zombieman

Don't know if anyone who took the UTH tour noticed, but scenic had one major goof in it. The story was that the fort was thrown together with whatever wood could be worked by the crude tools the people had at hand. Yet there was one room that had walls made of stone - not just any stone, but carved stone, complete with archways and perfectly set keystones. It did not fit with the rest of the house at all. To me, it was clear goof, or perhaps a last minute floorplan change with no access to additional wood. And who else didn't know the sheets hanging in that one room was supposed to be tobacco until they took the UTH tour? Anyone else thought it was supposed to be Skin Roll-Ups? For me, the biggest disappoint was that we only got a few original houses, and this was one of them. If all we get is a couple of non-IP houses anymore, I want them to be Gothic and Dead End quality. Fortunately, Dollhouse fit that bill.

Single tickets cost so much because the big parks cater primarily to vacationers - not locals. That's why there are so few season pass holders in Florida. Totally different paradigm in California, where season pass holders make up the vast majority of park visitors. The unfortunate truth is that So Cal residents are more likely to be able to afford to buy those season passes than Florida residents. But an event like HHN (or Knott's Halloween Haunt) is going to be made up of primarily locals on both coasts. It's a slow time of the year - during the school year - so there are unlikely to be many vacationers. October would be dead in these parks were it not for Halloween events. The locals are going to be the ones buying the FFP and will ultimately get their money's worth, even if it takes a couple of visits during the season to see everything. HHN can have 10 houses and these people would be happy with that. Vacationers who go multiple nights would also be happy because they would eventually get to see everything. I think the people who wouldn't get their money's worth are those who go to HHN because they heard it was great, but they make poor choices: they go on a Saturday, arrive too late, decide to do a ride or two, eat at Finnegan's, and then do only 1 house because the waits are 2 hours. They will say that the "werewolf house" was cool but HHN was a waste of money because the lines were so bad. These people will not return until their friends explain how they did everything the wrong way. But this mini-thread is based on the predication that more things to do at HHN is always better. To every HNN member - absolutely it is. We are HHN geeks. To the bean counters at Universal, what is the purpose of adding more if the event is already exceeding the anticipated profit? They want butts through the gate, Express passes sold out, empty kegs at the end of the night, stellar reviews, and no lawsuits. If they get that with 8 houses, why add a 9th unless it would increase capacity and guarantee additional tickets sold? If they are happy with the current event capacity then the only reason we'd see 25% more houses in a year is if Universal was counting on 25% more tickets sold that season. That's the simple math you were talking about. What we like and want to see matters so little, because come October, we're going no matter what.

Dun - dun - DUN! Crossing fingers...

Not only has the show been especially not house-worthy this season, your post demonstrates the biggest problem I see with TWD as an IP at HHN - the inability to show any of the characters that make the show what it is. Regardless of the reason for that contract provision, not seeing a Rick or Daryl or Carol has just sucked the soul out of TWD houses. I wonder what percentage of the GP who loves TWD thought they would see those characters in the houses, and ended up being very disappointed. I cannot think of any other IP at HHN that has not allowed non-monster characters to be represented alive or as kills. So here's a question for those of us who are suffering from TWDOS (The Walking Dead Overload Syndrome): Would the removal of the "no characters allowed" provision from the houses be enough for you to actually look forward to another TWD house this year? I don't just mean seeing a dead Tyreese or Bob without a leg. I mean encountering the regular members as re-enactments of specific scenes.

I wanted to respond to your snarky VHS comment, but my modem got disconnected because my wife picked up the extension.

Knotts' Skeleton Key rooms ranged from exceedingly cool to a total waste. Most ended with some cheap pop scare but nevertheless added to the story. They had a separate line for people who wanted to see the SK room. Unfortunately, because each SK room lasted upwards of several minutes and could only accommodate 10-12 people, the SK waits could be an hour themselves - sometimes exceeding the standby wait for the house. To make matters worse, the Skeleton Key queue doubled as the "Fast Lane" queue (Knotts' version of Express). There were LOTS of Fast Lane holders in these queues who waited an hour, not understanding why the standby queue was rushing past them. It was not clearly posted that if you didn't want to do the SK room, you could cut in front of people in line who were waiting for SK room (who were subsequently pissed off at you for cutting in front of them)... For Universal, I would assume a SK would similarly act as an uber-Express Pass. But we all know the Express line itself can be huge at HHN, so they would NEED to do a third queue for SK holders who wanted to go through the SK room. Logistically, that would not be easy for them. I could see a SK queue at HHN easily being 90 minutes and night of the event. And while a SK concept may sound neat for HHN Orlando, they already have something that no place else anywhere has - the Unmasking the Horror tour, where you get a far more comprehensive backstory than any SK room could present. Personally, I'll take the UTH tour as opposed to an extra queue.

