Just returned from a full 4 days with Express. Some good yes, but the bad/worries I had throughout the spec season were cemented and very prevalent throughout. There were times when plenty of the *bad* was forgotten about, but more so due to being with friends there rather than the actual event making it special.
The disconnect with everything was the biggest miss that was felt for me. I have a friend in my group who goes, not as a fan but just to hang with us, and he told me unprovoked "This feels like **** compared to the last few years, does it not" - which was super telling to me. Really hope next year gets that step back to making HHN what it can, and should be, all aspects as a whole.
Zones: What has already been said. As expected too. Swamp not returning to form post-storm was a true bummer, Torture music was excellent, and well, we know the rest. I am curious how "successful" they'll deem the photo ops from the HHN bar, as every time I walked by Thur-Sun, it was empty as all hell. That's 4 more actors that can be in a zone actually scaring. I get it for some sure, but just feels like an overall swing and a miss, especially with how bare the "bar" is with the drink options they have there.
Not having entrances on that right side of the park hurts the amount of traffic that Hollywood has, which I thought found their stride and had some fun watching it for a good hour (also the area I saw Teens touch and harass scare actors the most all weekend in that hour, that's another conversation entirely).
Houses:
Fine? As others have said, the stinkers could have been incredibly worse off.
Insidious getting back to just true uneasy, unnerving, stacked house of scares, was great. Maybe they will see those wait times it has had all event and look into having more than one house with that intensity. People love it.
Did a consensus ranking within my group, many die-hard fans, but also a few casuals:
1. Insidious The Further
2. Goblins Feast
3. Major Sweets Candy Factory
4. Slaughter Sinema 2
5. Triplets of Terror
*drop off*
6. Universal Monsters Eternal Bloodlines
7. Ghostbusters Frozen Empire
8. Monstruos The Monsters of Latin America
9. A Quiet Place
10. The Museum: Deadly Exhibits
Did not fit in Nightmare Fuel this year, but looked to be another solid rendition, which makes me happy. Always have liked their shows, always a good time in that sauna of a venue for 45 minutes lol.
Tribute Store/Merch/Dead Coconut/Food/Vibe
For every positive and smile I had, felt like I got counterpunched from the other direction.
Clearly, the merch designs were a miss, and it was prevalent throughout the weekend based on what people were wearing and whenever I went into the store. Rough. The over-done Lil Boo merch was a choice all year, where it has very much overstayed it's welcome. Wonder how they'll pivot next year.
Dead Coconut was fun, while the Blumhouse section was forced into it, still nice to have some props there (should have just put the "scarezone" into the entire club if they had to go the Blumhouse route) - force people to get some drinks there too for those photo ops
Some food was a hit, some a miss, and while they went with fewer items and seemingly fewer booths this year compared to the last few, still had some booths with absolutely no lines when I would walk by. Always interesting to see what food items are absolute misses this early in the year, knowing how doomed they'll be the rest of the season, while the few hits (fish and chips, ghostbusters, monstrous) will have insane lines nightly.
Express did mitigate a ton of that "teen invasion" I have heard about, which was amazing compared to last few years, usually was 80-95% off the wait times every night, with half of the waits being under 6 minutes in prime time. Ops killed it there. Outside of that though, especially Thursday + Sunday nights with fewer teens, you could feel a weird vibe with everything. And sadly I don't have the perfect answers, but do know that improvements can easily be made next year. Am hopeful they can make them.
Bring back the Lagoon Show, fully fleshed out scare zones, Cabana Bay photo ops/fun exhibits, improve the merch, snack offerings, quality of drinks/options, and some more intensity to the houses again.
The watered-down offerings and quality really showed up this year for me, and on top of price hikes, am cautiously hopeful there's some return to form next year. Who knows with Epic.