Halloween Horror Nights 32 (UOR) - Tips, Tricks, & Planning

[DodgsonHere]

First year visiting for the event after having to cancel last year, will we be able to do every house in one night if we have express pass?

 

[Tobias]

First year visiting for the event after having to cancel last year, will we be able to do every house in one night if we have express pass?

Short and simple answer, Yes.

And if you're only going to be there for one night, then express is a really good option to not only see all the houses, but still have time to check out the zones, Nightmare Fuel etc. without having to stick to a firm plan and potentially run yourself ragged.

 

[dxwwf3]

One thing I would really pay attention to is reports of what the Stay and Scream houses are like staffing wise when they open. Last year, I did The Weeknd for S&S a couple of times and both times the house was maybe a little over half staffed. If you only have one night, it might be worthwhile to see what people are saying about early staffing. In my experience last year, Monsters was way more consistently staffed for S&S and made for a better choice. Avoiding a long line is great and all, but I’d rather get the full experience for the night, even if it means waiting.

 

[cenobyte]

A question I'm mulling over is how to keep energy over the night. I don't wanna overexert myself, but I have 3 days, and I don't get to come much, so I wanna get as much as I can out of it. I was initially thinking about rationing an energy drink throughout the night(s), but I wanna know if there are any better ideas.

 

[dxwwf3]

A question I'm mulling over is how to keep energy over the night. I don't wanna overexert myself, but I have 3 days, and I don't get to come much, so I wanna get as much as I can out of it. I was initially thinking about rationing an energy drink throughout the night(s), but I wanna know if there are any better ideas.

When the houses have their highest wait times, it can be a good time to spend time in the scarezones on a bench. Sometimes I’ve enjoyed zones more just sitting and watching rather than walking around myself. This time is also a good time to get a late dinner, so that’s good for recharging as well.

 

[Bort]

A question I'm mulling over is how to keep energy over the night. I don't wanna overexert myself, but I have 3 days, and I don't get to come much, so I wanna get as much as I can out of it. I was initially thinking about rationing an energy drink throughout the night(s), but I wanna know if there are any better ideas.

If you’re staying on-site, don’t be afraid to take a break at your hotel midway through the night (or even just go out and relax in Citywalk for an hour). I find the 8:30-11pm crowds pretty unenjoyable, not just because of the house lines, but because it makes the streets congested and backs up every food stand wait. If you split the night into two parts, I think it’ll keep your legs fresh, and you should still be fine to get through 3-4 houses + zones in each portion of your night without any sort of express.

If you’d rather do it all open-close, I’d suggest staying off your feet as much as possible during the day. Relax by the pool or something so that you’re not already fatigued by a hot day in the parks when HHN actually starts.

 

[Beeble]

A question I'm mulling over is how to keep energy over the night. I don't wanna overexert myself, but I have 3 days, and I don't get to come much, so I wanna get as much as I can out of it. I was initially thinking about rationing an energy drink throughout the night(s), but I wanna know if there are any better ideas.

I have a two part answer to this.

1. If you aren't a regular jogger/walker, try to walk an hour or so a day, every day, for a month before you go.

2. At the event, start off by doing houses when the lines are low. For the middle few hours, grab some food and drink, and sit and enjoy the ambience of HHN. The New York and Hollywood scare zones are good for that. Also, the Fear Factor stadium show, too. Arrive early and sit and relax in the waiting area. If you're early enough, there are places to sit and wait. Then hit the houses again when the lines, once again, are shorter.

 

[ultimateforce]

I get up at 4:30a every day for work so staying up for HHN is getting harder and harder every year for me. I find that making sure I've been eating nutritious food and snacking on trail mix during the event helps. Not relying on sugary treats or caffeine. I also try to be mentally tough about the event. I wait all year for this, my ticket was $900, I'm staying till I'd be too tired to make the drive home. The next two months are the best and worst months of the year for me.

 

[SixBillium]

A question I'm mulling over is how to keep energy over the night. I don't wanna overexert myself, but I have 3 days, and I don't get to come much, so I wanna get as much as I can out of it. I was initially thinking about rationing an energy drink throughout the night(s), but I wanna know if there are any better ideas.

Get there early and get the back of the park done before the crowds get too crazy. Once the park starts to fill up, sit in the scarezones and enjoy the ambience, keep an eye on the wait times on the app and if any short waits pop up close to where you are, hop in line.

When crowds start to die down around midnight, start hitting the shortest waits and keep going from there. The last half-hour especially a lot of the haunts are close to walk-ons, so if you can conserve your energy and do a big push at the end of the night, you should be pretty successful.

Also Stranger Things / TLoU / Monsters and (maybe) Chucky are gonna be where most people go first, so unless you hit those pretty early before the crowds, save them for later in the night after the rush.

 

[Skipper Justin]

Hello all! Was not planning on going this year because I live across the country now and had already planned on going to Disney for the Wine and Dine Half Marathon. I saw that November 3 is one of the last dates for HHN and turns out to be when I fly in. I’ve been going every year since 2008 but have always went at the very beginning of the season. How are crowds typically that Nov Friday? Wondering if I should add express.