Who says it would have to return as a house? "Daryl & Carol's Excellent Adventure" Yeah, I threw up in my mouth a little, too...

Mine was squarely aimed at ticket options

I took the super top-secret survey and it in no way alluded to the content of the event (i.e. 8 houses), but it was 100% HHN-centric. They have sent me surveys in the past that asked nearly identical questions, and for the life of me, I cannot see how this survey would yield any useful information - then or now. But the answers are making some bean counter over there feel incredibly S-M-R-T, I mean S-M-A-R-T. Of course, some of you are saying there were two recent surveys and I only got one...

Wonderful pics! A few questions: Psychopath maze from '93 - This was 10 years before I started going. Where was the queue and house (maze) in relation to this? I'm trying to get a feel for how close you go to the Psycho house itself Carnage Crew/Fear in First Class - This is the one I wish I had been able to visit more than any other. Was this actually two houses? If so, was in incredibly short, given it was in the EQ queue? That was the same space we have today for Disaster, right? I seem to recall seeing a blueprint for this somewhere, but I thought it was in a SS. Horror Night Nightmares - For the life of me, I cannot remember much of this house. Did it really have a Ship of Screams room? What was in it? Nightengales - My second favorite house of that year, but I don't recall an overturned tank. Did that really make it into the final house?

I cannot imagine A&D has been thrilled having to keep returning to the same WD property year after year. I'd like to think that the supersized house they did last year was their way of telling the powers that be that they are done with the property; that A&D purposely painted themselves into a corner. As you said, it's been presented as a park-wide scarezone, and the largest ever house. There's really nowhere else to go...unless they have two WD houses - one for the main show and one for the spinoff. And I shudder at that thought. I still find it crazy that they are not allowed to present characters that are still living in the HHN houses. Does anyone else here think the WD houses would have been FAR better had we been able to see the main characters of the show in the houses? I can't think of a single other IP that HHN has done where they were not permitted to show well-known characters. Anyone know the story behind AMC's bizarre restriction?

This sort of thing is already being demonstrated at trade shows. At Scare LA, a vendor called Phantom Finder (phantomfindercamera.com) had a booth where they let you play with it. They have an app that basically uses your camera as an augmented reality tool. When your camera focuses at specific "banners", an AR "video" plays on your screen as if some ghostly reaction is appearing on your device. The "banners" are silhouettes that can be cleverly hidden as objects (i.e. in wallpaper, the frame of a mirror, a TV screen, etc.) An example they had was a TV with "snow" playing on it. The snow hides an embedded marker, and when your phone focuses on it, ghosts appear in the TV and crawl out of the screen. It's the opposite of what happens with the wands in Potterland, where the wand is a trigger for something to happen in the real world. Here, a static marker in the real world triggers something to happen in the "augmented world" you see on your phone's screen. The technology is still new, and it takes time for a phone to identify and focus on a marker, so this is certainly not ready for HHN, but perfect for queues, or scattered around scarezones - where I think this sort of thing could best work. The problem with putting camera-based technology in a house is your camera's inability to handle low lighting conditions, not to mention the horrible resulting throughput of the line. Plus, it would send a message that it's OK to use phones in houses.

In the survey's "would you rather..." set of quizzes, it seemed to me that the questions were based on your response to previous questions. I had a simple set of rules: if some sort of non-IP based theme was an option, I voted for it. If Walking Dead was a choice I voted against it. My choices seemed to be limited to the following pool: Walking Dead Gostbusters Hitchcock Freddy Leatherface American Horror Story "Carnival Style Freakshow" Former original HHN Icons Bill & Ted Rocky Horror Picture Show Horror based hard rock band I find it off there was no chance of saying that I preferred some new original icon, or original content houses. I mean - no option at all was given... So I basically kept voting for the former icons - not that it would be my preference necessarily, but I sure as hell don't want to see another NOES or TCM house anytime soon. And Hitchcock? Seriously? Who in the GP can name 3 Hitchcock movies and their plots aside from Psycho and The Birds? He was a master at what he did, but adapting his work to a house? I don't think so. And the only house I was asked for an opinion on was Walking Dead. I wonder if anyone complained it was too short (which was an option). I simply said I was burned out of seeing WD at HHN.

