rumble

Haunt weekend 2! The crowds have started to pick up, but the park seems to be coping well, and continue to tweak operations to improve the experience. Friday I did not experience Mirror Mirror on opening weekend due to the large lines, so decided to head straight back to this new attraction at opening to beat the crowds, only to find the attraction had not yet opened when I got there. I asked if they had any idea when it would be opening but the guys working at the attraction weren't really sure. I decided to hang around for a bit and was glad I did because about after about 10 minutes the attraction was open. There was nobody else in line and I was just about enter the maze when Great America GM Raul Rehnborg and his guest arrived and entered the maze too (they didn't have to wear the plastic gloves that keep the fingerprints of us regular folks from smudging the mirrors) and I bumped in to them a couple of times in the maze. I found my way through the maze pretty quickly, probably because there was only a few people in there, and I was back out in open air in just a couple of minutes. The brief experience inside the maze certainly isn't worth the 90 minute waits its had this weekend. Its also worth noting that if you suffer from claustrophobia you may also want to skip Mirror Mirror. Operationally Great America seem to be suffering all the same problems that Knott's occurred when running this maze last year. The maze has a woefully small capacity of just 81 people at a time which coupled with the open-ended nature of the attraction adds up to long, slow-moving lines. Its good of Cedar Fair to take another shot with this maze, but really I don't think its working very well, not to mention that except for the creepy characters (which had wonderfully detailed costumes and makeup) inside the maze it isn't actually a haunted attraction. Next up I took another trip through Wax Museum, which continues its excellent run. There seemed to be more scareactors in the maze this weekend which added some much needed life to a few of the quiet spots I mentioned in my review of the maze from opening weekend. There were some "victim" scareactors in the maze too, regular looking folk, except for molten wax dripping down their faces, screaming for help. This really added to the story line of the maze. I also spotted a great set piece in the final room where a disfigured wax work, perched high atop a stack of boxes, flings a large wax corpse along a rail on the ceiling, passing just inches above your head. All in all this maze continues to be one of my favourites at the park this year. I also hit Toy Factory and Cornstalkers for the first time this year. Toy Factory remains unchanged from last year (save for the addition of a skeleton key room - more about that later). Due to its unique theme and retro toy references it continues to be a very popular maze but for me its a mixed bag. There are some wonderful rooms, such as the shocking strobe-light kids bedroom and collection of creepy garbling doll heads, but there are other parts of the maze that feel a bit shabby and way too smoky. Like Carnevil it also suffers from being unpleasantly humid in the maze and could benefit from some air conditioning. This said there are some excellent, creepy, scareactors in the maze. A real favourite of mine was the kid in the Superman suit who kept getting right in my face laughing maniacally. There are also some wonderful costumes and makeup design. I love the concept and design of Cornstalkers but on my trip through the maze was very low on scareactors with large sections where nothing much really happens and missed opportunities for some startle scares. I remember this maze as being really super last year, so not sure what's gone wrong this year. The few scareactors that I did run in to did a pretty good job, and there was a really cool pumpkin head guy who was great to look at. It is neat to get a look at the Grizzly and Demon from this angle though. Also took in a showing of Academy Of Villains which continues to be excellent and Nytewalkers, which continues to draw decent sized crowds, and has tweaked the ending of the show to include a much-deserved curtain call for wonderfully talented performers. Saturday We anticipated that tonight would be busy so decided it would be a great opportunity to try out the Frightlane pass and the new Skeleton Key rooms. Sure enough when we got to the park it was crowded and there were long lines for all the mazes. Mirror Mirror, Roadkill Roadhouse and Zombie High looked to have the longest lines, and Goldstriker had full switchbacks. Glad we invested in the Frightlane passes! I thought the execution of the Skeleton Key rooms varied considerably across the different mazes. I won't give away any of the surprises but they range from one or two wonderfully unexpected experiences to some that feel a little uninspired, or under budget. As the Skeleton Key is an up-charge its a shame not all of the experiences exhibit the same level of quality. One thing that differed from the original execution of the Skeleton Key room concept at Knott's is that Great America's rooms are not used at the beginning of the mazes to provide backstory for the maze, but are instead located at points at varying distances through the maze which you have to find yourself based on the directions given to you by the team member at the entrance to the maze. Presumably this was done due to the limitations of retro-fitting the rooms in to existing mazes, and the on paper that idea is a fun one, but I found in practice that Skeleton Key groups tended to race through the maze until they found the entrance to the Skeleton Key room. I'd already seen all the mazes previously, but can imagine it could be distracting looking for the Skeleton Key room if it was your first pass through. I also found it easy to miss the entrance to the Skeleton Key room in some on the mazes, and in fact walked right past in in Toy Factory, causing a team member stationed at the door to come running after me. It would be a good idea to place a consistent sign or logo on the entrance to each of the Skeleton Key rooms, like a glow in the dark logo or something similar. This way they could tell you just to look out for the logo as you work through the maze. All in all, however I really liked Skeleton Key and hope that the park rollout the concept to all mazes next year. On Saturday night I also had the most bizarre and entertaining experiences I've had at Haunt. My date had left early and I was the only person in the Fastlane line for Massacre Manor when three of the Heavy Metal loving Goblin scareactors that have been roaming the park showed up and said they were here to see Madame Marie for a private tour of her Massacre Manor, and would I like to join them? You bet, I replied and sure enough Madame Marie appeared and proceeded to show us around before leading us in to the Skeleton Key room (which is a must-see experience). This was a wonderful spontaneous experience that really showcased these great performers, who all stayed in perfect character. Its great to see the park adding this kind of "streetmosphere" entertainment as it really makes the park feel alive. It was a really fun end to another great weekend at Haunt.

