DAY/DATE ATTENDED
Sep 14th-16th
OVERALL CROWD IMPRESSION, indicate if express pass & wait times you experienced
No Ep the 14th & 16th, had EP on the 15th
14th-Had much longer lines than any other year we've gone for opening night (the last 2 years). We were in the AP holding area, and weren't super close to the front because we tried to stay in the shade but when we got out of line Slaughter Sinema was already a 20 min wait. Usually that's a walk on but we waited more like 45 mins, and by then the event was open and everything had a big line. Since we knew we were coming back with EP we just walked around doing some shorter wait houses like Seeds of Extinction (10 mins), and Scary Tales (45 mins) before going to AOV. We walked around a bit afterwards, but since we flew in that morning we didn't stay much longer.
15th-There were pretty long lines this night too. We didn't get there till around 9 pm, and met up with some friends who also hadn't done any of the houses yet. We both had EP. We got 7 houses done (and could've done them all we just didn't want to backtrack & wasn't interested in doing Seeds of Extinction again). We did Stranger Things first the wait was around 130 mins, and it didn't feel like we waited longer than 25-30 mins. Carnival Graveyard was maybe 60 mins or so? We were breezing through the line, but then something happened when we were a little ways from the entrance and they shut down for awhile. We waited maybe 45 mins total (the house was maybe only down 25-30 mins), and then we got to go through. They gave us all an EP that was good any day of the event because of it. We got to Poltergeist and the line said 60 mins, when we got into the EP line there was a guy telling everyone "from this point it's 45 mins". We weren't going to wait almost as long as the regular line with EP so we decided we'd use our extra EP when we came back tomorrow so we didn't have to backtrack, and we'd redo Scary Tales then too.
Blumhouse and Dead Exposure were both under 60 mins, and I'd say we waited maybe 20 mins for Blumhouse and like 10 mins for Dead Exposure. Trick R Treat was around 25-30 mins when we got in line, and aside from the walking (that queue is always so long) we pretty much walked right in. Halloween 4 we got to towards the end of the night and it was about a 15 min wait for us (I don't remember the posted wait).
16th-The 16th was definitely calmer than the other days with lower wait times. It also rained for awhile that night, and I'm sure some people benefited from that in line but since it was pouring we went inside. We came to the event around 9:30 pm. Used our EP from the other night for Poltergeist. I think the posted wait was around 45-60 mins, but we waited like 10 mins. We waited in line for Scary Tales next, the wait and posted time were about 35 minutes. The only other house I wanted to redo when the line was shorter was Slaughter Sinema. We got in the line when it said 15 mins, and when we were near the door something happened again, and they shut the house down for awhile. This time they communicated nothing with the people waiting in line, in fact they didn't even mention it and there was no one working there anywhere we could see. We probably waited 30-40 mins for it to re-open.
HOUSES
1.
Stranger Things-I wasn't super excited to watch this show when it came out but we watched the first season for the event, and I was surprised how much we liked it. I thought the house was really cool, and they did a great job with the locations. But this wasn't my favorite house (If I were ranking them I'd put this closer to the middle). I definitely would not have waited in the regular line for this house.
2.
Dead Exposure: Patient Zero-I liked that this one had a backstory beforehand, and zombies are pretty scary usually. But I didn't really see where the backstory came into play in the house unless I was missing something. Which was possible with all the strobe lights and fog. I didn't think it was the worst, but I wasn't crazy about it because my lasting impression was how irritated our eyes were when we came out.
3
. Trick ‘r Treat-I liked this house, I think I would've gone through more than once if we were going back again. The line was short enough, but walking that queue when you're feet are hurting is not a good time. I think I may have liked it better as a scarezone, but it worked as a house too.
4.
Slaughter Sinema-This was my absolute favorite house! (Even though we got stuck in line for longer than we wanted to twice). I insisted on going every night we went, and I'd go through again if I could. When we got stuck in line one time we got to watch all the trailers for the B movies they created, and I thought they were really funny. We noticed a lot of little things in the house. The first time we went through there were 2 really good scares that definitely got my friend and I. I thought creating all those B movies was really creative, and I really liked everything they did with this house.
5.
Carnival Graveyard: Rust in Pieces-I liked this one, but it wasn't my favorite. I would've gone through again if we were going back. I think our in line experience being so long kind of put a damper on things before we even got in it, but other than that I did like it.
6.
Scenes of Extinction aka SOX-This was probably my least favorite house. I didn't think it was scary, and I thought the story was kind of silly.
7.
