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HHN '19 - Game Plan

DTH

Nov 7, 2016
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With this year being tricky and having no Terror Tram, it'd be great to have a little section based on how to Game Plan your night this year.
With Employee Preview pretty early this year and a special fan event on Thursday, this means by Friday night, we can have a good idea of what mazes to hit and in what order.
I'll personally be tracking the wait times all night tonight, Thursday and even Friday before I personally go on Saturday. I will then update how the game plans we created worked out in my own personal review.
Any tips or tricks or insider information you guys would like to put down, place them here, please!
 
I'm just gonna say it - if you did it last year or aren't a fan of the show.. SKIP STRANGER THINGS. I'll post two game plans below based on EPN on the premise you skip Stranger Things. It's seriously not worth your time.

GAME PLAN #1 - EARLY ENTRY (6 PM):
1) START AT BACKLOT MAZES: Ghostbusters > Creepshow > Frankenstein meets the Wolf Man (in that order).
2) Proceed to Killer Klowns from Outer Space
3) Upper Lot: Us/ Pandora's Box (depending which is shorter - doesn't really matter here) > House of a Thousand Corpses (noticed it filled up more than Holidays, probably due to IP value), finish with Holiday in Hell.

WA LA! You're done.

GAME PLAN #2 - 7 PM REGULAR OPENING
1) Start at US, wait times will be short, and it doesnt suffer from light leak - it's seriously dark in there. Go to Pandora's after.
2) House of a Thousand Corpses > Holidayz in Hell
3) LOWER LOT - Killer Klowns from Outer Space
4) Ghostbusters (will be a long wait, but rest assured the ONLY long wait of the night) > Creepshow > Frankenstein meets the Wolf Man (these mazes were 30 mins or LESS an hour prior to closing and I expect no less on a regular night).

Let me know how these work!
 
with this being my second year going, I kinda want to do holidayz in hell first but yet at the same time I want to do corpses. any insight on which maze to do first?
 
would I be able to squeeze in a stop to nab that HOTC shirt before going through or should I wait after.
I'd say if you intend to get one and don't wanna cut into your time during the actual event, come a little early and grab one in citywalk, since I assume they'll have them in stock
 
with this being my second year going, I kinda want to do holidayz in hell first but yet at the same time I want to do corpses. any insight on which maze to do first?
I haven't gone to the event this year yet, but considering prior experience (which had Terror Tram as an option back than), I would highly advise you take advantage of early entry and do whatever mazes applicable of that first, then work your way back up.
Unless you are going on a very empty Thursday or Sunday, doing Holidayz or Corpses first may shoot you in the foot since those are in the front and what most people will be rushing to.
 
I haven't gone to the event this year yet, but considering prior experience (which had Terror Tram as an option back than), I would highly advise you take advantage of early entry and do whatever mazes applicable of that first, then work your way back up.
Unless you are going on a very empty Thursday or Sunday, doing Holidayz or Corpses first may shoot you in the foot since those are in the front and what most people will be rushing to.

Thanks DTH, ill probably do that, Im just freaking excited.
 
Coming from a guy who hasn't done early entry before, what do I need to do? cause I all I did was purchase a ticket online like last year? Would it also help me since im a annual passholder?
 
Coming from a guy who hasn't done early entry before, what do I need to do? cause I all I did was purchase a ticket online like last year? Would it also help me since im a annual passholder?
if you're a passholder and bought your hhn ticket online, you can go inside the park and at around 4:30 they'll open up a kiosk near the front gates and you can get your wristband there and just hang out until the first mazes open at 6, which should be on the lower lot. If you dont want to do that you can just hang out outside of the front gate, and people should start being let in around 5:30 or 5:45
 
if you're a passholder and bought your hhn ticket online, you can go inside the park and at around 4:30 they'll open up a kiosk near the front gates and you can get your wristband there and just hang out until the first mazes open at 6, which should be on the lower lot. If you dont want to do that you can just hang out outside of the front gate, and people should start being let in around 5:30 or 5:45
thanks for clearing it up man, ngl I was kinda stressing out since the event starts on Friday.
 
I'm just gonna say it - if you did it last year or aren't a fan of the show.. SKIP STRANGER THINGS. I'll post two game plans below based on EPN on the premise you skip Stranger Things. It's seriously not worth your time.

GAME PLAN #1 - EARLY ENTRY (6 PM):
1) START AT BACKLOT MAZES: Ghostbusters > Creepshow > Frankenstein meets the Wolf Man (in that order).
2) Proceed to Killer Klowns from Outer Space
3) Upper Lot: Us/ Pandora's Box (depending which is shorter - doesn't really matter here) > House of a Thousand Corpses (noticed it filled up more than Holidays, probably due to IP value), finish with Holiday in Hell.

So I have a friend who is extremely excited for stranger things and really wants to go, but I know the lines for that will be massive. Where would you put stranger things in this early entry game plan? (Besides doing it last :grin:)
 
So I have a friend who is extremely excited for stranger things and really wants to go, but I know the lines for that will be massive. Where would you put stranger things in this early entry game plan? (Besides doing it last :grin:)
If last year is any indicator, do it first.
 
I would even say doing it last works pretty well, too. Last year, for the first time, I did it first and didn't enjoy it that much because of the light bleed. Then on my second trip, I did it at the end of the night instead and it was much better visually. I mean, even if it's 3 hours of a line, if you get there one minute before closing, they're gonna let you into the maze. Maybe half of the cast will be gone, but you'll see it.
 
Was looking up times tonight. At 8:30, Stranger Things was saying 100 and Ghostbusters at 90.

I checked again around 9:30 and it said ST at 200 with GB at 120. (Someone mentioned in the other thread that ST was down for the first hour or so because of an alarm, so this may be why it got jammed after)

From what I could tell, Corpses stayed very low (15-20 mins max) until the end of the night, ending with 45 minutes. Holidayz seemed to be having the shortest waits consistently, at all times I looked, it said 15 minutes or less. Pandora's Box and Klowns also had short waits for a majority of the night.

Creepshow and FMTW varied depending on the wave of people, being both short and fairly long, at random intervals.

For those wondering about rides, Jurassic World was fairly short all night long, at about 20 mins on average. Transformers had no wait and Mummy was at 10.

These times are ofcourse from Fan Preview Night, so it's hard to say if this will stay this way. Since these are fans, most likely they avoided the rides and went to the backlot first. We'll see what the general public do tomorrow!
 
Every maze aside from HOTC is about 2 hours. This is the worst I've EVER seen. No Terror Tram has officially killed us.
ST - 3 hours
Klowns - 2 hours
Jurassic - Hour and 50
FMTW - 2 hours
Ghostbusters - 2 hours
Creepshow - 75 mins
US - 3 hours and 20 mins
Corpses - (the ONLY short line) 35 mins
Holidays - 70 min
Pandora - 100 min
 
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