The Long Halloween Diaries 2016 - Queen Mary's Dark Harbor

(For those new to this article series, please check out my introduction to The Long Halloween.)

The Queen Mary in Long Beach is a must see tourist attraction pretty much any time of year, hearkening back to a day when massive ocean liners were king and a vital form of transportation instead of floating cities rife with crime and various stomach diseases. Of course, in addition to the opulence, the ship has its dark sides. It was called into service to ferry soldiers during World War II, and like any hotel, it lost a handful of guests and crew over the years. The ship has a reputation for being one of America’s most haunted places, and while we’ve never actually seen anything to confirm or deny this reputation (despite having taken its ghost tour that you can attend any time of year), I have an easy time seeing the ship as a creepy place. There’s something about the 1940’s aesthetics combined with the complete and utter blackness that you can only really find in the deep, iron hulk of a ship that just makes the hair on the back of my neck stand on end.
 
So, naturally, this is the perfect place for a haunt.
 
Dark Harbor is one of the standout haunts in Southern California, and one of the main reasons for it is how little they half-ass the experience. They could have just put one haunted house in (or by) the ship, vaguely themed it to something retro or ship-based and called it a day, enjoying the extra money they make on top of being a tourist destination and active hotel, but no. Dark Harbor sets itself up as an event to rival even the theme park attractions nearby, with six mazes, a carnival of terrors atmosphere, and numerous other attractions. Now I’ll admit, they clearly don’t have the room or budget to pull off a lot of what the major theme parks do, you won’t find makeup and sets on the level of what you’ll find at Universal Studios or Knott’s Berry Farm, but what you will find is enthusiasm. Year in and out the scareactors here are arguably the scariest I’ve seen at any Halloween event, charging, following, taking advantage of the darkness and coaxing out any screams you might be hiding away.
 
So, did this year live up to the high bar set by past years? Well, Fiona and I with our dear friend Ashley got a few front of the line tickets and went to find out.

It's Dark Harbor time!

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THE MAZES

As per usual in Dark Harbor, there are three shipboard mazes and three landlocked mazes. Having learned from previous years, we decided to do all the shipboard mazes first. This has several benefits, as the shipboard mazes get incredibly hot (especially given Southern California’s tenuous understanding of the concept of fall), and the more crowded they get, the more of a conga line of people they become, cutting down on the scares.
 
As well, and I cannot stress this enough, front of the line passes are essential. With lines that can get up to 2 or 3 hours long, the front of the line passes are the only way to see every maze.
 
Soulmate

The first shipboard maze, Soulmate, was the tale of ship ghost Graceful Gale and her search for the perfect man. The perfect man, of course, being one she makes from chopping up various suitors. Naturally, because of this, this is a maze full of beautiful women, body parts, and sheets of flayed skin all over the place. While not necessarily the scariest maze, it was a great way to begin the night.
 
Lullaby

Creepy little girls are a horror staple for a reason, and Lullaby, the story of ship ghost Scary Mary, allegedly a little girl who drowned in the ship’s pool, really milks this concept and makes this easily the scariest maze of the night. Going deep into the ship’s bowels, we enter Scary Mary’s playground, a mix of toys and dead bodies, and unrelenting jump scares from Scary Mary around every corner. Every person at one time or another in our group burst out screaming, and I cannot stress enough how much the maze’s talent elevates this one. The actresses playing Scary Mary were equal parts terrifying and funny, often following us around for a while and bantering, only to lead us into another scareactor and even more screams. The fact that part of this maze actually takes us over the ship’s pool, where several kids actually did drown in real life, adds the extra spook factor here.

Scary Mary didn't want to let us go, clearly.

B340

Like a lot of Halloween attractions, Dark Harbor often creates character icons to add personality and backstory. Some of them, like Graceful Gale and Scary Mary, work well and organically with the theme of their maze, while others just feel a bit tacked on. Samuel the Savage, of the maze B340, is one of the latter. The maze is allegedly a trip through one man’s madness as he was locked up on the ship, but the maze itself is more just a semi-random collection of weird imagery taking us through the Queen Mary’s old engine rooms. It’s alright, but nothing to write home about.
 
Circus

For a maze that really doesn’t fit the aesthetic of the Queen Mary in any way, the Circus maze has always been rather entertaining. Taking full advantage of this year’s creepy clown craze (a stupid craze I refuse to acknowledge beyond a reference), the creepy clowns in this maze were on the hunt, confusing and scaring and just generally having a blast messing with us. Arguably more of a funhouse than a maze, Circus had a lot of classic funhouse sorts of gags, like shifting floors, spinning tunnels, mirror mazes and an honest to god ball pit we had to walk through that made this maze a scary blast.
 
Intrepid

Oh man, if this wasn’t the disappointment of the night. Based on the premise of being the haunted shipyard where the Queen Mary was built, the Intrepid maze got off to a good start as we walk through a train carriage, and falls apart after that. What could have been a creepy, loud, industrial themed maze lacked traditional maze walls, instead making up much of its run with chain link fence. When so much of what makes mazes scary is controlling the attendees line of sight, so they can’t see what’s coming next, the fencing completely took away any potential scares this maze had, and made it the weakest maze of the night.
 
Deadrise

An old standard of Dark Harbor, the Deadrise maze takes a walk through the ship (actually a series of interconnected shipping containers) that brings it back to its ghostly World War II days. As ever, this maze is a creepy highlight of Dark Harbor, with numerous phantom sailors hiding around every corner just waiting to terrify (and the one great jump scare at the end that I’ll refuse to divulge, but it works EVERY TIME). If I were to have a complaint, it’s that this year’s attraction relies too much on water effects, splashing the ground and making it slippery. While they do add a nice spark to the event, they also make you lose focus of the scares and focus on not falling down, which is an unneeded distraction when you’re trying to get in the haunt mood.

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OTHER ATTRACTIONS

Cheers from the Dark Harbor Freak Show!

Dark Harbor has a number of other upcharge attractions, including a paintball gallery, a “freak show”, and the Panic 4-D experience. While we didn’t have the time to partake in them all, I will say that the Freak Show and Panic 4-D are well worth their $5 tickets. The Freak Show is a mini-maze unto itself, taking you through shipping containers where you get to banter with the ghostly skeleton Sparky and his terrible jokes, and a maze of pure white theatrical fog, where ghostly beings haunt you with every step. Once you get to the freak show stage and bar, you can sit down, have a couple drinks, and watch a stage performance. While this year’s Freak Show lacked a lot of last year’s spark, namely the actual freak performers, the fiddler and fire dancer we got to watch this year were still quite entertaining.

Plus you get to take pictures sticking your heads through things, and that’s never a bad thing.

The Panic 4-D experience is even more fun. A short, 3 or 4 minute 3-D animated movie taking you through the haunted ship while being chased by monsters, the cheesy 4-D effects that simulate being poked in the back, or having insects run over your feet, or getting blasted with foam, add a delightfully cheesy element to an otherwise straight terrifying event.

In conclusion, Dark Harbor is one helluva time, and a must see of Halloween events in Southern California.

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