HHN Chaos and (No) Lightning Lane Control

Transcript

Speaker: Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Thrills, Chills, and Spills, where we spill the tea on all things theme parks, special events, and a especially spooky season. And we are so excited to be here. We have a couple of big episodes coming to you guys. We have finally experienced HHN 2026 on both coasts. So we have all the details on that coming in this episode and the next, plus some other fun things we've done. I am Kelly.

Speaker: I'm Tyler. And I'm Rafa. And as always, we will start with some spills. Tyler, what do you got? So we were at Walt Disney World, excuse me, which we will talk about in a second. But we saw the amazing Happily Ever After fireworks end of the night show.

Speaker: And it was a very busy day. So people are like lining up for at least 15 minutes, half an hour to get a good spot. And we're watching the show and this family behind us will just not shut up the entire time.

Speaker: They're like, First of all, the family's like 15 people. They're talking, they're screaming, they're yelling, they're taking pictures with full flash on. And it is so obnoxious. Like people plan their entire day at Magic Kingdom around this show.

Speaker: And you guys obviously are here too, like spending your time doing it. Why don't you just shut up and watch the show? I don't understand. And you're bothering everybody else. Truth.

Speaker: And like, I can handle like singing along to the show. Like some people obnoxiously sing, but it's like, I get it. I kind of want to sing too. I don't do it because like the people singing the songs have better voices than I do singing the songs. And I recognize that, but like, I get that. But yes, they're like incessant talking about who knows what, nothing to do with the show, just full fledged conversation and and encroaching on the little two by two foot square that Tyler and I have claimed for ourselves and It's like, can you guys move and be quiet? Yeah, the singing's fine. Like, singa along to the songs. That's great. But, like, you're just talking over the music. They're literally raising their voices so that they can hear each other over the songs, talking about something not even related.

Speaker: So obnoxious. Yeah, I mean, and one of the many reasons why Magic Kingdom is probably my least favorite park, and it's not because of the park itself. The park is fine, but like I just feel like the people can be so over the top and so obnoxious, and it's just too many personalities in one place.

Speaker: Yeah, that's true. Although I still love it. No, it's a great park, but it's like, it's just a lot. Like the personalities, everybody that's there, everyone thinking it's their own space. It's just a little much sometimes. Yeah.

Speaker: especially when every single person is on main street. one yeah But yeah, it was still super fun, but I agree. That was very obnoxious. I am going to complain as well. um I think that I have a huge appreciation for all of our friends that are runners that live in Florida and,

Speaker: Let me preface this by saying I became a runner in the state of Florida when I lived there for two years in Tampa. I don't know why i thought that was a good time to pick up running, but I guess I didn't know any better because that's how I started running for two years. And then when I came home, I was like, oh, my gosh, I can like breathe. It's like not as humid. I can like run faster.

Speaker: Um, when I was down earlier in June, it was very hot in Florida, but I still tried to run during my vacation. And I don't know if my brain forgot about that feeling in the past two and a half months, but I decided to try to run outside. And the worst part of it was it was at 10 in the morning. So it was already hot because I slept in and I truly thought that I was going have to SOS Tyler to come pick me up in the car. Like I I was so hot. I crawled, literally crawled up a retaining wall into a Wawa parking lot to go inside for the air conditioning and and a drink of water during my run.

Speaker: And people saw me and were concerned. Like they were moving out of my way. Oh my gosh. it was The humidity is wild. The humidity is wild during this time. like I truly can't handle heat.

Speaker: Yeah, in September, it's it's really bad. That's why I don't even dare. I mean, I'm not a runner to begin with, but like when I do decide to run at times, like it's definitely not like between July and like early October. like The humidity is just wild.

Speaker: Yeah, and I don't know why I forgot about this, but like here in Pennsylvania, it's starting to, I mean, it's still pretty hot, but it's starting to drop temperatures at least early in the morning. So in my head, I'm like, it's September. It's going to be better. It was not bad. Oh no, it's like the worst right now. It's awful. It's really, really bad.

Speaker: Shouts and props to all you people running down there in the hot, muggy state of Florida and elsewhere that's hot. I cannot wait to run in the cold here. oh All right.

Speaker: Do you have any, did you come up with any spills, Rafa? um Nothing that I could think of. I mean, okay, well, one thing that was kind of cool, which is not related to what we're going to recap later on, but um I went with our good friend Dex to a concert, to a J. Cole concert in l LA ah while we were over there. And um something that I thought was really weird, I've never seen it before. I don't know if you guys have, but at the arena that we went to, like before you get there, you have to do this whole like app signup thing. So, like, you have to, like, take a picture of yourself, like, for like, an ID thing, and then put your card info, all that stuff, and it's connected to your tickets, all of that.

Speaker: That's fine. But then once you get there, once you get to the entry, like, you just stand by the gate, and the little camera checks your face and then lets you in. And it is so weird. I was like, what?