Been going since '04, so it's impossible to limit to just 10: Favorites: Saws & Steam Gothic H.R. Bloodngutz AWIL Psychoscareapy: Home for the Holidays Scary Tales 3 Ghost Town Forsaken Castle Vampyr Hellgate Prison Body Collectors Leave it to Cleaver In Between Deadtropolis Havoc: Dogs of War Zombiegeddon Least favorites: Disorientorium Reflections of Fear Where Evil Hides Spawning Havoc: Derailed Doomsday Vampyr Any of the Walking Dead houses Chucky Horror Nights Nightmares Jack's Funhouse Afterlife: Death's Vengeance Dead Exposure Silent Hill

As someone who flies across the country to visit for a night or two, Express Pass is invaluable to me. The real problem is how much they oversell it. If I were in charge, I'd put a low cap on the number of passes sold, raise the price even more, and allow them to be used all night - not just one entry per house. That way Universal gets to still make a good profit, people who can afford it get a true VIP experience, and the EP lines remain small. Hollywood puts a seriously low cap on their two-tiered EP, and even when the park is packed, the EP lines are only a couple of minutes.

The tour should really impress even the virgins. While the sets don't really look all that great in the daytime, hearing the backstory and how much actually went into the house makes the tour great. The guide makes or breaks the tour; David is by far the best guide I've ever had. Doing the tour AFTER doing the houses at night in my opinion is the way to do it. It's like seeing the magic show and then having the magician show you how the trick is done. You get a new appreciation for it. There are absolutely no scares during the tour. There are 3 morning and 3 afternoon tours. The morning tours all do the same 3 houses. The afternoon tours all do the same 3 houses (but different ones than the morning). Note that you do NOT need to buy daytime park admissions to do these tours, and at the end of the afternoon tour, they turn you free in the park till it closes - best deal.

I will be there Oct 4 for both morning and afternoon UTH tours. If anyone is considering splurging on the Arcane tour, let me give yo my quick $.02 from taking it last year. Although getting to spend an evening with TJ at HHN may sound priceless, there are a few things you need to be aware of: 1) The price does not include event admission, so make sure you have a FFP or ROF pass and go on a night included with that pass. 2) TJ takes a few minutes before and a few after each house to talk about it, but good luck hearing him, because there are no quiet spots around the exits of the houses. 3) The tour lasts almost the entire event (going only through the zones, houses and B&T). At the end of the tour you may have 30-60 minutes to roam on your own before the park closes, but your glow necklace will NOT act as an Express pass, so don't count on doing any house a second time. 4) There is a "rest period" in Lombard's, where you get about 45 minutes for a "round table" discussion with TJ. That's probably the best part of the whole tour. Ask him anything, but what was surprising was how frank his answers were. 5) NO Food is included in the tour. For this price, that really sucks. For me, personally, no food and no post-tour Express usage was a real deal-breaker. Had they included just those two perks which would have cost Universal nothing, I would have felt like I got my money's worth. For my dollar, the UTH tours are by far the better choice. No daytime admission required - and they let you stay in the park after the afternoon tour even though you don't have a ticket!