 

[SeventyOne]

Hello all! Was not planning on going this year because I live across the country now and had already planned on going to Disney for the Wine and Dine Half Marathon. I saw that November 3 is one of the last dates for HHN and turns out to be when I fly in. I’ve been going every year since 2008 but have always went at the very beginning of the season. How are crowds typically that Nov Friday? Wondering if I should add express.

Hard to say, it's been a while since we had a final day this far after Halloween. Will also depend on if they open up FF/FFP passes those final two nights. If they don't, will be final night for a lot of guests, but usually a fair amount of burnout after 2 months.

On the flip side, I've never heard anyone say they regretted buying Express.

If you can hold out, see if they open the event up more to multinight tickets that week. If no announcement by Thursday, ops still expects a crowd, go ahead and grab Express.

 

[Grabnar]

Hello all! Was not planning on going this year because I live across the country now and had already planned on going to Disney for the Wine and Dine Half Marathon. I saw that November 3 is one of the last dates for HHN and turns out to be when I fly in. I’ve been going every year since 2008 but have always went at the very beginning of the season. How are crowds typically that Nov Friday? Wondering if I should add express.

IF you can swing the express pass I would pay for the express pass. Crowds can be 50-50 on that last weekend after Halloween. My first HHN was after Halloween and it wasn't terrible. We still paid for express and that was worth it just to not have to be up all night to see all the houses.

Good luck on W&D!

 

[OIHO_YERAC]

This tip may sound strange, but if you wear sunglasses in the houses, it is actually a lot scarier because of the darkness. It sounds stupid, but once your eyes have adjusted to the darkness at night, it is actually kind of fun because you don’t see a lot of the scares coming. Would not recommend this during daylight hours, only at night once your eyes have adjusted to the darkness. I love getting scared, so this is pretty fun for me. Yeah, you look ridiculous with sunglasses in a haunted house, but if you love scares, give it a try

 

[MrRoamer]

Hard to say, it's been a while since we had a final day this far after Halloween. Will also depend on if they open up FF/FFP passes those final two nights. If they don't, will be final night for a lot of guests, but usually a fair amount of burnout after 2 months.

On the flip side, I've never heard anyone say they regretted buying Express.

If you can hold out, see if they open the event up more to multinight tickets that week. If no announcement by Thursday, ops still expects a crowd, go ahead and grab Express.

Twice I have regretted Express but it was the FFP+Express. Both times I was on the fence about getting it, we went opening weekend and everything was slammed with ops being a mess (I'm pretty sure at least a few people on here remember these years). We determined the only way we were going to get any houses done was to get Express. Went to Guest Services, upgraded, easy and done.

We go back out into the event and pretty much every line we got in was either as long or longer in express than it was for the normal queues. The first time I did this, I woke up worried I had just wasted $1,000+ and cancelled the express upgrade.... of course two weeks later I re-upgraded and was very pleased that we did.

;TLDR
The first weekend, maybe two can be an absolute mess for Ops while they are trying to figure out how the lines and houses work.

 

[Rub]

I purchased express for opening weekend and was wondering approximately how long the express lines would be. I don’t want to wait any longer than 30 minutes in express lines.

 

[Tobias]

I purchased express for opening weekend and was wondering approximately how long the express lines would be. I don’t want to wait any longer than 30 minutes in express lines.

Approximately? Terribly sorry, but that's something folks really can't predict for opening weekend. Opening weekend is always a beast of its own, due to the combo of all the media, vloggers and everyone who wants to see things first. Not to mention, there's always a bit of operational kinks which can really muck things up. A great example last year was the line for Bugs which had a whole new route, and it was a nightmare on opening weekend for those who were in it be it regular or express. And as a heads up, there's at least three houses this year with new queue routes, and there's only one way to find out if there's an issue or not.

The best I can say is bring a lot of patience, there's really no telling how long or short any of the lines are gonna' be and their ops until those at opening weekend find out.

 

[sparky]

This tip may sound strange, but if you wear sunglasses in the houses, it is actually a lot scarier because of the darkness. It sounds stupid, but once your eyes have adjusted to the darkness at night, it is actually kind of fun because you don’t see a lot of the scares coming. Would not recommend this during daylight hours, only at night once your eyes have adjusted to the darkness. I love getting scared, so this is pretty fun for me. Yeah, you look ridiculous with sunglasses in a haunted house, but if you love scares, give it a try

Just be careful to not get stuck in a corner. I have poor dark vision so getting lost in the houses was an issue for me last year. Several times I was rerouted by staff after getting stuck in corners. Feeling your way around tends to confuse the scare actors. I think they are worried you will touch them

 

[OrlandoGuy]

I purchased express for opening weekend and was wondering approximately how long the express lines would be. I don’t want to wait any longer than 30 minutes in express lines.

In my experience 30 minutes or less is a safe bet. I know some people have gripes about HHN ops lately but from what I’ve experienced Express queue management has been taking a step up.

 

[Clive]

In my experience 30 minutes or less is a safe bet. I know some people have gripes about HHN ops lately but from what I’ve experienced Express queue management has been taking a step up.

Bugs was a notable exception last year but yeah, generally Express was dependably 20 minutes or (often) substantially less.

 

[TheGentTrent]

I'll be curious to see how crowds at Stay and Scream distribute this year. Usually, it was always New York where the heavy-hitting IPs were at. And while Stranger Things will still be there, I suspect Springfield will be just as busy if that ends up being the best spot to wait for The Last Of Us.