Hi, I'm interested in finding out opinions on Frightfest and looking for some advice on whether it's worth the trip up from the South Bay. Has anybody done both Frightfest and Halloween Haunt at Great America? How do the two events compare?

The graveyard of past rides near Vortex has a pretty big clue that Kidzville's days are numbered: Kidzville is adjacent to Joe Cool Cafe and the Snoopy Boutique at one end (I always thought these, and Peanuts Pirates, were oddly seperated from the main Planet Snoopy area), and the new Peanuts Party Zone at the other. It wouldn't take much to merge everything together in to one large Peanuts land, and certainly the area could do with sprucing up.

I visited Haunt again on Saturday night to pick a few more things of the list. I still haven't seen all the mazes this year, but that's one of the luxuries of being a pass-holder; you can take your time to soak in the details and not have to rush to squeeze everything into one night. Here's what I did last night: Roadkill Roadhouse is one of this year's new mazes. It replaces Slaughterhouse, but is pretty similar in both concept and execution. I heard that a lot of the props and costumes were shipped up from Knott's where they were part of that park's Uncle Willy's BBQ Slaughterhouse maze. The maze feels quite similar in style to Zombie High, with lots of campy gory scenes. The line for this maze was a mess, rather than use the queue-line ropes that most of the other mazes use guests are lined up alongside the back of the maze. Its way too wide a space and results in kids constantly cutting in line. Great America need to add some security to this area to crack down on the line jumpers. Next up I took a couple of passes through Madame Marie's Massacre Manor. I think this is the best maze at the park. The interior is so wonderfully detailed it really does feel like you are exploring an authentic haunted house. The scareactors are also the cream of the crop in this maze and I love how they address you directly it really makes you feel like part of the story. The climactic scene is wonderfully frantic and is a great alternative to some of the other mazes which have very abrupt endings. I can wait to go through this maze again. My last maze of the night was Carnevil, which I actually ended up going through four times due to the lack of a line, in fact the maze was oddly quiet all night, this of course worked in my favor as I got a lot of personal attention from the creepy circus folk inside. Carnevil is the same as it always is, "classic" you could say and there are some fun gags and good scareactors in the maze, but to be honest it is starting to feel a little long in the tooth now, and some of the scenes and props are looking quite shabby now. It would be great to see a freshened up Carnevil 2.0 next year, or even a brand new maze with the same creepy circus theme. I also took in another showing of both Nytewalkers and Academy Of Villains. Nytewalkers was a little tweaked from opening night, with an MC added at the end. Academy Of Villains was yet again spectacular. The park also had some scareactors out interacting with the crowds outside of the scarezones. I saw scareactors in the lines for Roadhouse and Massacre Manor which made the waits pass by quickly. I also saw roaming scareactors out on the midway by Drop Tower, and of course Madame Marie was out in front of the Chicken Resturant. I thought this was a great bonus touch. I had hoped to see Mirror Mirror too, but by the time I made it around that side of the park it had a huge line, stretching all the way back in to Kidzville. I heard that when this attraction was at Knott's last year the line was very slow moving due to the limited capacity of the maze and it looks like the same problem is occurring at Great America too. Plan to see Mirror Mirror, Toy Factory and Cornstalkers next weekend, as well as checking out the Skeleton Key rooms. Speaking of which, I saw a lot of people who had Frightlane passes use them to skip very short or even non-existant lines at the beginning of the night. If you buy one of these passes I would recommend that you use the regular standby line for the first hour or so that the park is open and then when the park gets busy later in the evening use your Frightlane.

