With the way our travel plans had to work, we are stuck having to go on a Sunday night, 10/27. What do the HHN crowds tend to be like on Sundays? I recognize that being the week of Halloween probably boosts the numbers up a bit across the board, but just wondering what kind of wait times we'll be looking at.
Any night of the week that close to Halloween will be insanely busy, especially with the event winding down for the season. It’s THE busiest week for HHN.
As far as queue times go for the scare houses/zones it depends on the attraction. Last year, Stranger Things had at least 4 hour lines all week during that time that they even had to open that particular area during the day to accommodate the demand.
So far this year, Ghostbusters, Us and Stranger Things have been the most popular. Ghostbusters hit 3 hours last Friday.
Any night of the week that close to Halloween will be insanely busy, especially with the event winding down for the season. It’s THE busiest week for HHN.
As far as queue times go for the scare houses/zones it depends on the attraction. Last year, Stranger Things had at least 4 hour lines all week during that time that they even had to open that particular area during the day to accommodate the demand.
So far this year, Ghostbusters, Us and Stranger Things have been the most popular. Ghostbusters hit 3 hours last Friday.
Yeah, kinda what I was afraid of. Tried to avoid that week, but work schedules wouldn't work out. May be putting up the money for the Express Pass then. Appreciate the heads up.
It was very crowded last night (Saturday) but express still kept our times reasonable. We entered our first line at 6:15 and finished all ten houses before 11. In contrast, on Friday we entered our first house at 6:30 and finished the ten at 9:30. It's an expensive add-on but saves significant time to view sows and savor scare zones.
Finally made it this weekend. It took all night but did all the houses very comfortably with no more than a 30 minute wait(advertised up to 45). By 1am everything was pretty much walk in. IP houses are fun but the scares are in the original mazes.
Stranger Things - Longest line for the weakest maze. Only really did one walkthrough Us - They shouldn't have made this a split soundstage. Either give it a dedicated soundstage or move it to one of the tents in the back of the park. This maze would've been even better if creative could go all out with it Depths of Fear - Coming off the heels of mazes like Hive and Slaughter Cinema, this maze was kinda weak. Solid, but kinda weak House of 1000 Corpses - Now we're talking here. Normally the mazes in this corner suck but this year, we finally get to see something decent. Definitely brought the Christmas candy for sure Ghostbusters - I feel like more could've been done with this maze. While it has some incredible set pieces and some amazing special effects, I feel Killer Klowns got the bigger budget
Speaking of Killer Klowns - Wow this maze is fantastic. It literally feels like you're in the movie. Yeti - The other, better half of the Us soundstage. It knows its a soundstage maze so it takes full advantage of it. My biggest gripe, did they really need to record the sound of a guy saying shh? Also RIP Twister door. Should've kept that as a tribute to the attraction. Universal Monsters - This maze would probably rank higher if the walk to and from the maze wasn't obscenely long and the wait wasn't awful every time I came through here. Its a fantastic maze for sure though Nightingales - I loved the set design here and I actually got some decent scares. The smell is a bit distracting but its an otherwise great maze Graveyard Games - Everything I could've asked for in a HHN maze. Great set pieces, great actors, gimmicks everywhere, and the line was never really THAT bad.
Scare zones were pretty solid Vanity Ball was a lot of fun Anarcade had that sick soundtrack. Sets were kinda weak but the actors were pretty good
I miss the hanging pumpkins but Vikings was still a pretty scare zone
The park gave Rob Zombie's scare zone enough room to breathe for once. The San Fran scare zone has always been so cramped so allowing the actors to have more room definitely improved things somewhat Zombieland - maybe its just me, but I'm kinda tired of zombies. The scare zone did have its entertaining moments and did make me jump a couple times but I think the zone could've been done with something else.
Marathon of Mayhem is definitely worth checking out at least once. While I prefer the normal show over the HHN variant, I still think the park did a good job with it. MK still has the slightly better Halloween spectacular thanks to perimeter fireworks Academy of Villains was alright. I'm in the camp that wishes Bill & Ted were back. The bodybender and the aerial stunt work are great and I know the cast is really talented, but the show isn't really THAT much different from most theme park and cruise ship stage shows. It did allow for shorter lines for the mazes in the back and Gringotts so I'm ok with that I guess.
