Halloween Horror Nights!

Last year, Kara and I had a great time at Halloween Horror Nights: 30 Years of Fear.  In preparation for this year, I looked for last year's blog to see if I had written anything that would help us successfully plan our day. Imagine my surprise when my search came up blank. Apparently, I didn't even mention it. That doesn't really seem like me, but maybe I don't know myself as well as I thought I did?

Anyway, our annual passes give us one free ticket to the event. Kara and I both really like this type of thing. No one else in our family does. It is odd, because I don't like scary movies or books, but I love me a haunted house! Kara complains that she doesn't know if she likes scary movies, because I won't let her watch any. But, at least she knows she loves a good Halloween event. 

We went on Sunday night. I was hoping a Sunday would mean lower crowds, but it was one of their more packed nights. Probably due to the fact that it was the first night in (seemingly) weeks that wasn't plagued with thunderstorms. We got to the park around 2:45 and rode the Mummy. Then, we basically just waited for the holding area to open. We managed to be first in line at our holding area (they have several around the park)! This was very exciting for us. Being in line so early meant lots of waiting, but we talked and played games and time went by quickly.

No one in front of us! 

Our first house, one of the event's most popular, was based on the movie Halloween and it was really fantastic: amazing set designs and some really cool elements. Our goal for the night was all 10 houses and 5 scare zones, plus a couple of snack breaks. They have two shows, but one was the same as last year and we didn't want to waste the time seeing it and the other we just missed (I could never find the show times). We had planned out the first four houses, but lines quickly started to build. So, we did a small pivot to try and chase some lower wait times as the park got more crowded. We were fairly successful. We did wait in a few long lines, but we chatted and made the best of most of the waits. The only frustrating one was Bugs: Eaten Alive which had a posted time of 45, but took 66 and we just crawled so slowly toward the front that it felt even longer. I was bitter about all the Express pass people who got to skip the line. I even texted Thomas wondering why I bothered with law school if it doesn't mean I can randomly buy express passes to save myself and my daughter from waiting in long lines at Halloween Horror Nights? Thomas reminded me I work for the Government. Then, Kara reminded me of my cruise habit and I decided to be more positive. If you are wondering, Express passes were $130. Each. Plus tax. 

Last year, Kara's favorite house was "Puppet Theater" which was in the same place as this year's "Descendant's of Destruction"

We did all 10 houses. My favorites were Halloween and Dead Man's Pier Winter Wake, which was absolutely stunning. Whoever designed that house is a visual genius.

I found this picture online. This is the first scene in Dead's Man's Pier. 

We got pretty tired as the night went on. Around 1130, we still had two houses left. One was The Weeknd (based on the performing artist) and it had a posted wait of 120 minutes! The other only said 50, so we did that one first and ended up waiting 33. We decided we would hope for the best and get in the line for The Weeknd, even if we ended up waiting 2 hours. When we got there, we were excited to see that the time had shortened to 95 minutes. Guess how long we ended up waiting... Wrong! 17 minutes! It was such a pleasant surprise to end the night. They changed the time to 35 right after we got in line and then we only waited half of that. We finished that one around 1245. We had outlasted most of the crowds, and briefly considered doing Dead Man's Pier again, but we were t.i.r.e.d. And, as Kara reminded me, she had school the next day (fortunately, her school doesn't start until 9:30, there is no way Jack or Anna with their 6:15 bus pickup time could have managed).

Last house of the night!

We had done what we set out to do--all 10 houses in one night. We felt very accomplished. Both Kara and I were sore and tired. I was trying to figure out why we would be sore. We walked around 17000 steps, which is a lot, but not unusual for people who spend a lot of time at theme parks without getting sore. I am guessing it is because of all the standing. We only sat twice in about 8.5 hours and that was to eat our snacks. Speaking of which, we had a brisket crepe, which we had tried for the first time at HHN30, and the chicken "offals." We liked both. We had also brought a few things in with us.

The "Offals" were really good. Sweet and spicy.

In conclusion, I liked almost every house. They all (except 1) had something interesting or fun about them. Kara and I rated each of them right after leaving the house on a scale of 1-10. Here are Kara's rankings (screen shots from Kara's phone, she kept track all night): 

Kara's rankings

My rankings weren't as descriptive, so I will just list them in my order of most to least favorite: Dead Man's Wharf; Halloween; Legend's Collide; Weeknd; Blumhouse; Chupacabra; Descendants; Hellblock; Bugs; Coven. 

And now, the rest of the pictures:

They change out the scareactors every 45 minutes or so and they all wear these long capes to hide their costumes and makeup.

From one of the scare zones.

As we were leaving, I commented to Kara that we never saw the Pumpkin King. Then, there he was.

And now, I have it all written down to help with planning in 2023!