Haunt last night was a blast. Here are a few of my thoughts and some pics. The new stage in Celebration Plaza has displaced the traditional "Overlord's Awakening" opening ceremony. In its place was a much simpler opening ceremony where scores of scareactors flooded out of the Haunt RV. Wax Museum is one of two new mazes this year and is a trip through a chamber of horrors filed with grotesque wax works, some of which spring to life. The exterior of the maze looks great with a huge illuminated marquee, and a showman barker drawing you in. I thought that this was a pretty good maze with really good attention to detail. It was also great that its a maze that tells a story, with an awesome sinister twist at the end. My criticism would be that the middle section of the maze was really lacking in scareactors, and I went through several rooms passing the wax dioramas where not one sprung to life as advertised! Lets hope they can add a few more scareactors to these empty rooms. The other new maze, Roadkill Roadhouse, went down whilst I was waiting in line, so I didn't get to check that out yet. Zombie High was new last year, and still looks great. It's a really detailed maze with lots of campy visual gags and stereotypical highschool characters. There's a spot right before you enter the maze where they take your photo, which I don't remember from last year (could be wrong on this though). Also saw Dia De Los Muertos which holds up well from last year too. I really like the outdoor sections and twisting walkways. The room with the hanging bodies - with a scareactor or two mixed in - was one of my favorite scares from last year, so was disappointed that there was nobody lurking in that room this year. This maze is located behind Gold Striker, so if you're a coaster nerd its fun to see the ride from this angle. This year's new scarezone, Ironworx, uses the covered bridge in All American Corners. This is a pretty small area compared to the other scarezones in the park, but it works quite well. There are lots of clanging pipes and banging drums and the scareactors have wonderfully detailed "steam punk" costumes. The Gauntlet, in Orleans Place is Haunt's signature scarezone. Whereas last year I felt this scarezone was a bit lacking, with nowhere enough scareactors for such a huge space, last night it was overflowing with maniacal circus scareactors, including a stiltwalker, human monkey, ringmaster and lots of scary clowns. A really great scarezone. Lets hope they keep this up for the whole of Haunt. The final scarezone, Underworld Alley, back by Invertigarden, is the same snooze-fest that it was last year. There were way too few scareactors, I walked right through without seeing a single one. I like that they've added more smoke and decorations to the tunnel to help add some atmosphere to the area, but I really hope that they add some more scareactors here too. There are also two excellent new shows at Haunt this year, and both are well worth taking to the time to see. Nytewalkers is the first, and is presented several times a night, sorry nyte, on the huge new stage in Celebration Plaza. This show mashes up acrobatics, gymnastics, parkour, dance, video and lighting effects and ear-splittingly loud music. The whole stage is constantly in use, with action wherever you look. You really need to see the show several times to take it all in. One thing I found a little odd was that the show has a very abrupt ending and the performers walk off without taking a bow. After all the energy and effort they put in, I think the performers could be afforded a moment of applause. Was good to see that the show was pulling a decent size crowd too. The final new show is Academy Of Villains. AoV is a hip-hop dance group from San Francisco, who had a brief moment in the limelight on America's Got Talent. The group have been part of the El Vira show at Knott's Scary Farm for the past two seasons, but this is their first headline show at a Haunt. The show mixes dance, comedy and illusion and is definitely not-to-be-missed in my opinion. The park wasn't too crowded, especially early on in the event, but by 9ish lines were starting to form at all mazes. It was actually great to see so many people in the park for opening night. Based on this my advice for any one planning on visiting Haunt would be to get there at opening and see as many of the mazes early on as possible, then once the crowds start to pick up see the shows. The mazes as the back of the park are also pretty deserted at park opening, so its a great opportunity to see these without crowds. As you can see from above I didn't see that many mazes last night as I was concentrating on the live entertainment and scarezones, so am planning on going back tonight to see the rest of the mazes, and maybe do the Skeleton Key rooms too.

