If Halloween events aren’t your thing, you may want to simply stop reading here. Then again, if you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to go to a park during the Halloween season, this may be interesting and enlightening to you.
I have to admit that prior to last year, I had never done any type of Halloween event anywhere outside of a corn maze (not haunted), so I really didn’t know what to expect. While I had fun last year, my nerves took a beating and I only managed to make it through 2 of 7 haunted houses at Busch Gardens during the 2017 season. That being said, I did have fun, and wanted to come back in 2018 and experience more of the event.
During this year’s event, I was able to attend four times (we make use of our park membership). We visited twice on Sunday, once on a Thursday night, and once on a Friday night. While we found the park to be far less crowded on the Thursday, we also found it to be much more understaffed on Thursday. If you want to see the event at full staff, I would suggest Friday or Saturday (although I’ve been told the Saturday crowds for Howl O Scream are crazy). I only went through any mazes on one of the Sundays we went and in comparison the staffing of that house was much more similar to what we experienced on Thursday, but I have friends who got some good trips through the mazes on a Sunday so the reality is that it’s hit or miss.
For this review, I will break it up into four categories: atmosphere, scare zones (Terror-tories), haunted houses, and shows.
ATMOSPHERE
In my opinion, this is where Busch Gardens gets it right even on poorly staffed nights. The park is in a fairly wooded area and they do an amazing job with lighting. They give you just enough to see without giving you so much that you can anticipate what’s ahead. Combine that with the fog that they pump in and the incredible decorations and it’s a winner. Even if you have no desire to do any of the houses, it’s worth it in my opinion just to see the park in this setting.
SCARE ZONES
Much like the mazes, the scare zone experiences are heavily dependent on staffing. What I did discover is that regardless of staffing, the experience of each area didn’t change a whole lot except the chances of interacting with the actors. One of my favorite things about these zones is that most (I did have one refusal in the Fool’s Court area) actors are more than happy to snap a photo with you. Be prepared, they will often try to scare you as soon as you take the picture. Here’s my ranking of this year’s Terror-tories.
- Vampire Point – This one wins for two reasons. The actors are incredible and diverse. You are never sure which ones are going to simply startle you by striking up a conversation or which ones are going to really come after you. The costumes and the makeup are also fantastic.
- Axe Alley – I love the actors in this area as well. Crazed vikings patrol the New France area of the park. Beware of the hidden bungee scare in this area. It’s fun to just watch that one happen over and over again.
- Fool’s Court – This was a new scare zone this year. It’s located in the France section of the park (near Griffon) and replaces the chainsaw wielding characters of Demon Street with creepy Court Jesters. In my opinion, this was an improvement from Demon Street (there’s already a chainsaw themed maze so did we really need a scare zone with them as well?). Most of the actors are great at interacting with guests. I need to give a huge shoutout to one actor in particular who decided to scare my 13 year old daughter by walking up to her and just staring at her for an uncomfortable amount of time. When it had reached the point that Carrie was really freaking out, I didn’t have to say anything. I stepped over to Carrie and just put my arm around her. The actor nodded at me and walked away. I should also use this as a note to parents. If you bring your kids, the actors will try to scare them, but in my experience, if they sense that you as a parent need them to back off, they do so.
- Ripper Row – This feels like a low ranking for such a well done scare zone (themed around Jack the Ripper), but the first three were just that good in my opinion. I really like this section of the park. It’s right inside the front gate in England so once again for parents, if you bring your kids in and don’t get them out before 6pm, you can not avoid this particular scare zone. Great theming, solid actors, and incredible costumes make this a really fun area of the park.
- Sideshow Square – It goes downhill from here. Last year this was my favorite section of the park. After all, crazy clowns, creepy ring masters…what’s not to love? This year Sideshow Square felt very much like an afterthought (much like Circo Sinistro which we’ll get into in a bit). The scare actors worked in shifts that rotated between clowns and then chainsaw wielding characters. The chainsaws seemed really out of place here although I did get a great photo with one of the actors here.
- Garden of Souls – This area was themed around the Mexican festival, Day of the Dead. While this section was probably the prettiest scare zone (a lot of great black light utilization and amazing costumes), it was also the least scary by far. It was a small scare zone which I actually think they could have taken better advantage of and really had actors coming at you from seemingly everywhere. I don’t think we ever encountered more that 4 actors working the zone at once and it was typically only 2 or 3.
SHOWS
Howl O Scream features three full length shows this year and a few other side shows in the park including an opening ceremony where Jack (the events mascot) releases the creatures into the park. We also caught a small side show involving the actors in Vampire Point as well as one in Ripper Row.
- Monster Stomp – Located in England this is a musical that tells the story of Jack the Ripper and adds some zombie play into it as well. There are also several elements of the show that will remind you of the off-broadway show Stomp. As a drummer/percussionist, I love this show. My wife also agreed that this was easily the best show in the park.