Speaker: futuristic shit is this right now? Like that is crazy. And then what's even crazier is that like, we were like, Oh, we got to grab something to eat. So we go into the little, like the little concessions, but it's like, it's more like grab and go. It's not really like a whole concession stand or anything like that. you just go, but you go in, it lets you in because it reads your face. And then when you step out, like you just step out like normal, it feels like you're stealing the food and the drinks or whatever you're getting.

Speaker: yeah, Later on, you check your bank and you've been charged for whatever you bought. And it is the weirdest thing ever. I was like, I've never seen this before. and we have some pretty techie like arenas down here in Miami. But that was just next level. i was like, what the hell is this?

Speaker: Really, really weird. But yeah, nothing negative. Just something very, very, I guess, impressive. That's crazy. And they probably still ask you for a tip too when you check out.

Speaker: and No, no, no, no. You just, i would have thought I truly would have thought that. That's why i was like, I kept stopping when I would see a, like an employee there. Cause I'm like, okay, I'm going to have to sign something like a receipt or something. Nope. They're like, just walk right out. And then I get in a little alert and an email saying, Hey, you've spent this much at this little concession stand.

Speaker: Really weird. Very cool. really It's really cool though. Awesome. Yeah, we will move on to our thrills for this week. um We are going to be spending this episode talking about um mine and Tyler's weekend in Florida. And then the following episode, I'm not really sure when these will be released. So the one after this will be Joey and Rafa's trip to California. So stay tuned for that. But today we will start by talking about our four parks in one day extravaganza Disney World.

Speaker: And Joey's not here, by the way, in case you didn't notice. We'll be back next episode. Yes. So all of the smart discussion will be left to that episode. Yes.

Speaker: So we went to Walt Disney World and Kelly has a pass. I do not. So of course that meant we had to do four park challenge at Walt Disney World.

Speaker: So I'm so going to forget important stuff, Kelly. So just jump in whenever there's something that I'm missing. um Alarm went off 530, I for you I,

Speaker: Then I woke up when I heard you in the bathroom, I'm pretty sure. Sorry. 15 minutes later. So yeah, 5.30 wake up for heading to Animal Kingdom. This is after a night of HHN. After three nights of HHN, actually. Yeah, three nights in a row. So it was a little bit rough to hear that alarm. But um early entry Animal Kingdom was 7.30. And do you think it was busy at that time?

Speaker: No, it seemed pretty normal at that point. It seemed pretty busy to me, but I haven't been to a disney park or a Walt Disney World Park in four years. So it seemed crazy busy. But um got into the park a little bit but before 7.30, headed straight to Flight of Passage.

Speaker: To me, the line seemed like 45 minutes an hour. There was just an unending line of people that was just absolutely insane. And Kelly's like, no, it was like 20 minutes.

Speaker: And yeah, it was like 15 minutes. We pretty much walked right through. It was ridiculous. Just it always such a large capacity ride. Yeah. I mean, Walt Disney World just does that so well. Cue management and line management and just large capacity on their rides.

Speaker: Flight Passage good as always. I think it needs an update on their screen technology, a little blurry and spots. And it just it doesn't hold up like it used to, in my opinion, but still an amazing ride.

Speaker: Went to Everest. I absolutely hate that ride. I was like three seconds from throwing up in the backwards part. What? why Anything with backwards positives, I do not do well.

Speaker: I just I can't do it. It makes me instantly nauseous. Maybe because of the darkness, it doesn't get me that much. But, like, for me, look what really messes me up is, like, the little, like, um the family Vekomas.

Speaker: Like, those mess me up. But, surprisingly, Everest doesn't. So, that's that's interesting to hear. yeah I mean, that explains why I hate boomerangs, too. So, um let's see. Then we went to...

Speaker: The safari. Oh, but at this point, we realize this is going to be a very busy day. Lines were getting so long. um Luckily, Kelly planned ahead lightning lanes and stuff, so that was very helpful.

Speaker: um But yeah, lines were getting very long. Pathways were crowded. But the safari was outside of the queue for the standby line. which was insane. Thank God. But once you start using your lightning lanes, you can book other lightning lanes. And when I did the four park challenge before, which was literally like the day after Christmas on a Saturday, I thought it was extra busy. Then i was still able to like get lightning lanes for the next park. When I tried to get lightning lanes for our second and third park, there was literally nothing available. So I had to back up for like nighttime. There was just like, I was like, we're going standing in lines, I guess, because it was just so busy.

Speaker: It wild. Yeah. So vibes were not too high for me at this point, to be completely honest. I felt bad from Everest, and then it was just going to obviously be a very busy day. And then we got on the safari, and our guide was not very good on the safari.

Speaker: He just he barely spoke, and then he was, like, breathing so heavily into the mic. So it's, like, quiet, but you just hear his breathing, like... It's like...

Speaker: it was This man was snoring while awake. Yeah. well hes Very awkward. but I saw the lions. I don't think I've ever seen the lions awake before, actually. i don't know if that's rare or not. They're always sleeping for me.

