I thought there’d be a few posts here.
I went this past weekend, it was a great time! The crowds were nowhere near HHN heavy, and the line estimates were generally exaggerated; 20 minutes posted on a few houses were pretty much walk-ons, and the two longest waits had times posted at 45 minutes and 60 minutes were closer to 15 minutes and 30 minutes respectively.
While I'm aware almost all the houses aren’t new this year, I hadn’t in several years so it was all new to me.
In order from least to most liked:
- Raven’s Mill—Simple barn/farm theming and approach, very WYSIWYG. A ton of chainsaws usage in this house that felt almost over the top, and overall nothing too surprising in this house. Something small I really enjoyed about this one is the scare actor near the entrance pulling off his face to reveal a skull underneath; simple but very effective.
- Circus of Fear—Fantastic energy in this house with a lot of things to look at. Cast in here appeared to be having a lot of fun and that classic carny atmosphere. Some of the scares that got me the most were the ones were the actors were sitting still for so long you almost forget they were there, and then they moved.
- Shadows of Wonderland—Seemed like one of the longer houses with a lot to look at. I like the idea of the residents of Wonderland growing bitter without Alice around as things for worse for them and I wish this angle was played out more. The characters were very in-your-face throughout the house as they were in Raven’s Mill. A darker, twisted version of Wonderland where hopelessness reigns would make a great movie.
- Stranglewood Estate—Loved the misdirects in this house. Similar to El Artista at HHN this takes place in a manor but one that is much more worn down and darker in colour. As a fan of Artista, I also really liked this house as well and the set design was enjoyable all the way through. The only issue I had was that it felt like there was a section with no scare actors for too long, but I can’t say if it was temporary or intentional.
- M.A.R.S.—Absolutely loved this one. Great sci-fi heavy house with major The Thing and Alien vibes mixed in. A few unique scares not in the other houses, and overall a fun house to do. Afterwards I realized it was the kind of thing missing from HHN this year to round out the experience there. The set design and concepts brought out in them was fantastic. The queue was the least enjoyable part of waiting for this house due to the single-person setup you’re forced to walk through that simultaneously brings to too close to guests on either side almost to the point of claustrophobic. This was the house with the longest wait, but it was only 30 minutes in actuality.
The scare zones were all very well done, and had the upper hand over HHN’s scare zones this year. The cast was energetic and interactive, and looked like they were having fun doing their thing. For all the talk of what the scare zones are missing at HHN nowadays some of that gap was filled in by what you’d find at HoS.
Overall it was a great event night! Where they lacked in Universal's larger set design budget was made up for in other ways, some of which was reminiscent of HHN days of old. The use of mirror tricks got me more times than I’d like to admit here, a few which were cleverly done so kudos to the design team for their work. When it comes to HoS versus HHN, less is more goes a long way for Busch Gardens.