zombieman

My UTH tour guide stated that they did in fact used voice actors for Ghostbusters. Not for legal reasons, but rather because they just couldn't pull good enough quality sound from 35 year old film. He said that A&D didn't want to have to go the voice actor route but the original voices were unusable.

Welcome to HNN! Very good write up. Question about the non-private RIP - when the tour ends, does your necklace (or whatever they give you) act as an Express pass? I've been to tours at Howl-O-Scream where it did, and to the A&D tour a few years ago at HHN where you did not have post-tour Express privileges.

In better years, I would have purchased the Hollywood HHN season pass, but the quality has gone down so much, I don't do that anymore. I can't give HHN Hollywood more than one night of my time anymore, whereas HHN Orlando gets 4 nights (more, but I have to work in real life ). We will be buying Unlimited Express that night as the price is very low that evening. Being last weekend, it could just as easily be a ghost town as a madhouse. The Express price is such that even Universal is expecting it to be a ghost town.

Went to Alt-Delete. Once by myself and once with my 16 year old daughter (I always attend two Delusion shows). It is very short. Very. Essentially one room where all the action takes place. Story is very much out of the Blue Blade storyline. Two actors. One is masked and makes a very brief appearance. The entire show rests on the other one. My daughter understood this plot but was completely lost in the Blue Blade. It's always fun hanging back on the second run and watching the others in the group solve the puzzles. In each group, we were the only ones that had experienced Delusion before. If you know and love Delusion, you will enjoy this one. If you heard good things about Delusion and always wanted to try it, this might turn you off to it, and that is very unfortunate. I feel people would think this was just ok, but very short. After my run through I stayed at the Dragon & Meeple for some excellent food (short rib poutine - nom, nom nom!) and heard group after group exit saying "that's it?". People in our groups said the same thing. I can appreciate Jon's desire to have at least something every year, but in my opinion, you either go all out or skip the year. Delusion has skipped a year before. It was sad, but we survived, and should able to survive another year off. Without spoiling Alt-Delete, it takes place in the 80's (sure seems to be a lot of 80's theme stuff these days). There is a stunt pulled off during the show, but here's the thing - someone in your group is the stuntman! Coolest part of the show. Feels more escape room than Delusion. I mean, every Delusion has had some puzzles to solve; this just seems to have a few more because it's one room. If you still plan to buy a ticket, I'd opt out of the dinner+show. The food is great, don't get me wrong. The portions are large enough to share and the food is really really good (I had the schnitzel on the second visit). It's just that I don't see how one person could eat $35 in food, let alone two people. I ordered from the menu each night and wouldn't get nearly to that point unless I had wine. Order from the menu and save some $$. The desserts are underwhelming, in my opinion. If you are a party of two, maybe order ONE dinner add on? Parking - if you are unlucky enough to go on a night when Staples and/or Colloseum have an event, good luck. Your best bet is a tiny lot at the corner of W 38th and S Flower. Just set that in Google maps and trust it. It is a very out of the way lot but is a 2 min walk to Alt Delete. Tell the person running the lot you are going to Alt Delete at the Dragon & Meeple and they should let you park for FREE. Otherwise it will be upwards of $35. On a night when nothing is happening at either venue, both W38th and Flower should have parking on the street.

Worked it out with my daughter. We are going Sat Nov 2nd

I believe this coming week is the official Hell Week, when nearby schools let out. It is an aptly named week. I tried finding a way to automatically pull wait times from the app, to no avail. Was oping there would be an iOS emulator I could run on my PC and than use a macro record on that to pull info. Nothing that would work. Back in the day when they posted wait times via webpage, it could be done, but now that it is entirely in their app, I don't see a way. Still, I bet there's someone here who could figure out how to do it... I'd love to be able to post a years worth of graphs.

I recall writing that I'd be happy if they'd just present the same House of Fear show. Was really surprised to see that they pretty much did just that, and now they are getting rave reviews. To me, it's working because they did a show that understands it is at HHN. Same thing with Marathon of Mayhem. Who would have thought a freaking lagoon show would be one of the best shows in years? When a show is catered to an event, it's hard to screw it up.

On my UTH tour, they said that the only GATs are in Klowns.

HOTC also opens late.

Glass half empty: HHN 29 is half over Glass half full: HHN 30 is only 333 days away!

