Halloween Horror Nights 33 (UOR) - Speculation & Rumors

[Brian G.]

Re: upgrades/downgrades on multi night tickets

"They wouldn't do it over the regular guest line, had to transfer me to a ticketing specialist. But from my time in guest services as long as your ticket was unused you can upgrade or downgrade as much as you want. Once you use it then there are qualifiers. For example if you have a rush and go on a Saturday after the first weekend, you can only upgrade to Ultimate"

FWIW - that's always been the deal in recent years. I wanna say 2019 (maybe 2021?) was when they introduced the "ROF to Ultimate" qualifier. Beforehand, they just let you upgrade all willy-nilly.

So did they let the person upgrade despite the "Sell Out"?

 

[amar831]

And therein lies the rub.

Not trying to sound obtuse but i’m slightly neurodivergent and just want a little more clarification on what you mean here

 

[Killer Klown]

Well for $100,000 I got a UFFP with express for sale

 

[Parkscope Joe]

Not trying to sound obtuse but i’m slightly neurodivergent and just want a little more clarification on what you mean here

Can’t upgrade if it’s not for sale.

 

[saint.piss]

FWIW - that's always been the deal in recent years. I wanna say 2019 (maybe 2021?) was when they introduced the "ROF to Ultimate" qualifier. Beforehand, they just let you upgrade all willy-nilly.

So did they let the person upgrade despite the "Sell Out"?

The person that I took the quote from downgraded his pass from FFP+ with express to RoF with express. Also I just looked on the website and FFP with express is now sold out, no more dates avaliable as of now lol

Edit: at the end of the calendar this message pops up. Most likely means the passes could go back on sale?

 

[Captain Spaulding]

When I upgraded ROF to include Express, the single night express was sold out for the entire weekend. This is completely bonkers! Seems like an experiment by Universal, I doubt sales are that much different from last year?

 

[Lucky Planet]

I never knew you could downgrade. do they give you a refund?

 

[amar831]

I never knew you could downgrade. do they give you a refund?

Not specifically for HHN but I exchanged an express pass for volcano bay for a different day that express was cheaper and i got the difference on a UOR gift card

 

[saint.piss]

I never knew you could downgrade. do they give you a refund?

They refund you the difference so yes

 

[Neo]

The sold out stuff doesn't pass the smell test. Unless they're willing to throw away a ton of money when they are allegedly "cutting corners and pinching pennies" in the park and for the even due to the cost of building Epic just doesn't add up.

The Last of Us and having an Icon of color surely weren't enough to have a TON of new day one express buying super fans this year. Stranger Things has been around enough before (and CERTAINLY did bring in a bunch of new fans who attend annually now) for it to not be an explanation and while we all love the Originals and were (for the most part) very pleasantly surprised by Exorcist (no point even mentioning Chucky) I just don't see any reason to say that demand is leaps and bounds above any other year.

For them to turn away a 3x price multiplier for multi-day express is just insane. Unless beers are going to be $20, Signature Drinks $25, and parking $100 I don't see how they could remove so much revenue stream...particularly this year.

 

[IzzyB]

Check the stats if you don't believe me, but tied with Saturday for busiest night. Also feels busier from open, no build to the crowd, slammed from Stay & Scream on.

But after RoF ended wasn't it less busy? The 29th is after RoF ends, which is why i was asking. If we do Sunday then we only have our teenager going to school late on Monday. Wed/Thur means we have to have them pulled early and go in late. But biggest issue is then we are relying on Grandparents to do a pickup and drop off for the younger kids. So was trying to do Sunday but that is the only weekend available for Premiere that is not RoF and not after Halloween.

The increase on the Scream Early ticket is highway robbery. $55? Come on.

Can anyone explain that? If it had stuck to $40 then they would have gotten another couple hundred out of my group for us to be in the park for 2 hours and wait in a holding pen for 1 hour... while also spending $ on drinks, food, and maybe some games.

I assume with the insane lines at Stay and Scream last year they are raising the price so less people do Stay & Scream as they don't have the infrastructure to handle the number of people that had it last year. So raising price naturally reduces how many buy and still gets them more money. Keeping it at the same price and capping means less money for Uni.

The sold out stuff doesn't pass the smell test. Unless they're willing to throw away a ton of money when they are allegedly "cutting corners and pinching pennies" in the park and for the even due to the cost of building Epic just doesn't add up.

The Last of Us and having an Icon of color surely weren't enough to have a TON of new day one express buying super fans this year. Stranger Things has been around enough before (and CERTAINLY did bring in a bunch of new fans who attend annually now) for it to not be an explanation and while we all love the Originals and were (for the most part) very pleasantly surprised by Exorcist (no point even mentioning Chucky) I just don't see any reason to say that demand is leaps and bounds above any other year.

For them to turn away a 3x price multiplier for multi-day express is just insane. Unless beers are going to be $20, Signature Drinks $25, and parking $100 I don't see how they could remove so much revenue stream...particularly this year.

