Looking for opinions from people more experienced with
HHN than I am:
A friend and I (and possibly a few other friends who thus far are being wishy-washy and not committing to the trip) are going to HHN Thur Sept. 22 through Mon Sept 26. That's 4 nights, Thur, Fri, Sat & Sun. Young rapscallions in our late 20's, of varying incomes.
We bought Rush of Fear passes without Express, and we're staying on-site at Cabana Bay, so getting in early and staying out late won't be an issue, as no one is driving.
We're
considering skipping Friday and doing Mickey's Not-So-Scary that night instead (I know, way different event in tone, but we'd still like to check it out).
If we did that... in your more experienced opinions, would we have enough time to do everything HHN has to offer on just Thursday, Saturday & Sunday? Bare minimum we'd like to do every house once and see the shows. Ideally we'd like to do those things more than once. I'll note again, we don't have express passes. We're hoping going in September keeps the lines... tolerable? lol. Dropping another couple hundred on express seems like a lot, and I'm not sure everyone in our party could swing it financially. Nor am I sure if Sept. crowds would even justify it.
We also have daytime tickets, so we won't be making the regular rides a big focus at night. We can do those during normal hours.
I personally vacation at Universal quite a lot, so I know the property like the back of my hand, but the last time I made it out to HHN was 2005, so I'm not exactly up on current trends, and don't really know how to temper my expectations. And in 2005 it was held at IoA, so I've never even experienced it in the more traditional Universal Studios setting. I recall in 2005, we spent 2 nights at HHN, and we were basically able to do everything at least once (if not twice)
but I'm pretty sure that year we sprang for express on one of the two nights. So like I said... I'm looking for opinions more up to date than my own experience, which is over 10 years out of date, lol.
Long story short: Do you think we'd be safe sacrificing one night of HHN for a night at Magic Kingdom? And still find time to get the full HHN experience?