Dorney Park Pre-Haunt 2013 Update

The photos in this Dorney Park update are actually from last week - my apologies - 'real life' kept getting in the way of me publishing them!

I stopped by the park to check out the Haunt VI prep that was sure to be going on, and indeed the work was in full force.  The park has a brand new monster truck that will be used in parades, but for now it was placed in the front plaza, above.  I love how it looks like that dino is going right for it!

The building that houses the indoor section of Desolation, a new maze last year, stays up year round so it is probably one of the first the park is able to finish.  This is actually the exit area to the maze, with the entrance and outdoor section taking place under and behind White Water Landing (seen in the background).

The amazing pirate ship and building props were already out for Cut Throat Island, an outdoor scare zone in the Hydra plaza.  The park was still dressing them up a bit, and plenty of smaller additions will go in before the Haunt's opening night.  It still amazes me that the park was able to build something as massive as this in-house.

Age of Darkness is one of the scare zones that is receiving a huge makeover this year.  The zone will cover the same territory as in past years, only now it will extend into the space that used to be home to Death Trap.  Above is the entrance to that new section, where gruesome scares await in a torture chamber.

This appears to be the exit to the new section, which is opposite the castle that is built on the side of the nearby restrooms.  With these additional structures the path is covered in more rich scenery than ever before, and will make for some great atmosphere once darkness falls.

If you guys remember the story of the dinosaur that fell to Hurricane Sandy from our previous look at Dorney Park's Haunt preparations, here you can see the final product placed in the park.  It looks great!  This over-the-fence shot shows some of the walls and paths that have gone up where Death Trap was.  There were other surprises that could be seen, but I wanted to hold off on showing those.

While you can't see much of what has been put into place, the excess parking area near Steel Force has been blocked off for Grave Walkers.  The entrance to the cemetery, which is totally overrun with zombies, is up but the blackout on the fencing hides the rest of the progress.

Two other returning Haunts are the Asylum and the Mansion House Hotel, both of which had their facades stay up all year this season.  I've heard that there have been some small changes to Mansion House that will make it look as great as ever - this is still one of the best mazes the park has ever produced in my opinion.

The park will again be holding their annual Zombie Invasion on the opening night of the Haunt, this is the only day when folks can get dressed up and enter the park as their favorite ghoul.  On September 21st the park will hold in conjunction with Run Lehigh Valley the Haunt VI 5k Zombie Run - you can read more about that event here.

One last shot that is not Haunt related - the park has been working on clearing and grading the new acres of land they purchased a few years ago.  This area is located next to the current overflow parking lot, and is expected to become more parking.  Hopefully that means the park can push their current boundaries out into the existing lots - a good sign for the future!

Haunt VI opens on Friday the 13th of September.