Halloweekends at Cedar Fair Parks

What do you think of Halloweekends (and Knotts Scary Farm) at the Cedar Fair parks this year?

I decided to start this post because I think Dorney did a wonderful job this year. I really liked how the music flowed throughout the park. There was also some "monuments" throughout the park that had different sayings such as "Kinzel" and "Albino".

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If only it was 90 degrees in the winter Dorney could be open.

Haven't been to Dorney during a Halloweekend but I absolutely LOVE Cedar Point Hallos. I have visited more times during October than any time. THE BEST!

I may try Dorney and Knott's next time around during the fall. I have only been there in the summer.

Tina

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Feel The Adrenaline....
www.intenserides.com

*** This post was edited by coasterqueenTRN on 12/1/2002. ***

If you think CP's Halloweekends is good, one you try KSF you'll want to take it back to Ohio. This year was normal. The mazes were a little packed, they just let too many people in at once. They need to hire more monsters next year, when they go on break the mazes suck. The 2 ride based mazes were great this year, and the Ghouls gone wild show was so damn funny, very mature jokes though, I can't believe i heard them in the same theater that the snoopy on ice show plays at. The streets were great this year too. May I reccomend for those going in 2003: go early in october, first weekend is crowd free (not really), but if you attend the pre scare dinner, you will get on everything 2 times.

I had a lot of fun at CP's Halloweekends this year! The fright zone thing was great! Plus getting as few rides in on their coasters isn’t too bad either!

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“If you give a enthusiast a footer.......He’ll want a coaster!!!"

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CBClub member #30 and #364 (renewal)

The best maze hands down this year at KSF was Curse of the Spider. They started building it back in like July and it shows. Instead of painted wooden walls, you're in a simulated spider's nest. A 1000% improvement over spider woods (which is like the pre show to COS).

I find it interesting that people in the west call them "mazes" (especially since you're following a linear path) and here we call them "haunted houses."

I don't doubt that Knott's is far more creepy, but hey, Ohio is a little more conservative. CP is doing a good job in that the atmosphere is so complete, probably because they use so many fog machines that it shows up on weather radar (true story). Heck, most of us are just excited to be in the park in October!

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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com - Sillynonsense.com
"Climbing as we fall, we dare to hold on to our fate, and steal away our destiny to catch ourselves with quiet grace" - The Stairs, INXS

Knott's Scarry Farm was way above par and over CP.

CP has still yet to come back up to their potential from 2 years ago. After last year's 9-11 they took down TONS and TONS and TONS of decorations. If you look at some of my pics from 2 years ago and go there now you would wonder what the heck happened. Don't get me wrong though, it's still worth going to by all means. CP lost the Halloween feel during the day for me this past year. They don't turn on the fog machines until night time now...which might be a good thing for some ;) Not very many cobwebs throughout the park or just halloween decorations. CP's big job is their lighting at night in areas, now that's pretty cool. And their haunted houses are always good too. NOT scary by any means, but good.

SFWoA and WyDL had brought back a lot of their decorations from 2 years ago (last year they toned it down a lot also.) SFWoA had to be the best decorated park out of the 9 Halloween parks I got too. WOW!! WydL had the best haunted houses...aka mazes ;) SFWoA were "ok" but the actors were AWESOME on the midways.

PKI is really strange all in itself, since they "close" the park down the reopen it. This park REALLY needs to have someone come in and show them how to a halloween festival...PKI has SOOooo much potential. But the peeps have a good time their at the haunted houses and shows.

Dover Lake, didn't have their haunted house this year, since they are remodeling it, but if you're in the area next year, it's AWESOME!! By far the best one for a themepark.

Ohio and some of the surrounding parks (aka Kennywood's Phantom Fright Nights which is a MUST) for Halloween all do a pretty good job and offer something for everyone who's looking to be scared, or just have some fun with the family.

As for my final Cedar Fair Halloweekends thoughts. I would say CP is BY FAR the most FAMILY Halloweekend park. Nothing scary, just "hey, that's cool." Enjoy the winter, and until next year...

