Queen Mary's Dark Harbor 2019

[coasterlvr]

Queen Mary's Dark Harbor Fear Lives Here

 

Theme Park Review was invited to media/opening night of Dark Harbor. Personally, I haven't been to Dark Harbor, now celebrating its 10th year. I remember on school field trips to the Queen Mary always being kind of spooked out by the place. Being old and thinking it would sink or something. LOL So I guess I still have some of those memories lingering in the back of my mind while navigating the 3 on board mazes.

 

The Dark Harbor ship mazes, Feast, B340, and Lullaby all make good use of the dark and gloomy parts of the Queen Mary. The soundtracks greatly add to the anticipation of the next scare around the corner. Also in the Queen Mary we sometimes lost which direction to go because of some extreme darkness.

 

What I found great about some areas of the mazes is it felt like there weren't some crazy safety guidelines and that they trusted the guests not to be stupid. Reminded me of Knoebels, where there isn't overbearing safety regulations, and that's a great thing! But with something like 13 bars scattered around the event, I'm sure there had to be some that went home with scrapes, bumps, and bruises.

 

There's a good amount of stuff to do and see besides the mazes. A lot of food options. Again, like 13 bars scattered throughout the area and inside mazes. A swing from Michael Jackson's ranch, and also a few shows, slider, aerial, and fire.

 

Dark Harbor doesn't have that corporate feel of HHN and Fright Fest which I also attended this month, and I think that's great. The scare actors Thursday all seemed really into it and having fun. By far my favorite out of the three events I've gone to this month.

 

This is a great effect with lasers and fog. The scare actors can just sit below the laser line and not be seen at all.

One of the few areas where you need to get down on your hands and knees and crawl through.

Scare actor that you have to walk under. This hallway is 100% pitch black. Then a strobe light turns on and this is what you see. LOL

Random toilet

Crawling through the meat grinder.

This is a reoccurring theme. Turn into a dark room, or hall and come face to face with a scare actor.

[jedimaster1227]

My interest in Dark Harbor this year has grown as Dark Horizon gets ready to open here in Orlando from the same team. I'm always scheming of a way to get back to SoCal for the Halloween season (Haunted Mansion Holiday and HHN are enough of a reason) but if I were to, Dark Harbor would definitely be on my itinerary. Thanks for sharing!

[robbalvey]

I've added a video of all the haunted houses at Queen Mary Dark Harbor:

[KBrylczyk]

Can't wait to get back to Dark Harbor in a few weeks. Looking at the walkthrough videos it seems at least two of the shipboard haunts were reversed (meaning you begin the haunt at last year's exit, exit at last year's entrance) which will make for some interesting new routes. Rogue also looks excellent. Deadrise was pretty terrible last year, easily the worst of the event, so it looks like the repurposed sets for Rogue are getting some new life!