Speaker: Yeah, I've seen them awake, but just like sitting. This one, the male lion like stood up and stretched and like walked around a little. It was exciting. oh um Otherwise, pretty quiet on the savannah, I think.

Speaker: um Yeah, the little draths. Yeah. The baby elephants. Is that about all we did at Animal Kingdom? We had breakfast. Yeah, breakfast. That's fine. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. We 7.15 about 10.45. Yeah.

Speaker: So it took a while to do those three rides. We did Navi River Journey before Everest. Oh, yeah. We did do Navi River Journey. After Flight of Passage, we walked onto that. Yeah. Oh, nice. Yeah. So four things in like three and a half hours. Yeah.

Speaker: Then we headed over to Disney's Hollywood Studios. um When we got there, we kind of had a little plan going and that did not work because Tower of Terror was like, what was it, 90 minutes standby when we got in the park?

Speaker: Yeah. Absolutely crazy. So we went to the new Rock and Roller Coaster with Muppets, which I had not done yet, and did single rider. We waited about an hour or so.

Speaker: It was fine. i mean I didn't feel a big change in the ride to be completely honest, but don't It's fine. Pre-show is cute.

Speaker: Probably not worth an hour wait if I went back. um What we do next? We did Tower of Terror because it dropped to like 45 minutes. oh yeah. It finally dropped to like 45. And I think that was pretty accurate.

Speaker: Yeah. Got a decent cycle on there. Went over to Galaxy's Edge next. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then ah we were actually about to possibly leave just because it was so crazy busy. But I was like, I'm paying a lot of money for this park hopper. I just want to see Galaxy's Edge for the day and take it in a little bit.

Speaker: And then I learned, I don't know if you guys knew, but there's single rider for Rise. Sometimes. Oh, I didn't know that. was Yeah. The guy was holding the sign for it. It's like around the corner. It's kind of hidden.

Speaker: um You probably need to be pointed in that direction if you aren't aware of it. But yeah. You said it moved pretty quick. We did that. took about, i don't know, 30 minutes or so.

Speaker: Yeah. um But you do miss like two of the pre-shows, I believe. Yeah, you don't get the Rey pre-show like thing um right in the first part of the queue, and you don't get the transport ship. You enter to the room of stormtroopers, for those who familiar. And you just get awkwardly like brought past all of the stormtroopers, and then you wait more, and then they kind of sort you into lines there.

Speaker: um Yeah, I love that ride. It's still one of the best dark rides in the world. I hope they fix everything and keep everything working. But even without it, I will love it so much.

Speaker: And then i think at that point we headed out, right? okay Got some bad frozen lemonade. Yeah. And then headed out. We took the Skyliner over to Epcot.

Speaker: That was my first time on the Skyliner. I didn't realize it was so long. i would For some reason, I was expecting like the Skyride at like Bush Gardens or any other parks that have those where it's like three or four minutes. But it's like a good 15 minutes with a full transfer in it.

Speaker: Have you ridden it, Rafa? No, I haven't done it. i didn't i would have thought it were quick too. I had no idea that it took that long. Yeah, it's so long. And it's like a giant um vehicle also.

Speaker: yeah They look really neat. They're really cute. when you see them like passing by, they look really nice, but I've never been on them. Yeah. And they're really fast. So for them to take 15 minutes, I was surprised. All right. Got into Epcot and it was food and wine.

Speaker: So we did try some food and wine items. um Kelly, do you have the names of them written down?

Speaker: walk around and see what caught our eyes so we started in world showcase and we were just stopping at the various booths and although things sounded decent the lines were so insane i've never seen anything like that at food and wine or at Flower and Garden, like it was switchbacks and switchbacks of people. I was like, oh my God. And then we saw, we looked up and saw that the sky was getting, it's, you know, three o'clock PM darkness rolling in. I was like, damn, we got to pick something fast. So we saw stuff at the Belgium booth and got in that line. And we got some sort of like,

Speaker: beef It was just like a beef and mashed potato thing. And then we got, what was the dessert? It was so good. It was a Belgian waffle with like cookie butter and Oreo, something like that. yeah Absolutely incredible.

Speaker: Of course, the tarantula downpour starts as we are paying for the food and holding it in our hands like this. and the little and And nowhere in sight does there seem to be any place for us to run under. So we're literally likelinting sprinting through World Showcase. We get into Morocco. I'm like, there's a roof. We go under it. It's like ah like a thatched roof.

Speaker: It's not open. Oh, no. So we're just like standing there with our food and run some more and finally duck under this alleyway where we're like eating our food that is drenched in water. It was still good.

Speaker: The waffle was a little soggy, but. It was soggy. Was it the or because it was soggy? We got, no, because of the rain, we got real bad in those. It was like only heavy rain for a couple of minutes, but it happened to be while we were holding our food. Yeah. As soon as we got to the shelter, it stopped raining pretty much.

Speaker: Okay. Anyways. What

Speaker: was our next food? i don't remember. We... i don't think we had... I guess at this point we went to Guardians, right? Yeah. Yeah, we had a Lightning Lane for Guardians.

