What has happened to Halloweekends?

How has Jason allowed Halloweekends at Cedar Point, an insanely popular part of the year, to fall apart so badly?

First off, what have we lost since last year?

1 - Boeckling's Banquet was a cool way to get a great meal and some one-on-one time with some awesome characters.

2 - The Skeleton key rooms were a cute perk for Fright Lane purchasers to get a little something extra for their money.

3 - The Palace held a nice family friendly musical show that provided a nice place to take a load off and relax for awhile with live entertainment. Now it's just empty.

4 - The original Fright Zone was EPIC!, the blah blah blah Screamworks was a definite step down, and now the new theme is limited to a smaller area than ever before.

Does anyone remember when we used to have a live band by the front train station? The original Halloween Hullabaloo in the Good Time Theater? Happy Jack's in Disaster Transport? The AMAZING original Carnevil by the aquatic stadium? The equally amazing original Pirate scare zone on Millenium Island? Fear Faire with its unique indoor-outdoor maze with the thickest fog you have ever seen on a calm day and tons of character and hiding places for screamsters? DJ Zombo spinning tunes on the balcony of the coliseum? Wandering characters along the main midway? How about any one of the magic shows that used to fill the theaters? Also the extremely inexpensive yet crazily entertaining one-person shows of The TellTale Heart, etc.?

I was watching workers setting up some props in Tombstone Terrortories. I was amazed that they were putting out the same broken coffins that were out last year. They are LITERALLY trash, damaged by careless handling, showing a shattered plastic shell over some two by fours. Either replace the shells, or toss them out!

Remember when Pirate's Cove was new? Lots of cool skeletons and other props, along with lots of cast members? All that was left last year was some busted up Skeleton parts and a complement of screamsters at maybe half the old staffing levels.

Let's make Halloweekends great again!

I am sure they are still accepting applications.

Rugrats2001 said:

3 - The Palace held a nice family friendly musical show that provided a nice place to take a load off and relax for awhile with live entertainment. Now it's just empty.

There is a show at Palace during HalloWeekends. It's called Whistlin' Willie's Western Wake.

I loved the scare zones and walk throughs they used to have. Especially the one in Camp snoopy (not sure if it’s still there). I didn’t go to the park today, but the theming of Halloweekends at night looks amazing from the pics I’ve seen. But of course, that doesn’t speak for the haunts.

I would guess that some of those changes have to do with staffing. Were Boeckling's Banquet and the Skeleton Key rooms cool? Sure, but they also served a relatively small percentage of park guests. It's probably a better use of staff to use them where they'll have an impact on making a better impression on a greater number of guests.

We didn't come out this weekend (I think we are going next week) but it's tough to be too critical of any attraction on opening night. New staff, getting the bugs worked out and whatnot.

I did love the old Fright Zones as well, but things change. If they still had the Toxic Tunnel of Terror as the haunt up front, people would be complaining that they hadn't changed it in 20 years and things were getting stale. Of all the things you mentioned, I also miss the Poe performances... they are some of my favorite memories of Halloweekends past.

AndyG said:
...but it's tough to be too critical of any attraction on opening night. New staff, getting the bugs worked out and whatnot.

You must never have read an Opening Day trip report on here :P

TimChat2 said:

Rugrats2001 said:

3 - The Palace held a nice family friendly musical show that provided a nice place to take a load off and relax for awhile with live entertainment. Now it's just empty.

There is a show at Palace during HalloWeekends. It's called Whistlin' Willie's Western Wake.

That's good to know. There was no signage for that as late as last Sunday when I was sent home from the park early, and it still is not listed under "Shows" for Halloweekends on the website.

Rugrats2001 said:

That's good to know. There was no signage for that as late as last Sunday when I was sent home from the park early, and it still is not listed under "Shows" for Halloweekends on the website.

For the Palace's new show - not sure about the signage, but it is listed online under the Great Pumpkin Fest section of the website, not the Haunt section.

Curious...Is Laughing Sal back for this year?

Normal place, outside the arcade? She and the Ogre are something we stop to check out each visit

Thanks

AndyG said:

For the Palace's new show - not sure about the signage, but it is listed online under the Great Pumpkin Fest section of the website, not the Haunt section.

It was also a relatively late addition to the show listings, which is a little odd since it is a full-on Live E production with an eight-person cast. They did a nice job with it. I think they wanted something more theme-appropriate to FrontierTown. It could almost be a regular season show.

We didn't see Laughing Sal. The ogre has moved over by Millennium Force, presumably because his very tall house would be in the way of the projectors at the on the Main Midway.

We'll be sure to check out the Ogres new area. Too bad for Laughing Sal, she was a riot ;D

Thanks for the update TimChat2.

Stacy

Missing to is the big pumpkin,usually on the splash pad Not there anymore?Or did it move somewhere else. I always thought that was pretty cool.

^ I noticed the missing pumpkin too. I don’t think they’re done decorating yet. They don’t have any flowers planted along the midway either.

We are headed there next weekend. Hoping the forecast keeps calling for rain but is wrong. Do they have that epic jack-o-lantern display near TTD this year? That was pretty cool to look at. Also looking forward to Midnight Syndicate for the first time, as well as the always fun Skeleton Crew. I really enjoy the live shows during HalloWeekends.

We're heading to the park this weekend too. I looked at the forecast this morning and I think we're going to be okay... small chance of some rain, mostly sunny and low-70s, which is perfect as far as I'm concerned. We love the live Halloweekends shows as well. You won't be disappointed with Midnight Syndicate - we saw them last year and their show was spectacular. We always enjoy the Red Garter show also... so much better now that they have brought a live band back instead of having singers with pre-recorded backing tracks.

Also - the Jack-O-Lanterns by TTD are back. They were a big hit with my son last year (he's 4), so I'm sure we'll spend to time there again too.

This year's show lineup is pretty strong. Whistlin' Willie's Western Wake is very well done with some impressive vocals. Eternal Jamnation at Red Garter is also solid. Having live instruments and strong voices really brings a lot of energy. Midnight Syndicate: Conspiracy of Shadows is probably their most spectacular show yet.

Palace, Garter, and the Celebration Plaza shows are all great.

I am "meh" on Midnight Syndicate. They have kinda done all this shtick before. It's like a cheap grade B Vegas hotel show. I'm glad it didn't have a separate charge.

I thought the old "magic" show in the Jack was better entertainment.

I haven’t gotten the chance to slowly walk around and take in all of the decorations, but I did see all of the giant skeletons sitting where the ride graveyard used to be. Did they remove the graveyard or is it still there?

The ride graveyard is still there.

To the original point of this thread, I agree that they've removed some things that were available last season. But they've also added a good amount of new stuff, particularly during the day. There's new activities, and some of the haunted houses have daytime walk throughs where you solve puzzles to advance through the rooms. This weekend was my first Halloweekends in 3 or 4 years, and I had a complete blast. I was really impressed with the staffing, the scare zones were really fun on Friday night, and the rides were all running great overall. Even though it was crowded on Saturday, it didn't feel overly chaotic. So major props to the park on what I thought was a hugely successful weekend.