Castle Muskogee Halloween Festival Reviews

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Casa Morte

Loved the Haunted House... wish we did not have to be grouped with other couples that we did not know.. the element of surprise was gone so we held back a little and that made the Haunt even more awesome

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Email Verified Again, missed opportunity

I visited The Castle of Muskogee’s Halloween Festival on 9/28/19 after receiving a free attraction ticket at Oklahoma’s first Horror Convention this summer in Oklahoma City (shoutout to Nightfall Haunted Territory for putting it on!). Giving free passes to haunt enthusiasts for single attractions was a wonderful way to get folks to travel a few hours away and spend on additional attractions after arrival-- I commend their promoters for this aspect! I would also like to note that this was opening weekend for the haunt, and only the second night this season, so I realize they are still ironing out a lot of issues. The Castle is a permanent facility that houses the Oklahoma Renaissance Festival as well as several other seasonal attractions such as a Christmas and Halloween Festival. The grounds are well-equipped to have TONS of attendees-- seemingly infinite free parking (plus $5 paid up-close parking), options for food, several bathrooms, etc. This venue has so much potential to be absolutely magnificent. With that being said, as a professional attraction venue, I expected a bit more from the haunts. They tout the free parking and free gate admittance, but once inside, everything is overpriced for the value, in my opinion. There are 13 paid attractions priced between $3 and $15 with all of the “scarier” ones being between $10-$15. The pricing and skull ratings (for fright level) are inconsistent between their website, online ticket purchasing, and at the park itself so please keep that in mind. Due to this, we waited until we got to the grounds to do a lap and figure out what we wanted to walk through. This decision did allow for us to be strategic in how we used our free pass and what we wanted our night to be. My biggest complaint about their ticketing and combo packages is that there was absolutely no way to purchase an all-inclusive pack for a reduced price, even if we wanted to. There was overlap between the Family Fun Pack and Fright Combo so buying both--at $30 and $35, respectively-- would have given us extra tickets to things and still left out others. We opted to use our free pass for the kid-friendly Haunted Hayride and then purchase Fright Combos that included 4 attractions: Ultimate Maze, Casa Morte, Domus Horrificus, and Trail of Blood. After having some delicious loaded fries and lemonade from a food truck for dinner (A++), my fiance and I headed off to the Haunted Hayride. This attraction was priced at $15, but of course was free with our pass. The skull rating was 3 out of 5 skulls, which simply meant that it was not recommended for small children. I believed this attraction to be the most well-done overall despite the lack of terror. Logistically speaking, this was wonderful. They had several tractors with long beds running constantly (but will just enough room between tractors to still feel alone) which meant significantly shorter wait times compared to all other hayrides I’ve been on. It was also clear that this was still a popular attraction for families to take young children on, despite the 3 skull rating. Without giving away too many spoilers, you can expect some decent spooky scenes in the woods, a couple jump scares, and a tour guide giving a kid-friendly story the entire time. I would give this 4.5/5 stars with the only issue being the price. Adult tickets should have been about $8, but otherwise it delivered exactly as expected. Next up was the Ultimate Maze and it was completely lack-luster. The negative experience started right from the start when the actor taking tickets seemed to completely hate his job. Mumbling through the rules and failing to deliver any storyline, he sent folks in immediately after one another--into a maze! Sure, It was a smaller outdoor maze already, but to give context, my fiance and I were never lost, nor alone, even once. Priced at $10, with 3 skulls, I left mostly irritated. I couldn’t enjoy any aspects of the design or decor because the folks behind us were pushy and folks in front were slow. I give this attraction 1 star and I would not return without being able to be in it alone. It was early in the night with absolutely no line so there was no need to push everyone through as soon as they got to ticketing. We then decided to go over to the indoor section of the grounds which housed two haunts and a Torture Chamber informational exhibit. We lined up for Casa Morte, which was an H.H. Holmes themed haunt. Priced at $10 and 4 skulls I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but there was a much longer line for this attraction than any others we had seen, and assumed this was a positive. I studied a lot about H.H. Holmes during my undergrad in some of my deviant behavior classes, so I knew I needed to get out of my head in order to enjoy it simply as a form of entertainment. They sent in groups of 4-8, so be prepared to join others if you’re there with only a couple folks. The intro/prep room was really great and the design was great in this one. To me, this was definitely more of a look-and-see walkthrough with very few actors but awesome builds. The best scene was a cave setup that had great lighting and effects, but again, not enough actors to make the most of it. I also need to point out that this haunt is ADA Accessible, which is a huge plus in my book. Still overall it was 3/5 stars with lots of potential with more staffing. Once we exited Casa Morte, we immediately walked over to the other half of the building to join the line for the other indoor haunt, Domus Horrificus. Quick-moving line with the ticketer giving a great story with clear guidelines, we felt prepared. Again, they paired us with another group (who admittedly were the same folks we went through Casa Morte with), and told us not to lose one another. The threats at the beginning built suspense to the story and did make us feel particularly “hunted” going in. No spoilers from me on this one, but I will say that it had more actors for more jump scares, animatronics, and slightly less elaborate decor. 3.5/5 stars because it didn’t quite live up to the 5 skulls I was prepared for, despite being an easy scare. ;) We had purposely saved the supposed best for last, Trail of Blood. Long hikes through the woods in the Oklahoma heat never seem appealing for many folks, so I knew I’d need to head home after this one. Now, I must disclose that as a newish resident of Oklahoma, the level of haunts in OK haven’t yet stood a chance against some of the ones I’ve seen in Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan… but I will NOT compare this trail to those. I know how deeply geography, history, and amount of freaks in a given area contribute to skill so although this certainly wasn’t the scariest trail I’ve been on, I still think it lived up to the promise, locally. They drive folks far out into the woods on long bed trailers attached to pickups, and perform a solid story on the ride. Once there, you will see a bar, restrooms, and some benches to wait for the return truck afterward-- a popular feature at other places I’ve been, but folks here were raving about it feeling like an entire new haunt. Here, they paired us with just one other couple and it was easily the scariest of the night. Still understaffed with lots of gaps (and a long hike!) but I appreciated that they allowed some child actors work out here-- kid zombies who follow you around were a great touch! We also never saw any other groups and the actors had enough time to move from posts. 4.5/5 stars due to the high $15 price tag. Overall, I give The Castle of Muskogee’s Halloween 3.5/5 stars. The location is a great fit for families who want to spend time just kind of walking around without engaging in attractions, but if you want to actually do things, it gets really expensive. I would’ve been much more comfortable paying $30 at the door to access everything (including the stage with illusionists) or having the individual tickets cost about half as much. To me, $15 or $20 is a price I typically pay for one large haunt where I spend a couple hours in line being entertained and a 20 minute walkthrough. Glad I marked it off my list, but I won’t have a need to revisit until this Spring for the Renaissance Festival; we got BOGO tickets for filling out a survey at the end of the night. ;)

