I got a chance to visit Carowinds on Saturday for their Scarowinds event. I'd never been before, and it's been a couple of years since I've been to a park for a Halloween event now. I have to say that overall I was impressed with the event and had a good time. There were pretty large crowds as it seems to be just a big year for the park in general, due in no small part to the addition of Fury 325. My group purchased the Fright Lane passes, good for essential line-skipping privileges for any of the park's seven mazes (a considerable tally) and exclusive access to the park's five "Skeleton Key" rooms in their scare zones. I typically don't like shelling out the extra dough for such systems, but I have to say that given the crowds, it was the only reasonable way to experience every maze.
The first two mazes we did were shortly after the park reopened for Scarowinds, so they were putting what I assume to be the normal number of people through the mazes at a time. This made for a better experience as there were more scares to be had while inside. As the night went on and crowds grew, they seemed to be simply shoving people through. This increased their overall capacity but decreased the overall experience; kind of a double-edged sword.
The first maze we checked out was Silver Scream Studios, a maze which starts the jumps with the photo op at the beginning. This maze, like many other in the park, was lengthier than I expected and was enjoyable overall. Studios provided a horror movie theme in which we were evidently touring the studios of a deranged director. We felt it was one of the better mazes, but that may have been because of the smaller group sizes being allowed entry at the time.
Next we headed over to Slaughterhouse, a gorier experience exploring a meat processing plant that Upton Sinclair may have had a few issues with. This was definitely one of the more PG-13 mazes, and included some good interaction with the actors inside. I really enjoyed the fact that the actors all around the park were willing to have some conversational exchanges with us, and improvise a little bit while in character. This maze also benefited from the smaller groups, and was maybe the best overall maze the park had to offer.
Zombie High was next up. Carowinds constructed a more elaborate facade for the building than I expected, since many amusement parks simply use warehouse type buildings. This was a bit of a kitschier maze, which is not necessarily a bad thing, and probably a less scary and somewhat fun 80s experience. There was one unique scare in the prom scene that I enjoyed. Overall it was a decent haunt.
Cornstalkers was a good idea with somewhat middling execution. Surrounded by corn on either side, actors were hidden on the walls throughout. My only problem is that I felt that the actors were a little too noticeable throughout. One highlight of the maze was that I was asked to make fertilizer for one of them.
Last Laff was a somewhat straightforward maze, possibly relying too much on the popular fear of clowns. The maze was advertised as being in 3D, but I'm not sure if that was supposed to be tongue-in-cheek (there was a sign for where to grab 3D glasses, but I didn't see anyone with them). There was one decent effect where the walls moved subtly that was pretty cool, and I enjoyed laughing at my friend with a clown phobia.
Defex was supposed to be a walk-through of a toy factory, but it honestly didn't seem like one. This was far from my favorite maze, and included some repeated effects from other mazes.
7th Ward was our final maze, and decidedly my least favorite. This seemed straight out of a Six Flags park and included some rudimentary scares and some really poor looking aesthetics. Carowinds should have just left it with six mazes if they weren't going to put in the same amount of effort.
One of my biggest issues with the mazes is the lack of a detailed theme. The surface theme is pretty evident for each maze, but the Scarowinds website has detailed write-ups about each maze that are not translated to the actual event. It'd be cool if they could find a way to integrate that more.
I felt that Carowinds used the scare zones to concentrate their themes to small areas instead of going park wide. They were decent, but lacking in actual scares. The wandering actors in non-scare zones did an equivalent job. These zones were home of the Skeleton Key rooms. I felt that these were a really cool idea, but a little too stilted and short, although the lines were inclined to back up a bit. My favorite room was located in The Playground. It depended too much on gross-out gags, but the actor was hilarious and interacted with us quite a bit, as did everyone in the area.
I wasn't able to see any of the shows as it took about four hours to do everything else, even with the Fright Lane pass. Overall I really enjoyed Scarowinds and think that the park went above and beyond many other regional amusement parks. Some of the theming was more extensive than I expected and at the end of the night, it was a lot of fun. I'm definitely looking forward to more of what Carowinds provides in the future.
The first two mazes we did were shortly after the park reopened for Scarowinds, so they were putting what I assume to be the normal number of people through the mazes at a time. This made for a better experience as there were more scares to be had while inside. As the night went on and crowds grew, they seemed to be simply shoving people through. This increased their overall capacity but decreased the overall experience; kind of a double-edged sword.
The first maze we checked out was Silver Scream Studios, a maze which starts the jumps with the photo op at the beginning. This maze, like many other in the park, was lengthier than I expected and was enjoyable overall. Studios provided a horror movie theme in which we were evidently touring the studios of a deranged director. We felt it was one of the better mazes, but that may have been because of the smaller group sizes being allowed entry at the time.
Next we headed over to Slaughterhouse, a gorier experience exploring a meat processing plant that Upton Sinclair may have had a few issues with. This was definitely one of the more PG-13 mazes, and included some good interaction with the actors inside. I really enjoyed the fact that the actors all around the park were willing to have some conversational exchanges with us, and improvise a little bit while in character. This maze also benefited from the smaller groups, and was maybe the best overall maze the park had to offer.
Zombie High was next up. Carowinds constructed a more elaborate facade for the building than I expected, since many amusement parks simply use warehouse type buildings. This was a bit of a kitschier maze, which is not necessarily a bad thing, and probably a less scary and somewhat fun 80s experience. There was one unique scare in the prom scene that I enjoyed. Overall it was a decent haunt.
Cornstalkers was a good idea with somewhat middling execution. Surrounded by corn on either side, actors were hidden on the walls throughout. My only problem is that I felt that the actors were a little too noticeable throughout. One highlight of the maze was that I was asked to make fertilizer for one of them.
Last Laff was a somewhat straightforward maze, possibly relying too much on the popular fear of clowns. The maze was advertised as being in 3D, but I'm not sure if that was supposed to be tongue-in-cheek (there was a sign for where to grab 3D glasses, but I didn't see anyone with them). There was one decent effect where the walls moved subtly that was pretty cool, and I enjoyed laughing at my friend with a clown phobia.
Defex was supposed to be a walk-through of a toy factory, but it honestly didn't seem like one. This was far from my favorite maze, and included some repeated effects from other mazes.
7th Ward was our final maze, and decidedly my least favorite. This seemed straight out of a Six Flags park and included some rudimentary scares and some really poor looking aesthetics. Carowinds should have just left it with six mazes if they weren't going to put in the same amount of effort.
One of my biggest issues with the mazes is the lack of a detailed theme. The surface theme is pretty evident for each maze, but the Scarowinds website has detailed write-ups about each maze that are not translated to the actual event. It'd be cool if they could find a way to integrate that more.
I felt that Carowinds used the scare zones to concentrate their themes to small areas instead of going park wide. They were decent, but lacking in actual scares. The wandering actors in non-scare zones did an equivalent job. These zones were home of the Skeleton Key rooms. I felt that these were a really cool idea, but a little too stilted and short, although the lines were inclined to back up a bit. My favorite room was located in The Playground. It depended too much on gross-out gags, but the actor was hilarious and interacted with us quite a bit, as did everyone in the area.
I wasn't able to see any of the shows as it took about four hours to do everything else, even with the Fright Lane pass. Overall I really enjoyed Scarowinds and think that the park went above and beyond many other regional amusement parks. Some of the theming was more extensive than I expected and at the end of the night, it was a lot of fun. I'm definitely looking forward to more of what Carowinds provides in the future.
