Official 2022 HHN 31 - Horror is Universal

We just wrapped our first HHN, our group consisted of me (the adult) and (2) 17 yr olds and (2)) 16 yr olds.

We went with the base ticket, nothing fantasy, we watched a couple of YouTube videos and selected our 4 houses +2 if we had time. We did those 6 plus rode Mummy, Gringotts and explored diagonal alley, and RRR, made it
Thru 4 scare zones and us a few snacks. I will address snacks first, the zombie brains cauliflower was great, the other items we got- rotten Bear, absolutely inedible, and the heart was so over the top sour our group did not find it enjoyable. The maggot cheese hot dog was the winner with the zombie brains a fav with the whole group.

The houses- I have seen a lot of dissatisfaction on this thread and our group had nothing to compare to. Our thoughts- Dead Mans Pier was the standout for theming! Most screams- Halloween. Bugs Alive was enjoyed by all of us. The Classics was also really enjoyed. The bottom of our list was the prison themed one and the Coven. Coven had no story, I was so looking forward too it and left disappointed.

All and all, great time. We will absolutely be doing this again in the future.
The comment about no story has brought up something that I think may offer one point that could explain such differing reviews

lack of story means nothing to me in a house I would know if a house had a story if the storybook hit me over the head. Lol I barely notice anything. I’m just concerned with getting out alive. I didn’t even realize the ending changed in monsters. and obviously I scare very easily so it doesn’t take much there either. I’m sure I’m not the only one out there who doesn’t do houses for stories. So those of us are probably all very happy due to the overall quality

if that makes sense
 
A few random thoughts on HHN the 13th and our behind the screams 6 house tour today. Still have another night for HHN tomorrow. We had a great time Thursday in spite of exhaustion from getting up at 2:30am in Ohio and going to HHN that night. Loved the nightmare fuel show. We had closest seats to front and center you could get without having a rip tour. We sat behind someone who I would say is their number one fan. She screamed their names out and cheered for them the whole show. I have no idea how she had a voice left. I loved her enthusiasm. I believe she has seen it every evening. I cannot decide my favorite house as we liked elements of them all. We had the most scares in Descendants. DMP is clearly the best set for us and we loved the campiness of bugs. Our tour guide told us there were 37,500 and something bugs in the house. We thought it was fun. Definitely a little scarier with lights on lol. One thing we thought was interesting was a family in front of us waiting for nightmare fuel said their (adult) kids were carded by security when drinking their drinks. Minutes later several security people came up to them and carded them again. I have never seen this at any park after purchase. I am wondering if they do anything more than take the drinks away if they are not of age like kick them out of the park. I don’t disagree with it at all. Just thought it was interesting. We had express and got through all the houses easily except we were so tired we completely missed hellblock. We liked the sweets scarezone best for scares in that the actors blended in so well that they really could get close and surprise you easily. The cemetery was our other favorite. The food we had was meh except my daughter really liked the pizza skull. Not sure what we will eat tomorrow as we really don’t seem too interested in the options. Our 6 house tour went from 10:15-4:15. Our guide also told us the coven story since it is kind of hard to get from the house alone. It is not included on the 6 house tour. We had Kendal (prob spelled his name wrong). I liked having the listening devices on the tour because it was much easier to hear if you were near the back of the group. He gave us a ton of info and was really an excellent guide. Now I am off to dreamland as I am dead tired lol
 
To answer your question, under age drinking gets the person a ride to the police station and a shiny bracelet to wear…

Wow! I love that security has a strong presence there. We had zero issues Thursday night. Saturday will be a whole different ballgame with crowds I think.
 


I guess I should say how er did our houses Thursday - we did the simpsons (really Central Park ) stay and scream and got into the weekend line around 4:15. Lucky it was cloudy or it could be so hot there. They moved us up to by the animal actors show area and we were held this the cleared ET and kids area of the park. We did weekend and monsters walk on then ate pizza fries (good quality but meh) then walked to the back by MIB and did Descendants and Bigs. All 4 were walk-on. We decided to ride gringots but my daughter was distracted by Fortesque ice cream so while she ate that the line went from 15-30 min. We skipped the ride and waited to watch nightmare fuel. Then we worked our way around the park in order continuing to the Coven riding all rides we came across. No express for mummy but a listed 45 min wait was 7 minutes. We had express so we didn’t wait long for anything except maybe 20 min for Halloween and at the merge (we almost always were the family stopped at the express merge while they let in the regular line) Anyway at the Halloween merge the attendant asked me how long we had waited. He was glad it wasn’t bad because he said they had to close the house for a bit just before we got there to clean up what I inferred was someone got sick. We rode every ride and did every house in order. Only thing was we had to search for the was pizza skull so we did back track a bit there. We skipped the transformer ride and accidentally skipped hellblock. We know crowds will be worse tonight but think we will do the same path as we really liked it.
 
