marc

Tomorrow is my 7th and final HHN night for the year. It always goes so fast.

I definitely got sprayed with one of the Klown buttons.

Yep, there’s an HHN cup. Pretty sure it’s Stranger Things.

If I remember correctly, the cup was around $18 and activations were $9.99.

So last night went way more smoothly than Friday and we were able to hit every house and show with time to spare. I still won’t do a full review until after we return next weekend, but I will say there was a lot of inconsistency with a couple houses just between the two nights. Scares from the first walkthrough were missing during the second time around. Could’ve been just bad timing on our parts (cast changes, etc.) but who knows. As far as the shows go, AoV is way better than last year and the lagoon show is amazing.

So even with all the issues we had tonight, we were still able to do 8 houses with express. I don’t rate any houses until I’ve done them a few times, but first impressions were great. Every house is very well put-together and the set designs are amazing. Fingers crossed tomorrow goes a little more smoothly. For now.. it’s shower and bed time.

Well I’m back at guest services.. again. The first time they were able to print new tickets for us. However, when we got to the next house, it said they weren’t activated. Oy..

It is not. They’re selling a branded Freestyle cup but you have to pay to reactivate each night.

Well I just got in a few minutes ago and already having issues. Our tickets got misprinted and it didn’t include the whole barcode. They took us over to someone to try and reprint them but the system is having issues reprinting passes with express built in. They were still able to manually enter the ID to get us in, but we’d have to do the same for every house we wanted to use. Just tried at Ghostbusters and it’s a clusterfuck. Kinda annoyed but I understand it’s the first night and there will always be issues. They recommended going to guest services later in the night to see if the issue is resolved.

Apparently there was a fire alarm issue in Monsters.

So Dorian is pretty much out of Flagler County, and it was mostly uneventful here, thank goodness. And even better, it did not ruin my HHN plans!! See you all on Friday.

I’m on the east coast (just north of Daytona) and we’re hoping it turns north sooner than later. It’s gonna be the difference between bad and really, really bad. And I work in radio and do emergency updates throughout storms like this and I’m worried it’s gonna interfere with my HHN plans. I haven’t missed an opening night since I started going so fingers and toes are crossed!

It could be total BS, but I thought I read somewhere that there was a specific reason GB isn’t on the house shirt. Something along the lines of the GB rights holders didn’t want it associated with other “scarier” IP’s, like 1000 Corpses. Again, could’ve just been a wild speculation.

Hoping we get a look at the UOAP merch soon.

If anything it’ll be something the drunk people can gawk at which will help bring the lines down a bit.

This is my most anticipated but I think it could also be the one most likely to disappoint.

Like a horror-themed version of the Cinematic Celebration? Could be interesting, but I'm picturing the traffic jams it'd cause.

EDIT 2 - Looks like they decided to announce Scarezones and AOV now. https://blog.universalorlando.com/whats-new/scare-zone-and-shows-hhn-2019/

When they first announced it was opening a week earlier than normal I was excited but also bummed it wasn't starting on Friday the 13th. Oh also, apparently Scarezones are getting announced this afternoon and Rob Zombie accidentally leaked his early:

Graveyard Games announced! https://blog.universalorlando.com/whats-new/graveyard-games-at-hhn-2019/

Stay-N-Scream will still be there, but it appears they won’t be doing the extra hour for passholders like they’ve done in the past. Usually it’s during the first two Fridays and Saturdays.

UOAPs are starting to get their HHN newsletters in the mail. I haven’t gotten mine yet but it appears they really aren’t doing the Early Access nights like they have done in the past few years. They’re replacing it with a separate UOAP-only entrance at the main gate that’s only open from 2-5PM on event nights in September. That makes me sad. It was always a nice head start to the evening (even though it’s still really hot and bright at 5:30PM).

They're teasing an announcement on Twitter so I'm guessing soon?

And if you thought the queue to the parade buildings was a chore, just wait!

Well Epic Universe has been officially announced. Now that that's out of the way, hopefully we'll be getting the rest of HHN announced sooner than later. Can't believe we're coming up on 5 weeks already!