Halloween Horror Nights 2022 (USH) - Tips & Tricks

[Jerroddragon]

Friday? Definitely wasn't the case most of the night. Ironically, Weeknd was the quickest to get into both times I went through.

No
Yesterday

Which express was sold out as well. But besides the weekend, every maze would stop the general line and let all express people in

 

[viking_wizard_eyes]

Sunday seemed to be less busy in general, I checked wait times at like 9pm and it seemed pretty manageable — KKFOS was highest at 60.

I bet they get a few things ironed out, operationally. The crowds are probably gonna dwindle here for the next few weeks — it’s the space between when the true heads go early and the GP decides they wanna do Spooky Season stuff. Hopefully that gives them some breathing room to figure stuff out, otherwise it cold bite them in the butt.

 

[baconwhiskers]

Sunday seemed to be less busy in general, I checked wait times at like 9pm and it seemed pretty manageable — KKFOS was highest at 60.

I bet they get a few things ironed out, operationally. The crowds are probably gonna dwindle here for the next few weeks — it’s the space between when the true heads go early and the GP decides they wanna do Spooky Season stuff. Hopefully that gives them some breathing room to figure stuff out, otherwise it cold bite them in the butt.

The crazy thing is a line would be short and take 45-50 minutes due to how they're handling things. It was BAD at blumhouse last night at midnight even though the line was short.

 

[StopMakingSense]

No
Yesterday

Which express was sold out as well. But besides the weekend, every maze would stop the general line and let all express people in

Maybe they got a lot of blowback from the express lines on Friday night. Almost every time we had to ask where the express line started because it was nowhere close to the signs, and every time they'd start apologizing profusely.

 

[DTH]

I'm going to suggest the Disneyland pandemic route -- raise GA prices considerably and just get rid of Express. Honestly, without Express, the lines would be 30 minutes max. At 3 minutes per maze and each maze averaging 230 people at a time, they could get 4000+ people in a maze in an hour. That's the same amount of people as Pirates of the Caribbean.

The lines at Horror Nights should be nowhere near 3 hours, let alone 2, heck even 1 would be a stretch if they just eliminated express. Maybe keep RIP but that's it.

 

[Jerroddragon]

I'm going to suggest the Disneyland pandemic route -- raise GA prices considerably and just get rid of Express. Honestly, without Express, the lines would be 30 minutes max. At 3 minutes per maze and each maze averaging 230 people at a time, they could get 4000+ people in a maze in an hour. That's the same amount of people as Pirates of the Caribbean.

The lines at Horror Nights should be nowhere near 3 hours, let alone 2, heck even 1 would be a stretch if they just eliminated express. Maybe keep RIP but that's it.

Honestly with how busy the event is, they could add days like a few Wednesday”s and test out how it works with with just general tickets that cost more

 

[Spookies n' Stuff]

Apologies if this has already been answered, but does anyone know when the gates for early entry open up vs how early people start to gather for it?
Have a bit of a trek to get to the park from home so I was curious about timing, especially since i know being at the front of the early entry line or being at the back can be the difference between being in a walk on or a 40 minute line for SS29.

 

[DTH]

It was 5:15pm when I went. I was at the gates at 4pm and honestly could've been very first but I saw how little people were there, I decided to hang around for a bit and lined up at 4:15-ish. Was 5th person in line. Didn't matter much though, the 2pm entry people and AP passers were already ahead of me in line for Weeknd. Very short wait though once it hit 6pm (when the mazes open). I believe about 20 minutes. Also, FOTL people do start to come in and that's mostly what slowed it down. I was out of there by 6:23pm and Universal Monsters and Klowns were already an hour wait. Unless you are very first at Weeknd, doubtful you'll get to Klowns or Monsters in time for those not to be more than 30 minutes.

