HHN Drink Changes

[epcyclopedia]

I thought it was just Uni's general policy during HHN to card frequently. Card when you get a band, card when you buy.

 

[MattA]

I will say when I was younger I was with some people who were 21 and I was only 15. They had a beer and two random guys came up and asked to see ID. They of course showed the ID. But these two people were absolutely NOT cops. This was in the middle of the line for American Werewolf back at 23, and the two guys jumped the line, came up to us, carded my friends, then left the line. I reported it to a TM. He said sometimes there will be people that go around the park posing as cops. When they catch underage drinkers they ask them to come with them and say they're "under arrest". Then when they get the kids out to their cars in the parking lot they'll say,"hey, if you give me $100 I won't arrest you". And usually they get their way. Kinda scary to think this stuff happens on a regular basis at HHN.

 

[JoeCamel]

I will say when I was younger I was with some people who were 21 and I was only 15. They had a beer and two random guys came up and asked to see ID. They of course showed the ID. But these two people were absolutely NOT cops. This was in the middle of the line for American Werewolf back at 23, and the two guys jumped the line, came up to us, carded my friends, then left the line. I reported it to a TM. He said sometimes there will be people that go around the park posing as cops. When they catch underage drinkers they ask them to come with them and say they're "under arrest". Then when they get the kids out to their cars in the parking lot they'll say,"hey, if you give me $100 I won't arrest you". And usually they get their way. Kinda scary to think this stuff happens on a regular basis at HHN.

I don't buy it. The "real" guys are watching the event, if they saw this going on they would be all over it. Now that you are 19 I hope you take this as a learning experience that at 15 you wouldn't get. Took me to 39 but I am a slow learner...

 

[MattA]

I don't buy it. The "real" guys are watching the event, if they saw this going on they would be all over it. Now that you are 19 I hope you take this as a learning experience that at 15 you wouldn't get. Took me to 39 but I am a slow learner...

Learning experience for what? Man you people on this forums are absolutely toxic. I'm not allowed to say a single thing before getting shut down. Seriously what's wrong with you people? That is a true story and that's exactly what the TM told me.

 

[JoeCamel]

Learning experience for what? Man you people on this forums are absolutely toxic. I'm not allowed to say a single thing before getting shut down. Seriously what's wrong with you people? That is a true story and that's exactly what the TM told me.

I wasn't attacking you just saying that I don't believe there are people taking guests out to the parking lot and shaking them down.
Maybe that is what you were told but it is not true

 

[MattA]

I wasn't attacking you just saying that I don't believe there are people taking guests out to the parking lot and shaking them down.
Maybe that is what you were told but it is not true

I've seen some extremely shady stuff in person go down in those parking lots during HHN. You'd be shocked at the lack of security there.

 

[JoeCamel]

I've seen some extremely shady stuff in person go down in those parking lots during HHN. You'd be shocked at the lack of security there.

I understand but it wouldn't get that far and if it did there would be reports about it rather than a TM spreading a story.

 

[Lucky Planet]

I will say when I was younger I was with some people who were 21 and I was only 15. They had a beer and two random guys came up and asked to see ID. They of course showed the ID. But these two people were absolutely NOT cops. This was in the middle of the line for American Werewolf back at 23, and the two guys jumped the line, came up to us, carded my friends, then left the line. I reported it to a TM. He said sometimes there will be people that go around the park posing as cops. When they catch underage drinkers they ask them to come with them and say they're "under arrest". Then when they get the kids out to their cars in the parking lot they'll say,"hey, if you give me $100 I won't arrest you". And usually they get their way. Kinda scary to think this stuff happens on a regular basis at HHN.

Learning experience for what? Man you people on this forums are absolutely toxic. I'm not allowed to say a single thing before getting shut down. Seriously what's wrong with you people? That is a true story and that's exactly what the TM told me.

im sure what you posted did happen to you guys but they were probably real undercover cops or something (maybe off duty cops). I seriously doubt that people are going to be dumb enough to follow two strangers ALL they way to the parking lot. seems very unlikely that someone would go all the way to the fake cop's car to the parking lot if they were "arrested". I don't think anyone is that gullible. (Unless they asked for money at the park or at City walk, thats a completely different story.

