It’s solely the center of September, however the spooky season has been in full swing at most theme parks for at the least per week or two, if no more. You could have your decide of onerous ticket Halloween occasions. At this level, each park has one. I definitely haven’t been to all of them, however I’ve been to a couple, and lately I added Howl-O-Scream at SeaWorld San Diego to the checklist.
Having by no means been to Howl-O-Scream, and having not even been to SeaWorld in longer than I care to confess, I didn’t actually know what to anticipate from the expertise, however after having accomplished it, I’m definitely glad I did. It could not have been the largest or the scariest Halloween occasion I’ve been to, however that’s not a nasty factor. And in a technique, it was completely the weirdest.
Howl-O-Scream Is Smaller Than Halloween Horror Nights, However That is Not A Dangerous Factor
On paper, it’s troublesome to not evaluate Howl-O-Scream to one thing like Common Studios’ Halloween Horror Nights. Each occasions have a number of haunted homes, walk-through points of interest with distinctive themes that current distinctive alternatives for bounce scares. Each have Scare Zones, open-air areas crammed with scare actors so as to add to the ambiance, and infrequently bounce out at you from the darkness. Each have distinctive themed food and drinks.
Evaluating them straight throughout, SeaWorld definitely appears small. It has 5 haunted homes, in comparison with the eight you’ll discover at Common Studios Hollywood or the ten you’ll get when you go to the identical occasion in Orlando. Nonetheless, simply because SeaWorld could have a smaller occasion, that doesn’t make it any much less.
Whereas it’s nice that some parks can supply quite a lot of choices for haunted points of interest at Halloween, the extra you’ve got, the harder it’s to really do all of them in a single go to. On my current journey to Halloween Horror Nights, I used to be barely in a position to do all eight homes, plus the Terror Tram, and that was with the Categorical Cross that was supplied to me.
At Howl-O-Scream, I additionally had the occasion’s Fast Queue skill, however even with out it, I might have been in a position to expertise all 5 homes in an inexpensive period of time. This gave me rather more time to expertise all the pieces else SeaWorld needed to supply. Three of the park’s curler coasters have been open to be used, and driving curler coasters at evening is nearly all the time superior to driving them in daylight. I additionally had loads of time to benefit from the park’s glorious food and drinks. And talking of drink…
How To Uncover Howl-O-Scream’s Hidden Secrets and techniques
One of many distinctive parts of Howl-O-Scream is that every of the haunted homes has a singular location that isn’t a part of the traditional path. Every home has a hidden speakeasy. If you could find the hidden door and provides the password (test social media), you may enter every home’s themed bar. Each has a singular cocktail in addition to the Howl-O-Scream “Blood bag.”
Whereas that is clearly an added boon to anybody on the lookout for an grownup beverage, it gave every home just a little one thing additional that was value in search of out, even when you didn’t want one other drink. It added some enjoyable to the expertise, and it was cool to see a part of the homes that not all people would expertise.
And the truth that Howl-O-Scream is just a bit bit smaller an occasion is a part of what made this work. One imagines that any kind of “hidden” location wouldn’t be so hidden if crowds have been huge. There’d be a line telling you precisely the place to go, and that’s not practically as a lot enjoyable.
Howl-O-Scream Is Extra About Creepy Than Scary
After I attended Halloween Horror Nights earlier this month, it was my first time, and an enormous motive for that was my private aversion to the idea of bounce scares. I hate them, and I knew that HHN would have quite a lot of them, so I tended to keep away from the occasion.
Because it turned out, I didn’t thoughts the bounce scares practically as a lot as I anticipated to, which is a part of the explanation I used to be able to attempt once more with SeaWorld’s Howl-O-Scream occasion. And it seems bounce scares weren’t practically as massive a problem right here both, although not as a result of they didn’t trouble me a lot as there simply weren’t as many.
It’s to not say they don’t exist, there are scare actors each in scare zones and within the homes who will bounce at you below the precise circumstances, however they’re much fewer and additional between right here. This isn’t a nasty factor, because it makes the bounce scares that do occur a bit extra impactful, as they’re far much less predictable, but in addition, if you don’t love bounce scares, it’s only a higher expertise.
The haunted homes are rather more targeted on being spooky than scary. As any individual who can recognize the ambiance of a horror film much more than any extra visceral frights, I can get behind this. And issues will be even lighter than that. I watched scare actors within the Scare Zones interacting with youngsters in quite a lot of methods. They’d be spooky with teenagers who have been possible on the lookout for that, however for youthful youngsters, the actors might really be fairly humorous, in order to not make these youngsters uncomfortable.
Monster Stomp On Ripper Row is An Absolute Fever Dream That Wants To Be Skilled
Whereas I loved my time at Howl-O-Scream, an outline of the expertise is incomplete with out discussing the wildest theme park present I’ve seen in a very long time. Monster Stomp On Ripper Row is what occurs whenever you take the improvised percussion of a Stomp stage present, mix it with late nineteenth-century English prostitute homicide, after which throw in a splash of rock opera for good measure. The ultimate present is about 40% weirder than that sounds.
I can’t actually describe the present past this. Was there a plot? Probably not, not one which I adopted anyway. It was extra only a collection of musical setpieces, however each was wilder than the final, and the forged on stage gave each minute of it their all. When the glow-in-the-dark skeletons begin dancing to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” you assume you’ve seen all the pieces, till the complete forged breaks right into a rendition of Candy’s “Ballroom Blitz” for causes I can solely assume made sense to any individual sooner or later.
How Does Howl-O-Scream Stack Up To Different Theme park Halloween Experiences?
Evaluating theme park Halloween occasions isn’t a lot about deciding which one is best and determining what kind of expertise you’re on the lookout for. Usually talking, you’ve got Common Halloween Horror Nights on one finish of the spectrum, and Disney’s occasions like Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween social gathering and the Oogie Boogie Bash on the opposite. Every of these principally tells you precisely what it’s on the label.
SeaWorld San Diego’s Howl-O-Scream matches properly in between in the case of its thrill issue. It’s going to present you extra scary moments than Disney, and may act as a strong stepping stone to one thing extra tense if you wish to see when you’d be up for that.
Howl-O-Scream can also be merely enjoyable. It’s a worthwhile expertise to take a look at for followers of theme parks, followers of Halloween, and particularly individuals who love each.,