I kinda hate the early entry this year. Just feels like you're screwed no matter what. They should start the mazes at 5pm like years before. It was way better that way. Also the trek to the Metro lot steered away enough people that it wasn't too overbearing amount of people. Plus there was food and a scarezone down there. And people lining up for mazes on the backlot. It spread everyone out so evenly. Oh well. Not no more. *sigh*

 

[April]

It was 5:15pm when I went. I was at the gates at 4pm and honestly could've been very first but I saw how little people were there, I decided to hang around for a bit and lined up at 4:15-ish. Was 5th person in line. Didn't matter much though, the 2pm entry people and AP passers were already ahead of me in line for Weeknd. Very short wait though once it hit 6pm (when the mazes open). I believe about 20 minutes. Also, FOTL people do start to come in and that's mostly what slowed it down. I was out of there by 6:23pm and Universal Monsters and Klowns were already an hour wait. Unless you are very first at Weeknd, doubtful you'll get to Klowns or Monsters in time for those not to be more than 30 minutes.

I kinda hate the early entry this year. Just feels like you're screwed no matter what. They should start the mazes at 5pm like years before. It was way better that way. Also the trek to the Metro lot steered away enough people that it wasn't too overbearing amount of people. Plus there was food and a scarezone down there. And people lining up for mazes on the backlot. It spread everyone out so evenly. Oh well. Not no more. *sigh*

Does it sound better then with early entry to line up for Weeknd and then just go to the upper lot or should we tough out the longer queues? Going the next two days…

I think I saw your post or someone else’s that got in line for Weeknd at 530ish? They usually open up slightly early like Orlando? Just trying to gameplan and my head is full of all the Orlando things but also somewhat of a Hollywood gameplan that I had seen.

 

[baconwhiskers]

Does it sound better then with early entry to line up for Weeknd and then just go to the upper lot or should we tough out the longer queues? Going the next two days…

I think I saw your post or someone else’s that got in line for Weeknd at 530ish? They usually open up slightly early like Orlando? Just trying to gameplan and my head is full of all the Orlando things but also somewhat of a Hollywood gameplan that I had seen.

Unless you can line up for the weeknd before people get let in for early entry and be one of the firsts in the unofficial line around 5pm, i would avoid weeknd as the first thing completely as the express dump takes a long time. Waits balloon fast in the lower lot now so it's best to do just one down there and get to curious george by 7pm. The waits really die down later in the night in the lower lot.

 

[Freak]

So I'm going with one of my buddies this evening but he won't get off work until 5:30, putting us at the gate probably around 6:30 or 6:35. Obviously not an ideal scenario by any means, but do you think the best approach would be to0 do Monsters, then go back upstairs to do the Curious George houses? I personally am not anal about doing everything as I have the FFP and I can come back another night, but I want to do my best to let him see everything. What do you think?

 

[baconwhiskers]

So I'm going with one of my buddies this evening but he won't get off work until 5:30, putting us at the gate probably around 6:30 or 6:35. Obviously not an ideal scenario by any means, but do you think the best approach would be to0 do Monsters, then go back upstairs to do the Curious George houses? I personally am not anal about doing everything as I have the FFP and I can come back another night, but I want to do my best to let him see everything. What do you think?

At 6:30, I would see how blumhouse is doing if you don't mind light bleed or just go straight to curious george since it would probably take a while to go down to lower lot and queue up like 20-30ish minutes at monsters and come back. If you were to get there at 6:00-6:15, I would say yes for sure. But honestly you might get away with doing it and have like a 20-30ish minute wait max at curious george since it is Thursday.

 

[DTH]

I think Monsters first is a good plan. Not as many people are rushing to it like they are The Weeknd or Klowns. Hit that, run up to Curious George before 7 so you can hit Scarecrow, assess from there if Halloween is worth hitting, then go back to the lower lot around 1am and it should be fairly empty.

 

[Spookies n' Stuff]

It was 5:15pm when I went. I was at the gates at 4pm and honestly could've been very first but I saw how little people were there, I decided to hang around for a bit and lined up at 4:15-ish. Was 5th person in line. Didn't matter much though, the 2pm entry people and AP passers were already ahead of me in line for Weeknd. Very short wait though once it hit 6pm (when the mazes open). I believe about 20 minutes. Also, FOTL people do start to come in and that's mostly what slowed it down. I was out of there by 6:23pm and Universal Monsters and Klowns were already an hour wait. Unless you are very first at Weeknd, doubtful you'll get to Klowns or Monsters in time for those not to be more than 30 minutes.