Have not scheduled it yet. Taking my daughter and we need to work around her schedule. High school cheerleaders - amiright?

Although those are the houses, the order is not etched in stone. There are a lot of tours happening through the day and they can criss cross. Also production in the sound stages can force them to rearrange the order. The 3 house tour consists of Graveyard Games, Killer Klowns, and Universal Monsters

Just returned from a 5 night stay. Attended 4 nights (9/25, 9/26, 9/27, 9/29). Didn't attend on Saturday because I caught the creeping crud and was sick as a dog. Pro tip that I failed to heed: Purell is your friend... I say that this event took place in the Upside Down because everything I thought was going to be great was not, and everything I thought was going to be so-so was great. Almost without fail. As usual, I'll go category by category HOTEL Stayed at Sapphire Falls once again. Big plus is the water taxi. Big negative is the water taxi - because it's mobbed by people staying at Cabana and Aventura. I really wish they would check hotel keys... Another big negative is no vending machines on site. The worst hotels I've stayed at have had vending machines... But the rooms are very good and the price is good. Pro Tip: This year was my first time using an annual pass. I got the AP rate for the room, saving me $100. Saw the rate only a week out, so keep looking for it. Although you can make the reservation without first having a season pass, to actually get that rate you need to present your AP at check in (really, just show them a pass that says UOAP).... But here's the tip: you don't have to get your pass processed at Guest Services. You can go to the Universal desk at the hotel and they will process it for you right there. Saves you a buttload of time. Get your season pass from the desk, go to front desk and check in, and you're done. The only catch - they can only give you a pass if you paid for the whole thing up front. If you are making monthly payments, you have to get your pass from Guest Services. Also excellent was that they have UOAP appreciation days going on, and one perk is that ALL levels of passes get 10% off dining. So this makes the bottom rung Seasonal Pass quite a great deal! Saved at least $40 eating in the park, because the discount applies at HHN. Thanks, Universal! TOURS For HHN, used Rush of Fear + Express Tool the six-house UTH tour on 9/27. The 6-house UTH Tour included: Nightengales The Depths House of 1000 Corpses Stranger Things Ghostbusters Yeti Learned something new: The 3-house UTH tour had unique houses, so taking both tours will let you see 9 of the 10 houses. The 3-house UTH Tour includes: Graveyard Games Universal Monsters Killer Klownz Us is not included on any UTH tour, unless one of the other 9 is unavailable. I was going to book the 3-house tour but didn't because I was sick... They did not allow Video recording or Audio recording (the audio prohibition was new). Pictures were also restricted. In originals it once again made no sense. "No pictures allowed in this first hallway" (where there is nothing to see). "Take as many pictures in here as you like" (viscera and gore abound). In IP houses pictures were highly restricted. Ghostbusters was insane. "You can take a picture in this room, but ONLY of this object, and ONLY framed in this manner". If you can get past the picture rules, I do recommend the tour. As usual, you do NOT need a daytime park ticket or an HHN ticket to take the tour. When the tour is done, they escort you to the Blue Man building and then out the door (no staying in the park after the tour, but there is an entrance gate near the Blue Man exit). Instead of a free lanyard, they give you a free pin at the UTH tour. Supposedly exclusive for UTH. FOOD AND BEVERAGE Weather was hot but not humid. Weather-wise, it was one of the best HHN vacations I've had. Event food was not great. The Hero sandwich at the Starcourt food court (aka the shacks near Monsters Cafe) was the standout. Small portion, though. When staying till the closing of the night, I recommend grabbing a sandwich at the Today Cafe to take to the hotel. They are one of the ONLY places in Universal that will give you something to go. Lines are not horrible, but the food comes sloooooowly. Tried all four specialty drinks and bought three of the four glasses (blinky cups) What sucks is that each bar serves only one of the four drinks. There are at least 8 bars, so you will find your favorite drink at only two bars across the event. Stupid idea, HHN... The cups are: Ghostbusters, Universal Monsters, Arcade, Killer Klowns (to be released 10/4) Drinks: The Saturn - Hayman’s London Dry Gin, Velvet