*Rawr!*

[furtech]

I'm a sucker for Egyptian horror stuff...so went on a fool's errand to Magic Mountain...Rant cut because I'm past foaming at the mouth about it. If you're interested in a mini-review about MM's "Fright Fest," or some cute stuffies, read on!


So.

After seeing an ad for Six Flags Magic Mtn's "Fright Fest" featuring Anubis and a bunch of Egyptian mummies and stuff, I decided to make a special trip to check it out. This says a lot: I am not a rollar-coaster fanatic, and without the thrill rides Magic Mountain is a hole. I called their information office and asked which was the Egyptian/mummy maze. After much confusion, they tell me, "Dead Man's Bog."


Bullet points:
* First bad memory resurrected: MM's parking (their expensive "close" parking) is still about a quarter mile away from the entrance. And nothing interesting is near the entrance...
* I trek to the ass-end of the park to see the "Parade of the Dead."
* Parade is lame. A dozen "zombies" and "Lady Vampires" and three hearses. Two skeletons. Woo.
* The "Dead Man's Bog is at the other ass-end of the park. I hike over there and get in line.
* Forty minutes gets me: a sub-par-charity-haunted-maze. Literally just dark with fake smoke and "zombies" going "boogedy" at people. Lasts almost three minutes. Nnnnrgh!
*I run to the "Brutal Planet." Not a bad maze; I see no mummies, though. Thirty more minutes of my life gone (25 for the line, 5 for the maze).
*Run to Samurai Summet (who puts hills in an amusement park?!?) to race through "Willoughby's Mansion." Fortunately cardiac hill deters many patrons: the line is mercifully short. No mummies again. Average maze. Event-coordinators have no idea where mummies are: "You're thinking of Knotts!"
*Race back to Zor's for a late dogwalk and to rant!
*Further phone calls result in: "The commercial was possibly a mistake," or "The Egyptian stuff might be in one small room in "Carnage E. Hall." Great: the one maze whose description made it the least-likely candidate besides the clown maze. I miss my "insider" contacts! (Hi, Jimmy!)

There were actually a couple of interesting stuffies on the midway: the blue (and red and purple) hyenas and the snaggle-toothed wolves! I wish you could just bribe the hawkers and buy one! I'm lousy at throwing games.

Comments

[was1.livejournal.com]

Skorzy, myself and a couple of friends went to Fright Fest down at Six Flags Great Adventure in NJ a couple of years ago. We made the mistake of going the weekend before Halloween and it was mobbed. It was much more crowded than we'd ever seen it, even in the dead of summer! Plus, there was a heat wave, so it was 80+ degrees and humid, bleah :P I think we managed to get on a total of 5 or 6 rides that night, and missed out on the Halloween stuff.

On the plus side, we hit both Disneyland and Magic Mountain off-season, the weekend before Christmas last December and the crowds were amazing light. The kids weren't out from school yet, and it was cool enough to scare a lot of the Californians away ;)

And for Halloween amusement park fun, we like to hit Knoebels, a small family-owned park in PA for their fall coaster event. http://www.knoebels.com/ I've got some photos from last year at:
http://www.was1.net/Photos/2002/10-05-Knoebels/

[furtech.livejournal.com]

My sympathies! I -hate- crowds and traffic jams! And I consider amusement parks date-destinations rather than group fun: when I went with friends I always had to sit on the tandem rides with the other date-less loser! Horribly uncomfortable/not-fun trying to keep from getting too intimate on a rollercoaster! I only found out recently that they'll let you ride alone (they just don't encourage it because [*gasp*] it leaves an empty seat!).