tony67
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- May 22, 2003
Thank you.Tony, I`m sorry you`re going to lose someone in your family. Never an easy time for anyone.
Being honest, this years HHN started out quite positive for us....houses sounded good, scare zones looked decent and food options looked decent too. First couple of nights were good.
Food options we tried were not even remotely like the picture. Nothing stood out as worth waiting in those huge lines for.
After that, we kinda lost interest. It was too busy and that was one of our main complaints, but houses were lacklustre at times (not always) we noticed they were not stopping the lines while the change of SA teams took place which used to happen so you didn`t miss any scares or actors. This year we wandered through several houses on several occasions to missing SA.
The scare zones were set up well and the Graveyard one was particularly good, we did enjoy that when it wasn`t mobbed, so I`m not knocking everything about the event, it just didn`t live up to the hype for us.
The crowds were so bad one night I couldn`t see a single SA in the first scare zone, lost Tom in the crowd twice and honestly, for the first time I just wanted to get out of there.
A couple of nights we were with another couple who hadn`t been for a long time, they were so disappointed. The rain early in the event did keep the crowds at bay, but once the crowds hit.....wow!
We started going to HHN in 2007 but we`ve decided that was our last year going to the event.
We did Howl O Scream this year and LOVED it. Fewer houses, less polished, fewer scare zones and fewer SA....but they made up for it with enthusiasm and downright fun. There were no huge crowds like we saw at HHN this year, and we had a blast.
There are some good things with HHN this year.....Dead Man`s Pier, Halloween and a couple of others. The Dead Coconut Club is a lot of fun, but that shouldn`t have been the highlight of the event and it was one of them for us.
I don`t mean to be a downer, and I`m sure there will be a swathe of folks saying how wonderful it is, and that`s fine, we all see things differently, but for someone who has been a huge long time horror night fan, this year did not live up to the hype. We spoke to so many folks who all think they are selling too many tickets for the event and it needs to be honed in a little, but they won`t as it`s a huge moneymaker of course.
I`ve answered as honestly as I can as you asked a difficult question, and I hope you make the best decision for you.
I know you well - at least as well as you can someone from an online forum - and your feedback is a big help and holds weight - hopefully we will meet some time in Strongwater - I usually there in September same time as you - although I think I may have met Tom in one of my many nights there when he was ordering drinks at the bar - I engage folks at the bar far too often - if you sit next to me at the bar I'm probably going to speak to you or at least try to - especially when there is an Irish or English accent.
I also want to see Lenny again - I'm sure I talk his ear off - but he is a great bartender at Songwater - and the food there is amazing - best in the parks IMO - I am really looking forward to the curry goat and the octopus. Songwater is a big reason I go to Universal and is part of my hotel choices.
I may just scale back to a long weekend - I really want to do SeaWorld - that is so much more fun and adultish like the old HHN.
Last year I did not really enjoy HHN overall - and skipped many nights I could have gone with ROF - but I cut them a lot of slack for last year.