With less than a week until opening night, preparations for Haunt are well underway at the park. Let's have a look at how things are going: These propane tanks mean the flame throwers will be back lining the pool at the front of the park, makes for a great entry to Haunt. The cemetery by Vortex remembers the rides of Great America's past. A huge stage and lighting rig has been assembled in Celebration Plaza for the brand new NyteWalkers show. The show will feature the same kind of acrobatics we saw in the summer Aerial Ice Extreme show, and promises to be the biggest show in Great America's Haunt history. The Blades of Horror ice show will also be back in this year. Roadkill Road House is one of this year's new mazes, and replaces Slaughterhouse. M aggie Brown's is decked out for Halloween, but it doesn't appear that last year's transformation to "Madame Marie's Voodoo Chophouse" pre-Haunt buffet is returning. I wonder if it wasn't popular enough last year, certainly the time I went it there was only a handful of people there. Speaking of Madame Marie, the facade for her maze, Massacre Manor, is up and looking great. These "Code of Conduct" signs are displayed prominently outside all mazes. The Haunt RV is parked up by Bezerker. I wonder if this will get moved to its usual spot outside the main entrance. Cornstalkers is back again this year. One of my favorite mazes. Toy Factory is also back for another year. Good to see they are prepared to handle long lines for the mazes this year. The Zombie High marquee looks great. The entrance is a five minute walk from the maze, around the outside of the park. Many rides, including Delirium, have received a touch of seasonal decoration. Wax Museum: Chamber of Horrors is the other new maze for this year. I think this is the first time this building has been used for a maze. The line for Wax Museum wraps along the waterside. Another must see show at haunt will be Academy of Villains, who will be taking up residency in the Showtime Theatre. The dance troupe from San Francisco also appear in Knott's Elvira show. Orleans Place has begun its transformation in to the Gauntlet scare-zone, home of twisted circus performers. Carnevil is back, so is Jack! Hopefully that whets your appetite for Haunt. I'll try and share some pictures from the event new weekend.

Yeah, I noticed this too recently: Even the new pavilion says "Great America" only: Looks good if you ask me, but I actually think it's just trying to make it super clear where to go for the theme park versus the stadium, as the parking lot is being split off in to two separate zones at times, for example tonight there was a 49ers practice session which half the parking lot was being used for. Also, to be fair, everyone around here calls the park "Great America" anyway (and some old timers still call it "Marriot's Great America"!) so its not that big a deal.

Get to the park for opening and you'll be able to get all the major rides done pretty quickly without have to purchase Fast Lane. Assuming Gold Striker will still be down, head first to Flight Deck, then head to the back of the park and do Psycho Mouse and Tiki Twirl as these two rides build up lines later in the day. After this the Grizzly should be open (it opens later than the rest of the park) and head back to the front of the park riding Demon and Vortex on your way. If you want to take in the water slides in Boomerang Bay, try and do so before noon when the water park starts to get busy. Spend the afternoon doing the flats and water-rides. The water rides can get some long lines when its hot, but the lines move pretty quickly. I find the park can get pretty busy on Friday evenings when people come by after work for the fireworks. If you've done all the rides by then, grab a beer and watch some of the excellent shows the park has to offer. The park does not offer single rider lines.