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"The Future of Roller Coasters"
-RollerCoasterGod
Haunted Ohio Parks...you've been warned!!

Comparing Knott's to CP at this point is apples and oranges..

You have to remember.. Knott's has been doing this for 30 years.. CP just started 6 years ago.. Give them some time..

Improvements for next year are already in the pipe..

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June 11th, 2001 - Gemini 100
VertiGo Rides - 82
Technical Services - 2002
Frightzone Screamster - 2002

*** This post was edited by Red Garter Rob on 12/2/2002. ***

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Red Garter Rob said:
"Comparing Knott's to CP at this point is apples and oranges.. "

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I totally agree, but I guess when someone wants to know how one is to the other we have to throw them in the same sack. :)

BTW Which park in the USA has done a Halloween festival the longest? Is it Knott's? Or is their another.

Look for Kennywood to do it again next year. They are probably scractching their heads now over why in the world they didn't do this before....now that park was PACKED!

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"The Future of Roller Coasters"
-RollerCoasterGod
Haunted Ohio Parks...you've been warned!!

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Jeff said:
"Heck, most of us are just excited to be in the park in October!"

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Men are like parking spaces... the good ones are all taken and the rest are handicapped or too far away.
www.TiggerMan.com

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RollerCoasterGod said:

CP has still yet to come back up to their potential from 2 years ago. After last year's 9-11 they took down TONS and TONS and TONS of decorations.

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Which park did you go to? They spend more on this thing every year, and while some decorations are different from year to year, there certainly aren't less of them.

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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com - Sillynonsense.com
"Climbing as we fall, we dare to hold on to our fate, and steal away our destiny to catch ourselves with quiet grace" - The Stairs, INXS

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Jeff said:
"Which park did you go to? They spend more on this thing every year, and while some decorations are different from year to year, there certainly aren't less of them."

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Cedar Point...and actually there centainly is less of them... ;)

Just because a park says they spend "X" amount of dollars on attractions doesn't mean that it's going to be bigger and better than previous. Point being CP. 2001 they said they were going to be pumping in $$$ for their Halloweekends. I went and I thought, Where the heck did the $$$ go to? They added Fright Zone (which really is the same thing as before just a really big entrance, some more lighting, and 2 more shows on top of the 4 that were on the trail before it was called Fright Zone), the new haunted house in the back, and Boo house but they took down A LOT and I mean A LOT of decorations that enhanced the overall feel of the park. They took out the great scene, actually two scenes in front of Gemini, the ones where they used the actual trains and put scarecrows in them, and then used haybales for the tracks, the HUGE tree with Wherewolves around it howling. The Area 51 is gones but replaced this year with a monster drive in. MANY MANY of the old "devil" figures are gone that were all through the bushes that moved and made noise. 5 different Grim Reapers were removed throughout the park, mostly by and in Frontier town. They don't use the fog machines in the day anymore. They took down about 75% of the spiderwebs they had up everywhere. They don't use NEARLY as much corn stalks and haybales they used 2 years ago. They took out 4 different skeleton scenes from 2 years ago. They took down many decorations that they used for Challenge Park. This year, I only found a few haystalks and one skeleton to take a picture of. They took out the Iron Dragon Cars they had laying around with skeletons. They did bring BACK for 2002 the sky car 13.

With a few of those things said, CP is still great to visit during Halloween. I just had to make a little logical point. I take pictures of MANY of these things for the past 5 years. And it's very easy to notice what changes have been made, enhanced or just didn't work out.

I'm more a less one that doesn't look at the parks for haunted houses. I like to feel and look everywhere and see and feel Halloween. CP toned it down A LOT from 2000 and is more family oriented since then, which can be a good thing. SFWoA and Kennywood IMO did the best with overall park feel....

Man, if you didn't get a little scared walking through Kennywood's entrance tunnel at night... LOL

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"The Future of Roller Coasters"
-RollerCoasterGod
Haunted Ohio Parks...you've been warned!!

