Official 2018 HHN-28 Thread

[vrajewski10513]

Just FYI... read on Twitter that Finnegan’s was let into Stranger Things first. Hello Kitty was just overflow from the other two holding areas.

 

[Carnut12]

Thank you!!! I went with the Public VIP Tour!!!

 

[macraven]

 

[schumigirl]

Janet, have no idea on your questions.........I’m sure folks will be able to answer you though.


But, that was the busiest and I mean BUSIEST opening HHN I have ever seen.........it was so busy with crowds everywhere.........

At 6.30 we used the hotel guest entrance........queue was round the back of the building.......won’t go that early again.

Didn’t do a whole lot of houses but.........

Halloween...........they did it good!!!! Lots of scares from Michael and a few others........will do that house every night we go..........at 6.55pm queue was 60 minutes.........EP line was 10 minutes till we entered the house.

Carnival Graveyard..........60 minute regular line, took us 20 minutes in Express line, but felt longer........house was just ok. Some good scenes, including above you......but lacked scares.

Poltergeist.........75 minutes regular line.........25 minutes wait with Express. Some decent scenes you would recognise from the movie.......lacked real scares.....but worth doing if you don’t have to wait too long. This house was amazingly cold......which was lovely with the heat of tonight.

Scary Tales........75 minute wait.........15 minutes with Express......but met friends later who said Express took them 25 minutes. This was a good house I didn’t expect to like a whole lot. But we did. Good theme and a few good scares. We would do this one again.

Stranger Things line was 100 minutes at 9.20. Express would have been too long. Will do it another night early.


Scare Zones..........

The Harvest..........no scares but it was alright.

Vamp 85..........we really liked this zone.......loads of 80’s iconic music and Michael Jackson in Thriller mode, a really good Freddie Mercury........and 80’s music playing. Some excellent scare actors here........and a few good “jumps” but no scares.......however, this is a fun zone and we did enjoy it........

Revenge of Chucky. Not sure what to say about this one........a couple of good SA and Chucky gave a “talk” to the crowd. That was about it. Not a fan of this one.

Twisted Tradition.........we liked this one!!! Some good little characters that gave good scares. And the pumpkins lit up is always pretty........

AOV..........not great. Different people from first year and it shows. Won’t see this again.

Louie’s for pizza was good. Busy. But good.


So we still have to see most of the houses. Will cover that over next nights we go.

But, if the event gets busier and busier.............wow!! It will be mobbed. Folks were complaining about the walk to Trick r Treat house.........

We met some TM friends who all said they couldn’t believe how busy it was for opening night, and they didn’t have EP........

We left without buying a souvenir drinks cup, but will get one. They look good.

It already is so much better than last years event. We can go 12 nights, but maybe not make 12 of them......will definitely do Halloween every night and cover one half of the park on various nights.

Universal Store has 80’s video games like Donkey Kong........and there was a queue to enter the pop up HHN store where fake Macy is. So didn’t go in there tonight.

Plenty of kids unfortunately including a 2 year old on dad’s shoulders. He was told to remove her from his shoulders going in the house and proceeded to argue he wasn’t going to.........he soon did when he was approached by an officer. A 2 year old!!

So, a very short review of a shortish visit.......we left at 10.30 and just got back to our room. Whooped.

It was incredibly hot and the crowds made it worse. But, it was a lot of fun.........and looking forward to going back again after dinner tomorrow night and again Sunday.

 

[Laura727]

I was reading on FB it is really crowded in the park
Some past years, opening night did not have peeps staking out in the line
until an hour before general public was let in

Stay and scream holding areas always gives peeps the advantage of hitting a couple of houses without long waits

Laura I hope you have a great time at hhn

Come back and share your experiences with us

Had a great time!!

Here is the low down of our experience tonight:
Gates opened at 6:06 and the general public was let loose. Houses did not open until 6:30. We did not have EP but were able to do four houses by 8pm. EP lines were LONG so I was glad to not have spent the money. We went counter clockwise starting at Halloween 4 (my personal favorite). We were done with that house by 6:45. The posted times for the houses did not match the actual wait time. Two houses had 40 and 45 min as their posted wait times. We were waited about 20-25 at each.

