Busch Gardens Tampa Bay Howl-O-Scream — Attraction in Tampa

I went to Howl O Scream on Oct 6th. Buying passes through the website as a pass holder was ridiculous difficult and irritating. Not to mention you advertise $35 and up... With no $35 days I could find. Well, I already promised my partner this as a special present. I chose this as a 17 year in a row veteran to Universal's Halloween Horror Nights, which has gotten crowded with drunks throwing up, not to mention, expensive. I thought Howl o Scream would be a comparable experience, although I was in no way expecting the budget that Universal reserves for their event. Besides, Busch Gardens is an hour drive, while universal is double that, at a 2 hour trip. Well, prices weren't too different from each other, especially with the $10 service fee online I have not encountered with Universal. And passholders only got $5 cheaper?? Not a great discount.

I decided to wait until I got to the park to buy tickets to escape the service fee. Suddenly price went from $49 to $62 at the gate. Okay, I'd rather deal with the service fee to save a few bucks from the already unexpected prices. Bought tickets on my phone, but my phone was not working with e ticket to show up. I went to guest services. They couldnt pull up the passes under my pass holder card. Honestly, not that they even attempted. Told me I needed my confirmation number, which my malfunctioning phone couldnt bring up. A half hour of anxiety induced crying out front of your park as I tried to get my phone to cooperate, and I finally pulled the tickets up.

Already $120+ in, when, with budget concerns, I planned the night to spend about $80 on tickets I thought were $35/ea.

Now onto Howl O Scream... We walked the park three times, watching others have actors jump out and scare them, but not my partner and I. The lines per house were 90 minutes+ of lines that must have been created by someone while drunk. Parts of the queue were tight and confined, other parts normal width, and then parts that gave literal feet of space on the sides of a person. There was a serious issue with line-hoppers and people cutting in line. And so many obnoxious drunk people. It was disgusting how we continually got pushed and touched and harassed in EVERY HOUSE LINE WE STOOD IN. The houses were.... okay. Nothing special, and we went into all except the one near the Gwazi queue.

MOST DISAPPOINTING was the slaughterhouse. Advertised as 18+ only due to the nature of the house... The longest line... And seriously the worst house. My partner and I made it through without even a jump scare. The decorations inside were notably tacky, seemed out of place, with what I can only imagine as the cheapest red paint you could buy instead of even an attempt with fake blood. The longest line, for the most disappointing haunted house I have EVER been in. And, as a super fan of Halloween, I've been in a lot of mom and pop haunted houses as well.

I'm a huge theme park fan of Busch Gardens, and go frequently, thus being a pass holder for many years. As a first timer to Howl o Scream, I'm disappointed and upset beyond words at the experience and the price I paid for this underwhelming experience.

Good luck with your night of alcohol and obnoxious patrons, because that's about all it is without the...

I have over 63,000 views and normally they are a lot more positive than this, but here we go.

What a lack luster event. Not to many years ago this was an incredibly good time for the family and myself to get together for our first real Halloween event. This was a good way to have a little excitement to start the season. As always we did our family trip including the Quick Pass and lodging with the Holiday Inn Express who also is partnered with "BGW" Bush Gardens Williamsburg. Not to mention our 63.00 parking pass which they didn't let us use nor park with my handicap tags. Sent us in the right lanes. This was at 10:00 am and the park was empty.

We get in the park and with the Quick Pass we made short time of hitting the rides (that worked) and getting a couple snacks. We ended up leaving around 3:30 and went to the hotel, which by the way was clean, great service, and made sure they look after you. We got checked in and got off of our feet a minute to wait for the sun to nearly set.

We go back to the park and the preferred parking areas said full. 63.00 gone due to the guys not doing their due diligence. Now I got in the left lane with the hazards and used my handicap tag after the guy gave me a hard time. We get back into the park, with a lot less walking due to finding something nearby towards the gate. We get in and the day continues to impress us in how bad it has become. This is the 25th Anniversary of "Hallo O Scream" and it was a bust. If BGW is going to sale us on this special occasion of a trip, which a lot of people can not really afford, they should do as advertised and actually put effort into it. They have actually removed so many items and staff that they should just throw up decorations and and put up Happy Halloween banners. Every haunted house they had was pathetic with no one attempting to really scare you and maybe 10 people in make-up. They herd you through like cattle and you can't even enjoy the decent scenes in which they made. The second haunted house we got too we had to wait in a line in Quick Que because their scanners do not work. We waited about 15 minutes while everyone else got to pass around. This really helped suck up the evening, too. Then they still had rides down including the Pantheon now.

Do not waste your hard earned money if they're not going to respect what they are actually selling. A good time at a special event in which you pay more for. They got us for a couple of hundred dollars this year. We will not be going to this event which takes us 3.5 hours to reach anymore. Please go to Reddit and Google reviews and ask "Why does Hal O scream suck" and read the reviews.

Please think about not wasting your money if you are expecting the event from the...

We did the ultimate VIP tour on opening weekend. With this you get a customized 7 hour VIP tour, You get preferred parking ($35-50 variable value) Front of the line access to all houses, front of the line access to all rides, a one-time front of the line pass to Iron Gawzi since it's still new. If you want to do the same house over and over or the same rides over and over that's your choice the guides will do that since it's customizable. You also get a free interactive Skull lanyard that lights up and does fog ($35 value) and a free yard cup that you can put alcoholic beverages in that is allowed to go in haunted houses that you can wear around your neck. ($17 value) these are included with your ultimate VIP tour ticket. You also get unlimited drinks at select areas and at the fiends show, such as water, soda, beer seltzer alcohol, and signature drinks. Complimentary spicy popcorn bags and sun chips. I was very pleased with our experience.

Our guides, Michael and Jessica were awesome. They were very knowledgeable about all aspects of the park! We started the night at the lounge for small snacks and drinks.

At 7, we went to Dragonfire Grill for dinner and the Rolling Bones. They did covers of classic songs like Ghostbusters and The Devil Went Down to Georgia. The show was pretty good. We could choose between chicken tenders, burgers or Chinese. The burgers were really good.

Afterwards, we started walking through the houses and exploring the park. The houses were amazing. They were very immersive and very well put together. There was a stand still in one of the houses but Michael tried to get the issue fixed. Unfortunately, the other times we tried to go back, there was still a stand still. It didn't put a damper on our night. I really liked the 50/50 show. It was really fun. The Fiends was ok. The jokes were pretty adult in nature. I really enjoyed the scare-actors. I liked how they were able to interact with you. It's not like that in some other haunts.

When it says that nowhere is safe, they mean it. As we were walking out, we passed a guy who was yelling for his wife to hurry up - it turned out he was a chainsaw guy and made my wife jump. The actors were even in the shop messing with people while they shop.

We definitely had a better experience here than Halloween Horror Nights. We were able to take our time and enjoy the night, whereas at HHN, we were rushed and pushed through the houses. Our tour guides Michael and Jessica went above and beyond to make sure our night was amazing and always made sure that we were happy and that we were doing what we wanted to do. We will...