Family friendly trails and spook zones take over the zoo, ready to create not nightmares, but rather the next generation of haunted attraction enthusiasts.
Creatures of the Night, located at ZooTampa, is a separately ticketed event that runs eleven select nights between October 2, 2020 and October 31, 2020, every Friday and Saturday, as well as the last Thursday of the month. This event is highly unique to the Haunted Attractions industry, as it really is one of the first to offer entirely family friendly “haunts” and “scare zones” – terms we really only use in this review to conform to our standard site nomenclature. Far more spooky than scary, Creatures of the Night offers a Halloween environment families – especially those with younger children – can enjoy together. This year, Creatures of the Night features two Haunts, seven Scare Zones, one live show and the ability to visit many of your favorite ZooTampa animal residents after dark.
Dinos – Out of TIme
We could honestly keep this description limited to three words and still probably completely sell you on this one: HAUNT. WITH. DINOSAURS.
Dinos – Out of Time is something genuinely unique, and in truth, it’s a bit of a happy accident. ZooTampa featured a limited run attraction this year called Dinos Alive – your standard walking trail past life-sized animatronic dinosaurs. Although those prehistoric beasts were set to once again go extinct by now, a unique arrangement with the production company who rents them out allowed ZooTampa to keep them just a bit longer. What results is something truly special for Creatures of the Night, and Halloween attractions in general.
The Dinos are still on the loose – but now, the time machine has malfunctioned, allowing them to break free into the modern world. Explorers will pass through that very time machine, before encountering some three dozen massive, hungry dinosaurs up very close and personal. There’s no barriers holding these beasts back – a fact that instantly in and of itself evokes a sense of danger.
Scientists are on hand to help where they can, but they’ll need back up in the thick jungle path if there’s to be any hope of containing this dino outbreak. Dark shadows and colorful lights cast eerie glows on the giant animatronic figures that lurk along this trail, making it a perfect “dare” attraction for kids to overcome their fears and prove just how brave they really are.
Rising Waters
In truth, Creatures of the Night features what would perhaps better suited to be called “Spook Zones” than Scare Zones. Although at their core, make no mistake, these uniquely themed mini-worlds full of actors most certainly check off all the qualifications of a traditional Scare Zone, their focus is radically different. ZooTampa embraces a family-friendly environment, creating these “Spook Zones” specifically to appeal to a younger, slightly less brave audience. Here, all the “monsters” are completely friendly, outgoing and welcoming. Sure, they may look a bit creepy at times, but that’s all part of the fun. ZooTampa’s cast of scareactors puts in extra efforts across the board to engage and interact with kids, making them the focus of their own special Halloween night. Naturally, they’re also always more than happy to pose for photographs to let those memories last long after the little ones have grown into big kids.
Twisted Tales
Enjoy everyone’s favorite villains from storybooks, from an evil queen to a wolf in grandma’s clothing, as they come to life with unexpected twists. Don’t worry, the Fairy Godmother will keep them all on their best behavior!
Playing off the event’s over-aching theme of creepy campfire stories come to life, Twisted Tales is appropriately the first scare zone found upon entering the park.
What is on paper a small hub area translates to a world of ever-evolving fairytales come to life. Walking around the circle, the scene constantly evolves from one classic story to another. Jack and the Bean Stalk, the Three Little Pigs, Little Red Riding Hood and more come to life in playful, friendly fashion.
Like many of the event’s scare zones, Twisted Tales is a fantastic spot to take photos with the inhabitants of this slightly spooky world.
Pumpkin Palooza
Dominated by a large tree lined top to bottom with twinkling white lights, its branches hanging with full grown pumpkins, this kid-friendly party zone has an instantly high energy about it.
Modest fall décor enhances the Wallaroo section of the park, but it’s the lively entertainment that truly activates the mood in Pumpkin Palooza. Friendly scarecrows lead an all night dance party – adding constant kinetic motion and a happy, celebratory vibe.
Although everything at Creatures of the Night is geared towards kids of all ages, Pumpkin Palooza is guaranteed to be an instant hit with younger audiences.
Clown Carousel
Encircling its perimeter, color lights and fog set a spooky tone. Side Show wagons parked around the carousel evoke memories of a classic circus that’s rolled into town.
Without a doubt, the star of this show are the clowns themselves – freely roaming in circles around the carousel, they’re playful, silly and love posing for pictures.
Realm of the Spider queen
Trek through a spooky spider cave and emerge at a high energy dance celebration presided by the Spider Queen.
Accessed through a massive spider’s lair, this tunnel is draped with webs on all sides (and above.) Enchanting spider eggs twinkle and glow while dangling from overhead webs. The air is thick with fog-filled bubbles ready to be popped.
Naturally, this web is home to several life-sized spider-people – but don’t worry; they’re friendly – and happy to use most of their eight legs to give a friendly wave to kids passing by.
On the other side of the web waits the Spider Queen herself – ready to pose for photographs and interact with her subjects personally. This is a rare opportunity in the haunt world to meet an event’s icon character.
The Spider Queen’s court is a lively dance party of energetic web creatures. They’re friendly too, of course – and might just invite kids to join in their choreographed dance routines throughout the evening.
Camp Creeptastic
Camo netting zig zags across the path, making Camp Creeptastic feel larger and more separated than it actually is to great affect.
Siren’s Song
Enter the underwater world of the siren where she lures unsuspecting pirates with her song and transforms them to stone.
