This year we had the unique opportunity to go to both Six Flags Fright Fests in California; Fright Fest Discovery Kingdom and Fright Fest Magic Mountain. Both parks put on a pretty good show, but we have to admit that one of them was a little better than the other.

Park Entry Differences

The main difference between the parks is definitely cost. A regular ticket to entry into to Magic Mountain (no mazes) is currently about $93 whereas Discovery Kingdom is about $73. Oddly, parking at Magic Mountain is $25 and Discovery Kingdom is $30. But none of this matters if you have a membership with parking, which we recommend.

Not all Fright Fests cost the same!

We were very surprised to find out the cost differences between the two parks. It’s a HUGE difference! Magic Mountain only charges $20 for their Fright Fest maze wristband while Discovery Kingdom was a whopping $40! If you want the front-of-the-line VIP wristband, it will cost you an extra $15 at Magic Mountain and $10 extra at Discovery Kingdom. We only recommend the VIP pass on the heavier days, closer to Halloween.

Parking & meal passes are covered with the same pass!

We were delighted to find out that our membership passes with the parking add-on at Magic Mountain covered our Discovery Kingdom parking, too! Once in the park (admittance already covered with our membership) we were again pleased to find out that our meal pass and souvenir cup that we bought at Magic Mountain, also worked at Discovery Kingdom! As Six Flags pass membership holders, we were able to use a special coupon from our membership app that gave us a great buy one, get one free deal on our wristbands for the Magic Mountain Fright Fest maze wristbands.

This deal was only good on the first & second weekends of Fright Fest.

All the mazes were great!

Overall, the mazes in both parks were really good. They both offered 6 each. Our favorites were Magic Mountain’s Condemned & Nightmare Manor at Discovery Kingdom. We noticed that Magic Mountain’s scare actor performances were noticeably much better this year. Discovery Kingdom’s were pretty much at the same performance level. We did prefer some of the themes at Discovery kingdom more, but were a little disappointed at how many of them felt a little too short.

Discovery Kingdom had very unique experiences
The one-of-a-kind maze that you could only have at Discovery kingdom was really cool! In their Captian Bloat\’s Shipwreck of Horror maze, their huge shark aquarium exhibit was part of the maze! We also really enjoyed the carnival antics of Carnevil. We also loved the small theme park charm that Discovery Kingdom had.

Magic Mountain was still our favorite!

The scare zones were great at Discovery Kingdom but the mazes were just not quite as good as Magic Mountain’s. Once you add in the fact that you will have to pay double for the full Fright Fest experience at Discovery Kingdom, it’s clear that you will get more for your money at Magic Mountain. Don’t get us wrong though; we still think Discovery Kingdom’s Fright Fest is very worth while!

InstagramFacebookTwitter
Archives