Thursday 10/18--HHN packed!

[Jason71]

While the first two Thursdays were not that bad, as far as HHN goes, last night was slammed. By 9:45, I saw 120-minute waits at TCM and Camp Blood, and even a 75-minute wait at the Mummy. Trying to leave around 11:00, the crowd around Jack's show was like the more popular Mardi Gras concerts--so tightly packed you just couldn't even walk through it.

Interestingly, I hear Sea World had around double the expected crowd yesterday as well--they were caught off-guard without adequate staff. Is there something going on in Orlando I missed? Is this Jersey Week?

 

[phamton]

It's because Orlando doesn't have school today. Since there was no school today, the school kids could stay out late last night.

 

[Akdar]

It looked like it was going to be mobbed last night, as we were leaving IOA at 7, people were coming in, in DROVES!! We aren't doing HHN until Sunday, I would not want to have been there without an EP last night!

Working on Day 1 TR now, it's raining here in Orlando now, so we're just chillin' for the time being

 

[vinvader]

Thursday 18th Oct was my last night in Orlando and my 3rd visit to HHN 17. Unfortunatly we couldn't get express passes for that night and it was a compleate nightmare!

Firstly we had a 70 minuite wait for Vampyr which seemed to go quite fast, we were in good spirits and we had some Carnage Cocktail so that was ok. However when we got in the house the couple before us were total wimps, freaking out at everything. So they hit every scare in the house and my girlfriend and me missed them all.

Next we went to Texas Chainsaw, big mistake! The board at the front said 90 minuite wait but we were lost in that queue for over two and a half hours! People were continuously pushing in and ducking under the ropes. At one point they stopped our line and about twenty people behind us cut under the rope in to the gap in the next lane (I did see one group thrown out for pushing in). Again when we got to the house we walked through the whole of it with only one scare! We only saw leatherface right at the end.

We gave up after this as we couldn't face another queue like that.

However I would like to say that my first two visits to HHN 17 were fantasic and the best two nights of my two week holiday. We saw Freak show, Bill & Ted and all the houses a couple of times, loved them all!

 

[Henna's_Mom]

We were there on Thursday the 18th and it was so crowded that at times you could barely move and heaven help you if you were in the area when bill and ted let out because you would be really stuck. Thankfully we had express passes or there was no way we would have made it to all the houses with how long the lines were.

 

[Cdn Friends of Pooh]

We were also there on Oct 18th and were very surprised at how many people were in the park. Thank goodness we had EPs ... but even with those we had a 15-20 minute wait in a couple of the houses. We wouldn't think of doing HHN without EPs, or better yet, a RIP tour!

 

[Metro West]

Glad to hear it's so crowded. Maybe next year they'll do both parks again.

 

[Jason71]

Glad to hear it's so crowded. Maybe next year they'll do both parks again.

I think it's getting to a point where they have no choice. I hear last Saturday all the houses had minimum 2-hour waits all night, and even the Mummy was up to 2 hours at one point! For a 4-minute ride!

The hard core fans will always come, but the casual fans, the ones who don't live on the online boards, are not going to keep spending $60 to do a conga line through just two, maybe three, houses. Sooner or later there has to be a backlash.

 

[GreyStr0ke]

I think it's getting to a point where they have no choice. I hear last Saturday all the houses had minimum 2-hour waits all night, and even the Mummy was up to 2 hours at one point! For a 4-minute ride!

I can confim that as I was there last Saturday night. All of the houses were 120+ minute waits. The mummy was more then 2 hours as the Express Pass line was 1 hour!!!

Express lines for the houses were anywhere from 0-30 minute waits. The only good thing was that most of the houses were pulsing the lines and if they wern't then I pulsed them myself by walking as slow as I could.

 

[fan4mickey]

I was there last Saturday also and they say it was the worst they had seen in 3 years. I had been before but my DH had not and it ruined it for him. They even told the scareactors to back off a little because the crowds were just out of control. You couldn't even walk in Amity it was so bad.

We got through two houses only because of the stay and scream option and we were able to see the first showing of Bill and Ted ( which was packed by the way) and we were able to see the Rocky Horror tribute ( which was also at capacity). I will definitely go back but only during the week and with express passes. My DH refuses no matter what. It was crazy!!

 

[spacenut]

I also went on 10/18 and it was horrific and not in a good way, either. I lived in Orlando 10 years ago and since I worked in the industry, I was basically broke and could never afford the $35 to go. I always figured "someday...". Now I live out west and I was on vacation visiting my family in Florida and my brother and I decided to go.

We got in at 6:15 and the first two houses on the left after entry (Nightmare on Elm St and Dead Silence?) both had 60 minute waits. We went straight to the Mummy, split up in the single rider line, and were out in 7 minutes. Not bad. We then went to Chainsaw, waited 30 minutes, were absolutely unimpressed with the house and then looked at each and said "We waited 30 minutes for that?".

We resigned ourselves to the wait times at that point. We then got in the posted 90 minute line for Friday the 13th. I was shocked when I saw the line snake around into the backstage area. As for the house, it was boring and neither of us were scared. We ended up doing MIB and walked around. By 11:00, the lines were a minimum 90 minute wait and since the wait times didn't pay off for us with the two houses we did do, we thought we would just leave and get a bite to eat. Food at Bubba Gump's was great.

Unfortunately I paid the $70 for HHN. I can't believe all these years I wanted to go and then I had such a poor experience. I always thought Universal could pull off something like this far better than anything local. Now, I will definitely take a look at the local fare instead. I have a supposedly haunted insane asylum within driving distance...might be fun. There was lots of line jumping that night, too. The whole event looked like a giant money grab by Universal to sell overpriced alcohol. Judging by how boring the houses were, I think people must be drunk to get something out of them.

I've written a letter to send to Universal's guest relations, but I haven't sent it yet. I don't think they really care about my bad experience. I know I won't be going to USO anytime soon and definitely not until I can figure out a creative way to get some value out of the $70 I gave to Universal.