Halloween time outside the berm

[Phroobar]

I thought I would create a thread talking about Halloween events outside of Disneyland. This can include Universal Studio Hollywood's Halloween Horror Nights, Knotts Scary Farm and Magic Mountain's Freight Fest. I'm going to be going to each of these. If you have any others like the Queen Mary or LA zoo you visited, please post pictures of them.

 

[Phroobar]

I went to Universal Studios Hollywood Halloween Horror Night last Friday. We did the admission after 2pm day night pass. This got us in the park at 2pm and let us have early admission to the mazes. The mazes officially opened at 7pm. We got to see them at 5pm with only 10-15 minute waits. At about 9pm all the mazes had two hour waits. This is definitely the way to go if you plan to go to HHN.

We checked out the new walking dead maze. It was good but very short. Later that night it was the first to break 2 hours and was the most popular of the night. We checked out Despicible Me Minon Mayhem and Super Silly Fun Land. Both were fun little rides with minimal wait.

 

[Phroobar]

After that we did the single rider on Harry Potter four times in a row. This took about half hour since it always a walk on. The regular line was about 20 minutes. The Flight of the Hippogriff was ok for a minor coaster. I was expecting the stores to be bigger but they were really well themed and fun. I was shocked on how much a wand was. Wands were $35 for non magical ones and $40 for magical ones. We watched kids try to use the magical wands on the windows. I can totally see this being done at Star Wars land.

 

[Phroobar]

We did the tram. Because of the mazes it was an abbreviated version. We didn't go into New York streets or Hill Dale or see the Desperate Housewives house or part the lake. We did see a few of the clown sets for that night's Terror Tram.

Finally we did Transformers and the Mummy on the lower lot. Transformers was really good and super clear and bright. Potter always seemed dark and blurry. At this time, it was 5pm so we quickly did the Halloween maze and Exorcist maze. Halloween was mostly based on Halloween 2 with lots of hospital scenes. There was a nice scene at the end for Halloween 3. I hope they do a maze about that one someday. The Exorcist was mostly a lot of bedroom scenes with Linda Blair shooting water at us. Other dark scenes were the demon kept jumping out at us in the dark. It was a little weak.

We then took the tunnel over to New York city facades area where Krampus, American Horror Story and Freddy vs Jason was. All of these were 5-10 minute waits so we did them multiple times. We really liked the Freddy vs Jason one the best because of the constant popups of both characters on either side of us. Krampus was really fun but I wish it was colder inside. I've never scene American Horror Story so the three areas in there was a little confusing. My sister filled me in on those three seasons. It was also very well done.

If you tell the DHL guy that your Howie, he will give you a Christmas card.

 

[Phroobar]

About now it was getting dark so we hopped on the Terror Tram. It was just about time for the mazes to open to the general public. The tram had a five minute wait. They told us the story of a clown that use to work at Universal until he was fired. It seems he is still living on the backlot and has brought friends. A lot of tour guides have disappeared so they needed us to find the killer clown. This was a good gauntlet-type maze were you walked pass lots of clowns with chainsaws and bats. Half way through we stopped for a photo op with Norman Bates at his mother's house. This was good because most of the tram's people were gone by then. We had the second half of the clown gauntlet to do by ourselves. Imagine thirty clowns with weapons waiting for you to walk pass them. It was pretty scary and they were really aggressive.

Once we got back to the upper lot, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre maze opened late. It was one of the better mazes with lots of movie scenes from the original. The upper lot also had three scare zones dedicated to the Purge Election Year. These were fun to walk thru. The last thing we did that evening was the Jabberwocky show. This was a techno dance troop with lots of cool effects and a story about dreams. It was lots of fun.

With early admission we were done by 9:30 and everything was packed with two hour waits. Universal did a great job with their mazes, tram and the show. The mazes had great detail and were gory and loud but overall the park had nothing offensive. It was a pg-13 experience. It was fun to ride everything quickly before general public got in there. If you are going to do this, do the day/night pass and enjoy the park before the mazes in the evening.

 

[Stevek]

I would love to go back to Uni and really would like to experience the mazes either there or Knott's. Can't get my kids (15 & 17) to do either one.

 

[ForeverAnna]

I don't like really scary/gory Halloween stuff so even though I'm committed to including none Disney parks on future trips, I'll definitely stick to DL for future Halloween trips. I imagine the LA Zoo's Halloween offerings would be safe though.

 

[Phroobar]

I hear the Los Angles Hunted Hayride is pretty scary. I've never been to that one.

 

[Phroobar]

Last night my sister and brother in law joined me on a trip to Knotts Scary Farm. My niece is working there in the ghost town fog. Her monster's name is Dolly. We were able to get some back stage pictures with her and her friends. She even had security escort us to the new Shadowlands maze where we got a special front of the line pass for it. Very cool.

It was a crowed night but lots of fun. Infected Special Ops is a maze where they give you a laser gun and you shoot zombies in a city and in the sewers. All of the mazes where a lot of fun and not as loud as Universal but just as bloody. Knotts seems to be more creative in their offerings over the IP based Universal. Paranormal Inc. and Shadowlands were amazing. Death of Winter was cool if you imagine the bad guy in it as Elsa from Frozen. I liked the projections of frozen people under the ice and Marshmallow snowman was bigger and better animated than the DCA dance party one. Here are the pictures.

 

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[Phroobar]

This is "Dolly" my niece. It's her fifth year at Knotts Scary Farm.

 

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[Phroobar]

Next up will be Magic Mountain Fright Fest in two weeks....

 

[Darkbeer1]

OK, I have to once again be careful here, but I have done Knott's, SFMM and Universal. Alas, I can't talk about Universal do to a NDA. (Well, I can say it is a great experience...