Counting down the days to HHN 30 now. That's gonna be a massive year for sure.
So last night was my first night at HHN ever, and idk what happened but the lines were like non-existent. I'm only bringing this up because I definitely spent the money to buy express for my dad and I, and we basically didn't need it. :/ And it's not like last night was a cheap night for it either. I'm sure tonight will be so much worse.
That being said it's definitely a different experience doing houses with my dad, and with the exception of two moments last night both Universal and HHN have been super accommodating for people who need wheelchairs.
We only did 6 houses last night since we needed to leave early, but they were pretty solid.
So far these are my rankings and opinion of the houses:
1. Universal Monsters - okay listen this is my bias. I know it's my bias. But I LOVED this house. We walked in at like 5:45 (after the 20 minute walk to just get to the house. Holy shit is that a long walk) I did this house twice, and while I had less scares the second run the scenery is just gorgeous. This is the house where I got the most scares honestly. But I love it and unless the last four houses are amazing this will remain number 1.
2. Graveyard Games - while it was a super scary house the atmosphere was eerie and wonderful. It was easy to follow along with the story and just perfect all around.
3. Killer Klowns - okay so this is where we had our second problem of the evening. The house itself was amazing and perfect and I got the "house is over" scare. However... My dad had been transferring from the wheelchair to walk through the houses all night, after one attempt to push him through went SUPER POORLY. And all night this worked perfectly, except for this house. At Killer Klowns you literally can't do this, because they won't take the transfer wheelchair to the exit. They will.make you walk from behind Transformers, around Mel's, through Vanity Ball just to grab a transfer wheelchair and then walk ALL THE WAY BACK just to meet the person you left behind, and then you have to walk it all the way to the front just to return it.
This is not a good system. To be fair I don't believe there's really any way to get the wheelchair from the back, but the person.controlling the lines to let us in told us it would meet us out back like all the other houses.
4. Nightingales - this was an okay house nothing super remarkable but it was alright.
5. Depths of Fear - I hope to give this one a second chance tonight as this was the house I attempted to push my dad through a wheelchair and I was more focused on trying to not run him into walls (and failing miserably) that I literally couldn't focus on anything. Yeah the Halls are just big enough to navigate with a transitional wheelchair, but in the dark it makes judging angles a hell of a lot harder. It's not the house's fault though.
6. House of a 1000 Corpses - yeah this sits exactly where I thought it would. It did nothing for me. I got wet a lot. Like out of all the houses that had water elements this one like abused them. It's supposed to be a gore house and I'm just eh. I don't particularly like Rob Zombie tho either. Oh and this is where we had our first wheelchair incident. Apparently they just didn't have transfer wheelchairs when the house opened for stay and scream guests. We waited 20 minutes before one of the staff just went to academy of villains to grab their transfer wheelchair just to let us through. They called like three times to find out where their wheelchairs were. But they were super nice and allowed us to go the vip route which allowed us to skip (the non-existent) line. We appreciated the gesture.
We did academy of villains too which was pretty good.
Tonight is the big houses so wish us luck. Of nothing else I'll.just do Universal Monsters again for the third time. (I love a house so much)
Alright so I'm back home now. And can give my final thoughts and rankings of the houses and scarezones.
10. House of a 1000 Corpses
9. Us - I don't think I had high expectations for this house. But I don't think this is a movie that translates well to being a house. It's easy to get involved in a movie where you're supposed to watch these things happen. Particularly with the doppelganger case it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, since the doppelgangers are really just out to kill their counterparts. I found it rather bare and lackluster over all. Also I pushed my dad in the wheelchair for this house, and the first thing you do when you walk in the door is go through a long ass tunnel that's covered in thick black curtains. Needless to say, the wheelchair kept caught on the bottom.
