Halloween Horror Nights 34 (UOR) - News & General Discussion

[jarmor]

Just like Epic's paid previews lol.

 

[TheCodeMan95]

Like others have mentioned, the solution is really simply -Lower capacity + raise price.

I like @Jake S ' idea of the tasting pass for food, rather than being a free-for-all.

How many of the normal QS locations were open during Premium Scream?

 

[Speed]

That's the thing, we don't know if it was over sold or if that was the anticipated crowd level for last year as well. Last year, they still had tickets available even on the night of.

I've seen a few people mention they were selling tickets at the front gate this year night of also

 

[Parkscope Joe]

Premium Scream, to me, always felt like a “soft open” for the event itself. The event has ALWAYS needed a night prior to opening to stress test Operations. Team Member preview has always focused on stressing the houses then, on opening night, everything else would suffer. Universal just saw an opportunity to profit from the additional dress rehearsal. It’s not going anywhere.

Maybe go all out then like a regular night. Everyone gets Express, which means if you want to see a house again you have to wait till everyone else gets a chance.

 

[jarmor]

Like others have mentioned, the solution is really simply -Lower capacity + raise price.

I like @Jake S ' idea of the tasting pass for food, rather than being a free-for-all.

How many of the normal QS locations were open during Premium Scream?

Pretty much everything was open. The sweet shop in the front wasn't a part of the food options though but today cafe was.

 

[Chumpieboy]

Ok hear me out. Two weeks before your visit you log onto MyUniversalExperience app to book a return time for each house at 7am.

And at 7:00:27 all spots are gone.

 

[FlattestMatt]

Out of interest - what are the wait times like at IOA during the time period it overlaps with HHN? Is there any notable difference?

(Sorry I'm across the pond and don't stay up late enough to check the live times)

 

[TheCodeMan95]

Out of interest - what are the wait times like at IOA during the time period it overlaps with HHN? Is there any notable difference?

(Sorry I'm across the pond and don't stay up late enough to check the live times)

From my experience, IOA definitely gets a bit busier after USF closes for HHN.

 

[ThemeParks4Life]

Out of interest - what are the wait times like at IOA during the time period it overlaps with HHN? Is there any notable difference?

(Sorry I'm across the pond and don't stay up late enough to check the live times)

I actually popped over the final hour IOA was open on Saturday after doing a few houses. Hulk single rider was a walk on, and I only waited half an hour for Velocicoaster. Hagrid was a 90 min wait at close IIRC.

 

[UniversalRBLX]

The avg. wait (according to Thrill-Data) yesterday was 65 (last year this same Wednesday was only 36 avg. a 80% increase).

Will be interesting to see if that continues throughout the season. If this is the case, week 4 (last RoF week) and October will be unbearable.

 

[coastercody]

Had one of the best surprise experiences that I’ve ever had at HHN. We had gotten in line for the Terrifier last night and after not moving very far for about 30 minutes in what was supposed to be a 90 minute line. I looked in the app to find that it had become 120 minute line with that we got out of line feeling fairly defeated.

Decided that we were going to do Grave of Flesh, and as we were entering the line, there was a RIP tour guide standing there who stopped us from going into line and asked if we wanted a mini RIP tour. Confused, we said yes. He took us to the RIP entrance, gave us the rundown of the house and took us straight to the front of the line. Was a really awesome surprise and delight customer experience touch that I didn’t realize that they did.

Another thing that came up in our group last night was the deathly afraid necklaces. We’ve got a friend in our group that comes with us for the houses, but really can’t enjoy the scare zones. She has bad anxiety and the non-linear nature of them makes them hard for her as she can’t prepare for the scares by watching the walk through and memorizing the houses. This results in her being a sidewalk dweller trying to avoid them and we call her our working girl, but I digress.

There’s a lot of chatter online about these necklaces somehow ruining the event. But we honestly had some of the most fun that we’ve ever had in the scare zones. All of the scare actors were coming up with really fun ways to involve her without actually scaring her.

In the cat scare zone, one of the kid actors at the beginning taunted her like a schoolyard bully with “Scaredy-cat, Scaredy-cat!” We had a chainsaw character stop, rooster their head to the side and give her an are you kidding me with this look. In the toxic 20s zone we had a scare actor come up to her, realize she had the necklace, give her a sarcastic thumbs down and then do a quick about face and walk away.

We had a ton of fun, just waiting for what next funny interaction we would have with the scare actors. So while I understand the knee-jerk reaction to change. I think this is only a benefit to the event.

 

[Lucky Planet]

The avg. wait (according to Thrill-Data) yesterday was 65 (last year this same Wednesday was only 36 avg. a 80% increase).

