Quick USH HHN & KSF Trip

[Nick]

As of now a few of my friends and I are thinking of throwing together a quick trip out west to do HHN and KSF in a few weeks. We have some dates in mind, but nothing set yet.

Either way, on to questions I have for some of you west coasters. What is the best route to do the houses in this year? Does USH have S&S? Also, is it worth getting Express or is it easy enough to do all houses without Express?

For Knotts - I’m more just wondering on typical crowd level and if I’d be fine without their version of express?

Thanks!

 

[Michael S]

As of now a few of my friends and I are thinking of throwing together a quick trip out west to do HHN and KSF in a few weeks. We have some dates in mind, but nothing set yet.

Either way, on to questions I have for some of you west coasters. What is the best route to do the houses in this year? Does USH have S&S? Also, is it worth getting Express or is it easy enough to do all houses without Express?

For Knotts - I’m more just wondering on typical crowd level and if I’d be fine without their version of express?

Thanks!

For USH they have the after 2 pm ticket which also gets you exclusive access to SNW from 7-10pm during HHN. I would recommend express if only going one night. Crowd levels are typically high and can be unpredictable this year, it seems.

For Knott’s you can get everything done without the “Fright Lane” premium if you’re not trying to hit too many rides. I would, however, recommend you try the Boo-fet. You get your dinner out of the way before the event, have scareactor interactions and photo ops and get early entry into the event, in the areas that typically will see the highest wait times.

If you’ve never been to Knott’s during the daytime, tho, I’d really say to check it out. It’s a great, unique park with all sorts of charm.

Let me know if you got any other questions!

 

[Nick]

For USH they have the after 2 pm ticket which also gets you exclusive access to SNW from 7-10pm during HHN. I would recommend express if only going one night. Crowd levels are typically high and can be unpredictable this year, it seems.

For Knott’s you can get everything done without the “Fright Lane” premium if you’re not trying to hit too many rides. I would, however, recommend you try the Boo-fet. You get your dinner out of the way before the event, have scareactor interactions and photo ops and get early entry into the event, in the areas that typically will see the highest wait times.

If you’ve never been to Knott’s during the daytime, tho, I’d really say to check it out. It’s a great, unique park with all sorts of charm.

Let me know if you got any other questions!

Thanks! After looking at ticket options more, we might be doing the Early Access Ticket (although still considering after 2). As for Knotts, I’ve been and done pretty much everything during the day, but friends haven’t so we might go during day, nap, then KSF.

As for questions - the one thing I’m still sort of wondering is if say it’s best to start on Lower Lot houses? Based on app wait times and the houses down there, it seems like the LL is extremely popular so I’d think it’d be best to hit that before it gets too crowded.

 

[Michael S]

Thanks! After looking at ticket options more, we might be doing the Early Access Ticket (although still considering after 2). As for Knotts, I’ve been and done pretty much everything during the day, but friends haven’t so we might go during day, nap, then KSF.

As for questions - the one thing I’m still sort of wondering is if say it’s best to start on Lower Lot houses? Based on app wait times and the houses down there, it seems like the LL is extremely popular so I’d think it’d be best to hit that before it gets too crowded.

I’ve seen two schools of thought on this. Some people have gone and knocked out the lower lot completely before finishing their night at the upper lot, but this year I think that may be sacrificing either a show/experience or a repeat of a maze. I’ve seen some people with luck doing Chucky first up and monsters, maybe even repeating chucky before heading into the main Upper Lot, knocking out Evil Dead, Monnstruos, Terror Tram, the scarezones, Purge and Blumhouse, then ending their night at the lower lot.

They do cut off access to where Chucky and Monsters are located early so keep that in mind as well.

And that’s all without express. If you get express I think either of those plans will still work great!

 

[Nick]

I’ve seen two schools of thought on this. Some people have gone and knocked out the lower lot completely before finishing their night at the upper lot, but this year I think that may be sacrificing either a show/experience or a repeat of a maze. I’ve seen some people with luck doing Chucky first up and monsters, maybe even repeating chucky before heading into the main Upper Lot, knocking out Evil Dead, Monnstruos, Terror Tram, the scarezones, Purge and Blumhouse, then ending their night at the lower lot.

