-I really, really like how much this ride takes its time setting things up. I don't mean the queue and preshows, but actually on the ride. I want to say about a quarter of the ride's runtime is build up before Dracula gets loose, and it's a breath of fresh air that harkens back to Spidey's long buildup to the action as opposed to rides like FJ, Transformers and Gringotts which go nearly to 11 shortly after the ride starts. The atmosphere from the moment the RV "takes off" is fantastic with the darkness, loud mechanical creaks, Skull Walls™, Victoria's narration, and the Ygor scene. Then you have Hunchback and Phantom just being a couple of chill guys before the experiment starts and the ride kicks into gear. I'm not sure what to call the room with the Phantom and Victoria AAs, but the scale is outstanding and it's immediately an S-tier dark ride scene for me, like on the level of Indy's main temple room and Rise's AT-AT room. Love the kinetic energy here with the Phantom's fire and the electrical tubes.
-It's crazy how different this feels from FJ despite using the same ride system (albeit with a different way the arm attaches to the vehicle). FJ feels floaty and sometimes graceful, while Monsters is more sudden, forceful and jerkier (in a fun way). Some people might not like it, but being able to see other RVs before Dracula escapes is fair game imo since they've already shown you basically the full RV in the preshow, and seeing one clearly in front of you in their Ygor scene helps to contextualize everything you're about to go through. I dig it.
-The Ygor scene. Why do I love it so much. Why is it so hype. Why is his dumb little flashlight so great. Forget the RV, I would let this guy take control of my life.
-This ride does something really interesting with its screens. Instead of a scene just being a screen and that's it, the RV will often move you in such a way that your POV is following a set of screens where characters are transitioning between them. Think the Wolfman jumping from screen to screen, or Victoria running from one screen to another in the Mummy scene. And these transitions happen FAST. Not as different scenes, but as all part of the same scene. It can make certain ones not feel like your typical screen scene since the same scene can flow through multiple points of interest that the RV guides your view toward as you're moving forward along the ride path. On a similar note, the way the electricity tubes fire up one by one and form a chain as your RV moves by them before the experiment scene really hypes me up lol. Absolute boss execution on this stuff as it's synced very well with the RV's movement.
-That being said, the screens are likely the weakest part of the ride. I'm not against screens in general, but I think it's really hard to pull off seeing a physical AA of a character with limited movement, and then later seeing the same character on a screen doing crazy stuff like Frank grabbing and frying Wolfman with the electrical cable. Rides like Spidey don't have this issue because you only see the characters in one way as projections, so it sticks out more to me on something like Monsters that uses both. Because of this I'd likely say the first third or so of this ride is my favorite due to how everything is consistently portrayed, but the rest is still a great time.
-In both my first run around noon and my last run around 6:30pm, it didn't seem like the ride deteriorated at all - yay? All AAs were still working from what I could tell, including the preshow AAs and finale Drac. Now that I'm going back and reading this thread without feeling guilty, I'm seeing that there's apparently supposed to be a water effect at the first Wolfman AA, though it wasn't working in any of my rides today. Not sure what else wasn't working in terms of smaller sensory effects and such.
-In terms of effects, possibly the biggest room for improvement imo would be the sunbeams in the final third. I don't feel like these are synced or firing off super well to convey what they're trying to. Like when the bride gets cooked it just kind of happens, and then you see a beam off to the side instead of it actually hitting her to start that animation - same with finale Drac. Hopefully these are being fine-tuned.
-There be some curtains in this ride. Hoping they can clean this stuff up slightly as it feels like the ride's environments are like 95% there.
-Which seat you gets seems to matter a decent amount. Maybe I was just looking the wrong way, but on my first ride in the far-right seat (when facing the vehicle) I barely caught Gillman, while all of my other rides in the far-left seat pointed me directly at him. Left seat also feels a bit more intense motion-wise.
-The ride feels long. POVs seem to clock at around a very typical four minutes, but it feels like you super get your money's worth here compared to something like Gringotts. Pacing is great, and again the intro sequence before the Drac escape lets you kinda vibe with the world for a good bit before all hell breaks loose. Though the ending is a bit sudden - maybe a slightly longer ride back to the station and different music would help a bit? Not something they could easily fix, but I also don't see it as being a huge issue.
-More of a question, and pardon me if I'm being dumb, but in the queue we ascend to the second floor of the manor and seemingly stay there until we board the vehicles, but the ride takes place in the catacombs beneath the village? I think the team that built this is too smart to not catch this, so I was just wondering if that feels weird to anyone else.
Likely forgot some stuff but yeah. Four rides was not enough - I need more! Love it.