Christina Schneider

Review of Brighton asylum haunted house ...

It has taken me some time to digest my experience ...

It has taken me some time to digest my experience with Brighton Asylum (both during the haunt and with their customer service after) and redraft my review. I will break this review into two separate parts.

1. Review of the Haunt
-- Waited for 3 hours to get in. While it says online that this may happen, my group had asked an employee how long we'd be waiting to see if it was worth the purchase of the FastPass, and he wrongly estimated "about an hour" (we got there as the haunt was opening.) Had we known the actual wait time, we would have opted for the FastPass to get in more quickly.
-- Characters outside do not scare people, rather they walk around to pose for photos. While some patrons enjoy this, I feel as though it takes away from the overall experience. My group also heard some of the employees in costume speaking with patrons, which I feel is an abandonment of character.
-- Despite the fact that we were waiting to avoid "conga-lining" into the attraction for a more personal experience, we still ran into the group in front of us, and the group behind us caught up as well. This caused actors to be out of character and out of place as we came upon them.
-- The haunt itself is inside of a warehouse. You can look up in many parts and see things moving and pieces of exposed scares, taking away from being engrossed in the -many and varying, from hospital to mining to giant spiders? - themes.
-- The props are of a higher quality and the makeup on actors inside the haunt is higher quality as well.
** Overall I would give the haunt a 2/5 star review. While there were some interesting parts, I feel as though it is misleading to refer to it as "Brighton Asylum" as much of the haunt itself has nothing to do with this theme.

2. Review of the Customer Service
-- When I originally posted my review (it can be seen on Yelp), I gave this establishment 2/5 stars explaining my issues with the haunt and, separately, my issues with staff themselves.
-- Brighton chose to respond incredibly defensively, stating that my review had "factual errors" although a review is an opinion-based, factual account of my experience. Patrons curious about the negative responses from Brighton can easily see it on many of the negative reviews (not mine alone) on multiple reviewing sites (Yelp, Google, Facebook).
-- I felt and still feel as though their response was not only rude but unprofessional. They proceeded to state that I worked for a competing attraction, so as to deter patrons from weighing my review as worthy.
-- I received a private message from a Brighton employee's personal Facebook account bribing me to remove my review by refunding me (something I assume they've done many times despite their policy stating online and at the attraction that no one will ever receive a refund). I did not remove my review.
-- Multiple employees of Brighton reached out to me on Facebook, Yelp, through my personal email and with blocked phone calls (they explained that they found my personal information with which to contact me from my credit card purchase of tickets) explaining that I was refunded and they would sue me if I did not remove my review. I received direct insults to me personally, threats of legal action, and inappropriate messages for many stages back and forth because I chose to stand my ground and support my right to not only share my experience, but to defend myself personally against what I felt was harassment.

The final offer I gave to Brighton was a redrafted, factual review omitting any additional comments back and forth (of which there are many, and of which I have documented and compiled.)

This is my final review, with no bells and whistles, just facts, but with concern for those patrons offering their money to a company I feel has a very blatant disregard for their wellbeing and a very unprofessional and, in my opinion, harassing way of handling negative reviews.