So a little late, but... I went Sunday evening and needed to let it settle since this was my 15th year going to the event.
We used our APs to get into the park around 5:00ish and were able to get the early entry wristbands immediately and without hassle for the first time since this all started. Trucked it down to the lower lot and got in line for The Weeknd; at 5:30, it opened and... Express just kept getting to go, and go, and go. Started having flashbacks to '21 and '22. Finally got to go in and I have to say... I wasn't that impressed. I liked that it was long, but I think the '22 maze was MUCH better. Maybe something was just off, but this one didn't feel as propulsive. Loved the facade, though, but for me it was the weakest house of the night!
Got in line for TCM at 5:45. Express and general were evenly balanced compared to Weeknd, so it went pretty quick. This is one I'll have to go back through, because there were SO many rooms without actors, especially in the first half, where my excitement for the maze just slowly deflated as a result. Love the set design, smells, etc., but I won't lie, two disappointments back to back weren't a great way to start the night.
At 6:10, we got in line for Dead Exposure (which opened at 6:30 to nearly ten minutes straight of Express ONLY being allowed in) and... I actually loved this house? I loved the set design, the sounds, the length. Coming out of it was a total mood rebound!
6:50, got in line for Eternal Bloodlines. Loved going into the soundstage, dug the facade, but this one was ruined because the lady in front of us had her phone up in her face recording the ENTIRE maze. And I mean the ENTIRE thing. Like she was putting her phone over coffins and into corners and filming nooks and crannies -- even outside the maze, she was holding everyone up from entering because she was trying to film every inch of the facade despite a staff member telling her to move. Multiple times in the maze, staff was yelling at her to keep moving, and she was just ignoring them; and her phone was so glued to her face that she was legitimately walking into walls. She'd step into a room and just... dead stop to record it all. Absolute nightmare, and even with other guests yelling at her to keep moving, she just was ignoring everyone; at a point she bumped into a wall in one of the corner turns and acted all surprised and we took the chance to just go around her. Beyond frustrating, but I look forward to giving the maze a second chance.
7:25 we got in line for Ghostbusters. It was cute. To me it was on the same level as the first one; nothing amazing, nothing disappointing, just middle of the road, harmless fun. 7:45 we got in line for Insidious, and I really enjoyed how it just embraced all five films of the franchise. I got a kick out of seeing the Wheezing Demon, for instance, but didn't really get a chance to see KeyFace up close due to scare timing. When I go back, this is honestly the house I'm probably most looking forward to revisiting!
8:25, we walked onto the Terror Tram with no wait. Was absolutely happy with the vignette setup in the first half, but the second half (once you hit the Bates house) was just same ol' Terror Tram. It was really nice to be able to walk the route without being amidst a giant herd of cattle like all the years past, but ultimately it's still no longer worth it (for me) if the wait had been more than 15 or 20 minutes.
At 8:55, we walked into A Quiet Place (seriously--the wait said ten minutes, but we walked right in) and I got SUCH a kick out of this one. Loved the puppets/animatronic work here. When we walked into the TWD forest at the start, I said, "Oh, no," but it turned around pretty damn quickly, and we came out really happy with it. Then at 9:00, we walked right across to Monstruous, which was one of the houses I was most excited for, and had a blast there, too. As usual with those sorts of originals, you can tell there's a lot of passion behind them because they're not being held back by the limits of an IP holder, and this was no different. Maybe not as strong as last year's version, but still a nice way to wrap up the house run for the night!
Lastly, at 9:10, we got in line for Chucky, which ended up being the longest wait of the night -- the loooong wait outside coupled with the loooong wait in the pre-show meant the actual pay-off of the show being mere minutes ended up being a letdown. I dug Chucky's energy, but the audience questions he answered sort of sucked, and before you know it, it was over. By the time we got out at 9:55, we'd invested so much time into so little reward that we decided to call it a night rather than force ourselves into the crowd for the 10:00 showtime of the Purge.
All in all, the fact we got every single thing done (minus the Purge) in less than five hours without Express was great. As usual, though, while it wasn't that much of an annoyance when early entry was free, now that we have to pay for it, I still really wish Express could be blocked (or limited) from 5:30 to 7:00. I've said it the past few years, and it seemed like there was some improvement last year, but it really sucks to know you paid for something that used to be "free" only to watch as a conga line of Express people just gets to keep going in and in and in. While we were in line for the Weeknd, we saw a duo who used Express three times before a real dent was made in the general line, for god's sake.
Also, this switch over from staff in the houses now wearing bright orange shirts was hilariously distracting -- now that most of them aren't wearing robes, it really made a lot of bored apathy stick out, especially when they're all you see at many points. But conversely, some of them really need to chill, too. When we were entering Dead Exposure, the line was clearly held up from somewhere deep inside, but the employee outside kept brusquely sniping at everyone to keep moving forward despite the blatant fact it was impossible. And then in the Insidious house, a staff member was standing dead center of a room waving her wand, and the girl in front of us stopped for a split second because one of the actors straight up got in her path to scare her, and the staff member immediately ruined the vibe by yelling at the girl to keep moving before the actor had even moved out of the way!
Overall, I'd hardly put this as one of my favorite years ever, and no maze really blew me away like Chucky last year or Scarecrow the year before, but I'm happy that most of the lineup was good to great rather than middling, with my only real house letdowns being The Weeknd and TCM, the latter of which I'm hoping just needs a second run-through to fix, and Late Night with Chucky being an amazing concept with a poor (for now) execution.
And as a side note for anyone going this upcoming weekend, if the heat is anything like this weekend, please, please, please stay hydrated!