HHN 25 Discussion

[ItsMeBilly]

How soon til someone here is going on a tour and can confirm the Behind the Thrills post? Just really want to know if the tours are fixed as the same 6 in the groups of e that were posted. 

 

Univeral guest relations ions claimed it wouldn't be the same three houses every day am and pm which to me makes no sense what so ever so I think they just didn't have an answer. 

I really want to tour Jack Presents but the other two houses on that tour don't interest me. I like waking dead but not to tour a house and I never dug the Alice in wonderland scare zone and have little interest in the house. 

[hhnholdem]

I would post this question in each scare zone topic, but it would be to repetitive. Does anybody know the number of actors on each cast for the streets? I know that there are different characters for each cast and I want to try to get pictures of everybody.

[Johnny Topside]

Putting my ratings of the houses in a spoiler tag, I don't want to give people who haven't been yet any preconceived notions.

 

But after letting the houses soak in for two days:

 

Monsters & Mayhem: 10/10
Body Collectors: 9/10
Insidious: 9/10
Freddy Vs Jason: 8/10
AWIL: 10/10*
Walking Dead: 7/10
Run: 6/10
Purge: 4/10
Asylum in Wonderland: 2/10

 

* The only reason AWIL isn't listed higher is even though it is still an amazing house and the puppets look better, it's the same as '13. I loved walking through it again will keep going back but I didn't want a past house to top my list.

Edited September 20, 2015 by Johnny Topside

[Pandry]

To echo what a few others have said - that was by far the busiest opening night I've seen going back at least 5-6 years. I figured it would be busier for the 25th, but not like this, so early in the run.  This is just my 2nd year with an EP (last year was the first) and I never waited as long as I did for EP lines this weekend than any night I went last year.  It was anywhere from 20-45 minutes in some EP lines.  My shortest wait was close to 5 minutes for Insidious when it was showing 90 min standby.  Go figure.

Maybe I'll try typing a review for the first time in the review thread.  But a few quick mentions, also as most have said: M&M is flat out off the chain amazing. It gets going just as soon as you go in. Definitely a house you can do many runs on and keep noticing different things. Definitely my # 1 right now. Body Collectors is right there too.  And lastly, Insidious was everything as advertised. All 3 of these are can't miss.

Unfortunately, I didn't find myself all that impressed with any of the scare zones.  Granted it was all about the houses this weekend for us so our time in the zones was relegated to going through them on the way to other mazes.  I felt like there weren't many scare actors in most. Could be a first weekend thing.  And the music being used feels more like a rock concert than eerie Halloween themed ambient noise.  I'm not saying they were bad by any means, just initial impressions. My whole group all agreed and this was our 12th consecutive year. This Thursday I'll spend more times in the zones.

[Doctor_Acula]

I'm surprised by the talk about the length of the Express Pass lines.  The only thing I can postulate is that a ton of people thought "lets go opening weekend when it's slower" and thus threw everything out of whack.  This upcoming weekend will be the real litmus test, I guess.  In my 3 prior years, I can't recall waiting more than 10 minutes in a EP line, though, and I've been on some busier nights.

[Primusjim]

Still depressed that there is no Horror Nights tonight, with how busy the first two days were, I think this Sunday would have been good for everyone involved. We had a great time again last night. While it was definitely extremely busy for a first weekend, we had no problems using express on every house, we never waited more than 15 minutes.

The best thing that happened was that my wife and I were the very first people let in Body Collectors. We've never had that privilege before, and it was a totally different experience. I wouldn't have thought it would be difficult to find the path without the conga line leading you on, but it actually was in places. With you trying to figure out where to go, you are much more vulnerable to the scareactors. I think we got each and every scare that time through, it was amazing.

I still think Insidious and Body Collectors are the best houses,

25 Years of Mayhem almost as good as the top two.

American Warewolf is very good again. I look at it as a bonus house, if we have to have a repeat, at least it's one of the best.

Freddy vs Jason is also very good except for the cheesy screens. 

Run is just okay

Asylum is pretty good for a 3D house.

Walking Dead is pretty bad. We were impressed that they found that many memorable locations from last season, but other than that, it's just not good.

Purge is horrible. It's not the fault of Creative though. I think it would have incredible as Scream.

We also really like Bill and Ted so far, and it always improves as the event progresses. I just wish the "Do you want to Eat a Snow-cone?" lady had something more substantial to do in this years show. She is incredibly talented and brought the house down every time in last years show.