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Length of Event:	> 1 hour
Would Recommend:	Unsure
Suitable For Kids:	Yes

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Email Verified Great missed opprotunity

I've been to the Muskogee castle many times for the Renaissance festival and have not been disappointed. What's not to like about a fully functional town with jousting and food and vendors. However....When it comes to Halloween festivities, the Castle of Muskogee falls short. There is a wide selection of attractions to choose from, true, but most if not all of them round out to disappointment. The children's area and train are little more than county fair style inflatables set off to the side. Only half of the grounds are actually open and the rest (for some reason) are roped off and dark. For this review I'll discuss three of the top attractions. They use a 5 skull rating system for their attractions so we will go by that and my rating will be after theirs Domus Horrificus: 5 skulls, I give it 4This was by far the best of the haunts we went to. The theme seemed to be movies and they panned out fairly well. It wasn't necessarily 'scary' but I'm not easy to scare. There were enough encounters and some beautiful sets and you didn't feel rushed. The only issues I really had with this one was at the end, the inflated section was a little too inflated and we almost could not get through, some of the costumes were downright sad (slenderman's mask looked like a tshirt??) and the actors could be a bit more interactive, but I know if you are scripted it's hard to play along especially if you aren't used to improvising to people's answers. Overall my favorite of the haunts.Casa Morte: 4 skulls, 3 skullsThe biggest issues I had with this haunt were the lack of actors, props and animatronics and the fog. There were long stretches of nearly nothing, no props, no animatronics, just hallways and it led to a bit of boredom at sections. There was also a sense of panic amongst some of the cast, who rushed by without attempting to scare along the way and left areas unattended. The fog in two of the rooms was way too thick. The first one made it difficult to see where we needed to go and the second room was actually impossible to see and VERY difficult to breathe. A cast member had to break character to help lead us out because we couldn't see anything. Fog is great if you use it correctly. Do not place it on the ground or center and fill a room, instead placing it up high and allowing it to shadow the room creates a much better effect. There was also an issue with backing up in the haunts with other groups. The teams waited between 30 seconds to 1 minute to send in a new group and that's just way too soon. Some people rush, some people (like me) do not. Allow at least 3 minutes between walks and use the down time for characters and animatronics to reset for the next group. Trail of Blood: 5 skulls, 2 skullsI'm going to be honest. The only reason this haunted gets 2 skulls instead of 1 is the zombie section. They were interactive, funny and entertaining and the set was great. Taking the trailer ride out to the entrance is a great idea and we did enjoy that bit very much. The rest, however, was a total flop. Over what seems like 1/2-3/4 mile trek, we encountered no more than 10 actors. The scare zones along the way were mediocre at best. At least 50% of the trail is stumbling along uneven terrain in mostly darkness hoping you are going the right way in between scare zones. Nothing popped out or jumped out at us, no loud noises or true scares. Mostly just an uncomfortable walk through the forest. This makes me sorely disappointed as this is such a HUGE missed opportunity. The length of walk that is available lends to a chance to make a truly great haunted attraction and for 15 dollars a pop and a bar near the entrance, you expect the best. However, what you are met with is half assed props, nearly no scare actors and a sense of wasted money. There are dozens of things that could have been done (for example, the "house" you enter could have easily been a scene from the exorcist or a haunted house instead of staring at decade old technology covered in dust (again, where is an actor?). Overall, the Castle does much better at Renaissance than it does at anything else. Perhaps utilizing the entire village during Halloween as a Victorian village or even a ghost village where spirits roam would be much better. My advice, for such a large facility, look into utilizing your funds in a better way. Splurge on cheap animatronics, train the actors on how to interact better and place more of them in the haunts rather than roaming aimlessly through the half closed village or leaning against buildings doing nothing. Utilize enhanced costume and makeup skills if they are going to be getting close to customers. Overall, the location is amazing and some of the sets are stunning but sorely underused.

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Length of Event:	> 1 hour
Time Visited:	5PM - 9PM
Would Recommend:	Unsure
Suitable For Kids:	Yes

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1 out of 1 found this review helpful

A blast and scary too!!

I am already looking forward to going to the Castle of Muskogee Haunted Attractions!! Everything was great except the haunted hayride. Its super lame. But the haunted houses are fun, the maze as well and the Trail is the bomb!! Very scary!! Highly recommended!!! Plenty to do for the little ones as well

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2 out of 3 found this review helpful