Speaker: That was posted at like 120 or something like that. Just crazy high standby, so... Glad we had the lightning lane for that. Kelly did not get the one song that she needs again. got Iran, which I'm pretty sure the first time I had September, but that was only my second time riding it. Actually, that ride is so good. I love it. It's just so smooth. Kelly, I need to ride with you because I'm telling you, I get it every freaking time. Every time I get. I will take any luck that anyone has to offer. We're going watch. We're going write together and it's going to be like, I ran it. And it's going to be like, what? I only get I ran now.

Speaker: that Which is hilarious because that's Amelia's solo song for her competition solo this year. It's a different version than the one on the ride, but I keep getting it and she's like, it's good luck. And my mom's like, it's a good omen. I'm like, yeah, yeah. but like It's haunting you. Rafa, she was even telling me like, I think you're a good luck charm. We're going to get it. Like but I can feel it. I can just feel it in the air right now. I'm getting Kong.

Speaker: Nope. That's so bad. But that ride is amazing. It's got to be one of the best family coasters in the world, honestly. 100%. Yeah, it's it's incredible.

Speaker: um Let's see. After that, we went to... You did Moana, Journey of Water. Yeah, we went over to Moana. I hadn't done that. That was cute. Little walkthrough attraction.

Speaker: i was standing up there with the little kids bending the water with my hands. It was good. i really i really like that little area. it's It's really cute. It's very well done. And then we did one of the best rides in the park, Living with the Land. e Hell yeah.

Speaker: Straight up. Yeah. Such a classic. I will be very sad when they take something out. No, it nope it won't go. No, no, no. It'll have to eventually. i mean, honestly, that building feels so outdated.

Speaker: It's kind of like the back rooms, the entire building. So they're going to have to do something major with it, I think, in the next, I don't know, 10 years. It's just, it's not great. But I love the ride.

Speaker: um Anything else we did there? We got some more food. We got a... um Yeah. It was a chocolate bread pudding. It was like from the smoked whatever.

Speaker: Yeah. Smoked something booth. Chocolate bread pudding. And what was it like pork or something? think it was. Yeah, I think it was. No, it was. ah It was corned beef.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was smoked corned beef. And then the smoked chocolate. Yeah, smoked corned beef nachos. It was on like, um like homemade potato chips.

Speaker: With cheese and stuff. It was really good. Everything we had at Food and Wine was delicious. Yeah, it was really good. And like very well priced. Like yeah compared to HHN food, the portions were appropriate and well priced. And not to hate on HHN food, like I really enjoyed everything we ate and we'll talk about it. But it felt like a lot of the portion sizes were the same as last year, but the price went up.

Speaker: Yeah, I think that's my biggest thing. Like with with food and wine, like even like the only thing I don't like about food and wine is that because it's food and wine, so many people go. But I mean, their prices are pretty like reasonable, like for what you're getting, like but like you'll get like it's all across the board. You're going to pay for a very similar portion and it's not something like ridiculously expensive. Whereas like you go to HHN and then you have like the tiniest little thing for like who knows how much, like way more than what you probably should be paying for it.

Speaker: Yeah. Agreed. think that's all for Epcot, right? Yeah. I think that's all we did. Yeah. we stopped in the shop. We just kind of walked around a little bit. Yeah. So then we took the monorail over to magic kingdom and that's when we really started to pick up the pace a little bit and get some attractions done.

Speaker: Cause all the lightning lanes were stacked from 10 in the morning. Yeah. So we went to Tron first, which we had a lightning lane. I don't really have much to say about Tron. Honestly, it's, it's kind of just there. It's fine. The launch is good. I will say that, um, space mountain.

Speaker: Every time I ride space mountain, I'm just blown away that this coaster is 50 years old. Like I cannot imagine riding this in the seventies or eighties or whatever. And just, I'm blown away by it now. I can't even imagine then like that had to be just the absolute feat of roller coasters. Yeah.

Speaker: And we were on the janky but good side, Kelly. Is that what you call it? Yeah, Omega. Yeah. I need to see if I count that as two creds. I don't know if I did.

Speaker: Oh, boy. We'll check later. um Was Tiana's next? I think it was. no you're missing you're missing the goat. Oh, yeah. We went on the people mover.

Speaker: Perfect timing. There was like... a sunset, like pink purple sky right after the rain and the storm. And it was just incredible to be on the people mover and look out and see that on the other side of the castle.

Speaker: i love that ride. I hope that ride never goes away. Stop saying that about all my favorite rides. I'm just being realistic. like you're jining it No, I'm just being realistic.

Speaker: Yes. Then we did Tia. No, then we had the famous spring rolls. Oh, yeah. Cheeseburger ones. Oh, yeah. They're so good. I've been hearing about those spring rolls for probably a decade, honestly, and I've never had them.

Speaker: And they were good. I mean, they're not that special, but they're delicious. So good. Yeah. They're really good. Okay. Then we went to Tiana's. Yeah. That was my first time riding it.