Poltergeist-We really loved Poltergeist (and it was great if you were sweaty
). I wish we had gone through it more than once, but it always had a long line. To be honest I like the movie, but I don't love it. However this house was better than the movie even! Really impressive, and I don't want to spoil it for anyone else.
8.
Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers-Out of all the movies represented this year, this and the First Purge are the only ones I haven't seen. I felt like the Halloween 4 house still made sense without seeing it. I'm not a big fan of the Halloween movies, but I liked this one better than I thought I would.
9.
Horror of Blumhouse (Happy Death Day & First Purge)-I wasn't crazy about the idea for this house because Happy Death Day didn't strike me as a horror movie, and I've never seen the First Purge (seen the first 2, wasn't too impressed). But I actually thought the Happy Death Day portion was well done and I liked it. The First Purge half was terrible though. Maybe I was missing something because I haven't seen the movie, but I just felt like I wasn't getting it? Half naked guys kept jumping out at us, and I didn't really feel like I grasped the plot of that movie from that. If that had been a house on it's own I'd say it would the worst, but the Happy Death Day portion redeemed it a little.
10.
Scary Tales-We also really liked this house. After the first time we went through I knew we'd have to go back through because I missed some scares. Although some of them got my boyfriend good. The second time we went through when we walked into the first room the people in front of us looked up and their jaws just dropped. I have to agree it was a pretty impressive house. I liked the idea of the messed up fairytales from the start, but I did really like how they executed it.
SCARE ZONES
1.
The Harvest-I think this was the one at the front. (I kept getting the names for this and Twisted Tradition confused because honestly the theme seems kind of similar to me). This was my least favorite scare zone. I called it the "paper people scare zone" because of the shredded paper looking guys
2.
Vamp’ 85: New Years Eve-This one was a lot of fun. Tons of scare actors and very elaborately done. I was most looking forward to this one, but I'd have to say it was only my second favorite.
3.
Twisted Tradition-I'll always like the pumpkins in the trees, although I think this scare zone may have been made exclusively so they could do that again. But I liked it better than I thought I would. There were some cool monsters in there.
4.
Revenge of Chucky-I wasn't too impressed with this scare zone. I know there was an area where Chucky came out to insult people, but of all the times we walked through the scare zone (like 3-4 times on 3 different nights) this was never going on, and we felt weird standing around in the scare zone to see if it would happen soon.
5.
Killer Klowns from Outerspace-I loved this scare zone! We had just watched the movie 2 days beforehand to prepare for the event so maybe that's why but I really liked the movie. I thought it was a lot of fun. I liked everything about the scare zone from the music, to the lighting, to the costumes etc. They had the shadow puppets projected on the buildings, the balloon dog from the movie, and the last day we noticed the ice cream truck guys and the girl being attacked by the smaller clown head which I hadn't seen earlier. All the clowns were fun to get pictures with, and they were really in character. A few would stand outside the storefront and hide their weapona like they were waiting for someone to come to the door which I thought was a nice touch.
Oh also just wanted to add in 4 more categories:
Merch-I thought they had so much more merch than they've had in years past. It seemed like they had something for every house. I ended up spending a lot on merch. Got the Stranger Things sweatshirt (it's cute, but it's a little tighter around the bottom than I would've thought since it seemed like a unisex size and I think it fits more like a womens size), the Killer Klowns tee, the Trick R Treat leggings (those fit better than I thought because I wasn't sure about sizing but they said I could exchange them if they didn't fit), and the Scary Tales tank (although I didn't realize there was a slit in the back until after I put it on).
Academy of Villains-I really liked the show, and would've seen it again but we didn't have time to the second night, and my boyfriend wasn't too crazy about it so we skipped it the third night too. We had the AP holder seats the first night at the 8pm showing, but I didn't think they were the greatest seats. I really love watching people dance so I think that might be part of why I liked it. I liked the theme, I thought the lead girl was a really good dancer, and I think some of the stunts were pretty impressive.
Chainsaw zones-I felt like there were less people out in these than usual. I'm also not sure entirely what the theme of their costumes were since we saw a few different types (maybe they weren't all supposed to be the same thing). In the area near Simpsons, one did come up to my friend and kind of air boop her nose (didn't touch her just kind of poked the air in front and made a noise) which was pretty hilarious.
Snacks-We didn't try any snacks this year, and most of them didn't appeal to me especially because it was hot and I was permanently covered in a layer of sweat so only water sounded good but the pizza fries and waffle on a stick sounded interesting.
Wondering if U is doing the disney trick of crowd control of overstating wait times to possibly discourage more guests/steer to houses with lower wait times posted?