I guess I should say how er did our houses Thursday - we did the simpsons (really Central Park ) stay and scream and got into the weekend line around 4:15. Lucky it was cloudy or it could be so hot there. They moved us up to by the animal actors show area and we were held this the cleared ET and kids area of the park. We did weekend and monsters walk on then ate pizza fries (good quality but meh) then walked to the back by MIB and did Descendants and Bigs. All 4 were walk-on. We decided to ride gringots but my daughter was distracted by Fortesque ice cream so while she ate that the line went from 15-30 min. We skipped the ride and waited to watch nightmare fuel. Then we worked our way around the park in order continuing to the Coven riding all rides we came across. No express for mummy but a listed 45 min wait was 7 minutes. We had express so we didn’t wait long for anything except maybe 20 min for Halloween and at the merge (we almost always were the family stopped at the express merge while they let in the regular line) Anyway at the Halloween merge the attendant asked me how long we had waited. He was glad it wasn’t bad because he said they had to close the house for a bit just before we got there to clean up what I inferred was someone got sick. We rode every ride and did every house in order. Only thing was we had to search for the was pizza skull so we did back track a bit there. We skipped the transformer ride and accidentally skipped hellblock. We know crowds will be worse tonight but think we will do the same path as we really liked it.
Thanks for reporting in. Fun to read everyone's impressions.

Funny: I keep reading big differences in opinions on houses, scare zones and overall event, but the one constant from almost every trip report seems to be disappointment with the food and specialty drinks (the latter I hear every year though lol).

Feeling like UO has some big opportunities to improve that in future years - maybe a new F&B exec could breathe some life into the event offerings. I think they do a better job during Mardi Gras in that respect.
 
The comment about no story has brought up something that I think may offer one point that could explain such differing reviews

lack of story means nothing to me in a house I would know if a house had a story if the storybook hit me over the head. Lol I barely notice anything. I’m just concerned with getting out alive. I didn’t even realize the ending changed in monsters. and obviously I scare very easily so it doesn’t take much there either. I’m sure I’m not the only one out there who doesn’t do houses for stories. So those of us are probably all very happy due to the overall quality

if that makes sense
Completely understand!! I was just so excited about this house and wanted more from it. The visuals and all of that were great but the house just didn’t make sense to me. I however, if you easily scare I get that a story is irrelevant.
 


Another report from me. We went Thursday October 13. We got a late start from our house so we made it to the parking garage with 11 minutes to work with and scooted into the park with 2 minutes to spare. Phew. That was also the fastest walk I have maybe ever done.

We were, of course, way too late to get into line for Halloween. So here is what we did:

5:08- in line for Hellblock at stay and scream.

5:17- house opened.

5:18- In.

We joined the stay and scream line for Coven which hadn't started to load yet.

5:24- Spirit line started to move a couple minutes after we joined in.

5:37- Into Coven.

We then got some food and hovered at the fence to be released after park clear. We had the Haunted Horseshoe and the killer stove top popcorn custard. The Horseshoe was ok but probably not worth the 2k calorie count. The first couple bits of popcorn custard were interesting and then it kind of got to be not as good as we kept eating.

We actually didn't realize it but Blumhouse was open and available to us at the 5:45 mark. So we probably could have got that done too, but it's really not my favorite and I honestly don't care if I never do it again.

6:05- Team Members got the park all clear notice and we were set free to speed walk to the Weeknd and Monsters. We got to walk by ourselves through the corn scare zone, which wasn't nearly as scary as the hoard of guests coming down the street towards us from the front gate.

So we narrowly beat the front gate crowd.

6:08- in line for Weeknd

6:14- Into Weeknd, had a really good run. This house is growing on me.

6:24- in line for Monsters (my favorite).

6:35- into Monsters. I really do love this house. The mummy won the fight this night, so we have now seen all three win.

6:47- in line for Bug.

6:59- into Bug, also love this house.

We could see the line for Destruction was short as we left Bug so we went there next.

7:06- in line for Destruction.

7:11- in Destruction. This house is also growing on me. We saw some extra scare actors at the front we'd never seen below and they had some excellent outfits.

At this point the park was filling up and we needed to decide if we were going to head back to the front of the park for Dead Man's Pier. The app had the line listed as 35 minutes, but we were right there and decided to do Monsters again.

7:26- in line for Monsters.

7:52-into the Monsters house.

The park was crowded at this point so we gave up on houses (final count 7, 1 was a repeat) and wandered the scare zones. We wanted to do Gringott's but it had a 40 minute wait listed.

We also got pizza fries and Rueben fries. I actually thought the Rueben fries were very tasty.

We left around 9:30 pm.

Next up I think we are going again tomorrow night. We really like a challenge, so I think we might try for the perfect stay and scream experience. I feel like we did a pretty good job Thursday night, but I think we can do better...I have a strategy in mind I'd like to try.

