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Spooky fun and games for the
whole family - 20081103
CNN
(Tribune Media Services) -- We
were so proud of ourselves.
My best friend JoAnne and I fashioned ghost
costumes out of old white sheets, corralled my little sister
Amy to join us and -- presto -- we were The Ghost Family.
We happily went off trick or treating in our suburban Long
Island, New York, neighborhood. No parents tagged along, of
course, no one had expensive costumes or headed to a theme
park fright fest. No one could have imagined trick or treating
among giraffes at a zoo or dinosaur fossils at a museum.
Boy, have times changed. Not only would today's
parents not allow kids to trick or treat without adult supervision,
but they screen every bit of candy to make sure it's safe.
There's an even bigger difference: Halloween has become a
huge deal, a lot more than an after-dark trek through the
neighborhood in homemade costumes. The National Retail Federation
says more of us plan to celebrate Halloween this year -- to
the tune of $5.7 billion. The federation suggests that Halloween
may be just the ticket to escape our concerns about the economy
and just have some fun.
There are nearly 2,500 haunted attractions
around the country this year that offer chills and thrills
for most of the fall, says Tim Gavinski, president of the
International Association of Haunted Attractions, including
his own in Milwaukee. "We're picking up more and more
every year, and they're more sophisticated than even five
years ago," Gavinski says, noting there are at least
60 new haunted houses this year, including the largest to
debut, Nightmare New England in Litchfield, New Hampshire.
Take your pick of Halloween away-from-the-neighborhood-fun:
Trick or treat after hours among the dinosaurs at the American
Museum of Natural History in New York, or explore a "haunted"
aquarium in San Diego at the Birch Aquarium. Take a ghost
tour of Stowe, Vermont, or one of a New Orleans cemetery with
a little voodoo thrown in. New Orleans, by the way, is home
to The Audubon Institute, the country's largest museum devoted
to creepy crawlers. Check the Web site for the Association
of Zoos and Aquariums to see what your local zoo and aquarium
has planned this Halloween.
Theme park Halloween extravaganzas from Orlando
to California, meanwhile, last the entire month of October,
bringing in more than 10 million people and $250 million, says
David Mandt of the International Association of Theme Parks
and Attractions. Some are designed for the littlest pirates
and princesses, like Disney's Not So Scary Halloween Party in
Orlando, Disneyland's Halloween Time or Sesame Place's Count's
Halloween Spooktacular. SeaWorld in Orlando, San Antonio and
San Diego touts special Halloween Spooktacular shows where you
can download a Halloween octopus mask. At Hersheypark in the
Dark, your ticket will also get you in to see Creatures of the
Night at ZooAmerica.
Hotels, resorts and entire cities are jumping
on the Halloween bandwagon big time. Why celebrate for one
evening when you can party with ghosts and goblins for a weekend
or more? This season, more than 7 million people will opt
for Orlando, the largest Halloween destination in the world,
where you can find hotel rooms for well under $100. Seventy-five
of them offer free nights.
There's also a citywide celebration in Chicago
called Chicagoween, and Seaview Resort near Atlantic City
invites families to "celebrate Halloween down by the
shore" complete with complimentary haunted hayrides and
a pumpkin-carving contest. Make spooky s'mores Halloween weekend
or see if you can win a costume relay race at Scottsdale's
Westin Kierland Resort.
Maybe your kids would like to rub elbows with
a ghost, or at least hear ghost stories. Visit www.bedandbreakfast.com
and take your pick of inns around the country where you might
bump into a ghost or two. There are also plenty of Ghoulish
Getaways in New England, complete with haunted houses, ghost
stories, photo ops with giant pumpkins and the chance to decorate
Halloween cookies.
Just don't take the little ones to the theme
park nighttime fright festivals. They're bigger -- and scarier
-- than ever. Universal Orlando's Halloween Horror Nights,
for example, offers 18 attractions, including eight haunted
houses and hundreds of scary characters that roam the streets.
Across the country, Universal Studios Hollywood dares you
to "live your worst nightmare" with a Terror Tram
that stops at the Bates Motel and a new scare zone based on
the movie "The Strangers." At Busch Gardens' 10th
Annual Howl-O-Scream in Williamsburg, Virginia, you might
end up in a crypt at a ruined Italian palace. (Good thing
the Land of the Dragons remains kid-friendly.)
Ready to eat a creepy crawler? If so, you
just might win front-of-the-line access at Six Flags. Let's
not forget Knott's Scary Farm's Halloween Haunt, which celebrates
its 36th year of transforming the kid-friendly Southern California
theme park into 160 scary acres of fun, highlighting 13 mazes,
seven shows and 1,000 monsters that pop out of the fog at
you. Ready to play 3-D laser tag in a maze called Alien Annihilation?
How about visiting the Black Widow's Cavern where an abandoned
mine has been taken over by the deadly creatures?
The idea is you'll be too busy being scared
to think about the plummeting Dow or the upcoming election
or the war in Iraq or whatever else is keeping you awake at
night. And that's a good thing. Your tweens might actually
clutch you for comfort, if they deign to let you accompany
them, of course.
Thanks monsters.
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