Since we knew we were coming back and the times posted for houses were over 60 minutes, we switched to rides (wait times of 15 minutes). We left at 10:30. The posted wait times for Poltergeiest and Stranger Things were 100/110 min respectively when we left. One woman I spoke to on line said she waited two hours for Stranger Things.

Hope this helps!

 

[tony67]

So stay and scream at Finnegan looks like it will be an even more popular option then in the past - now I just have to be sure to finish my pint, and not order another, and be ready to go when the let people loose - always a challenge

Based on Shumgirl's update I think I made my decision to get EP with my ROF - sounds like it will be well worth it.

I checked out a couple of live streams last night it it did look crazy busy - almost uncomfortable - hopefully it will be more reasonable on a Wednesday night so I can get some decent pix

Also seeing how busy it was I think it is even more likely it will start earlier next year now that they moved Rock the Universe to February.

What was going on in teh Simpsons area - that is where they usually have the random roaming SAs in an unofficial scare zone - anything this year?

 

[patster734]

I went last night. Because it was my only night, I used Express and the AP Early Access. I managed to see all of the houses, and did three houses twice. The AP holding area was around Duff Gardens, and there was a huge crowd for the AP Early Access. People were everywhere.

Finally released a little before 5:30. The two houses we were sent to were Slaughter Sinema and Dead Exposure. I choose Slaughter Sinema first, and it had a short wait, but going over to Dead Exposure afterwards and that wait was about 40 minutes. By the time I got out of that house, it was already after 6:30, and the crowds were growing quickly. I still managed to get into Blumhouse which was probably around a 30 minute wait.

After Blumhouse, I walked through Vamp 85, and down to Stranger Things. It had a 100 minute wait. I walked back to Scary Tales, which had a 45 minute wait, and got in line. This would be the last house that I would do without Express.

I hadn’t eaten dinner yet, so I got food from the Classic Monsters Cafe. Eating in the restaurant was a nice reprieve from the heat.

My first house with Express was Stranger Things. Standby was still 100 minutes. Express was probably 20 minutes. Leaving Stranger Things, I walked through The Harvest, grabbed a bottle of water from Boulangerie, and headed toward Chucky’s Scarezone. But on the way there, saw the Halloween entrance, and used Express for it. Afterwards, I walked through Twisted Tradition.

After that, I did Seeds of Extinction. Express was bad for this as it combined with the Standby line very early, and the conga line wasn’t backed up to the Standby/Express junction when I went through around 10:30. So the Express was a waste for it. Afterwards, I did Trick or Treat, and that Express worked much better than with Seeds. FYI, the exit line for SofD and TorT is the worst as it snakes past the TorT standby line, and people were constantly stopping to chat with friends in that line.

Afterwards, I repeated Dead Exposure and Slaughter Sinema. I walked down to Gramercy Park, where I did Poltergeist, Carnival Graveyard, and repeated Scary Tales (walk on with Express).

By this time, it was 12:40. I walked down to Stranger Things. 85 minute wait. I initially got in line, but decided not to do it, and got back out. I limped down (feet were killing me at this point) to Killer Klowns scare zone, and had good interaction with the Klowns. And then limped to Chucky’s, and saw that scare zone right at closing. Unfortunately, Chucky had just finished his scene as I arrived, so I missed it.

I had a lot of fun. Saw all of the scare zones and houses. My favorite houses were Slaughter Sinema and Scary Tales becauseof the variety of monsters in the mazes. My least favorite was probably Bloomhouse. I could have done that house twice, because I still had the Express for it, but didn’t.

 

[Robo56]

Looking forward to hearing about anyone’s impression with Demogorgon presentation in “Stranger Things” House.

 

[keishashadow]

Thanks for the updates. Not thrilled to read confirmation it’s going to be crazy busier this year.

Conversely, reading the length of EP return times has be mess inclined to purchase it, seems devalued for shorter stays.

Carole special thanks re the mini house reviews. May set up a thread with template for others to cut/paste reviews.

Interesting reading finnegans getting released to ST first vs hello kitty holding area. Finnegans may find themselves in the position this year of adhering to fire code occupancy

 

[Laura727]

Looking forward to anyone’s impression with Demogorgon presentation in “Stranger Things” House.

