Every summer, people of all ages flood the nationally ranked amusement park, Kings Island. However, summer isn’t its only busy time. Kings Island remains open to the public throughout all seasons, leading many to find it worthwhile to spend 300 dollars on the yearly pass, which has previously allowed free entry to the park at any time. This year however, Kings Island has implemented a policy requiring all visitors to pay for admission to the park’s haunted houses for its Halloween Special, the Halloween Haunt.
Many visitors were upset to hear that Kings Island is now charging an extra 10 dollars to get into haunted houses. Their newest haunted house, The Conjuring, actually costs 25 dollars. Regular admission is already pricey, and the change left some visitors angry, especially passholders who already pay a lot for the pass itself. Still, others admit they understand the decision, since the park has to manage big crowds and keep everyone safe, even at its scariest.
“It might discourage people from going, because they already are going to have to spend money getting into the park… food and drinks, and then now they have to spend more money to get into a haunted attraction,” Noah Gregory (11) said.
Many Highlands students feel that this new policy is unfair to passholders and a wrong move by the park.
“I think they should change it back to [when] passholders can get anywhere in the park because that’s what you pay for,” Niouma Diagana (10) said.
Other students also reflect similar views on the fairness of the new fees, as well as the surprise regarding the lack of warning the park provided.
“I can see where it’s unfair to people, especially passholders who spend hundreds of dollars on their passes… for them to not even warn us when we purchased that, even if it is just 10 dollars, it just wasn’t really fair,” Isabell Carty (10) said.
While Kings Island may be trying to make up for this extra cost by adding new attractions, it goes unnoticed as some feel the park’s performance quality has gone down.
“I went, I think two weeks ago, and they added some things and some of the scare actors were not as scary as previous years,” Carty said.
While lines for these thrills seem to be packed as usual, students believe the crowd rate will decrease as their prices rise.
“I think sales are going to decrease for the people who don’t have passes because they have to pay for the ticket to get into the park, but pass holders will probably pay for it”, Diagana said.
Despite their mixed feelings about the extra costs, many students are still looking forward to enjoying the Haunt this year.
“Absolutely. I’m going this weekend,” Carty said when asked whether or not she would be attending the Haunt this year.
While the price increase may be disappointing, the scares, actors, and energy that go into Halloween Haunt keep it as one of the most fun and exciting experiences around every fall season.
“I had so much fun. I think it’s worth it. You don’t have to have a pass to have fun still, cause the actors are like really good with it. And like you can just sit and walk around and it’s so much fun.” Gregory said.