JACKSON, N.J.-
We took the kids to Fright Fest at our local Six Flags over the weekend, and boy did we experience a lot of horror.
But it wasn’t the kind of horror we were expecting.
Let’s start with the ticket prices: $60 a person. First we realized we could get a $20-per-ticket discount by buying them over the Internet, but then we figured we might as well buy season passes, which will be good for all of 2007. So that brought the fees to $80 per person, for a total of $320. Terrifying, and we hadn’t seen a single ghoul yet!
We arrived around 4 p.m., planning to get a few hours of rides in before walking the Terror Trail after sunset. We decided to spring for Priority Parking – $20 versus 15 for regular parking – on the theory that, having already spent hundreds of dollars just to get in the door, what’s another $5?
Our first clue about what the evening was to hold was when the parking attendant said Priority Parking was already sold out. Uh-oh. Cue up the scary music, please.
So we parked in regular parking. There were a million or so cars there before us, so we had a very long walk to the park gate.
But more horrors awaited. As we handed over our gold-plated tickets, which I realized cost about the same as flying to Miami for the weekend, we stepped through the metal detector for the mandatory search. Of course, that wasn’t really a surprise; searches at a lot of amusement parks predate 9/11.
I was quite taken aback, however, to see four police officers in bulletproof vests, holding machine guns at the ready, standing prominently so that every patron of Six Flags could see them as we entered the park for our night of lighthearted family fun. The park had promised us a Terror Trail – we just didn’t realize how far-reaching the implications were.
Our next revelation was just how crowded the park was. I guess the lack of Priority Parking should have tipped us off, but we must have been in denial. The lines for the rides were as long as they are on the most beautiful summer weekend. We go to the park enough in the warm weather to know that if you expect to ride the big coasters like Medusa or Superman, you need to get there before the place opens and then run to the ride gate to be first in line. But somehow we naively thought on a cool October night, most people wouldn’t be thinking about riding a roller coaster. My older son and a friend waited 90 minutes for Nitro before bagging it; my younger son and his dad and I didn’t even bother waiting for Skull Mountain after an attendant estimated the wait at two hours. Life is too short, and Skull Mountain isn’t even that great of a ride.
So we bided our time until dark. We strolled around, the kids played a few games (more money down the drain!) and we ate some chicken and fries and shared a soda. (We avoided focusing on one potential horror by pointedly not asking for nutritional information about the saturated fat, transfat, salt and calorie content of our otherwise yummy dinner.)
Time for the Terror Trail. Our season passes came with a voucher allowing us to skip what looked like a three-hour line, and I decided to magnanimously give my voucher to my son’s friend, who did not have a season pass. I was secretly dreading the Terror Trail anyway, having been scared out of my wits on one at the Six Flags in Springfield, Mass., so I was just as happy to let this boy experience the terror in my place. The one time I’d gone on it, blood-covered madmen jumped out from behind trees waving chainsaws and zombies emerged from abandoned schoolbuses to stalk me; it was so well-done that each time I was accosted, it took me a half-second to remember that it wasn’t real. I was hoarse from screaming – and from laughing – by the time it was over, and I had no problem skipping an opportunity to go through it again.
Imagine my surprise when my family and my son’s friend came off the Terror Trail and pronounced it completely lame. It wasn’t scary at all they said – just a couple of people in bad face paint making eye contact as they walked by. We decided to try Hayride to the Unknown, which Six Flags’ literature suggested was scarier than the Terror Trail by saying that it wasn’t appropriate for those under 13, but it wasn’t very scary either. Or maybe the problem was that after waiting on line for an hour, we were too tired to be scared.
By now it was 11 p.m. We’d spent hundreds of dollars, gone on hardly any rides and experienced two Halloween-themed events that were about as terrifying as an episode of SpongeBob. Time to go home.
Unfortunately one last horror – a real one – awaited us. Everyone in the park decided to leave at the same time. We got in our car at 11:40 p.m., and got out of the park at 1:30 a.m. It was the worst gridlock I have ever experienced, and I have lived in New York City all of my life. Imagine 10,000 cars funneling from 50 different roads into three lanes, and you’ll understand why it took so long. The kids fell asleep within short order; all my husband and I could do was quietly curse and groan, and swear that we would never subject ourselves to the horrors of Fright Fest again.
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This week’s advice: If you’re planning to take in a Halloween-themed event, read consumer reviews before you go. TripAdvisor and Epinions.com are good sources of candid information from folks who can give you the lowdown on crowds, long lines and whether the hassles are worth your time and money. If you don’t find anything already posted about the event you’re interested in, post a query and give it 24 hours. Chances are you’ll get some feedback. Do know that Halloween events get more popular every year; if you’re going to an amusement park, consider ways in which you might plan your visit in order to avoid the biggest bubble of crowds. Arriving early and leaving early might be one way. Look at discounts offered by the park; deepest discounts will be offered on days and hours when the crowds are lightest, so save yourself money and aggravation and try to go at the times that are least popular with the general public. Or choose a smaller venue over a bigger well-known one.
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