Kings Island & 'The Haunt" October 1st and 2nd

Took a trip out to Kings Island to try out their haunt this past weekend, as CP is getting a bit “same old stuff” for us. We wanted to try some new parks since we did not make it down to HHN this year.

Drove down Saturday and got the park around 5pm or so. Took the cameras in and planned to just take photos until the event started. To our surprise, the houses were already open (supposed to be 7pm?). So we start trying to get all those out of the way before it got busy. I won’t go into all the details and names and such, but they were really quite good. We really enjoyed the actors, theme and quality of the props throughout the houses. The scarezones were done well, although not intense, were nice because they seamlessly felt integrated into the normal midways. It felt like there was stuff everywhere to see and you just don’t know when you will see or be spooked by somebody. I really enjoyed the bush people hiding around Vortex/Windseeker spooking people. The décor around the park really felt like Halloween here, compared to CP for some reason. CP relies on skeletons and more skeletons, everywhere. Oh, and tombstones. It was nice to see spiders, costume prop characters, display sets in windows, the “pumpkin midway” where starlight generally is, people being hung, killer babies, etc… As well as the classical hay bales and cornstalks. Reminded me a lot of the Six Flags Ohio ‘Fright Fest’, which is greatly missed for us :(

By the time 7-8pm came around the park got extremely busy. Lines stretched all over the place and we actually were not able to hit one of the houses and two of the “scarezone/walkthroughs” because we simply did not want to wait. But it was insane how the crowds increased so much for the event!

The rest of the night we just enjoyed walking throughout the park and looking at all the décor and taking photos. We had a really great time. We stayed locally and planned to go back for early entry just to ride Diamondback and a few other rides. But the day turned out to be so beautiful and so dead, we stayed much longer. Rode Diamondback four times without leaving the station before heading over to X-Flight (err..Firehawk), Stunt Lot Coaster, Beast, Flight of Fear, etc… No waits anywhere, it was great. We ended up staying until around 4pm or so, much longer than expected. The day was just beautiful. By far the best trip to this park I ever had. I always have liked KI, but this trip felt pretty special for us. I like it much more then CP’s event. I really dig how they are not against using blood and gore.

Overall we had an excellent trip. I think we may make it an annual trip every fall, along hopefully with HHN and some other parks next year. This weekend we may be off to check out Canada’s Wonderland for the first time and see how their Haunt is as well.

If interested, I have 200+ photos from this trip on my Flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/invertalon/sets/72157627812907914/

P.S. – It is also very strange that so many parents name their kid “Mason” here. I heard it 3-4 times throughout the two days. Must be popular to name your kid after your city here?

Sounds like a great time! I really want to get to a KI or CP haunt event. I'm so used to Six Flags' events; they seem like a big step down in comparison to the Cedar Fair haunts.

Sounds like Cedar Point crowd wise. Fridays and Sundays are dead, Saturdays are insane. How does it compare to HHN in your opinion?

Honestly, I have been to CP plenty of Saturdays and it was nothing like KI come 8pm at night. Much more busy, IMO.

Compared to HHN, that is really hard to do. It was really good, but not to the level of HHN. The houses are much more detailed and "immersive". But KI was good in its own right, and much more fun then CP's.

I'm heading to KI's Halloween event for the first time next Saturday and I'm very excited. The park stays open till 1am, so I'm hoping to get night rides in on the coasters that I don't usually have the time to ride after the sun sets during the summer. (Flight Deck, Adventure Express, ect.)

Were lines bad on Saturday night for just the haunts/major coasters, or for pretty much everything?

All the major ones for sure. Diamondback went from a 1/2 queue wait to a completely full one come the Haunt starting. It was insane anywhere you went from what I saw.

If you get there early, do all your riding early in the day. It will get very busy around 8pm. Not sure about some of the less popular rides though, did not pay attention much.

GREAT Pics Steve!!

I agree, SFWoA had the best Halloween Event by far in Ohio.

Kings Island this year is WAYyyyyyy better than CP.

I just don't get what CP is doing anymore. And people are still FLOCKING up there for their Haunts...which aren't that great. CP has SOooooo Much more potential. I get the whole we want to do be more family friendly (which I guess works, since they are raking in the dough.)

I just wish they had a more adult theme like they use too before 9/11.

I wonder if Cedar Fair has ever thought about using Geauga Lake now for Halloween. Now that would be pretty cool! I mean, I know they can't use the rides side, but the old "Life" side is still in pretty good shape, and has some buildings that could easily be used.

Glad you had a great time!

I was at KI's haunt the opening Friday, and I felt it was great but that something was missing over previous years. I think it was that the fog was thinner than usual, and the scareactors seemed fewer. Looking back, it must have not been quite ready yet.

But wow -- what a difference a couple weekends made. I was there this past Friday, and the environment was as stunning or better than I ever remember. The fog was so thick around the park and holding well...especially in action zone. I looked around and appreciated how much effort KI actually put into this -- the park is thoroughly Halloween, and as has been said, it has a bit of everything. The scareactors were all on top of their game this trip too. I'll be going back once more this year.

^I noticed more smokers getting away (or trying to get away) with smoking in the non-smoking areas at my home park, Six Flags Great America. Near fog, funny-ily. Like, as stinky as the fake fog and fire lamps are, you really think we can't smell that!? I can only imagine this happening more at the Cedar Fair parks, as they usually have more than just a few people smoking in non-smoking areas.

I just spent this past weekend at Canada's Wonderland and wow, puts CP to even more shame. The houses were amazing, very close to HHN quality IMO. It lacked the nice scare-zones that Kings Island had, but the houses were much better. We had a BLAST.

After seeing both Kings Island and Canada's Wonderland I must say CP's is by far the worst of the trio. No contest at all. If you could combine CW's houses with KI's midway decor and such, you would have a killer event.

I like CP and all, but the event does little for us anymore. It just seems "off". The houses are decent and all, but just lacks something I cant exactly put my finger on.

I can't wait to head back to CW next year again. The London house was incredible, as well as their version of "Cornstalkers" and "Club Blood". They were amazing. The miner house was very cool and extremely creepy. A few dud houses, but that is always expected.

They had this awesome scareactor in the Carnevil type area who was double jointed and ran after people bent over backwards, running and jumping like some weird spider or something. I never saw somebody so into his role, and did it so well. The best scareactor I had ever seen, easily :)

Go to this event if you can! It's awesome. Makes me unexcited to head back to CP honestly after these two much better parks. CP needs to step up!

SteveWoA said:
puts CP to even more shame.

This should NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER happen.

Or Maverick...