Speaker: I mean, it's good. I just, I don't know how well the story fits. Like, I feel like the drop on Splash Mountain, you knew why you were dropping, like you were dropping into the lair or whatever, but there's no like reason to drop on Tiana's unless I just missed it in the storyline.

Speaker: Still a very good ride. The animatronics were great. It was very cute. It just doesn't, the plot doesn't flow as well for me anymore. I haven't done the one here yet.

Speaker: I really enjoy it. I mean, I like the movie a lot. And I'm just like in the age where my kids like watched those movies. So I really like it. You know, i just watched that movie for the first time like a month ago. Isn't it so good? it i have been obsessed since it since I watched it It is so good. and the music is so good. I don't think people talk about the music. Yeah, it's so good.

Speaker: Yeah. Still good. I loved it. And then there's like some creepiness. Like the villain is creepy. Yeah. It's really good. I really like it. Tyler, attitude was fun. Yeah. I haven't seen it. and I want to now after writing though.

Speaker: You loved the final scene. Which one? Like when you, after the drop, when you pull in at the very end and it's like the big party scene. Oh yeah. That was incredible. I loved it. Yeah. You were like, whoa. Yeah. That was very impressive. Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah. Oh, then we went to pirate pirates, I think. Yep. Yeah. yeah The pirates scene when you're, um when they're firing the cannonballs back and forth from the ships, that's one of the greatest set pieces in any theme park in the world.

Speaker: Just for it to be so immersive is incredible. I'll be sad when they take it out. Yeah. Sorry. I had to throw that in there. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker: We didn't get to ride Pirates in Paris, which is supposed to be really good because it was down for like refurbishment, which was a huge bummer. So at least we rode Pirates at Disney. Yep. Love that ride. I could ride it over and over. Yeah, it's very good.

Speaker: And then I think at this point we just hustled out to Main Street, right? Yep. Yeah. Hustled out to Happily Ever After. Got a spot on Main Street.

Speaker: And yeah, I mean, that's one of the best fireworks, like finale, end of the night shows that exist. It's definitely... Highlight of of the day, honestly.

Speaker: Yeah, it's been a highlight every time I've seen it. Well, like all three times I've seen it, but yeah, I really enjoy it. And we were worried because it was raining and storming that they weren't going to be able to do it because they had to cancel the parade like an hour before.

Speaker: so We were like, oh my gosh, if they cancel that play ever after yeah after this whole day. But for how busy it was, we were successful. We rode multiple attractions at every park. We took all of the different transportations. We ate stuff at every park. So I think we were still successful, even though we could have definitely like done more attractions if it was a less busy day. Yeah, I was going to say, it was Labor Day weekend. so yeah There's definitely things I would have liked to do, but I think overall was a success.

Speaker: Yeah. And I failed on my last four part challenge. I only made it to three, but that time I think I tried to ride too much. So you gotta to like prioritize whatever you actually want to do. Yeah.

Speaker: Which I got done. I think everything that I wanted, like all the new things I was able to do, which was great. Yeah. And we got a little bit of Disney magic. We stayed on site that night because I wanted to reap the benefits of early entry. And so I booked a room at Coronado Springs, which I love that resort. And we got there and we're like sneaking around trying to find our room to like go in like the, we didn't like check, you can check it on your phone and do the direct door entry, whatever. We get to what should be our room and there's no number at the door. And I'm like looking in through the window and I see a room and I'm like, that's so weird. Like, why is there no room number? So we keep walking, we come to the next door and it has our room number on it. And I look in and it's a full effing suite, baby. We got upgraded to a dining room, kitchen, living room, double bathroom, giant. What? I was like, this never has happened to me. And I've been to Disney World like 30 something times. That's incredible. course, we were there for like literally eight hours to sleep.

Speaker: But we could have we could have had a full party in there. We could have done cartwheels in there. It was huge Yeah. We could have had a 30 person party in that room and it still would have felt fine. So.

Speaker: It was only if you guys had like more nights there. It's like, I know I was like been like, amazing. I feel like that's why we got it is because that's what they had. And it was just one night. So it's like, here you go. but Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah. That was a bummer that we didn't get to enjoy it, but it was cool to come upon it and open the door. I was like, what the heck? I want to look up how much that room actually costs. I'll do that. I'm sure it's a lot. Yeah. Yeah. yeah Yeah. And I looked actually on on the app and it said suite next to it. I was like, does that sound? It wasn't that like on the top of anything, but that's Stanford like penthouse suite. Like, what does that stand for? How did I get this?

Speaker: but they sent me ah They sent me a survey today that I absolutely completed because I felt like I had to. Hell yeah. Yeah. But that was fun. That was our Disney day. i thought we would add something fun that Tyler and I thought of to this segment and each list our top 10 Walt Disney World attractions. And Rafa, you made a list too, right? I did. i did. And it was very hard. it is so hard. It is hard.

Speaker: got to see where I put my list. I put it somewhere. if one of you guys wants to go first, just from 10 to one. Just read it out. I think so. Okay. Rafa, you want to go first?

