peculia

Oct. 5, afternoon tour, me plus 1.

Yeah, I used to get express, even though I was only going on a Thursday, for the sole purpose of double-dipping: go through all the houses starting at opening time, then use express to go through again when the lines got longer. Last year, I went on Saturday & Sunday and realized how much it would suck to not have express on those nights. We only made it through two houses before the lines got ridiculous. Not a big deal if you're a resident and you can go multiple nights, but I'm coming from Chicago and trying to cram as many house visits as possible in a couple of nights. Also, I've discovered that I actually prefer to go to theme parks ALONE. Few can withstand my relentless pace. Every year I've attended HHN, I have spent the whole day at Universal, from park open to near HHN closing time. My husband doesn't bother to come with me anymore. So, if you want to get the most out of HHN: 1. Get express. 2. Go multiple nights. 3. Alienate friends and family. However, if you want to have a great time with a bunch of friends, see what you can in the time that you have, and relax. Even a little bit of HHN is pretty damn satisfying-- I can't see being there for 5-6 hours and NOT having fun. Even with all the disappointment and concern over the direction HHN has taken, I still think it's well worth the price.

If HHN is going with an apocalypse theme this year, I wonder if the Penn &Teller house could be a dark comedy satire of end-of-the-world scenarios and conspiracy theories? P&T have been poking fun at this kind of stuff for years. Could be pretty entertaining...

Regarding the Severe Fear house: the story I heard from a friend who worked in costuming at the time was that guests were supposed to be issued some sort of hood/pillowcase/head-covering-thingie as part of the extreme element. However, they underestimated the logistical nightmare and cost of laundering all those hoods every night. When they figured out that the Universal laundering facilities couldn't handle the volume, the house was scrapped. No idea if this is accurate, but that's the story as I recall it.