Back from opening night of HHN 19

[Marquibiri]

So it was still crowded after all the rain? Right before it started pouring the posted wait time for Wolfman was 10 minutes, so I'm assuming that the wait times took a huge jump because people were trying to stay dry. You said you did more houses 3 times each later in the evening, so the houses died off again once the rain stopped and everything cleared up. Am I reading that right?

We left while it was raining because we knew we'd be coming back and were more worried about getting the inside of the car wet than ourselves. But from what I saw with the crowds the houses really weren't bad once the initial rush of people got in.

I was able to redo several houses through the express line. Lines were a bit long and lots of people were getting soaked. For example, I did Chucky, and redid it 5 minutes later thorugh the express line, normal wait was 60 minutes.

Crowds weren't too bad at first, I was done real early, before nine on Saturday and 8:30 on Friday, but I was ahead of the crowds and was going at a quick gallop. . Then went to Simpsons and the Mummy and decided to redo some houses. Most lines were between 30 and 75 minutes. I just felt it more packed than last year's opening weekend.

Marquibiri

 

[BuckeyeGuy28]

nay..........too many die hard addicts like myself need to get their HHN fix no matter what the weather is.

i have been going the last 10 years to HHN.

there have been some years it was hot and humid the entire night.
the weather didn't scare any peeps away.

a few years back when the hurricane hit, i was at hhn.

it only slowed down the crowds on that saturday night...

So out of those ten years, which year was the best?

 

[Disneyhappy]

Just back from Orlando and I'll give my mini trip report. We attended both Friday and Saturday.

We had it timed to head into the park and ride HR3 before heading over to the AP area. Well, we thought we timed it correctly until the ride broke down with us on it. The trains in front of ours was stcuk in the station. The seats wouldn'y open up so our train had to wait for the ones in front of us to open so we could move forward and disembark. For those who have been on HR3, have you noticed that as you come back into the station, the seats tighten up a notch? I was slightly light headed from the ride and then had to sit for 15 minutes and had real difficulty breathing because of the tight restraints. Then I started to have a panic attack because I couldn't get move. They had to manually release me. The rest of my family were released about 10 minutes later. So, my HHN did not start off the best and I needed to wait a good hour before I was able to have a drink - I think it was called The Hair of the Wolf".

A bit of a late start and we opted not to get express passes as everyone in our group could not afford it. It still worked out great. I will rank the houses in order of favorite to least favorite and this order was a consensus of our group of 6.

Wolfman - Great scares, loved the sound affects, costumes and overhead scareactors.

Chucky
Silverscream
Saw
Dracula and Frankenstein were tied
Leave It To Cleaver
Spawning - If you had to rule out one house, definitely this is the one.

Bill and Ted's was cute. My favorite is still HHN XVI. I had 2 HHN virgins in our group who thought it was hilarious.

I thought the coolest thing was the circus actor in the plexiglass box with rats crawling all around her. This was in the Cirque du Freak scare zone. It totally freaked me out. I have no idea how the scareactor was able to be confined in such a smal space to begin with and then have rats crawling around. You would see the rats nipping at her clothes and gloves.

Wait times- On Friday night, we did not see wait times longer than 45 minutes which was the longest were waited all night for none other than The Spawning. The line for Wolfman is deceiving. On Saturday night, it said the wait time was 15 minutes but it ended up being 30 minutes. Well worth the wait, though!

I can't think of the name of the scarezone by Mel's diner heading towards the front of the park but it was my favorite one. One scareactor got me good with his chainsaw on Saturday night. We left just as it started to rain Saturday night.

One last thought. I am a huge Rocky Horror fan so the show is a must see at least twice. He had a great voice but he was the only character that did not look anything like the character in the original movie.

 

[Tizzy_Meliss]

I finally made it to HHN!!!! We went Thursday Oct 1st (DH couldn't get out of work early enough on opening night.) DH and I had a great time. We got there early enough for dinner at Finnegans. The food was good, the Killians cold, and the band was fun. Sweeet Caroline....bah bah bah, anyone there Thursday knows what I am talkin' about. :}

Anywho, we were disappointed that HR3 was closed, but we can do that anytime I guess. We got to US at 4 PM and stayed until midnight, my poor feet couldn't take much more. Oh and I went to snap my first pic, and my battery was dead in my camera, someone left it on so sorry, no pics.

Before I begin I will say the one thing I don't like about HHN overall is how crowded in to the house we were. We had people so close to us in front and in back that we missed so many scares and we saw what was coming ahead so it wasn't as good as it could be for us. We kept trying to slow a bit when we could so the people in front could get a little ahead of us, so we got one or two really good scares.

Houses

Dracula- First house of the night and it took us only 10 minutes to get in, some of the actors were still coming inside the house as we were entering. I have to say we didn't get one scare in this house. We were "herded" in so close to others that we missed all the scares. I was so disappointed. I did love the props, the sounds, the smells.

