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A review of the creepy and thrilling new drive-thru scream zone at the Del Mar Fairgrounds in San Diego!
Halloween is on this year! The Del Mar Scaregrounds returns for 2020 with an all-new drive-thru experience. See the horrors of Halloween and your favorite films brought to life from the safety of your own car!
We ventured to the Del Mar Fairgrounds in San Diego this past weekend to check out its haunted drive-thru experience. Typically, the area hosts three scary experiences including a traditional walkthrough haunted house, a haunted hayride, and a maze. We usually find that these are some of the best Halloween experiences in Southern California!
But this year, due to social distancing, things are a little different. Now just one drive-thru experience is offered for thrill-seeking guests. The event is advertised as a 20-minute horror road located in the back areas of the Del Mar Fairgrounds in northern San Diego. Movies like Halloween and Friday the 13th are brought to life with creepy props and scare actors.
To help with social distancing, guests stay inside of their car at all times. You can either roll your window up or keep it down for maximum thrills. Drivers also must go at 3 miles per hour at all times. We kept our windows down (masks required for this) and found the experience surprisingly edgy! The actors actually “stalked” our car, taunting us and making loud noises! Scariest of all, the actors reached into our car with gore-covered hands. While we’re not too sure how safe reaching into our car is… it was certainly scary! So keep that in mind before deciding to roll your window down.
Overall, we found the entire experience fantastic! In fact, we loved it even more than the traditional haunted houses. Perhaps because the actors pay careful attention to each car that rolls by (cars are also well spaced out). Whereas traditional haunted houses are usually large groups of strangers and sometimes the scare actors may skip you. That was not the case here!
One of the actors even followed our car, taunting us for an entire minute! Also, for safety reasons, the driver gets the least amount of scares. So if maybe play a game of rock-paper-scissors to decide who drives?!
If you get hungry, several vendors sell food from nearby kiosks. You can order food from team members walking by. Items were kettle corn and other movie theater-like snacks.
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At times, the set pieces could look a little cheesy. They might be overused props from past years that feel seemingly out of place in the various scenes. However, some were downright creepy like deformed dolls, bloody clowns, and more. We loved the elaborate carnival-like sets and every scare actor had on a creepy looking facial covering (yes, they wear masks, too). We also read that they might touch your car with soft objects, but that didn’t happen during our experience.
Overall, we thought that the Scream Zone drive-thru was scary, well-done, and a lot of fun! While there isn’t an age restriction, we don’t recommend it for anyone under 13 as it may be far too scary. Opening night had long lines, but the sold out weekend was only a 25-minute wait to get into the experience. Each party must pay per vehicle in advance on the website. Also, the experience lasted about 25 minutes, so we were there for just under and hour in total. We highly recommend getting there at least 20 minutes before your scheduled time. Also, be sure to book in advance as tickets sell out usually day-of or the day before.
More information and tickets: https://thescreamzone.com
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