 

[4thdegree]

As somebody who has gone to hhn since '99 (with and without express) and worked the queues at the event before, I understand the frustration with the length of the waits for some express. BUT, just so you all know, the only promise Uni makes about the time spent in line with Express is that it will be no more than half of the regular wait time. So, that means that if the posted time is 120 minutes, please don't pitch a fit if you wait 60 minutes. Does it often take much less than half the posted? Yes, that is because the workers are trying to get you through as quickly as possible because I promise you that they do not want to hear you're whining about the lines, especially when other people are waiting two hours for each house. I know most of the people on these forums wouldn't get angry at the workers, but I had many people each night of the event come to me as if I had personally decided to make their wait as long as possible which is just ridiculous and stressful because our main concern is getting you into the houses asap. If you have a problem with it, email Uni or say so at the end of the post-visit survey.

Sorry for the rant, but I just see everyone freaking out about the wait times (which have me worried about next week, ugh) and I have flashbacks to all the rude folks who would take out their frustration on the people working the line, when really it's the higher ups that are to blame for selling too many express passes. 

On a more fun note, I can't wait for next Thursday, the reviews overall seem to be very positive and all the problems that people have reported were foreseeable and most of them seem like they will go away as the event moves forwards and works out the kinks.

[MissBA]

As somebody who has gone to hhn since '99 (with and without express) and worked the queues at the event before, I understand the frustration with the length of the waits for some express. BUT, just so you all know, the only promise Uni makes about the time spent in line with Express is that it will be no more than half of the regular wait time.

They actually don't promise this anymore. Unless they do for HHN only. Buuuuut.

In regards to the express/non express ratio. There's no cure for the problem. But it's worse to be yelled at by someone who paid extra $$ than it is by someone who didn't. I've never worked a house a day in my life but my ratio for express when I had worked with it elsewhere on a good day the ratio was a split 1/2. If express got backed up I went to 2/3 and if express wasn't backed up a lot but the main line was I switched to 1/3 for express and never had to overhear anyone in any line complain. The house attendants may either be still learning how to do count ratios correctly or maybe they are forced to let X amount of express in regardless of how unfair it is against the main line.

Everyone is a paying customer. I understand. But the attendants are just trying to get through the night doing what they were told to do.

[Guest kiwisoup]

Last year when I took the surveys, I definitely complained about people with Express walking straight in wait times were rediculously high, and that's coming from someone  who goes with and without Express. We actually made it a point to ask people how long they had waited and nobody said over 5 minutes...and this was for houses like Halloween that had a 2 hour wait time at that moment. I expect people with Express to wait at least 1/3 of the time that everyone else does.

If it's really to the point where people are going to be unhappy with how long they wait WITH Express then they need to start limiting the number they sell. The event would be much more barable if they would limit Express Passes and admission, but of course they will never do that because it's practically turning away money.

I used to resist Express Passes and I'd defend not getting them and I'd use every trick in the book to see everything in one night without an Express pass but last year was the first time I was like...OMG I can't do this anymore! I think more people are feeling the same way and getting Express passes. If crowd numbers and Express Passes keep going up, they need to do more than just add a rehashed house to keep up with it all.

There is full walk throughs for every house out there in really nice HD video quality. From what I've seen of Orlando there is just highlights of Freddy vs Jason, Body Collectors, Asylum In Wonderland, M&M, Insidious and The Purge so far. There is full walk throughs of RUN and AWOL. I won't watch them until going or if I don't go, later on. We never really get as high quality videos over here even after they are allowed. Or maybe houses aren't as dark there, I dunno.

 

There are, but there also the same "highlights" videos from uploaders I know for a fact always released full walkthroughs before this. One uploader put that they were asked not to upload full walkthroughs. Because it's obviously new this year, maybe not everyone is on the same page yet, but it looks like those efforts are starting to be put in place on both coasts.

[somebody85]

Last year when I took the surveys, I definitely complained about people with Express walking straight in wait times were rediculously high, and that's coming from someone  who goes with and without Express. We actually made it a point to ask people how long they had waited and nobody said over 5 minutes...and this was for houses like Halloween that had a 2 hour wait time at that moment. I expect people with Express to wait at least 1/3 of the time that everyone else does.

I completely disagree with you. People with express should be able to just walk in or wait 5-10 minutes max. The whole point of getting that pass is to be able to hit everything and do it comfortably. Prices for those passes this year are $70-$120. If someone spends $120 more then I did for the sole purpose of skipping the lines, then yes they deserve to be able to walk in. The prices for these passes seems like they keep going up. It's more then the event itself. I refuse to spend $110 - 120, that's just insane so looks like if I go it will be on a Wednesday this year.

