Are you looking for a fun, family-friendly event in Southern California that is safe and tame enough for young children yet still offers up some chills and thrills for older tweens and teenagers? Then I can heartily recommend the Haunt At Heritage Hill in Lake Forest, CA.
Open for only 2 nights (so get there fast, kids!) there are a ton of fun things to do in a relatively small area, so it’s pretty easy to squeeze in every last bit of fun in just a couple hours. There is a dance floor, which was very popular and crowded with giggling and gossiping youngsters, excitedly chatting about which maze they would run to next. The music is loud and energetic, and throws a party atmosphere over the whole thing.
Bright orange Halloween lights illuminate the way from area to area, from dance floor to maze. The whole place looks great and festive and appropriately autumn-ish.
There are some fun haunted mazes to creep your way through, from mild to wild, with each one providing some fun scares and well-done scenery. Little Red Riding Hood’s Revenge is not so much a maze as an open-air walk-through, with nasty wolves and red-hooded damsels wandering about, getting in your way, and jumping at you from the shadows. It’s a quick, short stroll through this area and a good way to get your Haunt feet wet.
There are some carnival games, photo opportunities, and laser tag around the next corner. In the back of the park a large movie screen has been set up and an outdoors movie theatre showing vintage horror movies gives guests a nice chance to rest their weary feet, munch on some popcorn, and snuggle up under the stars.
The Joker’s Sideshow is a fun circus-themed maze, colored in blacklight and filled with clowns and sideshow freaks out to cause you mayhem. The walls had lots of fluorescent paint and not much else, really. There were some cool exhibits at the end (the Fiji Mermaid, Siamese Twins), but this maze was over a little too quickly (I know, their limited by the square footage in that building, I’m just saying I wanted more).
The other maze is the Haunted Schoolhouse, and it really is impressive. You first walk into an eerie, creepy room lit by candles with a beckoning woman pointing your way. This was a great, effective way to set the mood. There are graveyards to walk through, crypts to explore, and all along scary monsters in some very well-hidden places popping out to startle and, yes, scare you. This is a really fun maze, and it also had the longest line to get in. It was also the longest, taking a good 10 minutes or so to make it through the whole thing, weaving in and out of buildings and back walkways.
Throughout the park there are little Halloween tableaus set up for atmosphere and they all look great. Food booths, and t-shirts for sale round out the festivities. This is a fun community event that really deserves its current popularity. Uncle Mike sez check it out!