8. Stranger Things - like Us, this show doesn't translate to a house very well, and it translates even less when you're trying to shove two seasons into a single house. Honestly watching season 3 for the first time knowing that they were gonna do a house again, it was obvious which scenes they were gonna pick, but it still didn't work. Not with half of it being season 2 (which imo was a weaker season.)
7. Nightingales Blood Pit
6. Depths of Fear - I gave this house a second chance, doing it alone and it was certainly better since I wasn't worried about accidentally ramming my dad into the walls and doorways. I thought this was an okay house over all. Just slightly better than Nightingales for me.
Okay so 2-5 are all super close in rank and could easily swap places depending on my mood.
5. Yeti Terror of the Yukon - this house was amazing. I got a few scares in it, and the actors did a good job trying to do scares interacting with my dad. (Versus the normal pop out and hide.) It was also relatively easy to navigate with a wheelchair. The downfall for this house for me is the entrance through Jimmy Fallon. It rained for a good 30-45 minutes Friday night, and everyone was hiding inside the entrance trying to stay dry. It was literally impossible to get in line for the house for somebody who could walk, nevermind having to get a wheelchair through.
4. Ghostbusters - this house honestly surpassed my expectations by A LOT. I loved the ghosts in it. And the Slimer distraction scare even got my dad (though he won't admit it) it was a wonderful house to walk through, even if it wasn't overly scary. It was just a fun house, it also gets major points for being an easy house to push my dad through. This was my dad's favorite house to walk through.
3. Killer Klowns from Outer Space - my thoughts haven't changed on this house, but I thought I'd share my dad's. He also enjoyed this house despite not knowing anything about it. (Which is why he didn't like Us or Corpses) but because of the name of the movie, and thus the house, he knew what he was in for and really enjoyed it. Y'know except for the lack of communication about the wheelchair transfer. :/
2. Graveyard Games
1. Universal Monsters - I did this house 3 times, and I love one house so much. The third time through was even less scary than the first two, but I was behind a small vip tour, so I got two watch 4 men just completely lose their shit as monsters popped out at them. Which is just as good as getting the scares.
Okay for scarezones I don't have much to say.
5. Anar-cade - yeah this... Was kinda garbage? Like I had seen pics and footage from this scarezone and I knew it wasn't gonna be good. But wow. This was just... Uninspired. There was no atomsphere. I don't know if they were aiming for a Tron look, but it wasn't good.
4. Rob Zombie - I don't like Rob Zombie's stuff so like 1000 Corpses, this did and meant nothing to me. It was basically a shrine to his work and it felt very meh. Did see a security guard lay into some kids who apparently threw something at an actor tho.
3. Vanity Ball - this felt rather incomplete. We didn't stay to watch the mini shows, but it just felt like something was missing? Maybe it was my annoyance that I had to run through to get a wheelchair for my dad for Killer Klowns. All I know is I felt bad for any of the nurses in this scare zone. Having to wear vinyl tops and dresses in Florida weather is a big "oof I'm so sorry." From me.
2. Vikings - the times we walked through this area was super crowded, so it looked like the actors were more pushed to the side. But this scarezone had the most atmosphere out of all the zones.
1. Zombieland - I think we got the best interactions from this scarezone out of any others. For the most part in other scarezones they left us alone, chosing to go after those who are likely to run. But we had a good interaction with some zombies just trying to clear the path for my dad (while still being 100% in character). And we got to see lots of people just take off running from the zombies. The port-a-potty scares were fun to watch, and my dad got really excited to see that they had Bill Murray.
Overall the event surpassed my expectations. I had kept them low on account that I'm aware how HHN operates the houses to try and keep the lines going. And a lot of hiding spots are obvious, and you don't get as many house interactions beyond pop out and hide. But it was a solid event, and I would go again if given the chance. We got super lucky that we waited no more than 45-60 min for houses particularly on Friday, where our longest wait was for Stranger Things and we got in line for it first. I could see why getting express would be an important thing, however we didn't need it. And I realize that's prolly an abnormal thing to have happen considering how close to Halloween we went. Ultimately my dad and I had a great time.
