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Park News - (7/19/2025) One of the big questions about the future of the former Palace Entertainment parks under Herschend Family Entertainment many fans have is about the future of how Halloween events will be celebrated in those parks. If you are familiar with the history of Herschends park chain, you already know that their parks (Dollywood, Silver Dollar City, Kentucky Kingdom and Wild Adventures) don’t offer any kind of horror or fright night style experience, and instead offer only a more family friendly style event like the “Great Pumpkin LumiNights”, “Harvest Festivals” or “Pumpkins at Kentucky Kingdom”.
    Kennywood on the other hand has historically, going way back to before they were owned any corporation, has always offered a more chilling experience in the fall with the launch of “Phantom Fright Nights” in 2002, which was rebranded as “Phantom Fall Fest” in 2021 when the event was expanded from just being at night, into a “play by day, fright all night” experience. Since then the “Phantom Fall Fest” brand was also extended over to the newly acquired Adventureland Resort theme park in Iowa in 2024.
    While we don’t know exactly what Herschends long term plans are for Halloween frights at these parks, it looks like it’s full steam ahead for the traditional haunted houses and spooky experience at both parks for the 2025 season. In fact, a reader sent in some pictures taken at Adventureland this week showing off the construction of a new haunted house experience for this year’s Phantom Fall Fest. A set of plans also identify this attraction as “Spellkeeper”.
    Last year’s event offered four haunted houses to choose from, so I’m not sure if Spellkeeper will be a 5th one, or serve as a replacement for any of the last year’s haunts. Currently the park has not yet to released details about this year’s event.

 
    (3/302025) Adventureland has sent out information about a series of special events coming to the park this season. For starters, every Friday in June the park will host a “Bacon & Brews” event, that will feature live music and ‘good eats’ after 4pm on Fridays from June 6 to June 27th.
    Furthermore, on Sunday, June 15th, the park will host their first “Father’s Day Flop” at the Adventure Bay waterpark, where guests can complete for “the red belly badge of honor” in a belly flop contest.
    In August the park will team up with Fred Rogers Productions to host the first ever “Neighbor Days”, where families can meet and greet with the characters from their favorite PBS KIDS shows such as Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood, Donkey Hodie and Alma’s Way.
    On August 15, 16 and 18th Adventureland will light up the night sky with a massive 3D drone show, featuring a fleet of 300 drones.

    (3/30/2025) Screamscape mentioned it on the corporate news page, but not here, that earlier in March, the Palace Entertainment parks in the US owned by Parques Reunidos are to be sold to Herschend, the company behind park’s like Dollywood and Silver Dollar City.
 
    (3/17/2025) According to a local news report the Adventureland Inn hotel is now officially closed to guests for good. Instead they report that the former hotel is being converted for use as employee housing over the season.
 
    (1/20/2025) Adventureland has announced that the park will open for the 2025 season on May 17th, marking the start of the Iowa park’s 51st season. The Adventure Bay waterpark wont be ready to open until May 24th however, along with the new Hyperlight waterslide, created from the park’s former Typhoon waterslide experience.

2025 - Hyperlight - (5/20/2025) Adventureland has confirmed that their new waterslide experience, Hyperlight, will open on Saturday, May 24th at 11am. The first 1,000 guests that make their way into Adventure Bay will receive free Hyperlight branded swag and have the chance to be amongst the first to experience the special-effects enhanced attraction.
 
    (12/1/2024) Adventureland will add Hyperlight to the Adventure Bay waterpark for 2025. Instead of an all new attraction, Hyperlight will be a revision to the park’s Typhoon water slide, adding in incredible lighting, sounds, lasers and hyped-up sensory dynamics to the slide experience.