Fallernum liqueur, passion fruit puree, sour mix. My favorite Vampire's Curse - Captain Morgan Spiced Rum, fruit punch, sour mix. Tasted like fruit punch and nothing more. Twilight Galaxy - Corazon Blanco Tequila, Mr. Boston Watermelon Schnapps, pineapple juice, orange juice, grenadine. Even with all the sweet flavors, this was really NOT sweet. Very bitter and "Watermelon" was straight melon. Blood Pit - St. Augustine Vodka, Finest Call Blood Orange Sour, Bols Peach Schnapps, orange juice. Strong orange flavor. Not great, not bad. I wouldn't want to try to make any of these at home. Last year's Totally Rad Punch was memorable as all hell. Regarding the Freestyle cups - the "good all HHN season" cup is no more. You now need to buy a $9 recharge every day you want to use the cup. Now, I can tell you that if you recharge during the day in the park, your cup is good all the way through HHN that same night. So you could recharge at, say, 9AM on a Saturday and it would be good through 2AM Sunday. I don't know what happens if you recharge at HHN, though. My understanding is that the cup remains charged through at least part of the next day, during daytime park hours. Not sure. I also tested my park-charged Freestyle cup at Aventura - it did NOT work at their Freestyle machines this year (did last year). I was really disappointed to see that an UNCHARGED cup will not let you get ice water at a Freestyle machine. You can get ice, but no water. This makes no sense. One more thing, totally unrelated to HHN (but this is why my posts are TLDR, right?) Universal is no longer selling the Impossible Burger, and has switched to Beyond Beef. I'm not a vegan or vegetarian, but I really latched onto the Impossible burger, because it tastes so good - like a good burger with no gristle. Most theme park meat burgers are really not very good at all. I've tried Beyond Beef and yuck. Oh well. It was good while it lasted. IMPORTANCE OF EXPRESS PASS With an Express pass each night, was able to easily do all 10 houses, and repeat any that were short waits at end of evening. Each night I didn't even enter the event until around 8-9PM. In addition to all 10 houses was able to do AoV show three nights, grab a sit down meal, and spend quality time in the scarezones. Granted, the was early in the season. Even peak season, I think you should be able to do what I did armed with an Express Pass and getting to the park when it opens. I saved my HHN shopping for the daytime. MILES LOGGED Wed Sep 25 - 13 miles (Just HHN - went direct from airport) - 12 houses, AoV, Marathon of Mayhem Thu Sep 26 - 11 miles (included a bit of daytime visit to IOA for Hagrid) - 10 houses Fri Sep 27 - 14 miles (included 6 house UTH tour) - 12 houses (+6 in tour), AoV Sun Sep 29 - 13 miles - 12 houses, AoV EXPRESS MERGE POINTS The Express/standby merge points are very similar to last year. Some notes: Nightengales, Ghostbusters, HOTC, Stranger Things and Yeti had great merge points. There is a very short wait following the merge. 5 min max KKFOS, Depths, Graveyard Games and Us had the same so-so merge points - 10-15 min max Universal Monsters had a crappy merge point with a good 20 min wait post merge HHN APP GAME There is a section called The Arcade, where you can play a Stranger Things game or a Universal Monsters Candy Crush type game. For the life of me, I can't get the latter to work. I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but the app locks up. You can get badges for scanning a QR code at a sign near each house.. But there's huge problems. First, the sign is a scavenger hunt - some are HARD to find (especially Graveyard Games). Some are right at the entrance - right where they tell you to turn off cell phones. Some are at the exits, but you can't stop or you will back everyone up. None of that really matters, because most are in total darkness, so you can't scan them unless someone shines their light on it. What I did was take a flash photo of each sign. But that sucks, since you need a second phone to scan the first. This game is just stupidity. And don't think you can scan the codes from home. Once you leave the park, that function turns off. You can scan them from your onsite hotel room, though. In fact NONE of the in app games work off site. The trivia is back, but for the original houses, they use general trivia unrelated to the house. For instance, for The Depths, they ask questions like what the deepest dive is, and when it took place, etc. Some of the Stranger Things questions were the same as last year's game. And UNLIKE last year, Terror Trivia locks once you leave the park. Last year I could continue to play from home. And I'm not a big fan of "get a badge for spending