blackout: sfwoa, 9.29.03

i was at the park last night at about 9:30 walking down the main midway towards the exit when the power flickered, then went out. it was nuts, i think everyone thought it was a scarey joke at first, even a chainsaw monster had to ask his co-worker, "should we still be scareing people?"

anyone know if anyone was stuck on any rides or haunted houses?

the park did a nice job getting out there with flashlights and guiding everyone towards the exit. no panic.

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http://www.eightdotthree.net

Well if they were stuck in the haunted houses they could have just walked out. I mean it isn't like the haunted houses were scary at all. Actually they were very laughable. One was even down right DUMB. The saddest part of the whole thing though was the parents who bought $10 Haunted House wrist bands for kids still ridding in strollers. I saw a lot of that on Saturday. Sad.

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What I do when I'm not riding roller coasters!

They charge extra for the haunts? LAME!

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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com - My Blog
Blogs, photo albums - CampusFish
What time does the water show start?

They had a few haunted 'attractions' that were free, but the 4 main haunted houses were $9.99 for a wristband that got you into them unlimited times for that day. OR you could by a $14.99 wristband that got you into the houses unlimited times for the whole FrightFest. Thanks, but no thanks. Once was enough for me and I got my wristband free because I brought my coupon from my Season Pass booklet. I would have been pissed if I had to pay for them.

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What I do when I'm not riding roller coasters!

That is lame. I would like to say I am surprised by that...but I'm not.

i wouldnt want to be stuck inside a dark building with narrow halls where people were supposed to scare you were.

i think most everyone there were season pass holders, while i was waiting in line for my free wristband i saw very few people pay cash for it. i do agree its lame they charged extra.

i thought it was pretty nice there. i expected a lot less.

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http://www.eightdotthree.net

Once the power went off though I'm sure the "monsters" stopped scaring people and helped them out. Yes, I agree that it wouldn't exactly be fun, but I don't think it would be all that horrible either.

Tell me, eightdotthree, what did you think of the houses though? Did you like them or not? I personally thought they were stupid. I've been in better, and that includes CP's houses. Your miles may very.

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What I do when I'm not riding roller coasters!

Why is this such a surprise to charge for haunted houses? SFGAm has been doing it since they started their Fright Fest 13 or so years ago!

Did they not use to charge extra or something? Do you expect to go to a haunted house (local) and not expect to pay to get in? I'm not quite sure I understand why this is so "lame."

Joe, who appreciates it very much when the haunted house stuff is free, but definitely doesn't expect it

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You suck big time.

Legendary, I think most people think it is lame because parks like Cedar Point and King's Island don't charge extra for the houses.

I don't think I would have a problem paying for them IF I thought they were worth it. In my opinion the houses there just were not worth $10. The free ones at Cedar Point are much better. While $10 may not be a lot, it seems like a rip off if your not at least somewhat satisfied with the houses, and most people I talked too were not satisfied.

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What I do when I'm not riding roller coasters!

Knott's does have a Scary Farm ticket but that is because the demand is significant. (As is the case at Universal/IOA).

SFWoA is having a hard enough time getting butts into the gates as it is. The Haunted Houses should have been free if for nothing else than to add some type of incentive.

Well they did have some free "haunted attractions" like some amazon lady, a headless women, a dead Elvis, some krusty ice scream man, Fearanoia (or how ever it is spelled), a mystery of the lost lake boat tour and the Antique Cars were turned into a "murder mystery". The decorations and things were nice though. They did do a decent job with those.

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What I do when I'm not riding roller coasters!

In the context of what's available in this market, yeah, it's lame that they charge extra. Not only does the Greater Cleveland area have a ton of haunted houses, but as someone mentioned, CP doesn't charge extra for their three houses, the canyon and the Fright Zone. As a consumer... not a tough decision.

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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com - My Blog
Blogs, photo albums - CampusFish
What time does the water show start?

Jeff said:
They charge extra for the haunts? LAME!
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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com - My Blog
Blogs, photo albums - CampusFish
What time does the water show start?

Welcome to Six Flags!!! Where we try charge extra everywhere we can. If we cant we create some ploy to be able to charge extra. (TM)
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Zero G Thrills - Moved and Improved

PKI's are free this year, but didn't they charge extra just to get into the park last year? I know that's what PCarowinds does, even season passholders have to pay extra to get in.

I don't think it's that out of the ordinary to charge extra for the bigger haunted houses. Like I said, I *appreciate* that CP's are free, but it's definitely not expected. HHN, albeit does waaaaaaaaay more, still charges a HEFTY price to get in. And they can, because people will pay. There are ALWAYS long lines for SFGAm's haunted houses, too, at $5 a pop.

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You suck big time.

Sarah. PKI does not let you get into their Haunted Houses at no extra cost. They clear the park of the regular hour visitors and if you want back in for the FearFest stuff you have to pay to get back in. At least this is how they did it last year. I do no think it's lame to charge for the haunted houses like SFWoA does. I was there last year during the holloween event and even though I didn't visit any haunted houses, they had the best even I'd seen as far as what was on the midway.

EDIT: I guess PKI has changed things this year.

Eric
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"I'm hoping to see if any dead people will be my friends." - SS
*** This post was edited by eric.walton 9/29/2003 2:06:29 PM ***

I've enver been to PKI's halloween stuff, but I'm pretty sure this year everything is included in with your normal admission.

Yes, SFWoA houses to look pretty nice from the outside, it's the inside that was a let down. I expected them to be pretty tame because kids go through them, but they were really bad. The only one that was "scary" was Brutal Planet. I will admit that one was good. The other ones, I'm sorry but they sucked.

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What I do when I'm not riding roller coasters!

Prior to the 1999 season, Geauga Lake's HallowScream event always had one haunted house (which I had heard was one of the best in the area) and a haunted hayride or something else of that nature. The Headless Woman and Amazon Woman were also around, as was an electrocution stunt (circa 1998). The haunted house was always free however. In 1999, "Alice Cooper's Brutal planet" was introduced and there was an additional charge of $3 to get in (or so I recall). The following year in the SFO makeover, Brutal Planet was $5. Last year was the first year for multiple houses and the $10 charge that accompanied them.

While I didn't get to the park this past weekend, I still have to question why SFWoA lumps most of their haunted houses in one area. Fearanoia, House on Hell Street, the Haunted Gauntlet, and the House of 3-Dementia are all in Coyote Creek causing a massive bottleneck in an already cramped area.

ray p. (who likes to be out of the park by 6:00 pm anyway!)

Knott's does charge full park admission for a night at Haunt, but unlike most other Halloween events, they give you a full nights worth of stuff to do.

This year has 12 (haunted houses), though we call them mazes (though they aren't techinically a maze, lol).

Six different shows, four different scare zones, plus every Knott's ride open. Its more than enough to see in one night!

I think its a little weird to charge to get into the mazes, particularly if they aren't well done and there are only a handful of them.

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Cedar Point twice in one season? Not bad for a Californian. Trip #2- October 19

eightdotthree said:
the park did a nice job getting out there with flashlights and guiding everyone towards the exit. no panic.

Thank you.

All I can say is oh my gosh! I'm terrified of lightning... and that was not the place to be. What caused this power outage? Six Flags did a great job getting people out of the park. Within about 5 mins of the power going out, they had flashlights everywhere, the scarers off the midway and everything under control. Something that had potential to be mass chaos, was completely under control.