A few days after I went to Hong Kong Disneyland for their Halloween, it's time to explore Ocean Park's Halloween Bash 2011, which has been running for 11 years. So, their experience in making Halloween attractions should be better than Hong Kong Disneyland.
I was lucky that their Halloween Bash starts on the week that I was in Hong Kong. The first 3 days of the month long will have discounted price ($HKD224, after that depending on the date the price will be HKD$280 or HKD$325) of the entry pass. I bought the Night Ticket in Admiralty before I boarded the bus to Ocean Park. When I reached there, I saw that all the Privilege Ticket (HKD$460) and Privilege Dinner Combo (HKD$680) were all sold out! Details of the ticket pricing here.
My advise is if you are going on Friday, Saturday or Sunday or a public holiday, buy your Privilege Ticket or Privilege Dinner Combo online if you can spend the extra cash because with the normal ticket I have to queue up for 30-45 minutes per haunted house. There are eight haunted houses there, so with a normal ticket you'll have to plan really well to make sure you'll be able to visit all the haunted houses.
Ocean Park Hell Money to use as discount coupon on selected services and products. The face on the money is Allan Zeman, Chairman of Ocean Park.
If you can't get the Privilege Ticket then go early! Reach there before 6 p.m. and you might get yourself one Early Bird coupon. I reached there early and got the coupon. To activate the Early Bird coupon, I have to go to any of the four haunted houses up on the Summit (take the cable car or Ocean Express to go up) before 6.30pm and get a stamp on the coupon. Once the coupon has been activated, I can use it as a privilege pass for one of the 3 haunted houses in The Waterfront (except for the HTC presents Nightmare in 3D)
Since I wanted to activate my early bird coupon so I took the cable car up to the Summit and queue up for The Last Bus, which took me about 30 minutes to queue up.
Actor playing Dead Policeman suddenly appear in the queue.
Each of the haunted house will have live performance actors/actresses in there. The Last Bus is a haunted houses that will recreate those haunted roads or accidents in Hong Kong. It's actually not very long and I finished it in about 2 minutes.
Scary Rating: 2/5
After getting out from the Last Bus, the ghosts and zombies already started the flag rising ceremony for the Republic of Halloween.
Not a fan of haunted houses? No problem, you can stay at the Dark Side Show stage to watch different shows for the whole night.
Not wanting to waste time, I quickly move to another (I've already got the stamp for my Early Bird coupon from The Last Bus) haunted house, which is The Bloody Workshop.
This haunted houses display different human body parts in each area. Not for the weak hearted if you can't stand blood and gore. Of course there are live performeers inside to scare you.
Scary Rating: 3/5
Next up is the Paper Doll Paradise. As the name suggested, there will be performers dressed as Paper Doll, which is the offering to the dead in Chinese customs. In here, you are as if you are in hell, you'll see the Chinese black and white death god. The scary part about this house is that from the beginning you'll have to separate with your friends because the guard there will split you up to go into one of the two tunnels, you can't go to the same one with your friend.
Scary Rating: 3/5
The last of the haunted house that I went to in The Summit is Zombie Mayhem. It's not very scary but it's very fun because we get to have laser guns to shoot the "zombies" inside the haunted house. The zombies will also shoot at you and your gun will stalled for a few seconds and points will be deducted. Shoot as many targets to get points and in the exit you can check out your ranking.
Queuing up to get the laser gun from the cabinet.
Scary Rating: 2/5
Fun Rating: 4/5
After conquering the four haunted houses on The Summit, I took the cable car to go down to The Waterfront. (I didn't know Ocean Park Express is in operation, damn scary riding on the cable car with strong wind blowing)
The nearest haunted house at the Waterfront after I get off from the cable car is Macabre Studio. The theme here comes from most of the popular Hong Kong haunted movies. So, if you are a haunted movie fan, you will be able to have a sense of familiarity in this haunted house.
Scary Rating: 3/5
Next up, HTC presents Nightmare in 3D. In the 3D show itself there won't be life actor/actress scaring you but while you are inside waiting to enter each 3D room there will be performers acting as asylum patients interacting with you.
As for the 3D show, it's really very 3D that it's like you can touch the items or people in the screen. Think hologram projection. This is one attraction that you can't miss.
Scary Rating: 2/5
Fun Rating: 5/5
6 haunted houses down and 2 more to go. Time to take a short rest and recharge. I used one of the Ocean Park Hell Money to get a 20% discount on the Blue Girl hotdog combo, which gets you a can of Blue Girl beer and a plain hotdog with buns for HKD$40 (Normal price HKD$50).
The queue to Fear Factory is so freaking long that it took me 45 minutes to complete the queue. Here, you are the visitor to a coffin making factory. There will be staffs inside there explaining to you. So, it's kind of interactive. At the last part you have to take the slide down so you can't go together with your friend.
Rating: 3/5
Fun Rating: 3/5
Luckily after I've done Fear Factory it was already after 10pm. This mean I can use my Early Coupon as a privilege pass for the last haunted house, Yahoo HK! presents Torture Chamber of the Dragon Empress. So, queuing time for me here is 2 minutes. The theme here is based on the torturing methods from the Qing Dynasty.
Scary Rating: 3/5
P.S. I am basically quite immune to the haunted houses, so the scary rating I put here is for those brave people, add 1 or 2 more points to the rating if you are a timid person :p
It's already 10.30 p.m. when I was done with the last haunted house. Since, there's still time, so I went up to The Summit again using Ocean Express. During the ride you'll be able to watch some scary animation on the ceiling of the tram.
By the way, it was raining the whole night that night. Lucky I bought the Ocean Park umbrella for HKD$99 -_-
It was a great experience to be able to enjoy Ocean Park Halloween Bash that happens once in a year. If you happen to be in Hong Kong in October, then this is one of the attraction you must visit. Opens from 5.30 p.m. till 12.00 a.m. Please note that the day pass and night pass is sold separately.
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