I went last night. My group arrived early enough at 1:50PM to get a couple rides in and eat the FNAF stuff before the EA line for FNAF opened around 4PM. Was a good call in hindsight since the Studio Cafe looked much more packed once HHN started. My group also rope dropped FNAF as soon as EA lines opened; Also a great call thanks to the prior foresight, since we ended up being the tail end of the first row of people in once fully inside the sound stage. Was great, though I did notice after watching a video that two cast members weren't there; one was a guy that's getting presumably attacked after you pass the kitchen and the Freddy arm through the wall didn't move.
Considering my group had some houses we weren't interested in or outright wanted to skip (Terrifier included), we kind of had a different plan of attack compared to the usual groups. Since we got out quickly, one of us did Jason and Scarecrow while me and another did Mario Kart. Only other houses we did throughout the night were Poltergeist, and then Fallout after. We also saw Purge and Chainsaw Man too. We gave Mario Kart another shot with the full group later, and seeing a 15 minute wait for it was a truly rare sight. Hadn't seen SNW that empty since those makeup passholder previews. However, we didn't stay until closing since my buds felt spent around midnight, so I didn't get to give FNAF another try. Only regret, really. XP
I will say though, HHN is more tolerable than I thought, but my god were those scare actors in the main scare zones aggressive, especially the chainsaw clowns (which I weren't expecting the chainsaws to give off fuel smells and sound as loud as real ones. Wonder how they made those modified chainsaws work) and the hillbilly zombies in the Terror Tram entrance (which I peeked in out of curiosity). While I see that you can dodge them a bit by going into the shops or getting lost in the crowd, makes me glad I got early access, which indeed allowed me to avoid most of them. The crow ones were indeed much more chill, which I appreciate. I only saw Art on the lower lot, but it was a lot more funny seeing him move around. Not to mention that multiple scare actors like the ones in the upper lot are
much scarier than one (Two if you count the times Slash decides to go scare people coming out of JW). Didn't go into Noche De Brujas though.
Overall, I think going forward I'm okay with going as long as there's stuff within my limits, like FNAF/Poltergeist/Fallout and those shows. Since there's no guarantee each year will be the case for me, probably gonna stick with my gold pass. That is unless they start giving you the option between a free FFN ticket or HHN ticket for Platinum though.
Call me crazy for this, but I do wonder if an intensity rating (similar to Knott's for rides) could end up being used for the event's houses and stuff. I know it'd help me at least. XP
After that, I went back up to catch the 10:00 Scare-mony but I had some time to kill so I decided to run through Fallout again since it had a really short wait and then got to do the Scare-mony (which I honestly recommend the 10:00 one because there's a really good chance that the clowns open a pit afterwards since that'sthe time when there'sthe least amount of crowds walking through the area). Afterwards, I ate some of the Fallout food they had at Hollywood and Dine (which was pretty good honestly) and because I took a while eating, it was already almost time for the next Scare-mony so I watched that one as well. Afterwards, I sorta just chilled and people-watched, ran into Murdy, got to walk through Fallout with him, and chilled some more in the scarezones.
From there, I went upstairs to try and make it for the 1:00 AM Scare-mony (which I did) and afterwards got a good spot for the Chainsaw Chaseout. The best spot to stand seems to be right by the Wicked gift shop. While watching the Chase-out, I knew I had to make time for Monstruos since I was still missing it (literally every time I checked, it would say it was like 15 mins, I'd walk into the queue and see almost the entire Minion Mayhem queue in use. It was kind of ridiculous) so I kept checking the time to make sure I didn't miss my little window. At around 1:58 AM, I bolted for Monstruos and still made it with a minute to spare. I walked right in and got to do a solo run-through with the entire cast in there. Absolutely terrifying stuff. And that was my night. All in all, pretty successful stuff!
I didn't know they had multiple scaremonies. Are they hourly? Granted I'd probably only see them from a distance if I had the chance.
If you rope drop FNAF with AP and then EA, you can get on Jason normally pretty easy but do not hit Scarecrow
I saw Art doing just lots of fun thing in parks from chasing a clown who scared me, like the clown come up behind me and Art saw this and made eyes at him and chases him, lolllll
I also saw him ducking in the store and surprising people and the TMs working the store seemed to love this
1. Just to avoid confusion, is that implying an AP can be used as a 2PM Combo ticket if you buy Early Access? Pretty sure the site says APs don't work for HHN admission.
2. Damn, I would have loved to see that. The mental image of a scary character seeing Art as a bigger threat sounds hilarious.
3. Which store? Upper lot I presume?