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Those who have lived in or near Charlotte, NC know that every fall, popular rollercoaster park Carowinds does their annual nighttime scare program.  There’s haunted houses, performances, decorations and monsters everywhere, at least normally. I have personally been going almost every year, if not every year, since I moved to North Carolina. This year, I have been severely disappointed.  

What Once Was

Let me explain.  In the past, the park would close around 5 p.m. and reopen around 6 p.m. with the scare actors out and ready to play.  The park wouldn’t close for the night until 1 a.m.  I could leave my house at 5, which was about 45 minutes away, and get there in time for opening, get through ticketing lines and be ready to have fun within an hour. There were three or so haunted houses and mazes along with different parts of the park acting almost like boroughs with different themes. There were very few “safe” places where you couldn’t be scared.  Additionally, there have been areas around the park with dancers and there was always a big performance in the front apex of the park where the Carolinas’ meet.  

What is Now

This year, everything was different.  To start, I am a season pass holder and that has always been enough to get me into the park for any of the events and enjoy all parts of it outside of line jumping etc. Apparently the system has changed this year.  My pass was still enough to get me in the front gate but not enough to let me experience any haunted houses, so I had to purchase a separate pass for that.  Additionally, there was a new attraction for “The Conjuring” which required a separate pass purchase, and it was definitely not cheap.  We opted not to pay for this attraction.

Next, we left my house at quarter after 6 p.m. to get to the park at the current opening time of 7 p.m.  We stopped to get gas and food which would conceivably add about half an hour to our trip.  All this taken into account, we should have arrived at the park by 7:30 p.m.  As I’m sure you can guess, that is not when we arrived.  We finally parked around 8:30 p.m. This wasn’t ideal, but not a huge deal as we did anticipate some traffic.

The next step was to get through the admission line which shouldn’t have taken longer than 20 minutes.  Boy were we sorely mistaken.  About an hour later, we finally made it into the park.  But that wasn’t the last line we had to stand in before we could finally go have fun.  We had to mosey our way to the front apex where the big performance normally would be to get our haunted house passes.  Luckily, this line wasn’t a long one and we were all squared away by 9:45 p.m.  

Now, I was admittedly pretty upset by this point.  My accompaniment had to help me regulate and try to see the bright side of everything and I appreciate their efforts but it wasn’t working.  We wandered about the park and had kinda decided to focus on the seasonal attractions instead of waiting in line for the rollercoasters since we could go on those any time.  

We went all the way around the circular park and only spotted about a dozen scare actors outside of performances total.  I was personally shocked.  There were no boroughs of Victorian ghosts or birdcages or pirate zombies or really any dolls and creepy clowns anywhere.  There were two actors with the chainsaws and two or three actors with sliders (metal knee and arm pads that allow actors to slide across asphalt that spark and make very loud noises). I was only spooked by one of these actors throughout the whole park.  As I stated before, there used to be countless of these actors, all with a variety of style and scare tactics.  There wasn’t really a safe place to be in the park where one wouldn’t have the looming threat of an actor with tattered clothing and heavy SFX makeup.  

We took a minute to look at a park map to see if there was something we were missing.  As it turned out, there were only four “scare zones” throughout the park and we had completely walked through them all without realizing.  There were also a couple new attractions that we had had a chance to sample.  We decided we wanted to try to catch some of the other new things we hadn’t seen yet.  

New Attractions

One of the new attractions was a “rave” area with a scheduled performance every hour or so.  This was called “DepRAVEd” and consisted of a large space with lots of fog machines and lights. There were several dancers with the focus being on one with a white wig whose style was pretty limited to a pop and locking routine.  All the dancers, with two exceptions, were exceptionally talented.  They seemed to me like they were just a group of people with a mild sense of rhythm that had been packed together in a dance studio and given a routine to learn.  It felt very unimpressive.

Another new attraction was a burlesque show called “The Bon Bons Burlesque Troupe” which was nothing like what I would have expected at SCarowinds.  This dance group was three ladies in pastel color-coordinated costumes consisting of corsets and ruffle shorts and fans.  Their performance spot was also located on the top of a drink kiosk.  They, again, weren’t exceptionally impressive.  Not only was the dance routine just kinda alright, but they weren’t scary.  They looked like they were trying to be little candies or something but in my experience at this event every year indicates that the whole point is to be scary.  

The last two attractions we were able to sample were actually pretty good.  The first was a stage performance in the theatre called “Wake the Dead” which was an interactive musical-like performance.  The actors all did an exceptional job with their vocals and the song choices were impeccable.  Each of the suspects in this stories murder mystery had a version of a popular song attributed to them. One had a version of “Cell Block Tango” from “Chicago” one had a version of “Tainted Love,” one had a version of “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” and lastly, one did a version of “Hot Patootie – Bless My Soul” from “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” I think that this performance was likely the highlight of the evening for me. 

Last but not least, we did manage to make use of our wristbands and go through one of the haunted houses.  Sadly, that was all we had time for as the park closed promptly at 11:59 p.m.  This haunted house was a new creation inspired by a doll workshop.  The house was supposed to be a doll factory that has a gas leak and I was impressed with the set as well as the actors who did get me a couple times.  

One other area I found that was new was a Sinner’s Lounge near the Fury.  This space is supposed to have a speakeasy feel to it with fainting couches and fancy chairs as well as alcoholic beverages and a stage in the corner.  We stayed for about 15 minutes or so and didn’t see any indication of a performance but I could be wrong about that one.  I liked the idea behind this lounge but I think the execution could have been done better.  

I wish I had had the chance to explore the rest of the attractions but alas I only had about two hours to do everything I wanted to and there wasn’t exactly a lack of lines.  Overall, I had a very disappointing time this year and likely will not be returning until I receive indication that the park is returning to its past glory.  I feel this attraction has gone down so much in quality, especially in the scaring and talent departments.  I come to get spooked and hear my own heart pounding in my ears and I just didn’t get that.  I can note that the quality of the attraction has been on the downhill for the last couple years, but this has to be the most dramatic plunge in quality I have yet to experience.  If someone were to ask me if I thought paying the money for a regular entrance ticket and a haunted pass were worth it, I would have to give that a very hard no.  I hope this helps anyone who didn’t get a chance to go this year and felt they were missing anything. 

— dj dragonfly