[Doctor_Acula]

I completely disagree with you. People with express should be able to just walk in or wait 5-10 minutes max. The whole point of getting that pass is to be able to hit everything and do it comfortably. Prices for those passes this year are $70-$120. If someone spends $120 more then I did for the sole purpose of skipping the lines, then yes they deserve to be able to walk in. The prices for these passes seems like they keep going up. It's more then the event itself. I refuse to spend $110 - 120, that's just insane so looks like if I go it will be on a Wednesday this year.

Absolutely this.  If I'm paying almost 3 times what a ticket costs, I completely feel like I should be able to practically walk right into the house.  I'm not trying to sound like some elitist cool-kid, it's literally the purpose of the ticket.  USO can word it however they want it, but at this point they have set an expectation.  I'm very interested in seeing how next weekend plays out in this regard, because it will absolutely determine my returning next year.  I come from out of state, and generally only have 1 or 2 days to see everything as much as I can.  Increasing my wait time exponentially WHILE charging more for EP is an unpleasant thought at the least.

[Guest kiwisoup]

I completely disagree with you. People with express should be able to just walk in or wait 5-10 minutes max. The whole point of getting that pass is to be able to hit everything and do it comfortably. Prices for those passes this year are $70-$120. If someone spends $120 more then I did for the sole purpose of skipping the lines, then yes they deserve to be able to walk in. The prices for these passes seems like they keep going up. It's more then the event itself. I refuse to spend $110 - 120, that's just insane so looks like if I go it will be on a Wednesday this year.

If you think you are paying to "skip" the lines, that is an assumption. It's called Express Pass...as in faster, not walking straight in. All you are promised is that you get to "skip the regular lines"...aka you get your own Express line. In fact, the EXACT description is"

• "Allows you to bypass the regular lines by providing Express Access to participating attractions.
• Express Access is a separate line with a shorter wait time at each valid attraction."

The Express times should be a percentage of the standard wait time, not 5-10 minutes max for everything. There are points in the night where the standby line would just sit at a stand-still non-stop to make sure that time range is met. You aren't guaranteed anything. You can disagree of course, but as I said I do use Express Pass every year at least once so agree to disagree. If you really want to completely skip both lines and be guaranteed to see everything, then you can pay more for a RIP Tour...As I said before though, if the event is getting to the point where wait times are getting rediculously long for both standby and EP, then they need to do something to offset it instead of just sitting there counting their money while people are growing increasingly unhappy and turning away from the event.

Edited September 20, 2015 by kiwisoup

[georgemoe]

How soon til someone here is going on a tour and can confirm the Behind the Thrills post? Just really want to know if the tours are fixed as the same 6 in the groups of e that were posted. 

 

Univeral guest relations ions claimed it wouldn't be the same three houses every day am and pm which to me makes no sense what so ever so I think they just didn't have an answer. 

I really want to tour Jack Presents but the other two houses on that tour don't interest me. I like waking dead but not to tour a house and I never dug the Alice in wonderland scare zone and have little interest in the house. 

I'm doing them both on Friday and will post the lineup.

[Samayel]

If you think you are paying to "skip" the lines, that is an assumption. It's called Express Pass...as in faster, not walking straight in. All you are promised is that you get to "skip the regular lines"...aka you get your own Express line. In fact, the EXACT description is"

• "Allows you to bypass the regular lines by providing Express Access to participating attractions.
• Express Access is a separate line with a shorter wait time at each valid attraction."

The Express times should be a percentage of the standard wait time, not 5-10 minutes max for everything. There are points in the night where the standby line would just sit at a stand-still non-stop to make sure that time range is met. You aren't guaranteed anything. You can disagree of course, but as I said I do use Express Pass every year at least once so agree to disagree. If you really want to completely skip both lines and be guaranteed to see everything, then you can pay more for a RIP Tour...As I said before though, if the event is getting to the point where wait times are getting rediculously long for both standby and EP, then they need to do something to offset it instead of just sitting there counting their money while people are growing increasingly unhappy and turning away from the event.

hey all!  Could have sworn I had an older account, but perhaps it was from the old Vault and/or Chainsaw Wolf.

 

Anyways, I've been lurking long enough and it is time to speak my mind a bit:  like so many others, I've seen the decline over the recent years, so we decided that THIS year will be our last (this marks 19 years for me and 21 for the wifey!) So we are going "in style"

in response to the above posts about wait times, if you are only going once like us, then pay what amounts to roughly  $120 more than the ticket, and go RIP tour.  It is not THAT much more than express, but it guarantees no wait times at ALL!  Granted, there are a finite amount of them per night, but it sure makes life SO much easier.