I kinda hate the early entry this year. Just feels like you're screwed no matter what. They should start the mazes at 5pm like years before. It was way better that way. Also the trek to the Metro lot steered away enough people that it wasn't too overbearing amount of people. Plus there was food and a scarezone down there. And people lining up for mazes on the backlot. It spread everyone out so evenly. Oh well. Not no more. *sigh*

So they let people in at 5:15, but don't open the mazes until 6?
That's kind of insane. Do they just expect that totally wont create a massive backup of people flooding into the only lines available since they arent pulsing openings like they used to?
I get it was probably harder to afford/convince staff to show up extra early just for early entry people, but jeez, having who knows how many people squeesze into 3 lines an hour before any of those attractions actually open is just asking for misery for all parties.

 

[DTH]

So they let people in at 5:15, but don't open the mazes until 6?
That's kind of insane. Do they just expect that totally wont create a massive backup of people flooding into the only lines available since they arent pulsing openings like they used to?
I get it was probably harder to afford/convince staff to show up extra early just for early entry people, but jeez, having who knows how many people squeesze into 3 lines an hour before any of those attractions actually open is just asking for misery for all parties.

Yup. To be fair, it was kinda like that before with the Metro sets, but like I mentioned, people were more evenly dispersed. There was also less attractions to hit. And Express wasn't such a cluster it is now. If they capped attendance and Express like 15% less, you could easily hit everything. It also doesn't help that Express people have their own weird game plan and droves that they come in. I am assuming that for whatever reason, they all hit Curious George around 8pmish because Halloween was at a full stop for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, Express people are nowhere near Hotel or La Llorona at 11pm.

 

[baconwhiskers]

Yup. To be fair, it was kinda like that before with the Metro sets, but like I mentioned, people were more evenly dispersed. There was also less attractions to hit. And Express wasn't such a cluster it is now. If they capped attendance and Express like 15% less, you could easily hit everything. It also doesn't help that Express people have their own weird game plan and droves that they come in. I am assuming that for whatever reason, they all hit Curious George around 8pmish because Halloween was at a full stop for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, Express people are nowhere near Hotel or La Llorona at 11pm.

And for some reason so many express people use it before the Weeknd even opens which is such a waste lol

The Halloween stoppage is so real, i moved twice in 30 minutes on one night, they do need to sell less express at least.

 

[Spookies n' Stuff]

Yup. To be fair, it was kinda like that before with the Metro sets, but like I mentioned, people were more evenly dispersed. There was also less attractions to hit. And Express wasn't such a cluster it is now. If they capped attendance and Express like 15% less, you could easily hit everything. It also doesn't help that Express people have their own weird game plan and droves that they come in. I am assuming that for whatever reason, they all hit Curious George around 8pmish because Halloween was at a full stop for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, Express people are nowhere near Hotel or La Llorona at 11pm.

Yeah, at least back when we had the metro sets they opened maybe 30-45 min maximum after the lower lot ones, and more often than not have a big IP to pull some of the crowd in that direction instead of just packing into the lower lot mazes, this year not only are we lacking the metro sets entirely, but the lower lot holds literally 50% of the headliners for the event. Seems like kinda a big oversight.

 

[Clive]

Anyone know if it's a 1AM or 2AM close tonight? Crazy that there's no clarity on this.

 

[Freak]

Anyone know if it's a 1AM or 2AM close tonight? Crazy that there's no clarity on this.

If it's a Thursday or Sunday, I always assume it will be 1AM. Probably 1AM.

 

[downunder]

I'm at the gates now and the TMs know nothing about early entry, not sure if it's on?

Signs say park hours are until 2am tonight.

EDIT: another TM confirmed early entry is good.