Castle Park's Happy Hauntings: 2020 Review

Castle Park, Riverside, CA

Happy Monday! We’re running downhill the rest of this month with Halloween coverage, and while the majority will focus on home haunt attractions (mostly yard displays due to the nature of this year), we’ve also got a couple more commercial haunts to show you. Today’s update is one such example, taking us to Castle Park out in Riverside.

You remember that Castle Park reconfigured its Halloween event, Castle Dark, last year, bringing in new management and creative direction to focus and improve the efficiency of the spooky event. The result was nowhere near the level of its higher profile competitors like Knott’s and Universal, but it was a marked improvement from years past, and Castle Park saw positive results in the form of noticeable attendance and a high value return on its modest investment. This year was supposed to be a continuation of those plans, with increasing budget for mazes and decorations and continued improvement on the product, but of course, as we all know, COVID has put a wrinkle in everyone’s plans.

Wise-cracking animatronic skeletons greet guests and welcome them to Castle Dark—except this is Castle Park with Happy Hauntings. But same idea.

Instead of staging its full-scale Castle Dark event again, the park has instead pivoted, crafting a modified Halloween event called Happy Hauntings that effectively provides a reduced-scale haunt concentrated on the actually-open miniature golf side of the property, consolidating the attractions into carnival games, miniature golf, and a single, open-air maze called the Terror Trail.

Atmosphere-wise, Castle Park has modestly dressed its miniature golf courses with plenty of cheesecloth cobwebs and blow-up Halloween displays and outfitted the midway areas with a loose Día de los Muertos theme. While the amusement park side of the property remains closed, as well as the arcade, several arcade games have been moved outdoors and under pop-up tent canopies to still allow some games to be played. The permanent carnival games remain open for patronage too.

The games have undergone a Halloween overlay this season.

Unlike previous years, there are no scare zones or monster talent roaming the public areas. The monsters are limited to the Terror Trail, which is probably just as well given the respiratory risks of scaring crowds in a concentrated setting (even if outdoors). Better to focus those actions in a controlled environment like a maze where groups can be small and spread apart. However, there is a bit of atmosphere talent in the form of the Lady in White—Castle Park’s Halloween icon—who prowls the grounds.

The Lady in White is always present at Castle Park.

The event is offered under a pretty great bargain. The Happy Hauntings admission costs only $19.99 per person and includes one round of miniature golf, one round through the Terror Trail, two carnival games, and one food item (hot dog, Icee, or Dipping Dots ice cream). During this pandemic, when many people’s budget’s have already been stretched thin due to exacerbating circumstances, it’s pretty nice to see a Halloween deal like this being offered. I’d argue that the park is actually undercharging for its event, but for patrons looking to have a Halloween event experience but are being mindful of their budget, this provides a sort of economic relief in and of itself.

Miniature Golf

Included in the event admission is a round of mini-golf, which allows play at any one of Castle Park’s four elaborate courses. By themselves, the classic miniature golf courses are elaborate and highly themed just as they are, providing a theme park quality atmosphere. The Halloween decorations across the golf area aren’t that extravagant, but they’re charming and effective in communicating the holiday ambiance.

The scenic sets of the mini-golf area are super charming.

Most of the theming involves copious amounts of cheesecloth cobwebs stretched across various facades and structures (which look great, by the way, courtesy of recent refurbishment from Adrenalin Attractions—which some might recall is the amusement design company under Scott D’Avanzo, creator of Mystic Motel). A few of the themed miniature golf set buildings have inflatable Halloween figures, such as a looming grim reaper or an adorable spider. Nothing is too elaborate, but the spirit of Halloween is still communicated.

The cobwebs—while by no means sophisticated—still add a very charming touch reminiscent of the scene at Ghost Town in Knott’s Scary Farm.

