Went to Knott's yesterday for a daytime event and we decided to say screw it and get tickets for Scary Farm. Being at the park during the day wasn't that great -- really busy, wait times over 90 minutes, and I think Beary Tales might have the worst loading I've ever experienced -- but Scary Farm was (almost) the complete opposite.
I wasn't able to go last year, so it was nice being back this year, and I swear, I had more of a good time than I did at HHN this year. Between 7pm and 10pm, we got all ten mazes done, a quick drink break, and even squeezed in a ride on Timber Mountain. We couldn't stay much later because we had an hour-plus-long drive to get home and had to work in the morning, so we had to sacrifice The Hanging, for instance, but it was like a breath of fresh air and just solidified just how much I hate the Express situation at HHN these past few years.
I only had two annoying experiences last night, both related to teenagers (no surprise), and I didn't really see the chaperone policy enforced...? The second of two instances, a group of teen girls was ahead of me walking through Ghost Town, got scared from a character coming at them, started screaming, and two of them turned directly at me, put their arms up, and straight shoved me together like I'm not even a human being so hard trying to get away that I got knocked back, tripped up on a rope, and they just toppled over a number of linked rope posts without even caring what they'd done. I ended up helping an employee fix it all (who thanked me) but even with several employees having witnessed it (an unchaperoned group of four)... no one did anything.
But other than that and the other instance, which was just a girl in Widows behind us who ruined the maze because she started screaming from the moment the maze started to the moment it ended with the most high-pitched, attention-seeking screams while her little friend laughed, to the point we and people ahead of us and behind them were telling her to shut up (which of course made her start doing it more), the night was great.
Cinema Slasher was my most anticipated, and while it wasn't perfect, I really loved the concept and a lot of the execution. I loved the simplicity of Room 13's backdoor entrance, and a lot of the actors inside were having a lot of fun, but the second half wasn't as strong as the first. Things like Mesmer, Origins, and Grimoire were same old, but still fun in a lot of ways (and me skipping a year probably helped). Eight Fingers was cool, but felt... empty? Maybe I just had a bad run. But overall, I surprisingly loved Chilling Chambers, and had the experienced not been ruined due to the perpetual distraction a foot behind us, I feel like Widows could've been my house of the night.
Again, I'll always love HHN, but man... Scary Farm is just far less stressful and frustrating, especially in terms of line flow actually moving at SF compared to Express at HHN getting to just go and go and go while general is at a standstill for five, ten, fifteen minutes, and we left last night agreeing that we were glad to have decided last minute to go and that we just had an overall better time this year than HHN.