How it began...
In 2013 Scott D'Avanzo and his son Ashton set out to build a dark ride in their garage purely for their own enjoyment. Both of them have always had a passion for amusement parks and rides. After spending months in the garage and over $12,000, neighbors began asking what they were building. Scott, a game designer and branding entrepreneur by trade naturally couldn’t resist going overboard in designing, theming, and even branding the ride.
Soon even the local newspaper, Ladera Ranch Times, did a story and featured it on the front page of their November 2013 issue. With all the hype, Scott and Ashton decided to officially open on Halloween and over 1,000 people took a spin through Mystic Motel’s short basement tour dark ride.
After the positive feedback, Scott and Ashton expanded Mystic Motel® in 2014 to include a motel walk-thru, which seen over 3,000 guests. Not only did LA Times do a story, on Halloween, Scott was on the air with Ryan Seacrest during his morning show talking about Mystic Motel.
In 2015, Scott and Ashton announced they were going all out for what would be their last year as a home-based attraction and their intent to go commercial. They added additional track to make the ride longer, built 2 additional ride vehicles to shorten the line, and did a full production queue-line video. This time they landed the cover of the Orange County Register, were featured on Good Morning America and ABC, were interviewed on Neil Patrick Harris’ Coaster Radio, and talked about on several theme park industry websites. With over 3,500 guests and winning Best Home Haunt at the 2015 Cadavers Southern California Haunt Awards, it was a great grand finale!
In 2016 they founded Adrenalin Attractions® a theming and dark ride company. Of course, they couldn’t resist revisiting their roots and satisfying fans by bringing Mystic Motel back again in 2017, where they once again won best home haunt!
2018 was officially the final year for Mystic Motel® at their home. When everyone thought that was it, they announced Journey to Polar Point®, a Christmas season dark ride! The attraction was a huge success and landed a full segment on Fox 11 news as well as the cover of Orange County Register’s holiday edition and Theme Park Review.
As they say…. the rest is history!