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Opposite of a horror night picture but I loved this giant pygmy puff in a top hat:

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If a guest doesn't have stay and scream (but does have express) and can only enter at the event's official 6:30 start time, is there still a recommended strategy in terms of which order to do the houses? Or does it not matter at that point? I've always had S&S prior years...1st time without it.
 
If a guest doesn't have stay and scream (but does have express) and can only enter at the event's official 6:30 start time, is there still a recommended strategy in terms of which order to do the houses? Or does it not matter at that point? I've always had S&S prior years...1st time without it.
Do you have a day park ticket or an AP? If you have those you don‘t need a stay and scream ticket. You would just need to be in the park before closing and go to the Stay and Scream area you wanted closest to the houses you are wanting to see first.

It is a bit confusing to folks I think. The extra Stay and Scream is really geared to people who don’t have day park tickets or AP‘s and want be allowed to come into the park at the designated time before the park closes. They choose the Stay and Scream location they want based on the houses they want to see first.

They are in seeing houses before the gate open to the regular ticketed event crowd.

Having Express for the night does not have anything to do with Stay and Scream.

With HHN Express for the night you will have the advantage of using Express line for the houses which is a significant advantage for you.
 
Do you have a day park ticket or an AP? If you have those you don‘t need a stay and scream ticket. You would just need to be in the park before closing and go to the Stay and Scream area you wanted closest to the houses you are wanting to see first.

It is a bit confusing to folks I think. The extra Stay and Scream is really geared to people who don’t have day park tickets or AP‘s and want be allowed to come into the park at the designated time before the park closes. They choose the Stay and Scream location they want based on the houses they want to see first.

They are in seeing houses before the gate open to the regular ticketed event crowd.

Having Express for the night does not have anything to do with Stay and Scream.

With HHN Express for the night you will have the advantage of using Express line for the houses which is a significant advantage for you.
No - that's just it. Always had APs before - so always did S&S. No park tics this time and don't really want to spend the extra $ for S&S for our group. So wondering if I even need a strategy for the order of houses or if it really doesn't matter for those not in the parks early or staying onsite.
 
Are you going during the week or the weekend?

It also depends on the house. Some of the more popular houses have longer wait times.

If your are going on a busy night like Friday, Saturday having the HHN Express for the night will be a life saver.

They are selling out of Express on some of the busy nights.

I had ROF with Express and on a Friday night with a wait time of 90 to 100 minutes on the Halloween House for the regular ticket holders without Express I only had a wait of 25 minutes with EP.

I would not want to be standing in any of those regular ticket lines.

Even with EP I did not rush to get in. Once I made it to the park I looked at the Universal App as well as the board by the drink stand where the Pumpkin Lord is and checked the wait times for the houses. I went for the houses with the lowest wait times knowing those would be an almost walk on with EP. Then I hit the others I wanted to see during the night.

I was there multiple nights so I didn’t feel rushed to see every house all the time.
 
Hi

Very first HHN tonight with no express. Early dinner and Lombards so we will be too late to make the most of Halloween stay and scream I think so settled on Blumhouse. Wondering if anyone has any advice where they’d go next? Towards monsters and weekend, back to Coven and the houses in that direction ( we can catch Halloween on a different night) or over to bugs and descendants?
Thanks for any advice.
 
We did HHN Thursday the 13th which I previously talked about. We went back Saturday the 15th. iIt was so much more crowded but with express and being in the park for stay and scream it didn’t really matter. Did the same basic thing. Monsters first - our favorite. There is a point when you basically can get a triple scare with 2 on opposite sides then turn a corner and get another. I screamed and jumped so much the scare actor actually laughed which made me laugh. Also I couldn’t see well coming in from the light and got lost. Basically got trapped in a corner. So embarrassing and funny at the same time lol. Anyway did weekend with express and liked it better this time. Then descendants walk on which was fun and bugs walk on no express. Rode men in black then expressed bugs. It is our second fav. Went to ride gringots which would have been walk-on but it went down - waited it out and after maybe 10 min rode quickly. Watched nightmare fuel which was a very different show. They clearly change the show based on the performers they have any given night. Saturday - the man having the nightmare was a different person and clearly a gymnast. They had a different person doing a completely different aerial routine and they also had a woman doing aerials in a white gown that was not part of the show Thursday. There were other changes too but it was interesting to see how different it can be. Then we did the rest of the houses and ate a little. We skipped Halloween and Blumhouse because my daughter doesn’t like those. We rode mummy. 75 min wait posted and took 15 minutes. We ended the night doing monsters again with express Left by midnight. I will say express is so fast. Only house that took a bit was Dead man’s pier. Had so much fun. Prob won’t be able to return for a few years sadly
 
In 2017 when Halloween was on Tuesday, like it will be in 2023. Who remembers whether HHN went til Halloween, or until the following weekend?

(Or better yet, anyone have an actual inside scoop on 2023 dates?!)
 
Got lucky here, out by 6:10 pm
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Then hammered out monsters & finished the weekend by 6:50 pm

Time to slow down & use those EPs. Turning out well! Apps been spot on
 

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