I've seen improvement at Dorney each year. They are getting better at decorating. Three years ago, it just looked messy with some plastic skeletons floating in fountains and a few tombstones here and there. Now it seems like there is more thought being put into it. The Steel Force guy fits in perfectly with the monsters and creatures. It's almost as if he was created for Halloween.

This year I stayed out of the haunted houses, mainly because they were just too crowded and I wasn't in the mood to deal with people. That ok because I was able to get three front seat laps on Steel Force in 45 minutes, with a breakdown between the 2nd and 3rd ride!

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http://www.eastcoaster.com

There were times at Knotts Scary Farm when I was completely engulfed by the fog, not being able to see anything. This was especially true in the Gauntlet and ghost town, and you plunged into a sea of fog in the log ride.

I so agree that Knotts is very perverted and not family friendly at all during halloween. They actually based one show's name off of the girls gone wild video collection. Definately not for kiddies.

Knotts started the halloween event 30 years ago. They are actually the largest non studio purchaser of make up, and the worlds largest purchaser of cobweb. You just can't compare Fright Fest or Halloweekends to KSF until you start getting attractions that knock your socks off. CP doesn't have the potential to be a knotts scary farm. If they started staying open from 6pm to 2am, prohibited kids, got scary monsters, and spent millions on set designs, then they would be. Heck, Knotts still hasn't demolished Curse of the Spider, its a work of art.

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Jeff said:

I find it interesting that people in the west call them "mazes" (especially since you're following a linear path) and here we call them "haunted houses."

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Yeah, that is kind of odd. I assume that Knott's started this, perhaps after deciding that nearly every one of their haunted attractions wasn't neccesarily a "haunted house" but had many varied themes.

I wouldn't expect Halloweekends to become Knott's Scary Farm at any point- certainly it will be improved to a great extent, but I'm not sure that anyone can come close to what KSF offers. There is something about that place- each of the monsters will go out of their way to create a character that really brings them to life. Its hard to explain exactly, but there is just something about Haunt that is so much more immersive than other Halloween events...

I wouldn't either. I talked to a couple of the PR folks after they first went to Knott's to see what it was all about, and the "family friendly" thing is exactly what they brought up. I've seen stupid parents drag their kids into the fright zone at CP with their kids screaming at the top of their lungs that they don't wanna go in too.

RollerCoasterGod: I still think you're full of crap. Aside from the fact that they didn't pull out the Iron Dragon crashed tub, there were not less decorations.

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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com - Sillynonsense.com
"Climbing as we fall, we dare to hold on to our fate, and steal away our destiny to catch ourselves with quiet grace" - The Stairs, INXS

RCoasterGod:

OMG!!! The horror!! Cedar Point took out the Iron Dragon tub, Challenge Park decorations, the scarecrows, and everything else. CP SuX0rs!!!!!11111

Dude, you need to just chill out. Cedar Point still goes all out when it comes to Halloweekends, but just because they don't put in the freaky horror stuff, doesn't mean that they "scaled back" on funding for Halloweekends. Cedar Point is a "family park," which means, it's for the whole family. There had been stuff in the past that scared the bejesus out of little kids, in reponse to that, they "scaled back" on the intensity of the horror that they are putting into the park. Believe me, I'd rather put up with less intense decorations than having little kids screaming in my ear.

They still have a great Halloweekends event, even though they don't have the same theming as two years ago, it's still getting better and better every year. The biggest draw is that the themeing changes everyyear. If you really think that the fog machines that show up on Doppler radar, the haunted houses, and the all-around themeing isn't enough, I suggest you go another park to throw a fit about your "frieght-fest."

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"How's your balls feel?"
Parks this year: 35
Beatings from Kara: lost count at 2,504

The few things I like about Ohio is all the haunted stuff their is to do during Halloween:
You want some good rides and family halloween atmosphere you go to CP.

If you want something more adult and cool halloween atmosphere, go to SFWOA or WyDL.

If you want to get ride of the little kids and see some cool haunted houses and some great rides go to PKI.

According to Dover Lake. That place is going to be pretty cool with what they have planned for those pavillions...
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"The Future of Roller Coasters"
-RollerCoasterGod
Haunted Ohio Parks...you've been warned!!