money" - you get a badge for buying Pizza Fries, the HHN Freestyle cup, and the UTH tour. MERCHANDISE Way too much merch to go into deeply, but here are some points of interest They do still have AP HHN shirt, AP HHN pin, and free AP HHN magnet, but you need to get those during daytime at the AP lounge (NOT available at Tribute store!) I think they should be at the Tribute store, because they are HHN, and can count toward your 10% off for an AMEX purchase over $75. Custom Ink shirts are once again in the Tribute store. The print is much higher quality. The ones from last year feel sticky and flimsy. These feel like they are part of the fabric. There are very few custom house designs available. I saw one for Yeti. Everything else is custom IP shirts. All stores are sold out of XL and XXL House of 1000 Corpses shirts. I assume they will reorder. I was told they sold out immediately after Sid's passing. No light up pins at all this year. Tribute store is HUGE this year. Individual rooms for KKFOS, Ghostbusters, ST, and general purpose room. They are selling 2019 tokens in the arcade. Be on the lookout for them. Williams of Hollywood store has almost nothing in the way of HHN memorabilia this year. Life size Chance statue is gone. (No, I didn't buy her, but a guy can dream...) SHOWS Loved AoV House of Fear in 2016. Did not like 2017. Really did not like 2018. LOVED this one. It's as if they listened to me, and gave me a HHN themed show in the spirit of House of Fear. The music was great, the story was great, the acts were great. They didn't haul someone up on stage to embarrass them. They didn't force the wave, or slow motion, or freaking Mr. Roboto. The only slow point for me was the aerial silk acrobat, and he wasn't bad at all. I'd still prefer Bill & Ted (and the survey they just sent me asked a couple of questions about B&T...) In my 4 visits, I watched this show 3 times. Also made a video of it. My trick was to turn screen brightness fully down. Marathon of Mayhem Oh. My. God. So much better than I ever expected. I really hope they bring this back time and again with new content, but the 80's theme was so well done. SCAREZONES My Scarezone anticipation list: 1) Zombieland 2) Vanity Ball 3) Anarch-Cade 4) Rob Zombie 5) Vikings Undead ....and after my attendance, almost a complete reversal: 1) Rob Zombie 2) Vikings Undead 3) Anarch-Cade 4) Zombieland 5) Vanity Ball Rob Zombie zone was just plain fun. I spent a long time there and loved every part of it. Favorite use of that area so far. In no way scary. Vikings surprised me with its brutality. The pumpkins were not missed; lanterns made sense for this zone. Wouldn't mind a Zombie Vikings house sometime. To me, Anarch-Cade was beautiful to look at. That laser ceiling was so good, and it was the best thing that area has seen in years. Reminded me of being in the arcade at the mall. Zombieland was cute but boring. The little "shows" were all of 2 minutes of nothingness. It was weird that "zombie kill of the week" was the exact same kill regardless of the character doing it. I chuckled at the Bill Murray zombie but didn't like anything else. It was really low energy as compared to last year. Shadybrook is still my favorite for this area. Lots here have loved Vanity Ball but even though I gave it a straight uninterrupted hour, it was blah. And this was after the UTH tour got me all excited with the backstory. The tour described it as two competing "body designers" who each have runway fashion shows. Their "designs" supposedly will talk to endlessly about what they had done and how much better their designer is than the other one, etc. Other than the runway shows, I got none of that. They had a little "plastic surgery" show, but only one thing happened over the course of an hour. Chucky was so much better... HOUSES My list based on anticipation 1) Depths of Fear 2) Yeti 3) Nightengales 4) Graveyard Games 5) Ghostbusters 6) Killer Klowns 7) Universal Monsters 8) House of 1000 Corpses 9) Stranger Things 10) Us ....and after my attendance, mostly flipped on its head (mostly) 1) Graveyard Games (BY A MILE!!) 2) Universal Monsters 3) House of 1000 Corpses 4) Yeti 5) Ghostbusters 6) Nightengales: Blood Pit 7) Depths of Fear 8) Stranger Things 9) Killer Klowns 10) Us Graveyard Games (A++) So far and away above the rest. My first night every house was leaving me with a "meh" taste and this was the last one I visited. I wasn't really expecting anything, but was in awe as I went through. It just got better and better. This house was utter perfection. Almost every scareactor has multiple scare points - and each one uses all of them. Over the course of my 4 nights, I went through this about 8 