What has worked for me every year is arriving at the gates and getting past the security by 6:15. They usually open the gates at 6:30. Enter the park and make a beeline to the RIGHT - You will come to two mazes. Do the one on the RIGHT first and the exit will be back where you entered the queue. THEN do the one on the LEFT. It will exit near Men in Black, where there is a line for the third maze on that side. That will also exit near Men in Black. From there keep going deeper into the park, past Potterland. This will take you to Disaster, where you hit your 4th house. Everyone else will enter the park and head straight to the Soundstage houses. Those lines fill up instantly and become 30 minutes quickly. That's why you head toward the tents instead. Be aware that the SS queue near Mummy opens later than all the other queues - another reason to avoid SS houses first. SS lines will be 45 min minimum all night long. No getting around that. I think Disaster doesn't open right away either. By the time you hit Disaster, people who took the SS path will start to merge with you, and you will start to feel the crowds. If you are doing early entry or the daytime tour, they will corral you in one of two areas. I have always been corralled in the New York area (near Finnegan's restaurant - very good place to eat, BTW). You will be let out into the park a few minutes before the main gate opens. I usually run for the tents - passing MIB on the left. It's a long haul. I honestly don't know the other area where the corral people - it may be more convenient. What ticketing option did you use? If it was print at home, make sure you print out SEVERAL COPIES of the tickets. They will get wet over the days and will be hard to scan. Buy a Lanyard to keep them in, scan side out. Next time, use the Kiosk option - only takes a minute and you get real tickets. Kiosks are between security and front gates. Whenever you use your ticket as a FOTL use, they will scan it (or mark it if the scanner is broken). Careful if they want to mark your Rush of Fear pass - you will need to use that same pass every day you do, and having it pre-marked may make it hard to use on a future date. Remember, a Rush of Fear with Express looks just like a non-Express. TAKE A PHOTO OF ALL TICKETS - if you lose it (I lost an Express pass at the park one night), Customer Relations at the front of the park will print you a new one. Much easier if they have a photo that contains the number. Nothing makes you feel worse than losing a $100 ticket in the dark. Know that in Orlando HHN you are going to walk several miles in an evening - you will not believe how crazy the queues are. Take Hollywood's JP queue and multiply it by 3. That's what every queue is like in Orlando. You walk 1/4 mile to a house only to walk 1/4 back afterward to the exact same place. The soundstage houses all walk back to the same point. You will be exhausted. Better to visit a house you like multiple times while you are there as opposed to circling the park two times. Finally, DO go to the Bill & Ted show. With the exception of 2012, Orlando's has been a must-see. And even more reason since Hollywood pulled theirs due to political correctness.

20 more days? As in: you're going at the end of Sep? If so, the Rush of Fear + Express would save you a bit of money over the FFP. the Rush of Fear includes the first 10 days (including Fri & Saturdays). FFP has Fridays/Saturdays excluded depending on the level you purchase. Make sure it fits your schedule. Universal will definitely let you change your ticket if you call and ask nicely. If you can, why not do the early UTH tour in addition to the afternoon? They each go through 3 different houses, so they are completely different. Here's a helpful money-saving hint: When you do the UTH tour, you do NOT need to buy daytime park admission. If you do the afternoon tour they will NOT escort you to the gate. 4:15 will come and they will say "You know your way out?". They fully expect you to stay in the park and enjoy it for the next 90 minutes it is open. That's probably enough time to run to Gringott's, or do one other ride. If you do the morning tour only, they will probably escort you to the gate. So if you are planning on just doing the afternoon and buying a ticket for the morning, you might want to think otherwise. Either do both tours and save a park admission or sleep in (you'll need it) and do the afternoon tour and still save admission. Great choice of parks - your legs are going to be SORE! Check out touringplans.com for accurate wait times and crowd conditions at all of the parks. When going to Disney, the day of the week is VERY important. You'd be surprised. It's worth the research. Crowd patterns are totally different than in California. The first couple of times I went to Orlando from LA, it was the commando "gotta do everything" approach. Damned near killed myself. Pace yourself, because one blister and it's all over. Even in October, it's humid as hell over there. It may decide to pour for 30 minutes just for fun. Then nighttime comes and you expect it to get cool, right? Not even close. Have fun but know what you're in for. One other thing you MAY want to consider... You are probably starting something you will find yourself doing for years to come. As such, you will probably be going to a Disney park or two every time you go. You MAY want to consider buying a Magic Your Way ticket for many more days than you are planning this year, and adding the "No Expiration" option at the park. It's a lot of money. But you get to lock in your ticket price forever. Way back in 2004 I bought several 10-day passes with park hopper, water park add-on, and no expiration. They were a whopping $375 each back then. So I locked in 10 park hoppers at $37.50 each and a bunch of free water park passes that all never expire. These same tickets cost more than 2x that now. In another 10 years they will be double again. Just a thought. You can buy these at discounted rates from undercovertourist.com. The discount is about 8% from Disney's prices. They are a reputable place and are an authorized seller. They will fedex the tickets to you.

