Went to the park yesterday, and I have to say, the park was in pretty good shape. I'd say that was the best Fright Fest I have seen there, but there was one part of the event that was disappointing.
The good:
one of the biggest improvements, food. Love or hate him, Selim is overhauling food and my eye test is extremely impressed. Years past, on a slammed Saturday fright fest, I would wait 60-90 minutes for food. For dinner yesterday I waited in one of the longest lines, and it was still only ~25 mins. Fries were hot and crispy. Most locations were open too.
Bathrooms were in the best shape I've seen them. They have always been relatively clean, but in years past the water has always been freezing. I was able to find warmer water more often than not.
Fright Fest decorations were great. The most I have actually seen, actually. More lights, more fog, I thought the park looked great.
The not so good:
Scareactor distribution. Draw a line through the park, from front entrance to X-Flight. I only saw 2 scareactors on the west half (Southwest Territory, Demon). I was absolutely shocked. There has always been at least one, if not multiple, scareactors lurking by the overpass for the train in between Viper and the small games straight. This has always been one of my favorite places to walk and there was nobody there. The walk between JLBFM and BB is always a great one too, and when we walked through there, there were no scareactors. We finished walking through, and there was one scareactor talking to security. One scareactor for that stretch?? Extremely disappointing. Meanwhile, the east half of the park was appropriately staffed and felt normal. But then at 10:30 we were walking by carousel and all the scareactors were heading back (wherever they go). The last half hour had no scareactors, at least when we walked from carousel to Goliath. That's really upsetting too.
Also, what's the point of a dueling coaster if you can't have both sides open on a fright fest Saturday? Red is surely done for the year, there's one train transferred off and the other train is missing. There's decorations in the red side operating booth. If one side can only be open, can it at least be red instead of blue?