Speaker: Yeah. um Oh my God. See, but even this- Or do we want to go around 10 to 1? Do we want to just go round table? Because we're going go around, like, so each of us say our 10s, 9s, Sure. Yeah, we can do it that way.

Speaker: All right. That's more fun. Okay, so for honorable mention- Not a ride, but I love doing the the animation things, like the animation classes. Yeah, that's cute.

Speaker: Those are so much fun. ive We try to do them every single time I go to a Disney park. It's a blast. But for number 10, I actually put living with the land. Hell yeah. i have I have Haunted Mansion at 10.

Speaker: I have Remy's. I forgot to put Haunted Mansion on here. It's so hard. Whatever, whatever. This isn't even like this will be different by tomorrow, so it's totally fine. Okay, so number nine, I have Space Mountain.

Speaker: Solid. I have Tiana's. Number nine, i have Living with the Land. Number eight, I have Tyler's Favorite, Expedition Everest. I have number eight, Living with the Land.

Speaker: i have Flight of Passage. All right, number seven, I have Flight of Passage. I also have Flight of Fantasy. My number seven is Space Mountain. All right. Number six, I have Toy Story Mania.

Speaker: That's a good one that I didn't include. I have Expedition Everest at my sixth spot. My number six is Tiana's. so Okay. Number five, I have the Kilimanjaro Safari.

Speaker: Good one. I have at number five, People Mover. and my number five is Guardians. All right, number four, I have Big Thunder Mountain.

Speaker: I have Space Mountain. Tower of Terror. Tyler, Guardians and Tower of Terror are extremely low. What is happening? They are. Okay, whatever. Where are we? Number three? ah Yeah, we're on three now. Okay, number three, I have Rise of the Resistance. Me too.

Speaker: My three is People Movers. Hell yeah. I respect it. All right, number two I have Guardians of the Galaxy. Same. Dang.

Speaker: my number two and top My number two is Pirates of the Caribbean. Okay. All right, and number one, Tower of Terror. Hell yeah, me too. Same top three.

Speaker: My number one is Rise of the Resistance. Never seen Star Wars in my life. The ride is just that good. the rise yeah The ride is incredible. It's incredible. And like, it was kind of hard, but like, i was like thinking about like okay, like if I had, I knew those were my top three, I'm like, which ones, like, which one would I run to like, and just do over and over and over again. I was like, Tower of Terror is always that for me.

Speaker: Yep. Same. It's just so good. Yeah. It's just so nostalgic, spooky, thrilling, just everything I love. ah Yes. It is. So it's such a good one. And I can't wait to compare it to Guardians tomorrow or when we record next. Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah. All right. Well, that is wrapping up our thrill section for Orlando. i'm very excited. This is one of my favorite episodes to record because we have experienced HHN 35. Unfortunately, all of us were not together. You've heard us talk about this enough times now. we We split the coast this year. So Tyler and I were in Orlando and then Joey and Rafa were in Hollywood, and they'll talk about that in our next episode.

Speaker: um We spent three nights at HHN Thursday, Friday, and Saturday of this past weekend. And I thought we would start by just kind of giving our thoughts on the overall experience and vibe.

Speaker: What did you think, Tyler? I don't think it's too different than last year. i do feel like crowd levels are Okay, wait times are down, which to me makes it feel like crowd levels might be down as well.

Speaker: Or I don't know if maybe the no frequent fear express actually had that big of a difference. I don't know. But it just feels a little bit less crowded in the streets. The queues are a little less crowded.

Speaker: um i do think that... minus one scare zone. They were at least as enjoyable and immersive as last year.

Speaker: And I'm comparing a lot to last year because I think last year was the first year that I went like a hundred percent full all in with like five plus days at the event. I've gone every year for like eight years now, but to follow it this closely, the first time was last year. So that's why I'm doing so many comparisons.

Speaker: Um, But yeah, I think last year was a very strong year and this year is just as strong, as if not stronger. o Yeah. I, um and with that being said, with the crowd level, I completely agree with what Tyler said, but we did happen to see the next night, Sunday, when we were at Disney, that the event was sold out and the wait times were astronomically higher. So yeah we just got lucky that we didn't plan to go that day, I guess. Yeah. Like three hours for Ozzy higher. Like insane. Oh my gosh. Yeah.

Speaker: So for me, overall experience wise, I really enjoy the fact that the theme feels cohesive throughout the event. Like I like that there's different elements of the carnival theme. And I think in general, I prefer a carnival theme to like the Gothic theme of last year. That's just like a personal preference. It's not like better or worse. Just what I like. Um, a little bit more like fun and whimsical. Um, I think overall, I agree the zones and street experiences are probably of equivalent, um, caliber to last year's zones.

Speaker: Um, this is going to be wild that I'm saying this. The houses this year for me are like King's Island. There's lots of really, really good runs, nothing terrible, but nothing elite.