I think security at UNI would realize pretty quickly if people were passing as cops at the park, specially if it was done more than once. Besides It would probably be easier to wait in the parking lot itself and try to scam people before they enter the park or something... faking an injury or something

 

[UNIrd]

We were hassled 3 times last night by Universal Security/OPD for standing there with a drink in our hands. No drunken behavior, loud talking etc. Literally just standing there with a drink. And repeatedly hassled. I have only used one day off my Frequent Fear Pass. We were planning on also attending Wednesday and Thurs, and next weekend.

I will be skipping the rest of the event because of Universal Security.

Ugh. I really hope you wrote into Guest Services about your experience.

USF is/was? my favorite Orlando park in the daytime, but HHN sometimes just makes me... not like it.

 

[epcyclopedia]

I understand but it wouldn't get that far and if it did there would be reports about it rather than a TM spreading a story.

In the last year a guy literally fell down the steps of the Main Street Train Station and landed on his baby he was carrying and fatally injured it. Stuff happens and you don't hear about it.

You don't hear about the majority of the people who choose to jump off the Contemporary.

Which is why the design of Adventura troubles me, especially with the rooftop guest area.

 

[JoeCamel]

In the last year a guy literally fell down the steps of the Main Street Train Station and landed on his baby he was carrying and fatally injured it. Stuff happens and you don't hear about it.

You don't hear about the majority of the people who choose to jump off the Contemporary.

Which is why the design of Adventura troubles me, especially with the rooftop guest area.

TBH that is Disney ......

 

[epcyclopedia]

TBH that is Disney property......

But Universal and SeaWorld and even Legoland pushed for the same reporting setup... If it's not a ride, they dont have to report anything.

We didn't get the 911 call for Blackfish until it became a legal battle.

 

[Disneyhead]

Gasoline on a fire. I'd link my tweet but it is incredibly not family friendly. Yes, I was f'ing stupid enough to try it again,

We have entered surreal territory. As in having law enforcement pull me and my daughter out of the Simpson's preshow room (where people were actually eating turkey legs, I'm talking the preshow room with the closing doors) claiming that they had multiple complaints of the two of us touching scareactors in houses and then putting us on a Simpson's car all by our selves. Oddly enough, we had not done any houses at all. Zero. Zip. Nada. None.

I was 2 whole beer in, so maybe I had blacked out? Seriously, WTF?

We left, again. Makes me reconsider my Thanksgivings plan (2 deluxe rooms at portofino, Tchoup Chop, and BiCE). And my APs.

I absolutely will NOT!!!!! be attending HHNs again this year. They have lost their freakin' minds!

 

[Brian G.]

Gasoline on a fire. I'd link my tweet but it is incredibly not family friendly. Yes, I was f'ing stupid enough to try it again,

We have entered surreal territory. As in having law enforcement pull me and my daughter out of the Simpson's preshow room (where people were actually eating turkey legs, I'm talking the preshow room with the closing doors) claiming that they had multiple complaints of the two of us touching scareactors in houses and then putting us on a Simpson's car all by our selves. Oddly enough, we had not done any houses at all. Zero. Zip. Nada. None.

I was 2 whole beer in, so maybe I had blacked out? Seriously, WTF?

We left, again. Makes me reconsider my Thanksgivings plan (2 deluxe rooms at portofino, Tchoup Chop, and BiCE). And my APs.

I absolutely will NOT!!!!! be attending HHNs again this year. They have lost their freakin' minds!

I'm sorry to hear that, Dave.

Unfortunately, you aren't the only person who's experienced this overwrought treatment from security. I've heard stories from seasoned vets that were accused of things they didn't do. It's sorta funny because they need to be overprotective of their scareactors, but they also need to be mindful of who they accuse (and how it comes across).

