Dark Woods Adventure Park — Attraction in Louisiana

Imagine being stuck in a small tourist town with nothing to offer- a few restaurants, a few bars, a few dollar stores, and a Walmart... the historic downtown area for "shopping" shuts down around 5pm, the crime rate is fairly high and aside from the Christmas Festival, Natchitoches doesn't have a ton to offer these days.

Enter Dark Woods- I want to say they opened in 2015 or so and have expanded or added something new EVERY YEAR since!

Halloween is my favorite holiday so I'm a little partial here but... wow! The haunted attraction runs in Sept and Oct. Everything is on point, well run, and TERRIFYING! The actors are very professional and well trained. There are several "activities" such as the coffin ride, 2 different attractions (indoor and a trail), and the best food you've EVER had at an adventure/theme park. Remember the crime rate I mentioned? DW has parking lot staff at Halloween (and Christmas too, I think) making sure everyone fits and your cars are SO MUCH SAFER here (please, take my word). I can't think of another place in town that provides this for any event.

After they close down the haunted attraction for the season, the Christmas transformation begins. I DESPISE Natchitoches' overpriced, crowded Christmas festival. When anyone asks, I point them in the direction of DW Christmas in the Park. It's low key, beautiful, well put together, and romantic (lots of proposals happening here)! And again with the great snacks! Picture it- S'mores by the fire on a cool winter night with a steaming hot cocoa, your kids excited and happy to see the lights, pictures with Santa, Mrs. Claus, reindeer... even Krampus!!!!!!! It's a nice walk (and your kids will get tired, you can thank me later. 😉)

They have the gold panning experience, which I've never done, but I hear it's great and that you find a lot! My daughter went, and several friends, and everyone raved.

I know they do a picture with the Easter Bunny thing. Again, I've never been but everyone's pictures are terrific (or hilarious)!

The ticket prices beat any attraction in the area. Halloween tickets may seem steep but the experience is well worth it and there's tons to do that night, you won't regret it. Oh, and if you look in any local business, there's sure to be fliers with coupons. They also have a student night and a blood drive night where the tickets are reduced. And Christmas? Waaaay cheaper than the riverbank.

Definitely check out their version of "build a bear".. same idea as the original only way, way cuter. Choose and stuff a bear (or a bat, cow, highland cow, there's a lot of cute choices), then find it an adorable outfit and accessories. Come back each season and get it a new outfit, they change them out regularly (Halloween outfits, Christmas, etc.)

Word on the street is that they are breaking ground on not one, but TWO new types of adventures soon! 🤞🏼🤞🏼

The owners are always on site and are absolutely one of the FRIENDLIEST families in town.

Amazing experiences! Thank you, Dark Woods, for adding a little fun into this dying "tourist" town. Keep up the amazing work!

One last thing, WEAR COMFY SHOES! It's outdoors, and depending on the adventure you choose, it could be a...

OK, so this may be long, but I can't stand leaving reviews that are so short it doesn't benefit the people who are reading it. My girlfriend and I with our son and his friend drove all the way out to Natchitoches from Dallas to finally visit Dark Woods. We had heard/read great things about the attraction and were finally able to get out there.

We reserved a hotel room for the night so we would have enough time to stay in town to see the sights. Not known to us, it was the weekend of the homecoming game at their local college, NSU, so we were lucky to get a room.

We knew with it being close to Halloween, we would be dealing with big crowds at Dark Woods. We're seasoned haunted house fans and know the drill. Getting there when they first open is a must, and if you can, get a fast pass. This is a given in my book and I can't stress enough how great and worth it, it is, to spend a few bucks more to get to the head of the lines. We were delighted at the pricing of the tickets at Dark Woods. This allowed all four of us to afford to get into both attractions with fast passes.

The grounds of Dark Woods are amazing. It was still light out when we got there, but the sun quickly went down and the park became dark and took on a whole new life. This is the perfect setting for a haunted house/attraction. Haunted trails have always been my favorite and theirs does not disappoint! Dead Fall Trail just seems to go on forever and just when you think you're safe, you quickly realize you are not! My heart got a workout on that trail!

We then moved onto their second attraction, Dark Carnival in 3D. Wall to wall scares and you just never know was is lurking around the corner. They use every inch of space in this haunt and it shows. I am so used to quick and smaller clown themed shows, but this, like the trail, just kept going. So much packed into that show. We had a blast.

A big shout out to the actors for their hard work and getting my blood and heart pumping.

I also want to mention the concessions. They have a variety of sodas and water as well as these AMAZING mini donuts in so many flavors. We tried the cinnamon sugar, chocolate and vanilla donuts and they were so tasty. We also had one of their meat pies. So so good!

Our last stop was at the merchandise booth where we bought some cool water bottles, hats and shirts. They have a nice variety of item to purchase. You can't go to a haunt and not leave with something from the merch booth.

Thanks to the entire crew at Dark Woods for an amazing time! We're already planning on coming back in December for your...

It was pretty good. I'm a horror fan and love the thrill of being scared. This place done a pretty good job at that. The 3D carnival was OK, I got laughs out of it, but the Dead Fall Trail is what really got my jollies going. Not too mention me and my husband getting a kick out of watching other people screaming and running in terror. Sleezy though was pretty awesome. One of their twisted clowns. He made the wait so enjoyable and what I liked most of all was how he switched between not being scary with the kids, then scare the adults, while talking dirty to adults who talked dirty. Which is me, and we went to town, and my husband couldn't stop laughing. I wasn't aware of Fast Pass, and it was Sleezy who was telling folks you can upgrade to Fast Pass. I did. And it was worth it. Then as we were walking out, a young patron (for real), was so terrified of one of the extras she couldn't get out and had asked me if she could walk with us. And so arm in arm, I had to walk this girl around the extra lurking by the exit. But like another reviewer mentioned, you guys gotta work on fixing up the parking. The parking was just as scary as the...