Crowds were pretty bad, in my opinion. Killer Klowns and Us were 2 hours all night. Stranger Things was 2 hours at the beginning and tapered off in the last couple of hours. Holidayz and Corpses were pretty dead but that was about it. Metro sets had weird waves with Ghostbusters holding decently strong. I did everything except for Stranger Things. It was physically impossible without an earlier entry time and with it closing at 1 AM. It was outrageous that they absolutely did not plan for what would happen without the Terror Tram. Jurassic World is nowhere near enough of a people eater (which also closes 30 minutes earlier than everything else, BTW).
Without getting too much into a review, operations and line management was such trash this year. I watched the line op at Pandora's Box let SIXTY VIP go into the maze and only FIVE regular line, in that increment every time. Killer Klowns was sporting a 15 minute wait when it was CLEARLY reaching back to the Mummy twice and zig-zagging, so obviously it was about 60-90 minutes. I got in right when it changed to 45... waited 70. I know these things happen, but it was insane just HOW MANY FOL people there were. I thought these things were LIMITED? Those lines looked to be at least 15 minutes in themselves, they were HUGE this year at EVERY attraction. It also feels absolutely unpredictable to know where the crowds are going without TT. If you watch the wait times, the upper lot just randomly fluctuates. I have never felt so helpless without a solid game plan lol Around 11 PM, we just had to go "okay, what don't you guys mind missing, because we're going to miss at least 2 mazes." Luckily we only missed one.
Again, without reviewing too much, I feel like the heart and soul of the event is missing without the Tram. Overall, I think the mazes were pretty good (there's 2 that I think are absolute Fs, but I'll get to that later -- and I haven't even seen what's unanimously agreed the worst this year in ST). But I oddly felt like I had nothing else to do. There's one show and that's... it? And it's not even Halloween or horror themed? When can I sit down, even if it's only for 5 minutes? It can't be between mazes because then you're going to miss 2-3 mazes now.
Although the 2 new venues in the Tram area are pretty dang huge as the mazes felt forever. But I would've taken a C- Terror Tram over the two extra mazes when at least 2-3 mazes are just awful or filler/uninspired (or that I at least consider an F). It was just smart operationally to keep it, they just needed to change it up so people weren't so stale with it. And if you're not going to have it, at least compensate by having proper Early Entry times, or don't close at freakin 1 AM on a Saturday night. I imagine a lot will change after this weekend because I know a lot of people were complaining about various aspects of the event, not even so much about the mazes.
From what I gathered, this was some of the Early Entry schedule:
Stranger Things and Creepshow - 6 PM
Ghostbusters and FMTW - 6:30 PM
Apparently, Us, Holidayz and Killer Klownz are also on Early Entry but I was nowhere near those, so I have no idea when they open.
As Guygas said, it's really WEIRD that Murdy/Horror Nights Twitter have been very silent about certain aspects this year, like Early Entry, when usually they're very vocal to help out.