- Sep 7, 2015
- 312
- 979
On night 4/4, so I guess I can share some thoughts on the event:
• First time leaving the north since pre-covid. Not to derail this too much, but wow Florida (or at least the guests coming to UOR/HHN) have completely given up on covid. I’d say it’s something like 80-85% no masks inside and 10-15% masks on inside. For that, I’m glad they put up the vinyl to at least protect the actors. I’m comfortable with the health and safety of those who I went with this year, but would’ve had a guilty conscious if I dragged my parents/older family members out this year.
• The vinyl doesn’t make the scare impossible, but if you see it too early, it tips the potential of a scare. I still got scared a good amount of times even when I saw vinyl. Think the scareactors are doing a good job of working with what they’ve got. Does it make the overall house a little less scary? Yeah, but not enough that you don’t enjoy it.
• Hill House feels like the clear winner of the IP houses this year. It was a beautiful, scenic house, with some great scares. Public seemed to really respond to it well too.
• 2 of the 3 drinks I enjoyed (Ghoul Juice and Wicked Old Fashioned). The one I didn’t care for was the Poison Tea Party, but that’s more because I don’t like tea.
• Eddie’s zone is the runaway winner in my opinion. Good combo of actors, props, fog, music. Seek & Destroy was enjoyable for the couple mins that I saw a cast change happening. Crypt was full of guests just taking pictures of the stage characters, energy wasn’t there for me. 30 years is the same song and dance of all entrance zones. Gorewood is a double edged sword: go early to see the scareactors and actually get to walk, but it’s bright. Go late, and it looks good lit up, but you can’t move cause it’s so crowded.
• Marathon of Mayhem was good for one viewing, enjoyed it for what it was. Halloween Nightmare Fuel was great! Saw it a couple times, really enjoyed the magic tricks. The music again was top notch — my favorite part with all the Fear Factor stage shows. They do a phenomenal job selecting music.
• Crowds are really wonky. From what I understand, TMs had comps available for Wednesday/Thursday which led to a really busy Wednesday. I’d definitely look at express if you can’t do Stay n Scream and only have a night or two. Thankfully I had 4 days to do this, so I broke it up into ~3-5 houses a night.
Looking to finish up some second runs through houses later tonight, should have a full ranking and review coming mid-week.
Overall
1. 29
2. 28
3. 30
• First time leaving the north since pre-covid. Not to derail this too much, but wow Florida (or at least the guests coming to UOR/HHN) have completely given up on covid. I’d say it’s something like 80-85% no masks inside and 10-15% masks on inside. For that, I’m glad they put up the vinyl to at least protect the actors. I’m comfortable with the health and safety of those who I went with this year, but would’ve had a guilty conscious if I dragged my parents/older family members out this year.
• The vinyl doesn’t make the scare impossible, but if you see it too early, it tips the potential of a scare. I still got scared a good amount of times even when I saw vinyl. Think the scareactors are doing a good job of working with what they’ve got. Does it make the overall house a little less scary? Yeah, but not enough that you don’t enjoy it.
• Hill House feels like the clear winner of the IP houses this year. It was a beautiful, scenic house, with some great scares. Public seemed to really respond to it well too.
• 2 of the 3 drinks I enjoyed (Ghoul Juice and Wicked Old Fashioned). The one I didn’t care for was the Poison Tea Party, but that’s more because I don’t like tea.
• Eddie’s zone is the runaway winner in my opinion. Good combo of actors, props, fog, music. Seek & Destroy was enjoyable for the couple mins that I saw a cast change happening. Crypt was full of guests just taking pictures of the stage characters, energy wasn’t there for me. 30 years is the same song and dance of all entrance zones. Gorewood is a double edged sword: go early to see the scareactors and actually get to walk, but it’s bright. Go late, and it looks good lit up, but you can’t move cause it’s so crowded.
• Marathon of Mayhem was good for one viewing, enjoyed it for what it was. Halloween Nightmare Fuel was great! Saw it a couple times, really enjoyed the magic tricks. The music again was top notch — my favorite part with all the Fear Factor stage shows. They do a phenomenal job selecting music.
• Crowds are really wonky. From what I understand, TMs had comps available for Wednesday/Thursday which led to a really busy Wednesday. I’d definitely look at express if you can’t do Stay n Scream and only have a night or two. Thankfully I had 4 days to do this, so I broke it up into ~3-5 houses a night.
Looking to finish up some second runs through houses later tonight, should have a full ranking and review coming mid-week.
Overall
1. 29
2. 28
3. 30