So I have a large album including backstage photo's of Knott's, and video of the Hanging and Elvira at this link...

https://darkbeer.smugmug.com/Knotts-Scary-FarmACE-10022016/

https://darkbeer.smugmug.com/Knotts-Scary-FarmACE-10022016/i-zXWthkQ/A

Alas, here is some photos from SFMM this weekend, but no Fright Fest ones (well, one video) due to another NDA.

https://darkbeer.smugmug.com/Six-Flags-Magic-Mountain-108/


I hope I didn't get someone in trouble at SFMM Sunday night, as the Monster got out of character to talk to me, and security was freaking out because we were "chatting" about the business. (I made a call this morning to the bosses to make sure all was ok

I have been lucky enough to be a monster, though only for a few hours, it is truly HARD work between the make-up (and one dirty secret, most Haunt's (generic term) are using more and more masks than true make-up). It is a shame, but they have to pay the Monster for all the make-up time (and of course the make-up artist), and of course the removal time, so it adds up in labor issues, as compared to maybe just black eye makeup. And of course costuming... But if you want to lose weight and sweat.....

Amazing that I am already working on the 2017 stuff....

And totally off-topic, but I got a ticket to a guided tour of the Nethercutt Collection and it is an amazing place if you are in the SFMM area, scary that I have a replica of Summer Tiffany (I was talking to the head collection person and she had very little info about it, so if anyone knows about the "torso", please let me know, we are both going to do more research on it...)

https://darkbeer.smugmug.com/Nethercutt-Collection-Sylmar/

 

[Phroobar]

My niece was telling us backstage that she couldn't talk to us on stage because other people would hear. When she found us, she stayed in character and said quietly to us to follow her as she ran off. We had wait outside backstage until security let us in where she was waiting to take pictures with others on break. Security stayed with us until we left backstage. She couldn't let other people hear her name because she would be called that the entire evening by kids. Monsters can not say anything to you in fear of people be offended and complaints raised at Guest Services. They can grunt and make noises but that is all. They also can't touch you and vice versa. If you touch them it is cause from removal from the park.

 

[Darkbeer1]

My niece was telling us backstage that she couldn't talk to us on stage because other people would hear. When she found us, she stayed in character and said quietly to us to follow her as she ran off. We had wait outside backstage until security let us in where she was waiting to take pictures with others on break. Security stayed with us until we left backstage. She couldn't let other people hear her name because she would be called that the entire evening by kids. Monsters can not say anything to you in fear of people be offended and complaints raised at Guest Services. They can grunt and make noises but that is all. They also can't touch you and vice versa. If you touch them it is cause from removal from the park.

Oh, I know the rules, and I was the ONLY person in the maze at the time, so nobody could overhear us. I made sure that it was fine this morning with my phone call to the senior management. I can GUARANTEE you they won't "punish" the monster, as that might get the "media" involved, and since I was "working", I do have a say in the matter. I was surprised when the "monster" got out of character, and I can't share the conversation here, but he/she had a valid point.

As for touching, you are right, please don't touch the monsters. (Folks who know me do touch, but just to let me know they saw "me", and I usually get an e-mail/phone call later to follow up.)

But as much as I want to sometimes be an "average" guest, it is very hard nowadays with the security cameras and photo ID. I had to laugh when Matt Ouimet first got hired by Cedar Fair, where every security gate had a photo of him posted to make sure he was taking care of and that a phone call was made to "Theme Park 1". Nowadays they know most folks as the security cameras catch them no matter what, I have noticed this weekend that I was approached shortly after I entered both parks (USH and SFMM) by someone like "Theme Park 1".

When I met up with Raffy recently, he "snuck" in using the main gates (regular GA ticket) and knew the way to avoid the cameras. I ran into a "Show 1" after my meeting and he was shocked to hear that his boss was in the park.

 

[Phroobar]

Last Friday we went to Magic Mountain for Fright Fest. We arrived at 1pm and found an hour long line to get pass "security" and enter the park. Security has you go though metal detectors and bag check. The person that mans the metal detector also does the bag check. They are pretty slow but no were near as slow as the ticket taker. Magic Mountain uses an outdated system of scanning the ticket and then scanning your right index finger. This process doesn't always scan the printed out paper tickets or your finger very well causing delays. A lot of times, people are pulled over or have to wait for a manager to reset the machine or process their tickets someplace else. This of course puts the line out for several minutes. Why can't they have handheld readers that work correctly like Disneyland has or at least like Knotts? For my ticket, I had renewed my pass. The girl said I could go to guest services to process it or she could but it might take a while because her machine wasn't working correctly. I told her I had waited an hour and was not going to wait in another line. It took her five minutes to process it.

Once inside my daughter needed to go to the restroom and she was greeted with a huge line in the women's restroom. It was so bad that they were using the men's side too. Park management didn't seem to notice or even bother to clean the restrooms. They were pretty gross throughout the day. A lot of sinks where flooded. Restroom lines were typically about fifteen minutes all day no matter the gender.

The park was completely packed though the day however management didn't seem fit to do anything about it. Most of the coasters operated with just one train. Why? To save money of course. It wasn't until late in the day did management got a clue and put a second train the tracks of some of the coasters. We rode Viper which had a 40 minute wait. The sign outside said 5 minutes. The app said 15 minutes. The problem with Magic Mountain is they have not gone to an electronic system of wait times so the signs outside have nothing to do with reality. Even their app was wrong most of the time. They don't have a live system where you get a card at the front of the line and hand it to someone at the end of the line like Disney does. There is never a greeter at the beginning of the line and most rides have an employee at the of the line in order to keep the stations clear of people.