After Drac we decided to go back to Finnegans, grab a Killians, and sit on the stoop in NY in front of the Fast and The Furious cars to wait till dark. After a beer and some people watching we went onto the rest of the houses.

(in no particular order)

Chucky - we really liked this one. I like the smells, the music, and had space between us and people in front of us so we had at least one good scare. I was not to happy about the wait tho, it said 20 minutes, we waited close to an hour. My guess was we got there when they were changing actors. Its not the wait I'm complaining about, its being told the wait is 20 minutes when it wasn't even close to 20 minutes.

The Spawning- To dark to see anything for us, but the aliens were cute. Loved the neon room.

SAW-Great house. We loved the props in this and the actors were great. Can't say to much else without giving spoilers.

Leave it to Cleaver - Loved this house. From standing in line to the end of the house, we had a great time in here. Lots of actors too.

Frankenstien- Great house and props. Had a great scare in here.

Wolfman-My favorite as far as the theme, the costumes, but there was not one scare in here for us. In fact the only time we saw an actor was when they were moving into position to scare someone else.

Silver Screams-The only house we did not get to. DH was up at 5 am that morning and worked all day on his feet, so by midnight both of us were exhausted. We are local, we'll get back there again.

Scare Zones
Containment- Total waste. Not one scare, and in fact some of the actors we couldn't tell were actors because they didn't do much and their makeup wasn't much different than the makeup people were paying to have on in the park. I don't know we thought they could lose this whole thing.

Apocalypse-We had a great time in here, the actors were really into their roles. I was chased and caught off guard a couple of times.

Lights Camera Hacktion- Waste of time. Although the chainsaw guys were doing a fantastic job! While I was watching some lady get chased one snuck up on me.

HorrorWood Drive-In-We had fun in this area, another scare zone where the actors were into their jobs.

War of the living Dead- One of our favorites for props and costumes, scares not to much.

Cirque du Freak-Total waste of space and time. The Rat lady was cool and the man on stilts, but that was it.

No shows for us this time around. Maybe next time.

 

[Cdn Friends of Pooh]

Before I begin I will say the one thing I don't like about HHN overall is how crowded in to the house we were. We had people so close to us in front and in back that we missed so many scares and we saw what was coming ahead so it wasn't as good as it could be for us. We kept trying to slow a bit when we could so the people in front could get a little ahead of us, so we got one or two really good scares.

Unfortunately that is the way they do things at HHN - the conga line ... not that we like it but that's how they do it.

 

[Tizzy_Meliss]

I totally get why they have to do it, you would have a 2 hour wait, but it still sucks.

 

[Lizboo]

Unfortunately that is the way they do things at HHN - the conga line ... not that we like it but that's how they do it.

Is that how it is with every house? Do they constantly let people in or just small groups of people (say 10 or so)? BTW (newbie question), what is a Team A and a Team B (I assume team A is the better set of actors??)
TIA

 

[inkkognito]

Team A and Team B is just the names of the two shifts of scareactors for each house.

They pretty much have to move you as a conga line or the lines would be insane, but that ruins some of the houses for a certain percentage of guests. I've been through Wolfman like 7 times and have only seen the finale once and have missed the other scares consistently...I spend all my time watching the scareactors move back into position. Thankfully I know the timing in Saw and manage to catch most or all of the effects each time.

I was at the AP preview yesterday and there was no one at all in front of me or behind me, yet one of the Security people kept telling us to catch up with the people in front of us. Uh, no. I could see if we were holding up a line, but the house was empty. Utteraly no reason to create a conga.

 

[Tizzy_Meliss]

I was at the AP preview yesterday and there was no one at all in front of me or behind me, yet one of the Security people kept telling us to catch up with the people in front of us. Uh, no. I could see if we were holding up a line, but the house was empty. Utteraly no reason to create a conga.

Same thing happened with us in the Dracula house, the house just opened, some actors were still filing in, we slowed a bit so we could take it all in and every security guard we passed asked us to move it along.

 

[Cdn Friends of Pooh]

Is that how it is with every house? Do they constantly let people in or just small groups of people (say 10 or so)? BTW (newbie question), what is a Team A and a Team B (I assume team A is the better set of actors??)
TIA

As inkkognito said, all the houses are the conga line ... unfortunately because of the number of people attending the event, there is no way they could let small groups into the houses by themselves.

 

[Lizboo]

Thanks for all the replies.

 

[stichlover87]

Went on Friday night...first time ever and I really enjoyed it! We did the AP event first and then used the express pass for the rest of the houses. We were able to walk right into every house and had no problem getting seats at both shows. I am a chicken but I was able to handle most everything except saw (I closed my eyes!) so I rewarded myself with a t-shirt .

Today we did the unmaking the horror tour and really enjoyed it. Our tour guide was great and I enjoyed seeing some things I missed in the dark. I am hoping we can find another time to go to HHN. Also, for people asking about Hr3, it is not open because the lines for the haunted houses go under the ride and they have no nets.