times. Each time I saw new things, and it was just perfect. Not a single bad run. I really wanted to hear the backstory on this one, but at the same time, I don't see how it could improve it for me. This house would be the ONLY reason for me to do another trip to Orlando, and a whole trip for one house won't do it for me. Universal Monsters (A+) This was done completely differently than the way Hollywood did it, but they did it equally great. So many great things to experience in this one. Felt like an original to me. Did not expect it to be this good at all. They ought to consider putting some of these monsters in a film some day I with they had turned the rain effect on more at the start. House of 1000 Corpses (A) I'm a big fan of the movie and was a big fan of Hollywood's take (which was also quite different, as the first few rooms back then were parts of the Murder Ride). Good house, but it very strictly stuck to the storyline; if it wasn't in the movie, you won't see it. Yeti (A) Some really big scenes and scares in this one, along with a surprisingly comedic scare outta nowhere. In my opinion, wasn't as good as any of last year's originals. This will be one I will have forgotten about in a few years. <Last year, houses 5-8 would have still been great. On this year's list, everything after Yeti is a big step down> Ghostbusters (B-) Yes, it's a beautiful house. Yes, I know it's not supposed to be scary. Yes, I loved the movie. The house was just....underwhelming. Nightengales: Blood Pit (B-) Like so many others said, the bird beaks were too distracting. UTH tour guide said that these Nightengales were devolved, being much older. Okay, but without someone telling me that, I'm just wondering what the heck I'm looking at. BEAUTIFUL FACADE. Unfortunately, we immediately go into the bowels of the Colosseum and stay there. As such, it's very monochromatic. I guess the original Nightengales: Blood Prey was also monochromatic with the trenches, but frankly the WWI house was more fun and the Nightengales were more scary. And, man, the water effects were practically turned off. I felt nothing rain-like anywhere. Depths of Fear (C+) This was at the top of my anticipation list. The goofy Mouthbrooders killed it for me. In Seeds of Extinction, a guy dressed as a plant was awesome, but here a guy dressed as a silver angler fish with giant translucent teeth is just goofy. I liked the idea and parts felt underwater, but the transition from above water outside to underwater inside was just not great. I think they needed for the facade to already be an underwater scene. Missed the dog entirely until the UTH tour. The house still looked cool and was somewhat fun, but as far as originals go, this is Giggles & Gore territory (and I don't remember much from Giggles and Gore). Disappointing. As I mentioned in another thread, Knotts' "The Depths" was such a better "We dug too deep!" mining themed house. Stranger Things (C) The casting was once again amazing. The flayer at the end was amazing. The rest was just OK. Killer Klowns (C-) Really surprised this came in so low. And unfortunately it's not because the rest was just that much better. I like the movie, really liked the zone, but the house just seemed like a 3D clown house without the glasses. Honestly, I don't think they could have done better. Klownzilla was a great puppet. The final room was huge but filled with too many static figures. Big letdown. I just think this one makes a much better zone than a house. Us (D-) They killed a perfectly good SoundStage for this. I saw the movie and liked the movie. The movie is hard enough to follow. As a house - forget about it. If you've never seen the movie, you will be lost. So let's put all that aside, what about the scares? Not many. So many actors stand there and do nothing. Most of the actors that DO something do it as part of an insanely long action. In any scene with Red or Adelaide, she just stands there. Forever. Then does something. Those are just no no's in houses. It stops the line. If you haven't seen the movie you exit the room wondering WTF. In 4 trips through the house, I saw most of the scares happen one time each. Sorry, this is just garbage as a house. CLOSING THOUGHTS Can't compare this yet to HHN Hollywood because I haven't gone. Only 4 really good houses out of 10. Last year was 8 out of 10. But last year's show was awful and this year had two standout shows. I don't think they topped 2018. As I mentioned, 2018 was so good, I spent $1000 to fly back a second time. This year was middle of the road as a whole. As so many have said: Not awful. Not great. Graveyard Games, though. Oooh, baby! Instant classic for me; I'll miss that one dearly.

