anyway
@Clive and I went on Saturday and I was pleasantly surprised. The Conjuring and Trick 'r Treat are both solid mazes that would not look out of place at Knott's Scary Farm in a good year and Willoughby's, while long in the tooth, is good. The rest of the lineup ranges from mediocre to just okay, and I'm a little disappointed that the only new maze (Carnage) is as unfocused as it is. Saw is very skippable, as is Truth or Dare (though it's a massive improvement from its debut year which was baffling).
I'd like to see more street performers, but I recognize it has the opposite problem of Horror Nights: the park is too damn big to ever make it feel overrun with actors. Knott's is truly the perfect scare zone theme park.
Ops are, unsurprisingly, pretty bad and inconsistent. They pulsed groups at most of the mazes, which is fine in a vacuum but doesn't add much (if anything) to the enjoyment of the mazes and makes what should be short lines rather long. That said, the houses were better than in year's past, the drink situation, while still mediocre, is better than Horror Nights Hollywood (low bar) and a little worse than Knott's. I paid $40 for a haunted attraction pass, which felt like fair value for the experience. If I didn't have a Prestige Pass ($13 a month, I think), I'd probably have skipped it.
This isn't an event I need to visit every year, but it'll probably end up in the rotation. The (relatively) short lines for coasters and the ability to ride them at night is a lot of fun, so I think you could have a good time here if you have a season pass even without a haunted attractions pass.
Echoing/expanding on a few things...
If The Conjuring could get just a few more scares or coherent scenes (not really sure what the crawl space maze was about other than budget-driven filler), I'd categorize it as "really quite good." Right now, I agree with Jake in that it's solid, though the apparently new final scare is very memorable and does a lot to leave you with a positive impression.
Trick r Treat felt like a home haunt with a very generous budget, and that comes with all the requisite positive and negatives. I agree that scare construction was sometimes a bit haphazard. In other cases, I thought the setups were pretty clever. We did go through twice, right before and after a cast change. The second run with the fresh cast was more filled out and had a few characters that weren't present during the first like Mr. Kreeg. Some of the scenic detail and finishing isn't quite there, but it's
close enough - and done with clear passion versus laziness - that you kind of just let yourself enjoy what's there despite the apparent flaws.
I feel like we barely saw any street performers despite the sheer number of scare zones apparently on offer. Maybe that spoke to how we navigated the park, I dunno. I remember seeing a handful of folks up on Samurai Summit, a couple in the Thunder Alley (?) area, and maybe a few in an Alice in Wonderland looking thing. There was a kinda out-of-the-way CarnivHell one-way zone in Bugs Bunny World that we accidentally wandered into. I also agree with Jake, though, that attempting to make that park feel "full" with actors is a fool's errand. I'm willing to concede that we just didn't make the zones a priority.
I will go a step further and say haunted house ops were atrocious. The pulsing was theoretically fine, but many folks responsible for it were either given insane instructions to follow or absolutely zero self awareness or critical thinking skills. For the new maze, Carnage, we hopped in a queue that looked incredibly short - just over one final switchback. It still took something like 25 minutes to get through because the guy would send in one (1) standby group per "burst" (along with admitting one or two Fast Lane groups). These groups were so small and spaced so far apart that the line grew to fill the queue by the time we made it out. I actually started timing the length between "pulses" because I became so frustrated - some were in the neighborhood of
five minutes, but most were about two - the amount of time, incidentally, that it takes to
navigate the house! We went through at a fairly brisk pace and never encountered anyone in front of us. It's ludicrous.
Saw looked to be utilizing the same sort of pulsing for much of the night, so we bailed from the line and hit it near the end of the evening when the park started to empty out. So for those saying Carnage and Saw appear to have the heavy waits this year... true, in practice, at least from what I've seen, but I think that's the fault of terrible ops and line management over actual popularity.
Ride ops, however, were for the most part very good. Every coaster I personally observed was running two trains. (Maybe Viper was only running one at the end of the night, but it's not like it needed the second.) Station ops were reasonably efficient, and several rides had actual groupers.
Our food experience was also significantly better than the last time I dared to eat at Magic Mountain. We stopped by the Full Throttle sports bar expecting a wait, but we were able to sit immediately and order via QR code. The food came fairly fast and was reasonably portioned (and decent tasting) for the price. The last time I went to Six Flags circa 2019 for Fright Fest, we waited nearly an hour for the worst chicken tenders I've ever had in my life, so this was a major quality of life improvement.
For $40, you could do a lot worse, especially if they continue to actually staff the coasters to run two trains. That alone soaks up crowds, balances the park, and makes everything more manageable (and fun). We managed to hit all of the houses (several twice) plus Twisted Colossus, Batman, Wonder Woman, Justice League (woof that's in rough shape), Tatsu, and Viper.