Raise prices and reduce how many you sell equals the same money, but less people are in express which makes wait times insanely high and then less people go to event. They also are trying to prevent from the people not spending money in the parks, so reducing multi-night with express reduces these people which helps crowd control without really losing money since they were not spending much anyways.

 

[Brian G.]

For them to turn away a 3x price multiplier for multi-day express is just insane. Unless beers are going to be $20, Signature Drinks $25, and parking $100 I don't see how they could remove so much revenue stream...particularly this year.

The money makers are the "single-day" vacationing folk, not the FFPers with Express.

And to clarify - all the passes that are sold out are the “with Express” option. All Frequent Fear passes without Express are still available for purchase.

 

[amar831]

The money makers are the "single-day" vacationing folk, not the FFPers with Express.

As a FFPer with express who always stays and spends money on food and drink no matter the cost, I’d argue I’m a money maker.

As to whether i’m an outlier or not is a different story. I use the multinight tickets to capitalize on the time I’m actually able to spend there, I’m not a local so its gas, hotel, and food I need to think about in addition to just being able to get into the parks. I want to be able to know I’ll get to do everything once I’m inside.

 

[Chumpieboy]

Quite a big bump for ROF+Express and I'm gonna be out of state the first weekend of the event. I might be only able to go 4-7 nights this year so the per-night cost for me will go up considerably but it's still a minimum of $250+ savings vs buying Express for each night.

And that’s where they know they got you. Up to a certain point it’s still less expensive than individual nights + Express.

 

[Brian G.]

As a FFPer with express who always stays and spends money on food and drink no matter the cost, I’d argue I’m a money maker.

As to whether i’m an outlier or not is a different story. I use the multinight tickets to capitalize on the time I’m actually able to spend there, I’m not a local so its gas, hotel, and food I need to think about in addition to just being able to get into the parks. I want to be able to know I’ll get to do everything once I’m inside.

Yes, you are an outlier.

FFPers are predominantly local. There are exceptions with vacationers who get the pass, like yourself, but locals won't be spending money on hotels, or as much on food & drink.

 

[HHN Maddux]

but locals won't be spending money on hotels

Allow me to adjust my nerd glasses, but have you seen Cabana Bay on every opening weekend?

 

[Lucky Planet]

The sold out stuff doesn't pass the smell test. Unless they're willing to throw away a ton of money when they are allegedly "cutting corners and pinching pennies" in the park and for the even due to the cost of building Epic just doesn't add up.

The Last of Us and having an Icon of color surely weren't enough to have a TON of new day one express buying super fans this year. Stranger Things has been around enough before (and CERTAINLY did bring in a bunch of new fans who attend annually now) for it to not be an explanation and while we all love the Originals and were (for the most part) very pleasantly surprised by Exorcist (no point even mentioning Chucky) I just don't see any reason to say that demand is leaps and bounds above any other year.

For them to turn away a 3x price multiplier for multi-day express is just insane. Unless beers are going to be $20, Signature Drinks $25, and parking $100 I don't see how they could remove so much revenue stream...particularly this year.

As a FFPer with express who always stays and spends money on food and drink no matter the cost, I’d argue I’m a money maker.

As to whether i’m an outlier or not is a different story. I use the multinight tickets to capitalize on the time I’m actually able to spend there, I’m not a local so its gas, hotel, and food I need to think about in addition to just being able to get into the parks. I want to be able to know I’ll get to do everything once I’m inside.

well you force everyone to buy single day tickets like in Disney.
maybe hhn is not something people need to repeat. not to sound cynical.
but maybe hhn needs to be like a rock concert. you watch it once per year. like a rock tour.

it's going to come to a point where universal just doesn't need to provide ffp anymore

 

[Captain Spaulding]

Yes, you are an outlier.

FFPers are predominantly local. There are exceptions with vacationers who get the pass, like yourself, but locals won't be spending money on hotels, or as much on food & drink.

Non local and this my my 2nd year with UFFP with express. Alcohol still probably my biggest expense

 

[TheCodeMan95]

Yes, you are an outlier.

FFPers are predominantly local. There are exceptions with vacationers who get the pass, like yourself, but locals won't be spending money on hotels, or as much on food & drink.

I'd venture a guess that vacationers probably get ROF the most out of any of the multi-night passes. I'm a vacationer and got an ROF+E last year because it just made financial sense lol

My guess is that, with this change, they're just REALLY trying to cut down on the Express lines? Because they clearly aren't cutting down on the amount of people they allow into the park lol

 

[Brian G.]

Allow me to adjust my nerd glasses, but have you seen Cabana Bay on every opening weekend?

Non local and this my my 2nd year with UFFP with express. Alcohol still probably my biggest expense

Y'all! There are exceptions haha. I don't expect anyone on here to be the norm because we're all nerding about Horror Nights year-round. The point is the bread and butter to Universal are the vacationing folk who normally get one-day passes.