They do cut off access to where Chucky and Monsters are located early so keep that in mind as well.

And that’s all without express. If you get express I think either of those plans will still work great!

We still might get express but with three of us going fairly last minute I’m not sure if everyone is ready to throw down that money or not (although I do see it as worth it).

On another note, is there any other haunts worth checking out? Possibly local haunts or would SFMM be worth it? We’ll have one other half day to check something out.

 

[Michael S]

We still might get express but with three of us going fairly last minute I’m not sure if everyone is ready to through down that money or not (although I do see it as worth it).

On another note, is there any other haunts worth checking out? Possibly local haunts or would SFMM be worth it? We’ll have one other half day to check something out.

We had a boom of other haunts in this area about a decade ago but sadly it’s sort of died out

The Los Angeles Haunted Hayride (I did it for the first time last year) is a neat little experience and pretty cheap compared to other events but I’m not sure of their schedule this year. It’s really low budget but a nice little haunt.

 

[Nick]

We had a boom of other haunts in this area about a decade ago but sadly it’s sort of died out

The Los Angeles Haunted Hayride (I did it for the first time last year) is a neat little experience and pretty cheap compared to other events but I’m not sure of their schedule this year. It’s really low budget but a nice little haunt.

I’ll keep the Hayride in mind. Sounds like the perfect type of thing for the first night I’d be out there.

 

[Jake S]

On another note, is there any other haunts worth checking out? Possibly local haunts or would SFMM be worth it? We’ll have one other half day to check something out.

Apparently they're bringing back some of the Dark Harbor vibes to Shaqtoberfest at the Queen Mary this year... if that's true, I'd highly recommend that. But I'm waiting to read some reviews before committing to it.

 

[PenguinCowboy]

On another note, is there any other haunts worth checking out? Possibly local haunts or would SFMM be worth it? We’ll have one other half day to check something out.

This is all exclusively based off of last year, but we did a little tour of haunts out there and definitively the top of the list of things to check out (if you can get tickets) is Delusion. Wildly interactive storytelling, immersive theater, and a must do, especially considering this will be their last year at their current location (an incredibly authentic manor house and grounds just on the outskirts of an industrial park),

The caveat here is that they wholesale change the storyline and experience year to year, so I can only vouch for last year's experience, and the price tag is hefty, but if you are used to paying Sleep No More prices, you'll be aware what you are in for.

Hayride, imo, is not worth it at all, especially traveling across country. It is at the level or below that of many local haunts on the East Coast, with the novelty factor of a hayride being a selling point out there, but I've genuinely seen more creative work done at local pumpkin farms. Was very disappointed last year, again, your mileage may vary, but especially given their pedigree and what level they used to be it really has dropped off.

Shaqtoberfest I will say surprised the hell out of us, haha, we actually ended up being the literal first paying customers to enter the event...ever...haha, and truthfully we kind of meant for it to be a time filler between when we landed and our Delusion time, but it seriously grew on us. Very small town haunt vibes too, but appreciated the effort to change over between a friendly daytime experience and a more spooky atmosphere after the witching hour. Especially for the price, we were able to spend 3.5 hours there filling up time and it offered us a fun environment to do so in. I would recommend getting there before the Witching Hour to see both sides of the experience, and you'll be done well in time to get to another event that same night if you want.

One final experience we had that I literally cannot stop thinking about was Zombie Joe's Underground Theater: Urban Death, Tour of Terror. This comes with a MASSIVE disclaimer of if you do not enjoy extreme imagery, avant-garde theater (Brechtian theater of the oppressed, no real narrative structure, wildly varied audience reactions, etc), as well as live nudity, this is absolutely not a recommendation, haha. One of the most wild experiences of last year, this was coming after our disappointing hayride experience that same night, and we decided on whim to check it out. Zombie Joe himself is the nicest guy, literally invited us to come join the cast after for drinks to celebrate a birthday! Overall a recommend but only if the bizarre nature doesn't immediately turn you off (I would recommend though going in as blind as you can).