I seriously wonder if they "cap" the amount of express passes sold each night, or they just keep selling as long as people keep buying.

 

We will be there this Saturday  (26th), so I hope I see some of you peeps there!

Edited September 21, 2015 by Samayel

[clash]

 

Unfortunately, I didn't find myself all that impressed with any of the scare zones.  Granted it was all about the houses this weekend for us so our time in the zones was relegated to going through them on the way to other mazes.  I felt like there weren't many scare actors in most. Could be a first weekend thing.  And the music being used feels more like a rock concert than eerie Halloween themed ambient noise.  I'm not saying they were bad by any means, just initial impressions. My whole group all agreed and this was our 12th consecutive year. This Thursday I'll spend more times in the zones.

I am glad someone said this. the choice of music this time was rather... odd to say the least (at least in some areas) some zones have good music (all night die in/ evil's roots) but some of the streets were playing dubstep or dance music, it gave me a "wtf?" kind of feeling. I know music is not that big of a deal for most people but music helps my memory when it comes to past HHN  so it was kind of annoying to hear that kind of music playing around the park. (it just  felt odd and out of place, It definitely did not feel like HHN was taking place as I was leaving the park at night  (it felt like it was some kind of music festival or a night club or something.)

I understand that this might be a small pet peeve of mine that most of the general public won't have a problem with, but I wish they were using movie scores or just carnival music  around the park. Even the Walking Dead theme is a lot better than Dubstep. I would even accept Harry Potter songs instead of dance and rock music playing around lol. just saying. 
Like I said, I am glad I was not the only one that noticed this. 
(they could have used the soundtrack of It Follows around the park instead of just one zone for example. Or the soundtrack for maybe the MANIAC movie Theme or something like that, keep the techno vibe but at least it would be creepy)  anything but dubstep..
 

 

Edited September 21, 2015 by clash

[Badge]

So, with the event this year being so packed already, are people ready for them to go back to using both parks? It's going to happen at some point. Crowds just keep getting bigger because word of mouth is getting out about how much fun the event is. Having both parks would really help spread things out. It awful that houses exit right next to house entrances. People just go from one to the other without a break in between. You could have still use the four soundstages used currently for M&M, FvJ, AWIL, and Body and have two enter in Universal and exit into IoA and have two enter in IoA and exit into Universal. That would really help break crowds up. 10 houses, 5 in each park and 6 scarezone with 3 in each park is what I can see happening sooner rather than later. This would also, unfortunately allow them to let even MORE people into the event, but hopefully people will spread out more. 

The only other option I can see is to totally change the ticket system. Having the Rush of Fear pass cheaper than a single day is just insane to me. Your basically inviting the entire city of Orlando and tons of neighboring areas to visit every single night for the first 10 days for less than $10 a day! Heck, if I was a local that didn't have an Annual Pass, I would jump at the chance to finally visit Harry Potter for 10 days for less than the price of a single day ticket (both daytime and HHN) even if I didn't care about HHN stuff. It's also the reason so many teenagers are flooding the event. They can have 10 nights of fun with friends and all they have to do is work an extra shift or two at their minimum wage job. Heck, if I was a parent I would provide the money for the ticket because I know they will be in a safe location and not getting into any trouble (but causing grief to other people sometimes). 

The event would see a lot less people if they only had a few ticket options. A day pass upgrade option, a single night ticket, and a full event pass for $400 letting you go every single night. If people had to pay full price each day (meaning $90-100 a night) or fork out $400 for a full event pass, not nearly as many people would come.

Of course Universal is not going to turn away money like this so the only option I can see is to bring back IoA. Heck, next year they are even losing a house location. What would lines be like this year if there was only 8 houses?

[YouDontKnowJack]

The one thing I dislike about Express is the limited use. I understand only allowing one trip through each house with Express because of crowding, but there is not a more expensive express option (like the Express Plus sold during regular hours) that allows unlimited Express access to all houses. It really wouldn't be too hard to make these in a limited supply each night. I probably wouldn't invest in one anyway, but many people would appreciate the option, and it just means more money in Universal's wallet.

[Samayel]

The one thing I dislike about Express is the limited use. I understand only allowing one trip through each house with Express because of crowding, but there is not a more expensive express option (like the Express Plus sold during regular hours) that allows unlimited Express access to all houses. It really wouldn't be too hard to make these in a limited supply each night. I probably wouldn't invest in one anyway, but many people would appreciate the option, and it just means more money in Universal's wallet.

that is the RIP tour.  More expensive than the normal express, lasts ALL night, and is in limited supply.  You even get right into the rides, and have reserved seating at any shows you choose to watch.  I feel that if you have only one chance to go (like my group this year) and enough cash, this is the way to go!

