Queen Mary Haunted Shipwreck

This will be our third year in a row attending Shipwreck. We're excited! Leaving work as soon as possible, going down to Long Beach, buying the tix, going to the Yardhouse for a happy hour dinner, then going back to the Shipwreck to enjoy their mazes and the haunted ship herself...I'll say more after we've gone!

Okay, it's now the Sunday afterwards...so how was it? Very cool. Much improved over last year. They opened a half hour late, then they were letting press in to a few mazes while temporarily stopping the public from going through; which sucked and made us a bit angry. But once things got started, things got rollin'. They rearranged the mazes this year, one of which was new (the Manor of Mayhem) and another was refurbed (don't know which one). We hit Revenge of the Reaper first; good, but not great. Nice and long, but without a consistent theme as near as I could tell, which hurt the overall feel for the maze. Next was Blood of the Buccaneers, which was good. It uses the 3D effect but isn't really a 3D maze. Excellent theme; the sort of nautical theming is something that they really should utilize more considering there location. Next up, the mazes in the ship. In the past, these have sometimes been questionable; they just didn't seem to utilize their excellent space. The interior passages are crammed with nooks and crannies they never seemed to really take advantage of. Until this year. Decks of the Doomed, Corridors of Carnage and Haunted Hull of Horrors are all inside the ship and were packed with scare-actors. Then it was back outside to the House of Hallucinations, an excellent 3D maze that really relies upon nothing more than the neon 3D effect and the scare-actors. The new maze, in the dome, the Manor of Mayhem in the Dome of Doom, was very well done. The maze itself felt like an actual maze and featured several "animatronic" effects.

Shipwreck did several things very well this year. It was well staffed with lots of scare-actors packed into all sorts of spaces, several of whom really knew what they were doing, taking unusual angles and approachs to get people like me off-guard. They also made excellent use of...wait for it...darkness. Who would of thought of that? Seriously, too often scare-actors rely upon the suprise of the corner; a lot of these guys and gals were just hiding in dark spots right in front of you. The mazes are all long and confusing; any number of times you think the maze is over, but it keeps going. Not to mention when you do reach the end, it's a suprise then too.

Maze of the year for Haunted Shipwreck? Manor of Mayhem.
Most in need of improvement? Revenge of the Reaper.

Overall, I'd recomend taking a trip down to Long Beach this year to check out the Haunted Shipwreck. It's much improved not only from last year, but also from the year before (2005) and it was good that year.