I've been purposely staying away from HNN because I don't get along with one of the mods, but I will come out of hibernation to give the OP my sagely advice, as I have traveled from LAX to HHN Orlando every year since 2004. So keep in mind I've been in the same boat as you. I've gone early, mid, and late October. Best time for me is early Oct ever since Universal introduced the Rush of Fear. So here is the complete guide to HHN Orlando (for California residents)... If you have not been to HHN Orlando before, know that it is 2x the size of HHN Hollywood. You will do an enormous amount of walking. Even when you exit a house, you will make a LONG walk back to the common areas. You will see what I mean when you hit the Soundstage houses or the tent houses - there will come a point where you wonder why they didn't string the houses back to back to lessen the walking. The closest analogy I can think of is the HHN Hollywood house located in the JP Overflow queue. You know how that is a really long walk and ultimately gets you back to the same exact spot? Well, multiply that by 3x the distance in each direction and you get EVERY single house at HHN Orlando. I am not exaggerating. I mention this because if you are planning to do a couple of days at Universal Orlando you may end up tiring yourself out for HHN. Rush Of Fear is the ONLY way to go for early October. In fact, I recommend adding the Express option to it. Use it on a Thu and Fri and it more than pays for itself. The Express option acts as a free Express pass every night you go. Since you are planning opening weekend you could use it to go Friday AND Saturday and have an EP both nights. Know that the Express pass is good for ONE entry into each house. Even if EPs sell out that night, you still have a guaranteed EP from your pass. Some people (like me) even buy an EXTRA EP. Now, everyone who lives in Orlando would call that crazy. But when you're already spending a ton on airfare and lodging, it's great to have that extra bit of magic in your pocket in case the park is slammed. It's a one time a year trip, so why not buy a bit of insurance? Because it's damn expensive, I know. Arriving at HHN: THREE strategies here... 1) If you are JUST going to HHN on some random night, make sure you get to the front gates by 6:00PM. This means you need to enter the parking structure by 5:30. BONUS - if you arrive at the parking structure before 5pm, you get to park at a very reduced rate. Then have a nice dinner in Citywalk and still arrive at the gates by 6PM. Once at the gates, get through the security and wait at the turnstyles. They open between 6:15 and 6:30. Once the gates open and you enter HHN, go to the RIGHT - do not go straight ahead to the soundstage houses, because that's where 80% of people will go. By going right, you should be able to do the two tent houses and the Parade building house all before the crowds start hitting - which you will feel in full force about 30-45 minutes after the gates first open. Note that there will be two houses you come to first. Queue entrances are side by side. One of them (the house on the right) will exit back at the queue entrances. The other (on the left) will exit at MIB - where there will be the entrance to another house. So you can hit all three of these before the crowds and without using EP if you do them in the proper order. 2a) If you go to USO during the day and have an admission for HHN (which can be a hard ticket or Rush of Fear or Frequent Fear or Stay and Scream), then they will corral you in the streets area (near Finnegan's). All shops will be closed, so you won't have access to bathrooms or any decent food. You will be stuck there for about 30-45 min. It will be hot and not fun, but you will be in the park already. It is neat to see the park transform into HHN. as the fog starts, the lighting kicks in, and the music changes. They will scan your pass at this point and will let you into the park at the same time they open the front gates. Best strategy here is to head for the Disaster house. Some people will say to go to the Soundstage house near Central park, but I have always seen that SS house open late. After the Disaster house, run toward MIB and hit the house there, or way past MIB and hit the two houses there (one will have the exit near the queue at MIB). So, after the Disaster house, you are heading toward the same three houses as in the first strategy, but from the opposite direction. Understanding where the entrances and exits are are very important, as each exit sets you back a bit. 2b) This is my personal favorite - BUY AN UNMASKING THE HORRORS TOUR for the day you are planning to go to HHN!! Make sure you get the 1pm tour - or maybe they will have two different tours back to back like last year. The key here is that Universal does NOT require you to buy a day pass when you do the tour. Once the tour is over (and the tour is a must-see), they will NOT escort you out of the park. They will simply say "I'm assuming you have a day ticket, so have a great rest of the day in the park". Don't be "that guy" who says "Why, no, I don't have a ticket. Can you please walk me to the front gates?" At this point, you will have about 60-90 minutes until the park closes, so enjoy a FREE hour of rides that will be closed during HHN (i.e. Gringott's, Twister, Disaster, Terminator). You will then be corralled near Finnegan's and execute strategy 2a. Obviously, you'll still need your HHN admission at this point. Note that if you do the early morning tour, they WILL escort you to the exit after the tour (unless you are also doing the 1:00 tour). Again - this is by far the best strategy because you get to do the UTH tour and don't have to buy a daytime entrance. If you want to do this, you need to lock in a tour as soon as they offer it. They fill up fast. Last year they did two day tours (morning and afternoon). Each went through 3 different houses. Hope that they do this again. Best HHN tour guide is David, BTW. Hotels: If you want to save on parking, I recommend staying at a hotel on Major blvd. This includes: Holiday Inn, La Quinta, Comfort Suites, Doubletree, and Hyatt Place. Granted, these are a bit more expensive, but they are within walking distance of UNI (that walk back at 1AM when you are tired seems a LOT farther). Some have shuttles. The walk from these places are about 2x-3x the distance you'd walk had you parked in the ET lot. Most places along International are fine, too. Nothing wrong with a $60 hotel in Orlando - but let the ratings guide you. I often find booking Hotel + car thru Expedia results in an almost free car. Parking is free at every hotel in Orlando (that you can afford). Honestly, if you can swing Hyatt Place, it's a really nice stay. Amazing free breakfast offerings, very modern clean rooms, and one of the closest to Universal (Holiday inn is a tad closer). It's worth splurging. Crowds: Opening weekend the past few years has been very crowded. That's why I go the 2nd weekend. It's not uncommon for some houses to get pretty big tweaks after the first weekend. If you are armed with an Express Pass, my personal rule of thumb is to use it if the line is > 15 min. Wait times fluctuate greatly during the night. The exception will be Walking Dead, which will have a crazy wait all night long... With an EP, and getting there EARLY as i suggest, you will have no problem going through everything once and then your favorites a second time. The shows can really eat into your evening. Avoid getting to B&T and waiting for 20 min until they let people in - that just sucks away time. With the exception of 2012, Orlando B&T has blown away Hollywood's - not even a close comparison. Get seats near the exit, because when that show lets out, the house lines jump. Be ahead of that. HHN is more fun when done as a two night event. Take in the scarezones and shows at your leisure. Orlando scarezones are almost always way better than Hollywood's. And it's great to have an EP both nights if you have the Rush of Fear + Express (I'm pushing that again...). You will probably see a "cast change" happening at a house during the night. Each house has an "A" cast and a "B" cast. The cast makes or breaks and it's really great to see both casts. I'll never forget how fantastic the 2010 Havoc: Dogs of War "B" cast was and how so-so the same house was with the "A" cast. Orlando has an entirely different strategy with Express pass than Hollywood does with FOTL passes. At both parks, they always sell out. But if Hollywood sells 500 passes, Orlando will sell 3000. Plus Orlando sells the season passes with Express added on. In Hollywood, there is NEVER a line at the Gate A entrance. In Orlando, Express means a 100 minute standby wait may be cut to 15 min. In other words, while Express is mandatory for someone flying 3000 miles, it totally sucks that they oversell them. There are times when I've seen an Express line as long as 30 minutes. That is unforgivable, but it occasionally happens. A cast change or a house evac is usually the culprit. (My) rule of thumb is that if a house has a standby of 150 min or more, don't even bother with EP. Skip the house and come back later. If you do decide to get a Rush of Fear with Express, my advice is to choose the "pick up at Kiosk" option rather than the print at home. The reason is that you will be using this pass for multiple days and the pass acts as your Express pass as well. So that printed pass will get very tattered and may get wet. The kiosk will give you a more durable pass that you can keep in a waterproof lanyard. The kiosk option is free, and only takes a minute at the gate. Make sure you bring the credit card and confirmation number. Once you get your passes, take a photo of them. If you lose your pass (even an Express pass) don't fret - just go to Guest Services at front of park and they will print you up a new one and invalidate the lost one. Food: To each his own here... Personally, I think Finnegan's is the best to eat at during HHN. The park has better options, but they are closed for HHN. While I think it's closed during HHN, Springfield area has really good food. Honestly, my fav is the fried fish at the Frying Dutchman (but I'm easy to please). I mean, it comes with tater tots! How cool is that? You need to counter all of that healthy walking somehow... If you stay on Major Blvd, there's a good TGI Fridays that's open late. Ride differences: With the exception of Mummy, every ride at Orlando that has a Hollywood counterpart is an identical experience. Transformers, Terminator, Shrek, Jurassic Park, Simpsons, Despicable Me. Mummy in Orlando is 10x better than Hollywood. Springfield is really fun to visit during the day, but it's coming soon to Hollywood The Trip Back: Huh? What's this now? If you love haunts, here's something you MUST do when flying out to Orlando from LAX. On the trip back, make a one night stop in a city where you can see a showstopper house. This is a really great way to hop back to LA and see something totally new each time. I mean, you're already at the other end of the US. Why not hit something on the way back. What's great is that you don't lose daylight hours like you do when flying to Orlando, so this is really easy to do. Here are some examples: Atlanta - see Netherworld or Atlanta Zombie Apocalypse Columbus OH - see Haunted Hoochie (Dead Acres) St Louis - see The Darkness Kansas City - see The Beast & Edge of Hell New Orleans - see House of Shock Baton Rouge - see The 13th Gate Philly - a bit out of the way, but see Eastern State Penitentiary Austin - see Scare for a Cure or House of Torment Pontiac, MI - see Erebus or Realm of Darkness Lancaster, PA - watch Amish people, then see Bates Motel Beware: Netherworld and 13th Gate will forever spoil HHN for you. There is nothing else like these. They are so massive and so good; the sets are beyond HHN. Diehard HHN fans would agree with me here. Bates Motel has a hayride that makes the one at Griffith Park look like It's a Small World. Summary: As you can see, I'm really pushing multiple nights at HHN for you. You can see everything in one night with an EP. "Everything" in this case means the shows, scarezones, and houses. I'm assuming you'll see the rides during the day. But seeing everything is different than taking your time and experiencing everything. The scarezones alone should be allotted at least 2 hours (these are not dinky Hollywood scarezones). Take last year, where they had mini-shows at several of the Walking Dead scarezones. Rush through and you'll realize you missed lots of stuff. Doing two nights lets you really savor the event. But do make sure that whatever you do - attend the Unmasking the Horror tour. It may even be worth considering delaying the trip a week and going the first weekend of Oct, where you can do HHN on a Thu and Fri (with the Rush of Fear + Express, of course). If you do this, the absolute best thing would be to go to HHN Thu, then do the UTH tour Friday and HHN Friday night. This lets you see the houses in all their glory, THEN the backstage tour, THEN see them after that and appreciate them at a whole new level. Seeing them before your first night at HHN is kind of like watching a magician loading doves into his suit before the show. You can't un-see that as much as you want to. Finally, if your plans change for some reason, know that people in Universal ticketing are very accommodating. I have had to completely change my weekend plans before and they have been nice enough to refund an unused Rush of Fear, extra Express passes, and a UTH tour due to a medical emergency that happened - on the day of my travel, no less. <So until another day, I will disappear once again into the aether, before Freak goes HNN-Nazi up on my face for getting off topic...>