 

[Nick]

This is all exclusively based off of last year, but we did a little tour of haunts out there and definitively the top of the list of things to check out (if you can get tickets) is Delusion. Wildly interactive storytelling, immersive theater, and a must do, especially considering this will be their last year at their current location (an incredibly authentic manor house and grounds just on the outskirts of an industrial park),

The caveat here is that they wholesale change the storyline and experience year to year, so I can only vouch for last year's experience, and the price tag is hefty, but if you are used to paying Sleep No More prices, you'll be aware what you are in for.

Hayride, imo, is not worth it at all, especially traveling across country. It is at the level or below that of many local haunts on the East Coast, with the novelty factor of a hayride being a selling point out there, but I've genuinely seen more creative work done at local pumpkin farms. Was very disappointed last year, again, your mileage may vary, but especially given their pedigree and what level they used to be it really has dropped off.

Shaqtoberfest I will say surprised the hell out of us, haha, we actually ended up being the literal first paying customers to enter the event...ever...haha, and truthfully we kind of meant for it to be a time filler between when we landed and our Delusion time, but it seriously grew on us. Very small town haunt vibes too, but appreciated the effort to change over between a friendly daytime experience and a more spooky atmosphere after the witching hour. Especially for the price, we were able to spend 3.5 hours there filling up time and it offered us a fun environment to do so in. I would recommend getting there before the Witching Hour to see both sides of the experience, and you'll be done well in time to get to another event that same night if you want.

One final experience we had that I literally cannot stop thinking about was Zombie Joe's Underground Theater: Urban Death, Tour of Terror. This comes with a MASSIVE disclaimer of if you do not enjoy extreme imagery, avant-garde theater (Brechtian theater of the oppressed, no real narrative structure, wildly varied audience reactions, etc), as well as live nudity, this is absolutely not a recommendation, haha. One of the most wild experiences of last year, this was coming after our disappointing hayride experience that same night, and we decided on whim to check it out. Zombie Joe himself is the nicest guy, literally invited us to come join the cast after for drinks to celebrate a birthday! Overall a recommend but only if the bizarre nature doesn't immediately turn you off (I would recommend though going in as blind as you can).

Thanks for all the recommendations!

 

[Nick]

As far as HHN goes, it's the Lower Lot houses that the Early Access gets you, correct? I'm thinking that seems like a path i'm probably going to take considering the LL houses in particular seem to get swamped.

 

[Brian G.]

As far as HHN goes, it's the Lower Lot houses that the Early Access gets you, correct? I'm thinking that seems like a path i'm probably going to take considering the LL houses in particular seem to get swamped.

Yup! And it seems you get access to SNW now, too!

 

[wutisgood]

Yup! And it seems you get access to SNW now, too!

When did that change from only being day night combo? I'm actually mildly disappointed if the lines are super long now for Mario.

 

[Brian G.]

When did that change from only being day night combo? I'm actually mildly disappointed if the lines are super long now for Mario.

This weekend and apparently still empty.

 

[Nick]

So is the VIP pass worth it at Shaqtoberfest? What is the included engine room experience? It’s $89 on the day I’m looking at.

Also, do the haunted trails get long lines typically or no?

 

[HORRORable Commenter]

Here to second some thoughts and introduce new ones: Zombie Joe's, Delusion, and not listed here but also excellent and now right next to Knotts is 17th Door, possibly the best independent haunt to use a more traditional format

 

[Jake S]

What is the included engine room experience?

If this is something that takes you into the engine room of the Queen Mary (I confess I’m not aware if they’re allowed to do anything on the boat right now) it’s probably worth it. Back in the Dark Harbor days, the haunts on the ship were such a cool experience.

 

[HORRORable Commenter]

If this is something that takes you into the engine room of the Queen Mary (I confess I’m not aware if they’re allowed to do anything on the boat right now) it’s probably worth it. Back in the Dark Harbor days, the haunts on the ship were such a cool experience.

They will have a full size haunt on the ship, as well as this seperate experience which does take place in the ships engine room

 

[Nick]

Looking more into Delusion. No decisions mad yet but if I get my way I’m leaning here.

 

[Jake S]

They will have a full size haunt on the ship, as well as this seperate experience which does take place in the ships engine room

hmm… might need to look at tickets for this.