Weekend In Review: Cedar Point Halloweekends

* Originally Published September 28, 2022

We just spent the past weekend at Cedar Point for Halloweekends. Following here are some of my thoughts about our experience:

Overall Ambiance 

This is my second year going to Cedar Point for the Halloweekends event. As with last year, the park is absolutely great looking. Decorations are everywhere and so festive. I love how they keep the front half of the park family and kid-friendly, with all the bigger and scarier attractions toward the back of the park. I think I read somewhere that Cedar Point has the largest collection of pumpkins out of any of the Halloween events, but I can't find that source. It wouldn't surprise me, however. If you walk through their "pumpkin patch," you'll see what I mean.

We spent a good portion of our first day just taking in the atmosphere and looking around at all the changes from the park's normal appearance.

Crowds

We spent the majority of the day Saturday at the park. Anyone who goes to amusement parks knows that Saturdays are crowded, and Halloween events are even more so than during the regular summer. We're coaster enthusiasts, but we went into this weekend knowing we wouldn't get many rides in due to the crowds and the long lines. 

Daytime was definitely crowded on Saturday, and as the day wore on and the Haunt events drew closer, the crowd just grew and grew. We waited in longer lines than we are accustomed to, but for the things we planned to do, those lines were worth it. 

Sunday had a significantly smaller crowd, but I don't thing that was only due to the fact that they are only open for the "family friendly" events and close too early to do Haunt. We had a lot of on-and-off rain Sunday, so many of the rides were closed for most of the day, and lines for indoor activities were very long.

Steel Vengeance: Night Ride

One of the main things we wanted to do on this trip was get in a few nighttime rides on our favorite roller coasters. First up: Steel Vengeance. This is our favorite coaster, and usually our first (and last) stop every time we go to Cedar Point. We've still never managed to get a ride after dark. With the later hours of Haunt, however, we knew there would be time to stand in the very long line for this one.

Let me sum it up this way: IT WAS AWESOME!! This roller coaster never disappoints, from the first drop through all the air time moments and inversions, right up to pulling back into the station at the end. The darkness does add a little something, but not to the extent of a coaster like the Beast at Kings Island, whose night rides are legendary because of the absolute darkness as the coaster winds through the woods. Steel Vengeance is too lit up by spotlights at night for that, but it is still a great ride when the sun goes down.

Millenium Force: Night Ride

I actually enjoyed the night ride on Millie more than Steel Vengeance, for a couple of reasons. First, the track is far less lit up than Steel Vengeance, which is a big plus for me on a night coaster ride. Second, there's a noticeable mid-course break run on Millie that slows you down some before you finish the ride, and those brakes were off for this ride. 

It was such a rush to be flying at 90 mph through the trees and tunnels in the dark! One of the things that keeps Millie from being one of my top 5 favorite coasters is the complete and total lack of air time, and this ride got me out of my seat more than any other ride on this coaster has done. That was completely due to the mid-course brakes being turned off, and I wish that was always the case.

The Tell-Tale Heart

I wish I had a better picture, but this theatrical performance adaptation of Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart" was standing room only. The glass-blowing theater is converted to resemble a jail cell, and one man literally carries this entire performance. 

I've always been a fan of Edgar Allen Poe. He and Stephen King were my childhood introduction to horror and scary stories. It can be tough to get someone who can carry a nearly 30-minute monologue, especially at an amusement park, but this show was enthralling and entertaining. If we'd had time, I probably would have watched it a second time from a better seat. The young man performing did a fantastic job.

Waking the Dead: A Murder Mystery

Fair warning for all my blog followers: I'm terrible at taking pictures when I'm at theme parks. Most times my photos are taken directly from the Park's published photos, because once I'm inside a place for a show or close up to get on a ride, I have my phone put away. On occasion, I don't even bring my phone into the park with me. The parks have strict phone rules for safety and for privacy, and I always comply with these rules. I just wish I had one photo of this show for you. The park hasn't published any photos of this show yet, so you're stuck with a simple photo of the show's location in Frontiertown.

Readers, when I say this is the BEST show I've ever seen put on in an amusement park, I'm not kidding. The jokes were actually laugh-out-loud funny, and I don't mean that polite laughter people give in the theater when a joke is intended but falls a little flat. People were laughing so hard that the performers had to wait a beat to pick the dialogue back up. The actors were amazing singers, and the songs they used fit in a way that was clever and added to the humor. 

If you make it to Cedar Point for Halloweekends this season, do not miss this show! I would have gone to see it more times than just the once, but every time we tried the lines were extremely long and there was standing room only on both the first and second floors of the theater. I'm not going to give away any of what you're going to see, but I guarantee you won't be disappointed by this show that has 4 different potential endings.