Will be interesting to see if that continues throughout the season. If this is the case, week 4 (last RoF week) and October will be unbearable.

once rush of fear is over it tends to calm down specially mid week.

 

[Bort]

Had one of the best surprise experiences that I’ve ever had at HHN. We had gotten in line for the Terrifier last night and after not moving very far for about 30 minutes in what was supposed to be a 90 minute line. I looked in the app to find that it had become 120 minute line with that we got out of line feeling fairly defeated.

Decided that we were going to do Grave of Flesh, and as we were entering the line, there was a RIP tour guide standing there who stopped us from going into line and asked if we wanted a mini RIP tour. Confused, we said yes. He took us to the RIP entrance, gave us the rundown of the house and took us straight to the front of the line. Was a really awesome surprise and delight customer experience touch that I didn’t realize that they did.

I’ve seen a couple different people mention RIP Tour Guides going out of their way to do something special for common guests this year.

That’s a great way to leave a positive memory with your guests, while also showing them how beneficial your top tier service can be!

 

[Carah]

I watched a vlogger HHN video a couple of days ago (think it was Tim Tracker? Not sure, I've watched a few different ones since HHN started) and they said that an unmasking tour guide told them that the queue layout / set up for the soundstage houses were going to change as demolition on Rockit progresses...anyone else see this or hear anything about it? I've tried to find the video to see if I heard correctly but can't pinpoint which vlogger and there's a million HHN vlogs out there now lol

 

[hunnylvr]

We made the last minute decision to go to Premium Scream this year. It's been a rough month for us as we had to put our dog to sleep (she had cancer). We had her for 13 years, and it just wrecked us. So, we decided, how about we get out of here and do something different, and this was the choice.

When the start time was approaching, it was storming like crazy - downpours, lots of lightening. We did NOT want to be at the park during that because being soaked and walking miles is miserable. We waited it out at our condo, and showed up around 9:15pm when it finally cleared. When I first walked up to the arches, my mouth just dropped open - there wasn't a soul there. We walked in and were immediately swarmed by scareactors which was FANTASTIC.

The park looked so empty until we got to the first house (El Artista). I saw it said 20 minute wait, so I jumped on it. We ended up waiting almost twice that. The house itself was a stunner, so I thought totally worth that wait, but I kind of had that feeling in the back of my mind that maybe these lines weren't going to be as short as the ticket information claims. And yep, that was the case..

We were crunched for time since we got there so late, so I started picking houses I really wanted to see. After El Artista, we went to Grave of Flesh and waited approx 10 minutes. We got out of that area and grabbed some food - the bourbon glazed wings which were AMAZING. We only waited about 5 minutes to get that food. We wandered through all the scarezones then as that was what I was most hyped to see this year - and they were fantastic! No bumping into anyone, full scareactor interaction in ALL of them. We had a blast in those scarezones. Oh, and the Cat Lady one is absolutely fabulous with how they extended it! These zones are back to what they used to be, for sure! We hit Galkn and waited 20 minutes, and then went to Fallout and waited 40. We did get more food (not waiting more than 5 minutes for our choices), and we hit the Tribute store. That's all we got to see though. Each other house we were interested in had waits of 40 minutes, and I just wasn't going to do it. We spent most of the time in the empty scarezones and played.

Would I pay that price again next year for it? Undetermined - but leaning towards probably not. While it was very cool to walk through every zone and not feel claustrophobic, and it was nice to go through houses with just the two of us (initially), I think it was still too many people. I don't think wait times for "premium" should ever be longer than 20 minutes at the max. They need to correct some things if they want this to be successful going forward.

 

[kristenabelle]

I watched a vlogger HHN video a couple of days ago (think it was Tim Tracker? Not sure, I've watched a few different ones since HHN started) and they said that an unmasking tour guide told them that the queue layout / set up for the soundstage houses were going to change as demolition on Rockit progresses...anyone else see this or hear anything about it? I've tried to find the video to see if I heard correctly but can't pinpoint which vlogger and there's a million HHN vlogs out there now lol

Our UTH guide didn't mention that, but did say they expected construction to last through two HHNs (this year and next year)

 

[Carah]

Our UTH guide didn't mention that, but did say they expected construction to last through two HHNs (this year and next year)

Ah ok cool, maybe that's what the guide meant (i.e. queues will move next year) and it was misinterpreted by the vlogger - assumed there likely wasn't much credence to it as it wasn't mentioned here at all, but deffo piqued my interest!