[Dead Inside]

that is the RIP tour.  More expensive than the normal express, lasts ALL night, and is in limited supply.  You even get right into the rides, and have reserved seating at any shows you choose to watch.  I feel that if you have only one chance to go (like my group this year) and enough cash, this is the way to go!

Isn't the tour only once per house?

[YouDontKnowJack]

Isn't the tour only once per house?

I wasn't thinking about the RIP tour when I made my post, but I believe that once the official tour is over, you are allowed to go wherever you want with unlimited express.

[Guest kiwisoup]

I wasn't thinking about the RIP tour when I made my post, but I believe that once the official tour is over, you are allowed to go wherever you want with unlimited express.

I was under the impression that that was just for rides and not houses. At least that's what I remember the site saying.

[Pandry]

So, with the event this year being so packed already, are people ready for them to go back to using both parks? It's going to happen at some point. Crowds just keep getting bigger because word of mouth is getting out about how much fun the event is. Having both parks would really help spread things out. It awful that houses exit right next to house entrances. People just go from one to the other without a break in between. You could have still use the four soundstages used currently for M&M, FvJ, AWIL, and Body and have two enter in Universal and exit into IoA and have two enter in IoA and exit into Universal. That would really help break crowds up. 10 houses, 5 in each park and 6 scarezone with 3 in each park is what I can see happening sooner rather than later. This would also, unfortunately allow them to let even MORE people into the event, but hopefully people will spread out more. 

Of course Universal is not going to turn away money like this so the only option I can see is to bring back IoA. Heck, next year they are even losing a house location. What would lines be like this year if there was only 8 houses?

I recall reading someone's post a while back that said Uni wants to always keep it in just the one park.  And IOA has a lot of narrow spaces which can bottle neck the already large crowds.  I believe that was a main reason for no longer holding it there.  Though it sounded like an extra house this year along with Diagon open would be a crowd eater, Uni just sells that many more tickets considering it additional capacity space.  I can't help but think that the reason they don't have as many official sellouts  during the season is because they just keep selling more tickets rather than cap them.  This is just speculation by me, no proof to offer.  It almost happened this year; but having an upcharge house is going to be their next move, I think.  And that's really a damn shame.

Now, being the 25th anniversary, they did do a huge social media marketing campaign with a large portion of it targeting out of state/country demographics and that campaign started very early this year, months ago.

[MissBA]

Word of mouth is traveling really fast too. This reminds me of when Frozen came out with how fast it's snowballing (pun intended). When Frozen came out it was not instantly a hit people literally walked into the movie without knowing the plot and didn't know what to expect, watched it, loved it, and word of mouth turned the movie into an empire in just a few weeks and now we have a huge mess and can't escape it.

Same with this years HHN. Overall it's getting favorable feedback from the casual attendees. There's a lot of people who I know do not normally do HHN that are interested in it this year due to positive word of mouth. 

[Grime]

I really, really hate posts that say things like "Uni always wants to keep it in one park" and "Potter will never be open for HHN because Rowling won't allow it" (heh). Unless you sit in on the executive meetings where these decisions are made and contracts are signed, stop spouting this crap as fact. It's fine to say "I don't think Uni will ever expand to both parks for HHN again" but the fact is that nobody is precognitive. Anything can happen.

Just like everything else, opening IOA for HHN is a money issue. Is it worth it? They may have to keep attractions, stores, restaurants all open and pay all of those people that run everything just like they do during the day. Unless USF is having capacity issues consistently, why would they open the other park and deal with all of the logistics problems? And yes, there is a hard cap for tickets that they legally cannot pass. They usually only hit that number on Saturdays towards the end of the event. Opening Diagon Alley gives them an extra couple thousand tickets that they can sell.

In regards to this year, yeah it definitely feels like last weekend was the busiest opening weekend that I can remember. We waited 2 hours for RUN and everything else was at least an hour. I typically never wait in anything over 45 minutes on opening weekends unless it's a big crowd puller like TWD and it's right in the middle of the event (10-11pm). I'm a little worried about the rest of the event, but Wednesdays and Thursdays should stay relatively tame. But again, we'll see I guess.

[duh1011]

Alright, I have a question. We don't have enough for those express passes, nor anything more, and would only be going for one day. At this point, would it probably be better to just hit HoS instead? As far as I know, that event doesn't have nearly as large of a crowd as HHN does, and the quality of the houses are going up drastically. And while we are all interested in many of the houses at HHN this year, it doesn't seem like we would be able to hit many... so would we be better off going to HOS instead?