Speaker: no i referred I preferred two to three-ish of the houses last year to every house this year. oh wow. Yeah, I might agree with that. But also, the worst house this year is much better than the worst house last year. Agree. That's why said it's King's Island. yeah why There's not as much difference between best and worst, but everything is at least pretty good.

Speaker: Yeah, agree. Everything's better than dolls. yes Everything's better than dolls. Everything's better than Five Nights at Freddy's. Okay. Yeah. But nothing hit nothing touches Hatchet and Chains for me.

Speaker: from this year. But anyways, we'll get into houses, but I think the ambiance is really great. I i loved just kind of the, the like whimsical every once in a while on the soundtrack, you'd hear like pop goes the weasel for Jack, or you'd hear like odd fellows whistle. And I kind of forgot how prominent and prevalent his like whistle was in the soundtrack of the year that he was the icon. um I really, really liked that. It was in the streets a lot and in the house. Um,

Speaker: And I think another big surprise for me from an overall experience standpoint is typically i much prefer the original houses. Like other than Insidious, I can't even think of like an IP house, I guess if you consider Wyatt's six. Like most of the time my top rank houses end up being the original properties. But this year I really think the IPs are hitting better, at least at this point.

Speaker: Interesting. Mm-hmm. And that actually answers Dustin asked a question. he said, when visiting haunted attractions at HHN, are you more of an IP or an original girly and why? And I would have said before this event this year that I'm an original girly all the way. I love new concepts, not knowing what to expect in a house. um But this year, I really feel like a lot of the IPs, most of the IPs are very well done and strong.

Speaker: I am also an original girly. Yeah. Are you this year though? I don't think so. Not based on the list that I made. Interesting. Keep your mind to the to those of you listening. Tyler and I have...

Speaker: very similar opinions on the houses because we were in a group of two and had the exact same runs. So keep that in mind. Like, obviously we always say like run houses are very dependent on whatever run you get. And like, we were not in a big group where we were separated by a bunch of people. We were literally right next to each other, every single run that we did. So a lot of our opinions are probably closer than they'll be by the end of season when we have different experiences at the end of the world.

Speaker: Yeah. um And I'm not going to say my rankings, but I will say my top four houses are IPs, which is crazy. Same. Oh, wow. I'm so intrigued.

Speaker: We'll get there. We'll get there. um I just wanted to do a brief section because I know some people are interested on our strategy of how to do HHN. And I am, for those of you who are in BuzzFars, doing a little session on this in our meetup on Thursday night. So we'll talk more about it then. um But I typically will utilize... um thrill data before I go to the event and kind of look at the patterns of like when houses have high weights, when they dip and have low weights and see if there's any trends and try to plan our day around that.

Speaker: um We did have early entry um all of the days. It's pretty easy if you're entering at 2 p.m. You just enter through separate turnstiles now on like the right hand side. You show your annual pass or your day ticket and your HHN ticket and you can get your wristband right there.

Speaker: So that was really nice and easy to do. um And then early entry is technically two to six ish. um It is extremely easy to get done the three houses in that amount of time. And you can really probably get two runs of each or more if you really wanted to. But our strategy um And the overall strategy should be based on what you would like to pre-queue for following early entry, if you have early entry. So the two houses with the overall longest wait times were Sinners and Ozzy. So those are going to be the ones you want to choose from to either do right when, right before the event opens or right when the event opens. And then the other one, you'll probably have to wait till the end of the night to do the,

Speaker: The kind of um route that we took was to choose to pre-cue for Ozzy two of the nights because the wait for that is actually inside a soundstage with air conditioning. So we just sat our booties down in there. So what we did is we went to Hellraiser first.

Speaker: As part of early entry. And then we did Oddfellow and Stranger Things or Jack and Oddfellow and Stranger Things, which were the two other early entry houses. Then we pre-cued for Ozzy and went about our night from there.

Speaker: The opposite way to do it would be to do Ozzy or to do um Stranger Things and um Jack and Odd Fellow, then Hellraiser and pre-cue for sinners since they're near each other. So just keeping yourself on that kind of side of the park and then you can kind of go off of wait times from there. But that's the general opening strategy I would would suggest to people. um You can pre-cue for the houses that are not part of early entry starting at 4 p.m. We generally did it between 4.15 and 4.30 and that got us into the house within 15 20 minutes.

Speaker: of when they opened. um You can also look ahead and see what time houses are opening. Some of them open at 515, some at 545 and some at six. um so just kind of be aware when you go. um when things open.

Speaker: um After you do Ozzy or Sinners, a good move is Cybergoria generally because that has a pretty low weight initially when the event opens, but then it kind of gets long and stays long. And then you can either go to the sound stages and wrap up those or to the tents after that.

Speaker: um Overall, the wait times didn't feel very accurate ever, I would say, when we were there. Early on, they feel like really long and inflated and you don't actually wait as long as they say. But then like Later, the wait times are listed shorter than when you approach the line. You're like, there's no way that's a 45 minute wait. That's like an hour plus. So I don't know if they're just trying to get used to figuring out their wait times or what they're doing, but they just didn't seem super accurate.