I don't buy the trims theory either - there's barely a straight section on the entire ride to fit them, and again we haven't seen any activity on the ride to suggest that this is anything more than a crazy idea.

Was at the park on Wednesday afternoon and tonight, no sign of activity at all on or around Gold Striker. The ride now has this themed closed for business sign: Even with the ride closed "Fun TV" continues to loop endlessly in the queue line! LOL. I asked around a bit, to see if any one knew what was up with the ride and when it might be re-opened but nobody knew anything. The best I got was from someone at guest services who said there was "a major problem with the ride, but they don't tell us any more than that". I'm not convinced by the broken chain theory - the ride has had a lot of sporadic downtime before its extended closure, which isn't indicative of a suddenly broken chain. Still, who knows, could be anything!

Are you aware that the park is closed on 8/17 due to the Niners game? Hope that doesn't affect your plans!

I am really concerned and curious at what is causing this now, especially as CGA had it's busiest day in at least a decade yesterday and they knew it would be..if they couldnt get it up for that, something is seriously wrong. Every single ride was using all switchbacks yesterday and all were spilling out the entrance. I'm guessing the wait for Grizzly topped 3 hours. Mind blowing to think waiting that long for that ride. Yep was down again all day today (Sunday): I'm at the park most weekends and have definitely noticed Gold Striker's short periods of downtime have become more frequent over the past month or so. It is not uncommon to see the ride go down for an hour or so at least once a day. Does seem unusual for such a new ride.

I think that this is the on-going project refurbishing the picnic pavilion, which will include a new entrance directly in to the pavilion area from the parking lot. "Centurion" is a name registered by Cedar Fair, allegedly for a future attraction at a park in the chain.

Batman is running backwards until June 15, so looks like it will be back to normal for WCB. Source:

Just ordered my tickets! Excited to be attending, last year's event was a lot of fun. Thanks for organizing TPR!

I was at the park until closing last night, and both Kidzville and Planet Snoopy were open until the park closed at 10pm.

A decent size crowd turned out for opening day. After a short opening ceremony it was down to business with everyone running to Gold Stiker which had a solid hour wait for most of the morning. Happy to report no new walls or tunnels! Heavy rain hit around lunchtime, the park emptied significantly and lines reduced respectively. A big change this year is the installation of TVs in the lines for each of the major rides, broadcasting fun facts, weather forecasts and blaring out music videos. I was kind of dubious about this new addition as I was worried it would be used for nothing but intrusive, incessant advertising, like the TVs at Six Flags, but actually there was actually very little advertising and the programming was quite well done. Operations were typical for opening day, with most crews still finding their rhythm a little, Demon operations however were a shambles; nobody seemed to know what they were supposed to be doing on that ride. Flight Deck has brand new coat of paint! The ride looks awesome. The new wheel covers aren't as fun as the old sharks and eagles. Despite the new paint job all the early 90s fighter jet junk is still in the queue. The new track color scheme and train details make me wonder if a de-theme was originally on the cards (or maybe for the future?) The rain set in at around 1pm and a number of rides closed, including Pyscho Mouse, Tiki Twirl and Delta Flyers/Eagle's Flight. The bad weather thinned the crowds significantly. The rain was no problem for Gold Striker, which is still running phenomenally. The big stage has been removed from behind the carousel, looks like something new may get aded here for a new show called -ugh- "#playlist". Felt bad for these guys stuck in line for season pass processing during the rain. The line stretched right back around to the entrance to Orleans Place.

Progress on Flight Deck. Front half of the ride looks complete. Back half of the ride is making good progress. Work has begun on priming the lift hill and station.

California's Great America - 7 miles Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk - 30 miles Gilroy Gardens - 37 miles