View attachment 350928

We didn’t do this house yet but spoke with a woman who waited two hours. She said it was ok and only did it for her kids. She said it was not worth the wait.

 

[keishashadow]

Carole’s post inspired me to set up a new thread with a template to make it easy to post mini reviews in a succient way. Swing away

https://www.disboards.com/threads/hhn-28-attendees-survey-says.3706584/

 

[shh]

thank you to everyone reporting back. Was really hoping another holding area would release first to ST, as we really liked having dinner at Finnegans during Stay and Scream. Sounds like that's going to be much harder to swing this year.

I forgot - is there a place where you can sit and dine in AC at the Simpson's holding area? Or is Finnegan's the only choice?

 

[tony67]

We didn’t do this house yet but spoke with a woman who waited two hours. She said it was ok and only did it for her kids. She said it was not worth the wait.

Cant say I'd enjoy it if I had to wait two hours and if she only did it for her kids I would not put too much stock in it..look forward to your opinion after you do it.

I am having a hard time avoiding the walk through videos - it is very tempting to check them all out

 

[patster734]

We didn’t do this house yet but spoke with a woman who waited two hours. She said it was ok and only did it for her kids. She said it was not worth the wait.

No house is worth a 2 hour wait, but all houses are worth the Express Pass.

 

[crostorfer]

I spent all night last night watching Twitter and IG feeds from people at the event. General consensus was that UNI knocked it out of the park with the theming in every house/maze and scare zone. Even the houses that weren't particularly scary were worth it to walk through for the theming and set design. Reviews on Dead Exposure were very mixed, some people thought it was the scariest of the night, others complained that it was too dark and crowded, and that the strobe lights bothered them. Slaughter Sinema seemed to have consistently been one of the overall winners of the night, all things considered. Nothing but rave reviews. People also said Scary Tales was not scary, and neither was Stranger Things, so I'm wondering if both were thrown in to accommodate the younger crowd they seem to have attracted. I saw lots and LOTS of teens and pre-teens in pics and video. 90% of the tweets and IG stories were from people who all claimed to be having the time of their lives, many saying that this is the best HHN they've ever attended. There were definitely 10%, however, who seemed to not be having a good time. Lots of complaints about crowds and wait time, and several complaints that they sold too many express passes, because the express lines were too long in comparison to stand by wait times.

We'll be there October 24th. I CAN'T WAIT!!! All of the reviews have me so excited to see this in person.

 

[patster734]

I held off on using my Express until 8:30. And then used it for all of the houses except Blumhouse because it was getting late and I wasn’t that impressed with Blumhouse on my earlier visit last night. It was totally useless at SofE because the line joined very early and the backup didn’t occur until after the joining. At 12:30, Express was a walk-on for Scary Tales while the standby line reflected 45 minutes.

 

[Monykalyn]

@schumigirl there wereblits of comments on FB today about a screaming baby holding up an exit line at one of the houses which resulted in a 20 minute wait to Exit.

Also reports of the crowd was around 35k, I remember someone did a report on the dis about the crowds and lack of control at the Fallout Boy concert which was ?40k? people. Seems it was larger than usual crowd.

So I’m thinking RoF definitely and maybe an express after 10 one night if there’s still houses we haven’t got to. We have 4 nights so I’m hoping this works. Also have the AP early thing, and we can be in park early to get into the holding areas in plenty of time.

The reports are really getting me excited!!

 

[OhioStateBuckeye]

Is there anywhere on the app to see house wait times?

I tried to find them and couldn't.

 

[soniam]

Is there anywhere on the app to see house wait times?

I tried to find them and couldn't.

Select the 3 lines on the top left. HHN (spelled out) is one of the choices. It will then list wait times for the attractions and houses, but some of the houses aren't listing times

EDIT: Select the Houses & More tab too.
EDIT2: There's also a wait time alert setting if you select the house.

 

[crostorfer]

I'm following the hashtag #HHN28 on twitter and instagram again tonight. So far, tonight's favorite house seems to be Poltergeist, lots of shout outs. The waits tonight seem to be slightly higher than last night. Also, people are reporting that the queue situation at Seeds of Extinction has been resolved and its much better.

Also, much love for the Pizza Fries.

Vamp 85 seems to be everyone's favorite scare zone again tonight.