 

[Circ]

Had one of the best surprise experiences that I’ve ever had at HHN. We had gotten in line for the Terrifier last night and after not moving very far for about 30 minutes in what was supposed to be a 90 minute line. I looked in the app to find that it had become 120 minute line with that we got out of line feeling fairly defeated.

Decided that we were going to do Grave of Flesh, and as we were entering the line, there was a RIP tour guide standing there who stopped us from going into line and asked if we wanted a mini RIP tour. Confused, we said yes. He took us to the RIP entrance, gave us the rundown of the house and took us straight to the front of the line. Was a really awesome surprise and delight customer experience touch that I didn’t realize that they did.

Another thing that came up in our group last night was the deathly afraid necklaces. We’ve got a friend in our group that comes with us for the houses, but really can’t enjoy the scare zones. She has bad anxiety and the non-linear nature of them makes them hard for her as she can’t prepare for the scares by watching the walk through and memorizing the houses. This results in her being a sidewalk dweller trying to avoid them and we call our working girl, but I digress.

There’s a lot of chatter online about these necklaces somehow ruining the event. But we honestly had some of the most fun that we’ve ever had in the scare zones. All of the scare actors were coming up with really fun ways to involve her without actually scaring her.

In the cat scare zone, one of the kid actors at the beginning taunted her like a schoolyard bully with “Scaredy-cat, Scaredy-cat!” We had a chainsaw character stop, rooster their head to the side and give her an are you kidding me with this look. In the toxic 20s zone we had a scare actor come up to her, realize she had the necklace, give her a sarcastic thumbs down and then do a quick about face and walk away.

We had a ton of fun, just waiting for what next funny interaction we would have with the scare actors. So while I understand the knee-jerk reaction to change. I think this is only a benefit to the event.

Thank you a lot for sharing your experiences with the Deathly Afraid necklaces! Not only is this a really neat look into a different perspective, it also allays my fears of if the scare actors would be unable to still interact in the scare zones and it'd basically create a sorta warding space around the necklaces. Sincerely appreciate this post.

 

[kristenabelle]

Ah ok cool, maybe that's what the guide meant (i.e. queues will move next year) and it was misinterpreted by the vlogger - assumed there likely wasn't much credence to it as it wasn't mentioned here at all, but deffo piqued my interest!

Totally interesting seeing all of it come apart/eventually come together!

 

[Lucky Planet]

Thank you a lot for sharing your experiences with the Deathly Afraid necklaces! Not only is this a really neat look into a different perspective, it also allays my fears of if the scare actors would be unable to still interact in the scare zones and it'd basically create a sorta warding space around the necklaces. Sincerely appreciate this post.

Had one of the best surprise experiences that I’ve ever had at HHN. We had gotten in line for the Terrifier last night and after not moving very far for about 30 minutes in what was supposed to be a 90 minute line. I looked in the app to find that it had become 120 minute line with that we got out of line feeling fairly defeated.

Decided that we were going to do Grave of Flesh, and as we were entering the line, there was a RIP tour guide standing there who stopped us from going into line and asked if we wanted a mini RIP tour. Confused, we said yes. He took us to the RIP entrance, gave us the rundown of the house and took us straight to the front of the line. Was a really awesome surprise and delight customer experience touch that I didn’t realize that they did.

Another thing that came up in our group last night was the deathly afraid necklaces. We’ve got a friend in our group that comes with us for the houses, but really can’t enjoy the scare zones. She has bad anxiety and the non-linear nature of them makes them hard for her as she can’t prepare for the scares by watching the walk through and memorizing the houses. This results in her being a sidewalk dweller trying to avoid them and we call our working girl, but I digress.

There’s a lot of chatter online about these necklaces somehow ruining the event. But we honestly had some of the most fun that we’ve ever had in the scare zones. All of the scare actors were coming up with really fun ways to involve her without actually scaring her.

In the cat scare zone, one of the kid actors at the beginning taunted her like a schoolyard bully with “Scaredy-cat, Scaredy-cat!” We had a chainsaw character stop, rooster their head to the side and give her an are you kidding me with this look. In the toxic 20s zone we had a scare actor come up to her, realize she had the necklace, give her a sarcastic thumbs down and then do a quick about face and walk away.

We had a ton of fun, just waiting for what next funny interaction we would have with the scare actors. So while I understand the knee-jerk reaction to change. I think this is only a benefit to the event.

some drama on Twitter and TikTok over the necklace was because some TikTok influencer girl was going up to the scare actors and messing with them while wearing the necklace. being annoying in the zoges with the necklace or something. everyone seems pretty mad about it on the comments.
that's what I noticed, with people being upset about her vid. it keeps being shared, in her vid the actors did what you described.