Usually this is a good deal for us, but not this year. You have to book the Boo-fet in advance and they give you a reservation time. Well, ours was 6:00 pm, and we made a reservation for 4. We showed up at 5:45 and got in line to check in. It turned out that Knott's was not honoring the reservation times and was just letting people into the dinner when ever they got in line. You can imagine the mess this caused. So many people were let in before us that the buffet was overwhelmed and they didn't even have enough seats for all the people who were waiting in line with us.
We had to wait 30 minutes past our reservation time, were stuck in a back room, had to share a table with other people (that part wasn't so bad, the people we sat with were nice), and we had to wait around for food because the kitchen was having trouble keeping the buffet full. The soda machine didn't work, and there weren't enough servers either. The food was not good, chicken was overcooked, as was the roast beef. The sides were watery, and the ribs were not good.
We grabbed a little food, and headed out the back door of the restaurant just a few minutes before the main gaits opened. So much for 30 minutes! We also found out that there was a special lazer tag scare thing called Special Ops: Infected that we were not able to sign up for because they didn't even tell us about it at the buffet. You had to go the main gait and sign up for it. It covered all of Camp Snoopy (read: no scare zone there!!!) and blocked that whole end of the park. We
We managed to jump on the Calico Mine Ride which was called The Witches Keep before the gates opened. The Mine Ride itself was cool, but the Halloween Theming was lame! Knott's totally rehabbed the original ride, which I guess was the reason that they went super lite on the Halloween decorations. Same with the Log Ride, the totally rehabbed it and it looked great, but no Halloween decor at all.
So lets move on to the mazes! That's what we go for. The first one we hit was Black Magic. It was behind Accelerator, and the only Maze on that side of the park. This maze is Houdini themed and it did have a few cool effects. The one thing I though was strange is that the people who purchased the Skeleton Key (and extra feature that you had to pay for) had to wait longer than we did. They had a big line, and from what I saw the got to interact with a magician, which is why they had to wait so long.
Basically after you do that maze you may as well head back to towards Ghost Town because they have nothing else Halloween on that side of the park, not even a Scare Zone.There was supposed to be a Scare Zone in Fiesta Village, but there were 3 monsters total. Fiesta Village has some Dia de Los Muertos decor, but not much else.
We had to go almost to the main gate to get to our next maze, The Gunslingers Grave. This was a very cool western themed maze, complete with some gruesome animals, a horse corral, and a saloon. This gave me a few scares, and even made my hubby jump.
We went to the Elvira's Big Top Show next, and I was disappointed. Elvira really didn't do much during the show, although her side show performers (a sword swallower and a contortionist) were really cool. They also had a Academy of Villians dance troupe performing in the Elvira show, and I thought they were awesome, but Elvira really didn't dance with them. She told a couple of jokes, changed outfits once, and that was it.
We ran through the Pinocchio Unstrung Maze, which hasn't changed much (it's been a park staple for years) and is supposed to be Pinocchio's revenge for not being turned into a real boy. If you are scared of dolls then this one will scare you. We went to Forevermore which was in Mystery Lodge, and it's the same Edgar Allen Poe, Jack the Ripper maze we've seen for years. I was not scared at all.
The Hanging is usually my favorite part of Knott's Halloween Haunt, but this one was lame. Usually the jokes rip hard on all the themes of the year, but this year they went soft, and most of the jokes were about Justin Beiber.
We headed through Ghost Town, which is where most of the scares are. Lots of smoke, and a few monsters, but the monsters were very minimal and hardly scary. The last 4 mazes were located in the backstage area behind Ghost rider. First up was Trick or Treat, which was pretty decent with a few scares. Next was VooDoo an New Orleans themed maze. The set was very cool, the outside was a New Orleans house that looked pretty good, and the inside was a very detailed swamp. But the maze was not scary and way too short.
Last up was Dominion of the Damned, which you had to go through to get to Tooth fairy. I wasn't thrilled about this, but Dominion of the Damned was really scary. Tooth fairy was strange, it had TV's outside that played scenes from children's bedrooms playing over and over on them, which was supposed to be scary, but seemed more creepy (not in a good way), but the inside of the maze was pretty good.
Overall I was disappointed, and not that scared. I really wish there were more monsters, and better shows. I'm thinking next year we will skip this one!
