TR: Ghost Lake

[David Sandborg]

Janna and I are not the best connoisseurs of haunted amusement park
attractions, but we've been around to several. Until this year I'd
never done a haunt at Conneaut Lake, though there are two: One at the
hotel, and Ghost Lake at the park itself. We chose to try the latter;
perhaps we'll try the hotel next year.

We went in the early afternoon to get a taste of the park in ordinary
operation. In fact, we wound up there during the Pumpkin Festival,
which made it insanely crowded. Whenever I have described crowds at
Conneaut Lake Park in the past, I've always used somewhat relative
terms, such as "busy for Conneaut Lake". No such need this time, as
there were tons of people there. The fair consists of a bunch of craft
and food booths strung up and down the midways, kind of like a lower
rent Covered Bridge Festival.

The festival gave us plenty of choices for places to eat. In the end we
chose Pittsburgh's BRGR food truck for our dinner. They make a mean
burger and it was probably the most sanitary food stand there. The
prices were probably more suited to the city and a bit out of the usual
range of the area.

There's not much else to say about the festival, as such things really
aren't too much to our taste. One note, though. The pumpkin drop
provided some unusual entertainment, as parents let their kids jump on
the hood of the car they dropped the giant pumpkin on, amidst slippery
pumpkin pieces and shards of broken glass! Then the kids actually began
ripping the hood off! I'd say it was the most redneck thing I've ever
seen.

Unfortunately not all the rides were running. The Tumble Bug and Flyers
were among the casualties. Devil's Den was also down, though we'd later
find out it was for good reason. The bumper cars only had three cars on
the floor, and with several groups of two in front of us we just left
the line. What we did ride were the Carousel, the train (which for some
reason was boarding from a different station and running in the opposite
direction from usual), and of course the Blue Streak.

As for the Blue Streak, it may qualify as the scariest coaster around
now that Williams Grove is closed. It certainly looks decrepit as you
climb the lift and it jostles around quite a bit. The back still
provides considerable airtime on the outward journey. They are running
the NAD trains, which I think make for a rougher ride, though they're
well padded. One mystery: While waiting we saw a train in the station
with two-bench cars, completely different from either of the trains I've
ever ridden on the Blue Streak. What is this train and do they ever
actually run it?

Come 7 PM, we went back out to the front gate to get our tickets for
Ghost Lake. There was already a fairly considerable line at the ticket
booths. For $20, we were to experience "8 levels of fear", a sequence
of attractions meant to be taken in order. It seems an odd system, but
it didn't work out too badly in the end. One has a long wait for the
first attraction, "Clown Town" (the revamped kiddieland), but after that
since everything else has about the same capacity, you can go through
them pretty quickly. The eighth level, the Blue Streak itself, is a bit
lower capacity and they sell extra tickets for it, so its line goes
slower, but otherwise we made it through in about the advertised 90
minutes. By the time we were done the line for Clown Town stretched
down the midway to the entrance to the train station, and people were
still streaming in. Clearly Ghost Lake is a success! We were very glad
we got there as early as we did.

The levels of fear are somewhat mixed, of a variety of styles. We
actually found levels 2-4 or so to be scariest, including some points
where you will be touched, something we're not used to. Generally a
touch was followed by another scare, making for a good double whammy.
But overall the mazes were of much higher quality than I expected.
Devil's Den was second to last, but it was redone as a walk-through,
which was probably for the best as it's far cheesier as a dark ride.
Blue Streak was last. To me it wasn't as scary as the haunted houses,
but it was a good culmination.

All in all we enjoyed Ghost Lake quite a bit. It certainly has a jump
on other such attractions in being set in a kind of zombie amusement
park already. But it does well on its own merits. It's very
encouraging to see something that's getting so many people into Conneaut
Lake Park and enjoying themselves. It's certainly a rare case where
something this snakebit park tries actually succeeds so well. I hope
they can leverage this success into regular-season park improvements.

--
Dave Sandborg
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[Surf Dance Chris]

On Oct 14, 8:31 pm, David Sandborg <sandd...@Spam-away.ix.netcom.com>
wrote:

Had no idea Conneaut Lake did anything like this. Thanks for the
report.