PKI Fearfest 10/11 - Better than Expected

I had planned for awhile to get to Fearfest the 11th as it was one of the only weekends I had available in October. So on a perfect day weather wise(meaning larger crowds) me and a few friends left about 3 and got to the crowded parking lot around 4. Now all I had heard was bad reviews. Everyone was talking about how crowded it was, how there was no midway themeing, and how the haunted houses were no good. With all that in my head I entered the park with very low expectations.

Since I knew it would be packed I made a schedule in my head of what needed to be done and when. So once we got in I headed for the House of Darkness. The line was about 30 minutes but seemed longer as it was extremely hot for this time of year. After about 30 minutes we were in and I have to say it was very good. Better than last year and loaded with actors. Gave me a nice suprise to begin the day.

After this we headed to the new Curse of the Crypt and found another reasonable 30 minute wait. I'll leave the details about the house out for anyone who hasnt heard and plans on going. This one, following a trend was better than last year and was nicely done.

Next was Maze of Madness right across the midway. This one had a little bit longer of a wait, closer to an hour. The maze was very effective with the mirrors and strobes. We actually got lost a few times and saw a lot of actors. All I remember of this one from the year before was a straight line of people from the beginning to end making it impossible to be scary and no fun because you could not get lost. This all changing for this year and was put on very well.

It was now around 7 and covered everything that was open then so we headed for Route 666. The line was already stretched around to the old Antique Cars station so we got in line and waited until it opened. They actually started the letting people on around 7:45 which was nice. After the que house was filled we were standing at about an hour and a half wait. I was very happy about this as I heard all the horror stories of last weeks 4 hour waits. After only an hour we were in our car and speeding out of the station. I wasnt expecting much out this because I figured PKI would get everyone caught up with the fact that you drive youself and not put much into the actual haunted part, but boy was I wrong. A lot of cool effects and made me jump several times. There was only one thing I disliked and thought could have been better and that was the ending. Here that have you going through some corn and I was expecting atleast one person to jump out. Nope not a single person in there scaring you, just a women telling you to turn around. Overall it was put on very good and deffantly worth a few hours of waiting.

Next I headed to the other big one, the Pycho Path. I had also heard this one racked up a 4 hour wait last week so I was a little scared about what we would find. Now im going to break away from this haunted trail and its line and just add a comment about the midway mess they had under the Racer. Under the Racer in the somewhat small pathway leading to FOF there was - line for 3 haunted houses, people trying to get to FOF, people leaving the FOF area, and people trying to figure out what the hell is going on. This was by far the worst part of fear fest and absolutly needs to be changed. There was way to much going on in that little area. They need to make the Pycho Path all back behind the wooden fence and have more security making sure people arent line jumping and keep moving through there. Now that I have all that out of the way and having took around 15 minutes just to get through the mess we got in an hour and a half wait for Pycho Path. The line wasnt as bad as I thought and the trail was once again better than last year.

It was now about 10:15 and we headed to the last haunted house, the 3D clown one, the name has left me.This had about a 35 minute wait and was pretty much the same as the year before. After this it was around 10:45 and we got in line for our first ride of the night, SOB. It always runs better in the cold. Good ride with a reasonable wait.

After this we headed to The Beast passing all the haunted house lines noticing they were all fairly small. We got to the Beast but decided to not ride it now because we can always ride it at night. We then headed to House of Darkness for a 5 minute wait. Still an awesome house, slightly worse than the first but understandable because I'm sure the employees were ready to go home.

It was now after 12 so we headed to the car and suprisingly there was no traffic as everyone had already left.

To sum up Fearfest it was overall excellent. All the houses were put on very good and better than last year. The only minuses were the crowds and the midway mess under the Racer. Maybe some changes were made from the week before but you can but me on the plus list for fearfest as I enjoyed it better than others on this site.