Terror Trail

For haunt fans, the main attraction at Castle Park this year is the Terror Trail, a multi-theme maze that effectively combines elements of last year’s three mazes—The Crooked Man, Meltdown, and Jinxx & Havoc’s Twisted Circus—into one pleasantly-surprisingly action-packed walk-through that has just the right density of scareactors, theming, and pace to provide a startlingly fun experience. The mood starts before the maze even begins, with a nicely theme queue area that already offers plenty of spook, from haunted video clips projected on a screen to a little Halloween photo op to singing jack-o-lanterns serenading guests to a little graveyard display.

The queue for the Trail of Terror is nicely themed with an assortment of Halloween props and decor.

The start of the maze features the psychedlic and radioactive saturation of Meltdown, with masked figures hiding behind nuclear waste barrels hiding and waiting to spring loud startle scares. That’s right after a great motion-triggered jump scare to start off the maze right off the bat.

The setting then transformed into a darker, moodier ambiance more akin to last year’s Crooked Man maze—though not quite the same. A witch or cultist sprawls across the ground, marking sparks in a fascinating ritual of some sort. Just beyond, a chainsaw fiend lurks, ready to spring upon unsuspecting guests in a splatter of strobe-filled cacophony. This scare is probably the most effective of the maze, catching guests by surprise, since they’re spaced out and don’t come upon the scene until well after the previous group has passed it. A laser field of hooded figures comes next, along with shadowy scareactors who prowl and catch guests off guard from various angles.

This is a fantastic and simple effect that really enhances the mood of the maze.

There’s nothing like a good chainsaw scare to send people screaming!

Finally, the maze moves into a circus and clown theme ala Jinxx & Havoc’s Twisted Circus, featuring a clown barker and a couple more psychotic monsters playing various rules of distraction and fright. In typical haunt clown form, these folks are twisted, sarcastic, and thoroughly entertaining, alternating between playful and horrific. It’s a high energy conclusion to a solid several-minute maze.

The maze is also a great example of the attention that Castle Park has paid to mitigate COVID-19 risks and maximize safety to both actors and guests. All scareactors are temperature-screened before work each evening, and they wear two layers of masks—the outer character mask plus a filtered face covering mask underneath. Monsters are always behind barriers or confined to a designated zone demarcated by floor lines in order to limit proximity to guests. However, the maze has been cleverly arranged in a way that still conveys intimate jump scares without requiring actual physical intimacy. The monsters often wait till guests pass buy to catch them from behind or to the side, or they rely on tag team distraction scares to catch people off-guard without having to startle right next to them. The strategy is a great way to preserve the illusion of a traditional haunted maze without resorting to ambiance-distracting measures like plexiglass barriers that some other places have had to resort to.

The clowns are out to play in the Terror Trail… with your life.

As far as other COVID measures go, all guests must have their temperature taken upon entering as well, and everyone is required to wear a face covering throughout the property, except for when eating at the designated dining areas. So whether going through the Terror Trail, miniature golfing, or playing the carnival games, masks are mandatory. And even the Lady in White wears a mask too—visible but blended into her costume. Little steps like these show an attention and care to the novel Coronavirus pandemic that is really appreciated. We’ve seen various haunts this season provide varying degrees of measures related to the Coronavirus, and Castle Park definitely ranks on the top side of stringency. Kudos to the management for being serious about this health safety.

Happy Hauntings continues the rest of this month, running Fridays through Sundays, with the Terror Trail open from 7:30 to either 10:00pm (Fridays), 11:00pm (Saturdays) or 9:00pm (Sundays). The regularly open portion of the park—which includes the miniature golf and outdoor games—operates 7 days a week. And as mentioned before, the rides and amusement side of the park remains closed indefinitely due to state orders. The park has seen great success with its Happy Hauntings event this season, with online reservations for the upcoming weekend selling out days in advance. I’d recommend purchasing online to spare a wait in line to enter the park, and to guarantee a time slot.

Castle Park has done a great job offering a Halloween event despite this year’s challenging circumstances, and it’s one of the few commercial properties able to do so this year. With two more weekends of Halloween season left, this is certainly an attraction to consider for guests and families looking for a fun and safe spooky experience!