Set within the Manatee building, Siren’s Song is the event’s only indoor attraction, allowing it to truly take on a life of its own – distinct from everything else lurking at Creatures of the Night.
Set at the bottom of the ocean, Siren’s Song sends divers into a sunken ship graveyard. Rippling water projections cast dramatic, dancing aquatic lights throughout the space. The shadows of mermaids swim across tattered sails, still draped across snapped masts. This use of animated projection effects adds another layer to Siren’s Song, allowing the scare zone to truly feel like it’s all around brave explorers of the deep.
Sunken with the ill-fated vessels are many priceless, life-sized statues. Doomed to rest forever upon the ocean’s floor, they sit rusted and covered in barnacles. Some of these statues are a bit less willing to stand still, occasionally moving swiftly to offer a friendly fright.
Pirate Party Pants
Just beyond Siren’s Song, Pirate Party Pants acts as a bit of an extension to the shipwreck-flavored scare zone.
Entirely outdoors, this scare zone is more geared towards being a themed snack area, enhanced with some interactive games for the young and young at heart. Where else can you play cornball using skulls, with a pirate?
Small bits of décor give Pirate Party Pants its own unique photo backdrop, thanks to the remnants of a swashbuckling ship’s mast, still flying the infamous Jolly Roger.
Lucilla Lumpkins Smashes Pumpkins
A family-friendly show created especially for Creatures of the Night, this one is as aptly named as it comes. The silly Lucilla Lumpkins delivers on her promise, as she quite literally smashes pumpkins to the delight of every kid (and let’s be honest, most adults) in the audience!
For obvious reasons, it’s worth noting that it’s possible you may get wet during this show. However, thanks to a little stage magic and good old fashioned make-believe, these pumpkins look real, but aren’t; so there’s no need to worry about stains (or you know, smelling like a human pumpkin for the rest of the evening.)
Unfortunately due to timing constraints, we were not able so see Lucilla Lumpkins Smashes Pumpkins on our visit to Creatures of the Night.
This is not one of our typical Haunt review sections, but we feel that it’s critically important to address during the 2020 Halloween Season. We understand that a lot of you are still nervous about venturing out this fall, and may have questions about what venues are doing to keep you and your loved ones safe. It is our hope that we can assuage some of those very valid fears in our Health & Safety section of each Haunt Review.
There’s lots to delight in throughout this uniquely family friendly haunt – but unfortunately, the one and only area it left us disappointed is – this year – undoubtedly the most important. Simply put, ZooTampa managed their Health & Safety standards poorly.
First, we need to address the elephant in the room. No – not the ones majestically wandering their enclosures; we’re talking about the hundreds of others crowding the midways, each with their trunks freely exposed. That’s our clever way of expressing our disappoint that ZooTampa is the only event we’ve visited this season that does not have a required mask mandate in place to protect its guests and staff. In fact, the only portion of the event that requires masks is the indoor Siren’s Song scare zone – and even that is solely while guests are within the building.
Although the employees – including the scareactors – always wear masks, on the night of our visit, we’d estimate somewhere north of 80% of the guests in the park did not. There was an equal disregard for physical distancing throughout, creating an environment that felt much more like a throwback to 2019, 2018, or, you know, any year but 2020.
Of the two haunts that have queues, physical distancing markers were difficult to see and limited to just the first few dozen feet up to the entrance. The rest of the queues’ vast majority remained unmarked. Even outdoors, large gatherings of unmasked strangers, tightly packed in close quarters, is a massive liability right now, and something that made us genuinely uncomfortable and on-edge during our visit.
There’s no softening the fact that our sole critique of Creatures of the Night is a big one – for now. It’s important to remember that although the phrase “new normal” gets thrown around often, that’s not what this is. This is just for now. And odds are, by the 2021 event, Health & Safety practices will no longer even be on our minds. But just the same, for now, our visit to Creatures of the Night scared us for all the wrong reasons.
The reality is had we visited any other year, we’d be overwhelmingly raving about how ZooTampa is reinventing what a Halloween event can be. By shifting focus to younger audiences than those traditionally drawn to haunts, Creatures of the Night not only fills a massive void the industry as a whole has long been missing out on – but it serves an even greater purpose.
By creating a spooky-creepy-but-not-scary Halloween event, full of actors, scare zones and even a few haunts, ZooTampa is, in effect, laying the foundation to inspire the next generation of Haunted Attraction enthusiasts. Creatures of the Night offers that all-important nudge of bravery to get kids to embrace their inner monsters, and will no doubt provide the bridge that will soon lead them to other, much scarier Halloween events across Central Florida.
And soon enough, they may be able to get those big kid scares all in one place; a little raven tells us that plans for Creatures of the Night’s 2021 event currently call for ZooTampa’s first genuinely scary haunt – making it truly the first single event to be home to haunts for little kids, big kids and thrill-seekers all at the same time!
You can find an extended photo gallery from our night at Creatures of the Night in this exclusive album on the Escape Authority Facebook page! While there, why not give us a “LIKE” if you haven’t already? We’ll give you candy!
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Venue: ZooTampa
Location: Tampa, FL
Dates: Fridays, Saturdays and the final Thursday of the month, October 2nd – October 31st
Hours: 7:00pm – 12:00am (Fridays and Saturdays) / 7:00pm – 11:00pm (Sundays)
Cost: $24.95 or $29.95, depending on the date of your visit. A timed reservation is required for entry.
We thank ZooTampa for inviting us to experience this event. Although complimentary admission was generously provided, that in no way impacts the opinion included within this review.