Haunted Schoolhouse & Laboratory — Local services in Akron

The short and sweet: As someone who loves horror I was not overly impressed or disappointed in total. I would say out of the majority of the haunted houses I researched while visiting Akron/Cleveland this weekend this was not my least favorite. I would recommend getting the fast pass though as the lines were extremely long. I would say for $35 a person with two houses that have multiple floors the price is not bad.

Now for the nitty gritty. Two houses with like what 3 or 4 floors (sorry cant exactly remember) each meant for a lot of walking to cover all the things you could see which was nice.

BUT you had multiple lines you had to wait in that made it take longer to get to the attraction then actually going through it. A line to get checked by security, to a line to get into the haunted school house door, then a line inside there to get into a line to group up to get into the stairwell that then was lined up to get into the actual first floor. On one hand I thought it was nice to have that to break up the groups to allow for you to get plenty of viewing/scaring time while walking the floors but NOPE because after all that wait once you got to the stairs you then got bunched back up so it was like you never got split up to start with. Then the staff were rudely rushing people through saying to not stop, which makes sense except for I stopped to allow for the animatronics to reset so I could actually see what they did.

Then once through the first house you get to take a break and grab food/drink but the food truck they had in their was so unprepared and overpriced. $8 for 4 costco mozzerella sticks nuked in the mic...come on now. I paid $40 bucks for 8 sticks, some mac balls and a drink and the drink was more ice then drink and the food was not even fully nuked....but at that point I was done so didnt even try the bar. For the price they pay and the fact they have this attraction locked down they should invest in better food arrangements.

Last but not least to the actual props and actors and what not. I will say there is a LOT to see in here with all the floors and two buildings to go through. But more doesnt mean better. There isnt a "story" really that made sense, it was more like you were flipping the channel through horror channels on halloween night hoping something would scare you and it didnt. Most of the actors looked at me but never did a jump or nothing which was likely as they just did it to the crowd right in front of me so (or maybe because I am a 6foot bit dude and they figured why waste it) idk. Either way that was disappointing and then there were a TON of props and animatronics but I dont know if they were resetting when I walked by or broke but I would say 1/3 of them didnt do anything so was nothing more than a still prop at that point.

All in all I would say for the price, compared to some of the other places out there near it I would choose this one over the others but I wouldnt come back again or boost to my...

In a non-covid world I would be giving a 5 star review. The school house was AMAZING and lived up to my expectations after wanting to go for years. Well spaced out between groups so if you take your time you might not catch up to the group in front of you. We caught up with them at the very end of the second floor and were able to wait 30 seconds without the group behind us catching up before proceeding through the last floor. The first floor was definitely the best. I liked that they reminded you to keep masks on and made you sanitize your hands before entering as well as having hand sanitizer before entering each floor.

The issues come with outside the attraction. In the lines social distancing was non-existant and I’d say about 80-90% of people waiting weren’t wearing masks properly. I understand that it’s hard to enforce but we only saw one worker walking around the whole 1.5 hours we were in line. Also the timed entries are a bit of a joke. There’s no separating between times in the lines so you’re just mixed in with a bunch of people who may or may not be in your time block. If you’re too early they would have you stand in a group at the bottom of the stairs before proceeding in. There should be a two line system with workers directing you to the line you’re to wait in and checking your tickets as you get to the end of the line. Imagine this: a line on the left and a line on the right. The left is the current time block entering the main queue and the right is those with the next time block. Once it hits that time (or even ten minutes prior) the right line is allowed to merge over into the left and then a new right line is created for the next time block. Just a suggestion. Maybe this is done earlier in the night but by the time we arrived for our 10pm time block all bets were off.

I approve of the buying tickets online only and the way you entered into the house. I don’t even mind that you can only go into one of the houses for the price that it usually is for two. It’s a weird time - I get it. I would absolutely visit again - it’s one of the best haunted houses I’ve been to by far. But probably not until the...

My other half and I come here every September 30th for our anniversary. He has been coming since the 90s and me since the early 2000s. So many good changes over the past few years we have greatly enjoyed, but this year was an exception.

We are early birds and arrive around 6 to 6:30 for the beer before fear. We buy fast pass every time and typically get merch. This year, the layout was different and without much direction from the staff. When we purchased tickets online, it would be nice to get some direction on fast pass like "please visit the ticket booth for your wrist band". We had to take merch to the car and present tickets to come back into the beer before fear midway. The lady checking didn't mention we needed to pit stop for wristbands. We found out upon trying to enter. The fast pass was not worth the extra money as we only skipped the first initial line, as all patrons seemed to, to be given into the stairway to wait with everyone else. Not sure what the point of fast pass was this year. Groups were mich less spaced out and ended up with people right on top of us because we want to take our time and enjoy the many props, which we're great this year.

Actors were subpar and not as interactive this year with the exception of Chuckles the clown and popcorn chicken. That is a part I have always loved here but this year seemed to be greatly missing that element.

As musicians, I wanted to be a fan of the live entertainment, but it was hard to hold conversation and I admittedly missed the DJ or just background music playing.

I hope the communication on tickets can be a fix and that actors improve so that next year does not become our last year we celebrate our...