Oh well.. In the category of "We dug too deep!" mining houses, Knotts' The Depths is a lot better than HHN "Depths of Fear". I can say with confidence that if I could teleport just about everyone here to Knotts for a 5 min walkthru, they would agree. Not to say Depths of Fear was bad. It wasn't at all. It was middle of the road. And, sorry, but every time I hear Mouthbrooder, I can't help but think of MacGruber

I don't recall that being mentioned in the UTH tour. Doesn't mean you're wrong; just means it was not in the house Bible.

Don't know if anyone has gotten an HHN survey this month, but I did. It was much different than the survey at the exit of HHN. Typical Q's asking of thoughts on the houses, and advertisement. Then they asked some Q's about the shows, and AoV. Didn't ask IF you wanted to see them next year, but rather asked how excited you were to see the 2020 AoV show. Strange to see them saying flat out that it WILL be there. But then they asked a couple of questions about a different show.... A show from 2017.... A show we haven't seen since... They asked how much you liked that particular 2017 show. Not whether you wanted it to come back or if you liked it more than AoV or not. Just asked what you thought about it. Very interesting.

Wrong forum. We have a separate section for HHN Hollywood. I have not been but I will let you know when I go. Orlando does not have music in any queues, but the ST line passes right by the exit before they go in, and they play a never-ending loop of Neverending Story from the corresponding episode. I pity the people who have to listen to that for 45 minute stretches; they should get combat pay.

I'd bet it's better with the infected miners. When I visited last week, the Mouthbrooders just weren't doing it for me. Fishes on legs are not scary.

I went Sep 25-29th. I was going post my review, but after reading your comment, have decided to make it longer Still have not gone to HHN Hollywood this year, even though it's only 30 miles away...

Although Mr. Aiello has left HHN, you probably won't notice it during HHN 30. That has been under design long before he left. We've seen some stunning houses recently from Patrick Braillard and Charles Gray; I'm sure the future of HHN is in good hands.

I've done the UTH tour ever since 2005 when they started it. They used to leave you in the park which was so cool. You could get in one ride and then you automatically got Stay & Scream. They also used to let you take unlimited pics and video. Nowadays, they escort everyone back to the Blue Man location and out the door. No more free ride... But Universal is still much nicer than Disney in that at Universal, you don't need a park ticket to do their tour. Don't let that deter you from getting a UTH tour, though! If you love the houses, it's still a fantastic thing to do. Best way to do it is to go at least one night BEFORE the tour, then go again AFTER the tour. I guarantee it is a totally different experience going through knowing the backstory. Here's another interesting thing: The six house tour and the three house tour cover a total of 9 different houses (there is no overlap). The only house not on any UTH tour is Us. That, of course, could change at any time.

