Thread: Haunted Mayflower or Haunts you *know* were ruined by "good intentions"

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Another thread reminded me about one of my favorite Haunts that basically was ruined and then died by, what I imagine to be, good intentions.

The Mayflower in Plymouth Mass is the best example.
One year there was this little flyer I happened to see out of the corner of my eye with an ad for a "Haunted Pirate Ship" at the Mayflower.

For those of you that don't know about the Mayflower and the Plymouth Plantation attraction in Plymouth it's a historically accurate reenactment of the Pilgrims life. The workers that dress as Pilgrims and Native American immerse themselves in the character they play down to the way they think and speak.
Usually the operating hours were from 9 to 5, or something.
Which left the Mayflower all by its lonesome at night.

Anyway one year an unknown genius, that should be praised forever, came up with the idea to having all the Mayflower participants/staff transform the Mayflower into a Pirate Ghost ship.
The reenactment staff really went all out.
REALLY into pirate character and costume.
It was awesome!
There was a tour guide pirate that took small groups through the ship and there were various stops where characters talked to each small group about the Captains missing treasure and warned us about the "beast" at the bottom of the ship.
Some characters pretended that they had died.
Some were pretending to be drinking rum and they were suspicious that we were after their gold.
there were even some kids of the staff that pretended that they were locked up as captured prisoners.
There was one character that lay in a bed that sudden rose up and scared everyone.
But my favorite was at the bottom of the boat near the prow.
It was in a storage area that was blocked off at waist level.
They had blacklights all along the base where no one could see them.
In the storage area was a character dressed as a skeleton.
But because of the darkness all you could see were the white bones.
It was such a simple effect and yet it was perfect.
The kids (and myself) loved it.
The character just talked to the kids and asked them questions.
Then we walked to the back were a werewolf guy jumped out and scared everyone.

Then as you left they fired a cannon and the kids got some candy.

It was probably the best Halloween thing I had ever experienced.

My wife and I were shocked by the lack of advertisement and told them the next day.

Next year was the same, but still little advertisement!

The 3rd year it was like someone gave us back something broken.
The kids in jail were gone, there was no reference to any rum drinking, no creepy staff pretending to be dead, no wolfman jumping out and the worst.......they had colored lights all around the skeleton's area.
You could clearly see it was just a guy in costume.
Even my kids said it was ruined.

The next year, if they even had it, we didn't go.
They haven't done it since.
The Plymouth Plantation has this "magic school" thing instead that sounds boring.

Just wanted to share.

20 more days!!

I don't know if it's really "good intentions" in this case but here is one that was killed off by people in the neighborhood complaining:
"neighbors say Park District's Trails of Terror is destroying woods"

They thought it was destroying the woods. Which is silly because it only used the path and small areas around it. The only thing they altered was tearing down some scrub brush. It's not like this was a pretty forest preserve or something either, it's a city park. If they want a conservation area, there is one on the other end of the park with some "real" forest that the haunt was not touching.