Completely different situation, but Drew and I were hanging around Festival and saw one of the dancing girls get approached by a couple of young teens and asked for a photo. She allowed it, and they went ahead and leaned up against the stage for the photo. Out of nowhere, one of the TM's comes barging in yelling "GET OFF THE STAGE. UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE DO YOU NOT GET ON THE STAGE"...

Really?

The teens were generally shocked, and the scareactor seemed to try to tell the TM it was cool, but that's not a good look at all.

So I can only imagine the situation when it's something that's a more serious issue/accusation.

I did see UO reached out to you, though. Hopefully they take care of it and make it right with you.

 

[Nick]

I'm sorry to hear that, Dave.

Unfortunately, you aren't the only person who's experienced this overwrought treatment from security. I've heard stories from seasoned vets that were accused of things they didn't do. It's sorta funny because they need to be overprotective of their scareactors, but they also need to be mindful of who they accuse (and how it comes across).

Completely different situation, but Drew and I were hanging around Festival and saw one of the dancing girls get approached by a couple of young teens and asked for a photo. She allowed it, and they went ahead and leaned up against the stage for the photo. Out of nowhere, one of the TM's comes barging in yelling "GET OFF THE STAGE. UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE DO YOU NOT GET ON THE STAGE"...

Really?

The teens were generally shocked, and the scareactor seemed to try to tell the TM it was cool, but that's not a good look at all.

So I can only imagine the situation when it's something that's a more serious issue/accusation.

I did see UO reached out to you, though. Hopefully they take care of it and make it right with you.

This is off topic, but the post I made a few days ago criticizing UORs ops team basically comes down to exactly what you described. Ops puts up with a lot of crap and protecting the scareactors is obviously a top priority, but there needs to be some sort of line that they don't cross.

There's a way to handle these situations without assuming guilt until proven innocent. HHN brings out the worst from ops.

 

[Parkscope Joe]

Gasoline on a fire. I'd link my tweet but it is incredibly not family friendly. Yes, I was f'ing stupid enough to try it again,

We have entered surreal territory. As in having law enforcement pull me and my daughter out of the Simpson's preshow room (where people were actually eating turkey legs, I'm talking the preshow room with the closing doors) claiming that they had multiple complaints of the two of us touching scareactors in houses and then putting us on a Simpson's car all by our selves. Oddly enough, we had not done any houses at all. Zero. Zip. Nada. None.

I was 2 whole beer in, so maybe I had blacked out? Seriously, WTF?

We left, again. Makes me reconsider my Thanksgivings plan (2 deluxe rooms at portofino, Tchoup Chop, and BiCE). And my APs.

I absolutely will NOT!!!!! be attending HHNs again this year. They have lost their freakin' minds!

Someone I know through Twitter said he was tresspassed because someone accused him of testing multiple car door handles to see if any were open.

Something is up.

 

[SeventyOne]

We have entered surreal territory. As in having law enforcement pull me and my daughter out of the Simpson's preshow room (where people were actually eating turkey legs, I'm talking the preshow room with the closing doors) claiming that they had multiple complaints of the two of us touching scareactors in houses and then putting us on a Simpson's car all by our selves. Oddly enough, we had not done any houses at all. Zero. Zip. Nada. None.

I only know you from here, but years of rational, well-written posts buys all the credibility you need with me. Can you explain the last part further? Was there any house staff with them? Did they apologize at any point? Follow you after you got off the ride?

Also, curious to hear about UOR's response.

 

[SeventyOne]

BTW, even bartenders in Moe's talking smack about high prices at the tent bars. When you can get a 20 oz. one-of-a-kind Duff beer cheaper than a 16 oz. Bud Light, I think it's fair to say UOR F&B have lost their minds.

Or, the PI theory, they're deliberately trying to drive down drink sales to justify removing them.

 

[epcyclopedia]

I think there's a couple disparate contributors to the chaos this year..

