ScreamParks vs. Independent Haunted Attractions

    Are we becoming jaded to haunts?  Do we expect too much?  What in the world in going on with these attractions?!
    When I was a child I hated haunted houses, and Bryan wasn't allowed to go due to family choices.  Neither of us really grew up with haunts in our experiences, so we REALLY enjoy going now as adults.  The problem we seem to be running into is that some of the larger locations, such as Howl-O-Screams at Busch Gardens in Tampa, don't seem to be feeling like they are worth the money.  What?  Not worth the money?  But they are the top of the line parks! Yeah, well, that's what we thought too...until Saturday.
    Let's start out by saying that there will be more than one post about our experiences there since there are more things to cover than I have time at the moment.
    The first haunt there that we went to was one that blew us away.  I actually jumped, clutched my chest, lost my breath, and screamed.  It was incredible!!  The problem comes when we got father into the night, had some horrible experiences, and decided to revisit that first house of the night to compare the experience between earlier and later.  Here's what we figured out:
     Earlier:  we were sent in alone (just the two of us), we couldn't figure out what was coming so all of the scares were great, we loved it
     Later:  we were sent through as a part of a single-file line that snaked its way through the house from beginning to end, we could see all of the scares coming because we were watching them happen ahead of us, it was absolutely boring and a waste of time
    We won't ever dare to say that their theming wasn't magnificent, because it was absolutely amazing.  We found wonderful actors scattered throughout the houses as well.  The problem comes when we are placed into a long line that often just stops moving so that we are stuck in one of the rooms of the haunt with no way to flow into the next location.  You can't run from the scare, you can't move on to see what is coming, you can't go back to escape the line you are stuck it...just S T U C K.  It completely ruined it for both of us.  I am not normally a person who gets to experience the scares in a haunt because I know what to look for, but in the first time through, on the first house, they got me good.  I only wish that they had counted to 15 between groups later in the evening so that I would have had a similar experience then.
    Yes, that's right, I said FIFTEEN.  It is absolutely amazing what a 15 second gap between groups entering a haunt can do.  When we catch up to groups inside we will stand in a room and count to 10 before moving on so that we get the scares, rather than watching them get the scares.  When we do that we rarely catch back up to the group ahead of us.  Such a short window of time could have made Howl-O-Screams sooo much better.  The saddest part of all was that in talking to staff there and Guest Relations we only managed to find one staff member who cared what we thought and actually agreed that it takes away from the experience to send people through in groups.  ONE!  Really? 
     We have decided that it will be a long time before we go back for Busch Gardens' Halloween events, but we may go back to enjoy the regular park attractions soon since that part was at least something we had mostly good experiences with.   Just wait until you read the rest of what all happened on that trip!  You won't believe it!