- Night Beats ReVamped – Located in the Festhaus is this Vampire themed musical review. It’s your typical trip through different eras in music. While there’s nothing to write home about with this show, the fact that you can grab a bite and get some entertainment while eating make this worth seeing.
- Fiends – Located in Ireland, I want to find something good to say about this show, but I just can’t. This show is marketed and advertised for mature audiences and with good reason. Parents, don’t take the kids and in fact….don’t take yourselves either. I get that this seems to be one of the most popular shows in the park, but it was most definitely not for us.
HAUNTED HOUSES
Now for the really good stuff. Upon leaving the park last night, my wife and I ranked our houses and actually came up with the exact same order. The only disclaimer is that I did not do Cornered this year and she did so it’s ranking is based on her experience this year. Again, from best to worst.
- Vault XX – Hands down, head and shoulders above every maze that we did this year. It’s their twenty year anniversary house so it throws multiple scenes from houses past in this maze. I have to admit that Beth and I got one trip through this house completely by ourselves on a night where it was fully staffed so we got every possible scare in the house. That said, even when we saw it not well staffed it was still pretty good. I wish they could find a way to bring it back next year, but I doubt we see Vault again until year 25.
- Demented Dimensions – This house was shipped to Williamsburg from Tampa for this year’s event and it was a really strong house. The only way to try to describe the story line is a house was built on top of some type of vortex to another world. What you get in this maze is a lot of random scene changes with a lot of unexpected scares. It’s just a really fun house and I hope it’s back for a second year next year.
- Frostbite – After our first trip to HOS this year, I would have never guessed that this maze would rank as high as it is. That first night, it was terribly staffed and honestly just not very good. Every other trip through it was a lot of fun. This is not an incredibly scary maze, but has some decent startle moments. When it’s staffed properly, I really like it. Side note – from our observations, if there were lines for mazes, this one typically seemed to be the longest line. I assume that’s because it’s actually a really good introductory maze for someone who hasn’t done this before.
- Dystopia – Of the top four mazes for this year, three of them are new mazes. Dystopia is located in the bottom of Escape from Pompeii. As the name implies it transports you to a post-apocalyptic dystopian world where the leaders are all about brain washing and mind control. The scares here are more about loud noises and some disturbing props although I have to admit that the same actor got me twice in a matter of 10 seconds. While I wish they had done a better job telling the back story before you went inside, it was still a very interesting maze to go through.
- Cornered – This is the maze that did me in last year and I didn’t go through it this year although as I sit here typing this review I’m wishing I had. Beth did go through it and said that while it was ok, last year’s version was better because in her experience this year they concentrated the scares to the end of the maze leaving the front half of the maze largely empty.
- Lumberhack – this maze is entirely outdoors so the recommendation is to wait until nightfall to do it. Having only done it in the dark, I would actually recommend doing it both at dusk and then again after dark. It’s so dark back in the woods that you don’t really get to see many of the props. On the flip side, it’s so dark that you can’t really see the scare actors in a lot of the areas either. My biggest issue with this maze was its length. I don’t think it took us 2 minutes to walk through it. The scares are what you would expect. You get chased around by chainsaw wielding maniacs. Always a good time.
- Circo Sinistro – What an absolute disappointment this maze was. This was the other maze I did last year and I really liked it then. It was just bad this year. Everything from the opening ‘pre-show’ scene to the lack of actors in the maze screamed budget cuts. It was almost the exact same as last year as far as the layout. The only change was they took out the Dollhouse Room (although that room was still on all the signs in the theming area) and traded it out with the Snake Lady room. This room did provide my one startle and the costume there was fantastic, but everything else about this maze just fell flat.
Overall, this was still a very solid year for Howl O Scream in Williamsburg. I’m not remotely naive enough to think that this is an overly scary event, but for someone like me who has never been big on Halloween stuff, it’s a great experience and it has become one of my favorite times to go to the park. Riding roller coasters with no lights on them is another added bonus.
One thing that was advertised that we were never fortunate enough to see happen was getting to ride with scare actors. I know it was random timing so in order to get the experience you had to be lucky, so if you went and got that experience, let me know in the comments.
We already know that unless BGW throws us a curveball that Vault XX will not be returning as a house next year. I would also expect to see one of the following three make an exit: Circo Sinistro, Cornered, or Lumberhack. All three have been around for at least three seasons now and it may be time to change a couple of them out. I would also like to see them go back to spreading the houses out across the park. Five of the seven houses were located in the Oktoberfest section of the park. On our last trip to the park, we literally did 4 of those 5 houses in 45 minutes. I know they weren’t going to close down their new VR attraction in Ireland to do a maze as they’ve done in the past, but maybe next year they can do it again. They also didn’t utilize the area in France that previously housed Catacombs.
We are already looking forward to next year’s version of HOS. Did you go this year? What are your thoughts? Do you agree or disagree with my observations? Leave some comments.
The Journey Of Ascent 