Haunted Houses & Mazes, Scare Zones

I'm personally not a big fan of haunted houses. I'm pretty much a lightweight. I don't like to be touched, I don't like anything super gory or disgusting, and I'm actually completely terrified of clowns. Scare zones are usually no big deal for me, because they're not gore-fests and they're designed for everyone to go through them. 

Cornstalkers, which is exactly what it sounds like - a corn maze - was fun. It was all jump scares, and some long moments where nothing happened except walking through corn - but corn is creepy in general. 

Banished is a scare zone between the in the back of the park. It's all zombie types in frontier-time gear. They hide well, and even blend in with the large crowd, and manage to get a lot of scares out of people by jumping quickly or following them silently.

Because this is a direct route between two of the rides we knew we wanted to do after dark, this scare zone was unavoidable. I honestly wasn't terribly impressed this year. Unlike last year, there were far fewer actors, and so many people had smaller children there this year the actors were more or less talking to kids and being friendly instead of being scary. While it was still fun, I would rather the little kids go home for Haunt and let the big kids play.

Eerie Estate is a haunted house with a whole back story based around an investigation of a haunted house by the Sandusky Paranormal Society. All the scare actors play ghosts who make loud noises, act out their parts and ignore guests, jump out and scare, and follow you through the rooms. There are a few places where objects move on their own, and people who play paranormal investigators.

The house is rather tame as haunted houses go, I won't lie. But as I mentioned, I'm definitely a lightweight, and I really enjoyed it. It is the only haunted house that opens up early during the Halloweekends events before Haunt gets started.

Cutthroat Cove is another Scare Zone, but you have to actually go through this one by choice. It isn't just scare actors walking around a general park area. This is toward the back of the park and runs underneath the track for Maverick. 

Just as it sounds, this is pirate themed, with lots of fog and great places for the ghost pirates to hide and scare.

I always like this walk-through because the fog makes it seem so creepy. The pathway is pretty wide as well, so it doesn't feel like you're as crammed in with the other park guests like when you're walking through Banished.

For the 25th year in a row, Midnight Syndicate is performing at Cedar Point. They have a show all weekend in the Jack Aldrich Theatre, and they also do the "Opening ScaryMoanies" on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays to bring out the Haunt scare actors.

We didn't get to see the Opening ScaryMoanies, but we did catch their show on Sunday before we left. A story about Midnight Syndicate and their relationship with Cedar Point, as well as Haunt festivities at other parks, is a whole other story all its own, and I encourage you to look them up on Google and learn a little about them as a band. Their entire performance was great. It was creative, artistic, creepy, and musically excellent.

The Food: A Quick Take

So... I saved food for last because honestly, it was the least impressive thing we did on this trip. We've been to Cedar Point about half a dozen times this year, and we actually never eat at the park. We do breakfast before we go, take an afternoon break to grab some lunch (and usually drop my stepson off at the hotel to swim and watch tv, half a day usually does it for him), and then we grab late night food when we leave at the end of the night.

We decided that this trip we would give the food a try since it's the only park we've been to this year where we didn't eat at any of the restaurants. In the end I'm glad we usually eat outside the park. I always hear people rave about The Farmhouse Kitchen & Grill, but after looking at the menu, we decided to go to Backbeat Que instead. Turns out, the menus are almost exactly the same at both places. 

I did enjoy the food at the BBQ smokehouse though. Not everyone makes good mac and cheese, and theirs was cheesy and just a little spicy, which was a good combination with the jalapeno smoked sausage. Their cornbread was also pretty good - a little moist and sweet, just the way I like it.

Unfortunately, Hugo's Italian Kitchen was less impressive for me. The pizza definitely wasn't as good as it looked and was more crust than toppings. Their cheesy flatbread was dry and though garlic was mentioned, it was not a flavor I could really taste.

Overall, I'm glad we don't normally spend the money to eat inside the park. It's very expensive, and since we have Platinum passes, it doesn't bother me to leave and go eat somewhere else. In the warmer weather especially, a break for a restaurant outside the park with good food and air conditioning is nice.

So there you have it... my weekend in a nutshell. Overall we had a great time, and we're planning to make one more trip there before the end of Halloweekends. This is about a 4 hour drive for us, so it's easy for us to plan a quick weekend getaway. We'll be at Kings Island this weekend coming up for their Haunt. Kings Island is our home park, just 10 minutes from our house. Stay tuned, and I'll let you know what we think!