[EDITED following my HHN visit this weekend] Hello all, As many of you know, I have been collecting wait times posted on the Orlando and Hollywood Apps during the season, and have been asking you to post your snapshots. On Thursday 9/12, I did a crazy thing. I collected data every 10 minutes for both events. That is a total of 12 straight hours between the two events. I'd like to share that data using a few graphs, and provide some analysis. Hopefully after seeing this, someone out there will find a way to automatically obtain this data for me direct from the app. I can easily plug it into my existing spreadsheet. I know someone out there has the ability. Surely someone will take it on? In these graphs, I show wait time versus time, over the duration of the evening. I have some shaded areas that indicate showtimes for AOV and Marathon of Mayhem. My shaded area includes about 15 min before and after the show. The intent being that during these times, we would theorize there would be certain traffic patterns before, during, and after the show in certain areas of the park. The wait times may or may not confirm these suspicions. I did not set out to confirm my theories; I wanted to see what the data showed. Keep in mind this is a snapshot of ONE NIGHT of the event. A low attendance night at that. It does not account for such things as: Weather Unexpected closing of houses for technical reasons Cast changes Number of guests in park during the evening (people coming and leaving) Here are some facts about the evening: Average house wait time over entire event: 40 minutes. Max wait for the evening: 100 min (Stranger Things, preloaded at start of event) This first graph shows the average wait time of all houses during the evening. Although Ghostbusters sand Stranger Things were preloaded with a wait time of 80 min and 100 min respectively, most of the other houses were closed at pre-opening time. So the average wait time was mathematically not high. What is interesting to note here is the jump at 8PM. Personally, I believe this is the second rush of people coming into the park and hitting houses hard. We can see what I believe is proof of this in later graphs. Also interesting to note that the park started to clear out starting around 10PM (it was a Thursday). Note the blip around 11:30 once the two overlapping shows let out. Other graphs can show us where people went. This next graph attempts to answer the question: "I've entered the park. Do I go straight (to the Soundstages), or to the right (Shrek and Parade Buildings)?" The green line is the average wait time of the Soundstages and the blue is the average wait times of Shrek and two Parade Building houses. I don't include the MIB tents as being to the right, as they tend to open later and they don't affect the trend line much. Remember that two of the SS houses are preloaded with Stay and Scream guests, so ignore that drastic drop off before 6PM. What I see here is that going Right is clearly the way to go. Also notice that sharp increase at about 8PM. Again, I'm theorizing that those are the second rush of people into the park - and they, too, are naturally going to the SS houses (because they don't realize that even arriving late, going Right is better). Also see how after the AOV shows people head toward the houses. Next is a very busy graph. What I am trying to plot here are the clusters of houses - EXCLUDING the SS houses, as the graph just gets too busy. The clusters are: Barney Area (Graveyard and Universal Monsters) Tents (Nightengales and Depths) Shrek (Killer Klownz) MIB (House of 1000 Corpses) Things of note: HOTC and KKFOS open late At 8:00 (my theorized second rush of people) everything but KKFOS starts to rise. This is not consistent with my theory, but look at the KKFOS wait time by itself. It never really peaks until very late. Not sure why. Maybe it's people entering the park and seeing a decent wait, but deciding to go the houses farther int the back first ("we'll hit KKFOS on the way out"). We definitely see KKFOS with a higher wait time as we would expect as people file out of the park and get in one last house. I can't explain the burst of traffic to KKFOS after the second AOV show lets out. It's on the other side of the park, and HOTC is right there. We do see HOTC jump after every AOV lets out; however, not necessarily from AOV traffic. When AOV lets out, they usually force traffic leaving the theater to go to the right - toward San Francisco. The traffic is one-way, so people walking from MIB toward SF would not get turned back, but they might see the walker horde ahead and decide to hit HOTC since it's right there. So there might be a delayed pop in HOTC wait times once the theater has let out. The people forced to the right would either make their way slowly to Stranger Things and Us, or cross the bridge toward KKFOS. I'd expect to see the tents near AOV also jump after AOV lets out, but this only happens after the second show. Following Mayhem, we see the Tents and HOTC jump a bit. I think this makes sense but I'm not totally sure where viewing is yet for Mayhem. I understand how Mayhem viewing area works now, and it seems to me that as you exit Mayhem, (Graveyard and Universal Monsters) or KKFOS would be the closest houses depending on which exit you use. It's possible that some people would watch from the SF or London area, but the show doesn't make sense from that angle, and they do a great job of cancelling noise on that side. Having said this, I don't see wait time trends that support that theory. I can do more graphs that anyone wants to see. Just let me know. Can't do more right now because I have to get home to pack. Leaving for Orlando tomorrow morning!!

If they could make a house out of Ghostbusters (apparently a very good house; I will find out tomorrow), then why not bite the bullet and do Jaws? Not meant to be humorous - it would definitely need to be given the Poltergeist treatment (i.e. Mandela Effect). Which is to say not present a scene by scene house but to take big liberties by presenting imagery that we swear happened and scared us as a kid but wasn't in the actual movie. I think they could pull it off and could be the GOAT. It could also satisfy that itch we have to return to a SS Frightanic type house. On the straight horror front, Terrifier is made for HHN. Gore galore and a clown creepier than Jack.

UPDATE: HHN Orlando has ADDED a 42nd night to the event this year! On 9/17, it was announced that MONDAY October 21st has been added. I would expect this to be a wonderfully dead night to attend, and I have verified that all levels of FFP will work for this night (excluding Rush of Fear, obviously). If your FFP pass has Express option, you will get Express access for October 21st. The event will end at 1AM on the 21st. It appears both the Academy of Villains and Marathon of Mayhem shows will take place on the 21st. Also available for this added night is: Express Pass ($89.99) Unmasking the Horror tours (3 house and 6 house) RIP tour Scareactor dining experience is NOT available at this time for October 21. Some other non-weekend nights do not have this experience. This presumably was added to make up for Wednesday October 16 being a non HHN night, extending that week to 5 straight nights of HHN. It also means nearly every week of HHN would see 5 day stretches of being open. I seriously doubt we see an additional night added unless it is Sunday Nov 3rd.

I seriously read it that way, too. What am I missing?