As I was planning a trip to Dorney I actually see this a letdown, especially as it could be like damming up the flow and then releasing it.
Seemed to me this last weekend it was starting to work. Not sure what to think as an all-season maze pass prepayer. Gimme Express? Still no good if it's a conga line.
Just as the rest of the season was probably going to be. I had discussions with thoosies I know right after the upcharge was announced about how this was going to depress repeat pass holder visitation but likely wouldn't have a big impact on single-day admission. The park already endured the loss of pass holder visitation throughout the early haunt season. They 100% should have anticipated the big drop in attendance they saw. It's just very obvious that pass members who previously would have visited a couple weekends throughout the event are far more likely to combine their visitation into a single trip when there's an upcharge. Given that the event's early-season attendance is always very pass member heavy, this was EASILY AND OBVIOUSLY predictable.
Meanwhile, everyone knows that the two or three weeks leading up to Halloween are slammed with general audiences—this is basically a universal truth across this industry. When you're buying a single day ticket, house admission is just factored into your purchase decision—and admission + houses is dramatically cheaper than KD's competition in Williamsburg—KD has the competitive edge on pricing regardless. I'm sure some small percentage of non-pass-holders have decided not to visit this year because of the existence of the upcharge, BUT THAT DAMAGE HAS ALMOST CERTAINLY ALREADY BEEN DONE. The park already endured the negative news cycles to get to this point—KD likely already lost most of those customers. In other words, the park already endured the VAST majority of the (tremendously foreseeable) pain they were going to for this season. By pulling everything back RIGHT AS THE TIDES WERE OBVIOUSLY GOING TO SHIFT, they're now poised to reap very little of the reward of this strategy during the sure-to-inevitably-be-slammed height of Haunt.
It's truly exceptionally stupid business. This chain repeatedly demonstrates a real obsession with shooting itself in the foot. Really, sincerely makes me question the competency of the people calling these shots.
They're apparently holding the line the Haunted Attraction Pass at the larger parks like Cedar Point, Kings Island, Carowinds and Canada's Wonderland.
Do they have some measurable data on guests not visiting the other parks due to the upcharge? Are they concerned that the capacity of the haunted attractions is not being fully utilized?
Had they framed it from the start as "We're going to start charging extra for haunted houses, but season passholders get a wristband for free on select nights" - and started with the first couple weekends (and add more if needed or if the numbers didn't pan out), I don't think it would have gone so poorly. They would actually turn an announcement like this into a positive.
I bet they would have sold some 2026 passes on that premise alone, as the price between a day ticket and a season pass isn't huge? Kind of a "Why get Medium if Large isn't much more expensive" kind of strategy?
Six Flags management needs to wake up and start planning things better from the start. There's so much entertainment out there vying for eyeballs. At least you could treat your local passholders with some respect, since they are the ones paying the most attention to all this?
“The value is roughly the same and they gained something before losing something without a change in price.”
Anyways. I heard someone try to defend this last night of “well people shouldn’t buy things like this because circumstances could change.” I shut that down right away. I also bet them we see a fight breakout at KD or any SF park that did away with this pass over the weekend.
Assuming they implement it correctly I haven't had goid luck with these we are sorry rewards and had to go to guests services multiple times to get them turned in after being yold they automatically were.
I'm not a Halloween person by any means, but Kings Dominion has now included the Haunt mazes with regular admission for the remainder of the season: KD Website
Looks like the word got around about the upcharge for mazes are gone. So far, this was the busiest Friday I've seen. FEAR, Blood On The Bayou and Trick Or Treat had some pretty decent lines tonight.
I had to go Upgrade Your Day to get the express pass replacement for all season maze access. Gift shop "heard something about it" and pointed me there. Still not as good as the solo walkthroughs earlier, but at least got some good experiences early season which makes it sometimes enough to watch others.
Still have yet to walk through Pumpkin Eater where they don't ignore me, staring menacingly at most. Cleaver Bros. and Site X deliver.
It is shoulder to shoulder tonight. KDFanatics just posted some pics to facebook and Grimmwoods’ line is past the KD Theater, Blood on the Bayou is to Skyflyer, and this is in addition to most major coasters having an hour plus wait. The word seems to have gotten around about free mazes.
Can confirm, it was pretty slammed tonight. Skipped BOTB as the “line starts here” attended said it was a 90 minute queue, and it was indeed starting in front of Skyflyer. My group could have just got very lucky with the queues when got to the mazes, but the ones we did (Fear, Grimmwoods, Cornstalkers) only took about 20 minutes each. Very solid night!
Hopefully tonight won't be too bad with it being Sunday and a chance of rain later this evening. That said, it's nice to see the event getting more guests to the park. I was originally concerned about how attendance would be affected when the upcharge was first announced.
The Crowd on Saturday Night was amazing. I know for many that won’t make it an awesome experience, but I hope Six Flags sees those crowd photos that were posted online and see what happens when you bring back free mazes. Not only that, but you could tell the scare zone monsters absolutely loved it too
Lowkey would love to see the park hit capacity this coming Saturday lol. I obviously Doubt it, but with the craziness of the merge, it’d honestly be cool
I went to Haunt this past weekend on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. And as already mentioned in the other recent posts, each day's attendance was way higher than it was the weekend before (now that the mazes are included)... where I've heard Saturday's attendance was well over 25,000.
However what I actually meant to post on, was in regards to how we're now in 'uncharted territory' (at least for what's been many years) with this year's Haunt, of how the fountain on International Street is still running.
Generally it's early/mid October that it's drained to start construction of WinterFest's skating rink. And though I'm highly saddened on the loss of WinterFest, if there is a positive, I'm enjoying the extra 'ambience' I haven't experienced here in late October (on International Street) for many years now.
And as photos don't truly convey how cool the new lighting package is: check out the attached video for some classic Rob Zombie... where I can easily "park" myself next to one the speakers there on International Street, and be entranced, watching the set over and over - as well as Drowning Pool's Bodies which generally plays right after it - as it comes on repeat every ~4 minutes or so.