A) Scareactors are.. "empowered" - i'm not sure that's the right way to describe it - to report things thanks to a lot of press attention last year about injuries and assaults for entertainment during the event. I'm not at all the type to blame the victim, but I've also met the average scareactor. These are not people who could survive the normal day to day park operation and the amount of crap guests heap on regular TM's. Not all of course, but enough special snowflakes that i could easily see it getting out of hand and over-reporting for every bruised ego or imagined slight.

B) The event workers aren't regular TMs. They were hired last month or so and wont be there next month. Again, many couldn't handle a normal park guest contact shift. Fed the "protect the scareactors! no more incidents!" cry from management and you've got clueless folks being ultra overzealous while also missing the actual legit incidents due to inexperience.

C) No guests at the TM preview. This event usually culls the herd of TMs and their Guests who are willing to go to the event an act like idiots. One swoop and off they go in bulk. Without the guest portion of the event, fewer came, fewer acted a fool, but there's still the same ratio as any other year in the population. Now we get to deal with them throughout the run of the event until they're official caught. This contributes to A and B.

Illustration:

Regular park actor, doing a regular shift. Dumb guest grabs their butt. Regular actor removes the perv's hand, smiles for the photo, whispers to the greeter they work with multiple times a week for many months - that greeter radios the lead for the current actors on set and follows said perv until security can get them. Actor and handler go back stage and fill out forms, complain a bit, give statements, go back to work on their next set and contemplate if expulsion and banning is enough or if they want to press charges.

Scareactor who only works the event gets a butt-grab. Either waits until the end of set to say anything to anyone (which can be much later) or storms off set and has to be found by coordinators to find out what happened. Assuming they're even in the area. Can't really fault them for slow reporting, because they're mostly unwatched when out on sets and live by this "other scareactors will help" sort of code of conduct. The assigned handlers have, from my experience, proven useless and can be found having a snack or talking to their friends during a set. "The guest was wearing a hat! A red one!" Ya know, 30mins after the encounter... so all guests in the park with red hat are now suspects. Scareactor cries about being violated for a few hours while missing sets and getting paid for it (this sounds insensitive, but i've seen people milk thing far more trivial in the big scheme of life.) Any guests with red hats are reported by the rumor-mill excitable attendants and harassed by security. They never find anyone who they can prove actually did it. The aforementioned guest is actually wearing an orange visor and off groping someone else for a few more nights.

Extreme examples, but sadly plausible and why the issues persist an multiply.

 

[Nick]

I think there's a couple disparate contributors to the chaos this year..

A) Scareactors are.. "empowered" - i'm not sure that's the right way to describe it - to report things thanks to a lot of press attention last year about injuries and assaults for entertainment during the event. I'm not at all the type to blame the victim, but I've also met the average scareactor. These are not people who could survive the normal day to day park operation and the amount of crap guests heap on regular TM's. Not all of course, but enough special snowflakes that i could easily see it getting out of hand and over-reporting for every bruised ego or imagined slight.

B) The event workers aren't regular TMs. They were hired last month or so and wont be there next month. Again, many couldn't handle a normal park guest contact shift. Fed the "protect the scareactors! no more incidents!" cry from management and you've got clueless folks being ultra overzealous while also missing the actual legit incidents due to inexperience.

C) No guests at the TM preview. This event usually culls the herd of TMs and their Guests who are willing to go to the event an act like idiots. One swoop and off they go in bulk. Without the guest portion of the event, fewer came, fewer acted a fool, but there's still the same ratio as any other year in the population. Now we get to deal with them throughout the run of the event until they're official caught. This contributes to A and B.

Quite frankly I find it insulting as someone who has been in those spots to plainly label everyone something because of some people you've met. Most people actually work in the parks doing regular jobs that aren't entertainment. Many of them do so at Universal, many do so at Disney.

There's also a reason that they are very much on the side of "protect the scareactors! no more incidents!". Guests are stupid, drunk and high. Why don't you go be a scareactor and tell me how you like getting punched in the face every night before you make fun of what they do. And i'm barely exaggerating, some people do get punched in the face (almost) every night. Sometimes more than once.