Had an amaaaaazing night, so glad I went, it was an absolute DEAD ZONE. Everything was a walk on, including the rides. They were closing shops and vendors by 9 PM, just nobody to sell stuff to haha. Scareactors were playful and up to antics for sure, including in the mazes. Would go in to a maze and have the whole place to yourself, you could take your time or walk fast and not run into anyone. I did doubles of my favorites, but I easily could've done triples or quadruples if I put enough effort into it.
Roaming chainsaw guys were by Jabba when I saw them. Speaking of which, I saw the show finally -- same dang show, different songs. Don't know why I always believe people when they say "it's actually good/new this year." Quality aside, it is relatively the same \when the structure is beat by beat exact and they do the same type of dances.
I had a REALLY good run through of Stranger Things tonight, both times. Completely changes my mind about the scares for that maze, jumps it up a couple of nothces. So what goes down? Poltergeist definitely gets more and more underwhelming every time I go through it. Just the weirdest pacing of momentum in that one and the only saving grace is the end. It honestly is about as bad as The First Purge; which had some rocking talent in there today, but couldn't save it much -- made me think a tiny bit more fond of it but not alot. And sadly, Universal Monsters just doesn't do it for me because the scares suck sooooo hard. Got a good handful of popouts at the end in a row but that's it. I even had a run through today of TWD that was better. TrT, Halloween, and HOB are still my favorites, with Stranger Things very close behind. I think what really helped is 1) It was nighttime by the time it opened so there was no light bleed, which made the maze more dark 2) cast finally found their groove. Demas were much more ferocious -- they still don't look scary compared to Orlando's, but they sure as hell made up with how vicious they attack. They did a lot more with their hands and reaching -- I guess it just took em a while to figure out the physics of their costumes and how fast they can go. Also, I feel like they reconfigured the first room so the scare is less obvious and that they added some scares I've never seen before in places. Even the face actors were great. Major props to the guys in the lab who'd get in your face and stop you during the little spiel with the creepiest of grins on their faces. That was so unsettling!!!
Oh and Terror Tram was the same. As were the scarezones.
Side note: totally got to go in to Harry Potter World from 4-5. Made my night all the more special.