Clooisonne were a gift given to people on design teams, build crews, etc. At any given time there is at least one on sale on Ebay. There has been a 1997 one on sale there for a loooong time. That's the "icon" of the little gremlin biting into an eyelid (actually one of my all time favorite HHN visuals). The owner has about 6 of them somehow and offers them at about $20 apiece. Some are insanely rare (1996, 2002, 2009) and can go for over $200. 1996 will approach $1000 when it finally sells. 2002, 2004 and 2009 were oddly shaped, and are not listed very often. Others are much easier to find and go for around $100. You'd think that the 2001 cloisonne with Eddie would be rare, but it's not. And to confuse things even more, in some years they gave out several flavors of the cloisonne. For instance, in 2005, they had the plain cloisonne, one attached to a keyring, and another attached to a necklace. They are all the same size cloisonne, just with different attachments. The keychain and necklace versions always sell for less than the plain one. The only necklace years I know of were 2000, 2001, 2005, 2006, and 2008. The only keychain years I know of were 2001, 2005, and 2006. HHN Hollywood had no such cloisonne....that I know of. They also had no media gift.

Then I guess I'm not a typical HNN Forum Reader, because I fill out exit surveys every night I'm there and don't hold back. I let them know that the Rush of Fear pass with Express ticket option made me NOT visit competing events like HoS or Disney. The Events dept must have creamed their collective pants when they read that. I let them know that the Arcane Insights tour I took was way overpriced and should have included food during the break and Express Pass privilege for houses (not just rides) at the end of the tour for that price. But that the facetime with TJ was awesome. I let them know that Gothic and Dead End were the best houses in years and that the IP houses happened to generally suck. Had nothing to do with my general apathy for IP; just happened to be true. I let them know that if the events on both coasts keep overlapping with the same houses, I will think twice about flying to Orlando and dropping $1000+ at HHN. I would just visit different local haunts. I let them know that the roaming hordes did not work for me, because I kept seeing the same people over and over throughout the park, and that most of the time, they were photo ops. I let them know that the Horror Unearthed game is a wonderful thing they are doing specifically for the hardcore fans, and that it is really appreciated. Those surveys are the next best thing a person can do aside from not coming at all. After they filter the responses from drunks, they take the remaining ten surveys and collate the results and take them to heart. I agree that when fanboys become starstruck once the gates open, it's an embarrassment for HNN.

