper characters. I've heard a lot of very good things about all the zones for the first weekend and the level that Halloweekends is on this year is a great sign and shows it's on the right path for most things. Not every zone or house may appeal to you. But if you leave the park thinking wow Happy Jack was really good, that's we want, that each of you leave with a good memory, or a new reason to watch your back in a dark area.

Does anybody know what the 'blood on the bayou' trail will be used for during the non-halloweekends time?

It seems like a large expense to renovate this area just for 1 month out of the year.

We are planning on taking our boys (9 & 11) for Halloweekends for the first time. My boys LOVE the coasters but I don't think that they are quite ready for haunted features just yet. What areas of the park should I avoid to keep them away from the terror & gore? (I'm sure that they will love this stuff in a few years but just not yet!)

Also, is the Sunday before Columbus day going to be completely packed? We are planning on going Friday night and Sunday all day. Really hoping to gets of riding in rather than standing in hour(s) long lines.

Columbus day weekend will be extreamly busy. The fact the park is open for an extra 4 hr that sunday should tell you something. So many people in one area cell phones have problems working. Its a great day to enjoy the haunts first sunday all the zones will be running! Great weekend for a screamster!