While I understand what you are getting at, Knott's had Evil Dead in little more than name only.....as set dressing along a log ride. Little known fact - they also "had Carrie"...in a zombie maze. The house had always ended in the gym of a school, with dead and zombies strewn along the path. While the maze was still zombie themed, they simply hung a "prom night" banner, played music, and added a blood-covered Carrie in the room. Knott's also used Freddy extensively (without permission) loooong ago in their Hanging show (their version of B&T). When presented with a Cease and Desist order, they made a change mid-run in the season. Same actor and same costume, but he was now a generic "psycho with facial burns wearing a striped sweater who haunts people's nightmares". Just don't call him Freddy. What I'm getting at is that while other parks have high profile IP, HHN particularly follows "the letter of the law" - using the characters and environments only in ways you saw them on the screen. While it's cool in that it's like walking on the set, it's hardly scary when you know who and what is around the next corner. You know every trick that's in the bag, just not the order in which they will be presented. How boring. Sticking Carrie in a zombie maze is about as lame as possibly imaginable, but you gotta give it to Knotts for having the guts to mix Carrie with zombies. Or Evil Dead with a water ride. Amazingly, Sony approved both. If the A&D team of HHN was only able to use IP in new "unofficial" ways, I'd be a fan of IP... I don't mean seeing Robbie the Rabbit being devoured by Walkers (hmmm....) but seeing the characters in settings that could exist in that world but that we have not seen on the screen.

Been going to both coasts since 2004. Been to every HHN Hollywood since 1992. Is it worth a cross-country trip to see both HHN's? When they don't share properties, I'd say hell yeah. What made Orlando a must-see for west-coasters is that they have the most amazing original houses anywhere and they are different year after year. Even when both events share IP (2007/2012) the have a completely different take on the houses. As an example TWD was presented in vastly different ways. The only commonality between them is that TWD sucked on both coasts. I have never been a fan of IP. You could tell how the hands of the Orlando A&D team were handcuffed - restricted to presenting what we have all seen so many times before - and only in the ways we have seen it on the screen. No original use of characters, and no original habitats. Yeah - that's a fun time... The IP houses in my opinion are little more than Easter egg hunts. Look! There's the hacksaw that Merle used! CitW was my favorite horror movie of the last 10 years. I do not need or want to see it in a house. Not unless the contract lets A&D run with the characters we only briefly saw. Of course, that will be verboten. I think it's no coincidence that the most beloved houses on each coast last year were the original concepts (Gothoc and La Llorona). If TWD is in fact returning to Orlando, I'd be concerned that it's a repeat house - something Orlando has successfully avoided for so many years. HHN Hollywood is now an event you can visit every other year and not miss a thing. I truly hope HHN Orlando never becomes that. I know that Orlando has presented Psychoscareapy, Screamhouse, and Scary Tales multiple times. They don't repeat them year after year and they are presented as an entirely new chapter in the saga. They are also uniquely A&D, with no contractural rules to follow. That makes all the difference in the world. When both coasts are IP heavy and share the same IPs, I'd say it is not worth a trip to see the other park. Gothic was hands down the best HHN house in the past 10 years, but wasn't worth a flight. Of course, if you love knowing who and what is around the next corner, then IP is for you. By all means fly out and see the other coast. Enjoy the "Comcast Synergy" and pay twice for the same theme. They will love you for it. I know I'm fighting a losing battle, so you don't need to bombard me with the "Universal IS movies" statement. When Orlando loses the ability to create a new icon because it puts the IP in the background, and when they can only create two original content houses because both coasts need to share IP and therefore use the same prosthetics and props to save money, a piece of what makes HHN Orlando great is lost. Mark my words, if the Comcast Synergy mandate continues to shape HHN, the question will eventually come up in a boardroom: "Do we need two fully staffed A&D teams? Can't we save design time (and therefore money) by using the same room designs at both events, fitting them to each locale?" Do you want to guess the outcome of that meeting? All this Debbie Downer stuff being said, I am hugely excited to hear that LT is coming back. If the event is IP heavy, my interest is piqued even more because my anti-IP complaints are based on having to live within contractural confines. This is going to be interesting.