Speaker: um All of the house runs were about five four to five minutes in length. um we I timed it. um But some of them felt substantially longer and some felt substantially shorter. So it'll be interesting to see how that evolves as the event goes on and the scare actors get more comfortable in their roles and with their castmates.

Speaker: Um, what else? We had express for one night. That was really helpful. We got the most runs done that night because we didn't start using it until it got really busy. Um, and all of the express cues were probably 15 minutes or less, except for one that was actual living hell. And it was Hellraiser.

Speaker: It just wasn't moving. We were in there. What felt for like the regular queue length. It was rough. Yeah. I think it's awful. I think express at that point was longer than standby.

Speaker: Yeah, totally. Yikes. Anything else that you think is important for people to know that are planning? i think that was like kind of the main stuff. Um, yeah, just if you want to see Nightmare Fuel, you also have to take that into consideration.

Speaker: Get there at least an hour. i mean, half an hour before the show. It's going to be an absolute cluster no matter what. I hate waiting in that line and standing so close to all those people. But get there half an hour beforehand if you want to get into Nightmare Fuel.

Speaker: For sure. All right, we'll move on to food. And if you follow us on our Instagram, you'll see that we made a post about our thoughts and opinions on all the foods we tried. We tried quite a few things that helped to have two people who like similar foods because we basically split every single thing that we tried, except for a couple things Tyler didn't want. um So we can kind of just quickly go through in the order that we ate them. We tried the smash tacos.

Speaker: Yeah, it's a burger on a taco. Burger on a taco, but very good. Would get again. um That was from the Jack booth. From the Oddfellow booth, there was a burnt sando, which people were like raving about and saying that it was kind of like a sweeter grilled cheese.

Speaker: It was okay. I didn't love that item. Yeah, it was like the like the cream you would get in a cream-filled donut, basically, but spread on a grilled cheese. It was a little weird, honestly. i didn't dislike it.

Speaker: I'm not sure I would get it again. Yeah, i wouldn't get it again. personally. But then in Crosshair's Coop, I think it was called, that is the booth that's kind of tucked away in Sting Alley, we had the Twisted Philly, which you loved. So good.

Speaker: Yeah, it's just basically like a Philly cheesesteak stromboli topped with Some sort of like queso, white cheese and sausage crumbles. Delicious. it was very good. Very filling for the price. That one was is a good one to get.

Speaker: um At the same booth, we got the fried PB&J bites. My first order I really loved and I was like, ooh, this is giving fried encrustable vibes. But the second one wasn't as great. And I think what is bothering me is that the bites just have the peanut butter inside and the jelly comes from the dip.

Speaker: There's not jelly in there. oh butter You have to like dip it in the jelly. Oh, is there not? Yeah, there's not. I didn't even know this. I would have expected it to be inside. Okay. Yeah. Unless like, no, I'm pretty sure it was just the peanut butter inside, like fried peanut butter balls with jelly dip.

Speaker: Still very good. Got it twice. Do recommend. But it doesn't, it's not quite as good as the one from last year, my opinion. Then we got the Catfish and Grits at the Sinners booth.

Speaker: the The grits were very good. The catfish was so bland. To be fair, they did give us a miniature hot sauce, which we didn't use because we couldn't really open it But um yeah, I agree. The grits were good, but they had these weird garlic flakes on top that the texture just bothered me.

Speaker: Yeah, I didn't like those. And then we got the egg rolls from the same booth, which were... It's just a pulled pork and egg rolls with some barbecue sauce. was really good. I mean, can't go wrong with those.

Speaker: Yep. we tried the, from the Stranger Things booth, the chocolate peanut butter bites. These things were a hit. We got them two nights in a row They come with three, like, I don't know, maybe three to four inch, like,

Speaker: cold. It's like frozen esque peanut butter with like peanut butter and chocolate chips all over it. The inside is soft and gooey. They come in like a covered box. So they're very portable. Great to take in lines with you. And one of the only cool, like cold, like temperature wise, cool things you can get. So that was really nice.

Speaker: Highly recommend. Definitely. That booth is on the bridge over by Nightmare Fuel. We tried or I tried, I should say, the tempura shrimp.

Speaker: It was by far my favorite item of the event. I was so surprised. It was delicious. It was like an excellent, savory, little bit of tangy, perfect amount of spice came on a stick.

Speaker: Messy to eat, but like so delicious. I got it twice. Very good. That was over at the Oddfellow booth. Of course, we tried the Rigatoni Ritual Pizza from Louie's. I wasn't blown away by it. It was fine.

Speaker: Good. Yeah, I wasn't blown away either, but it was good. I mean, I love pizza. That's probably my favorite food. And yeah, it was fine. looks better than the spaghetti and meatball one from last year. Hey, I liked that one too. so I didn't try that one. I didn't try it, but it looks less messy.

Speaker: A little bit. Yeah. Yeah. It wasn't super messy. and We had the chicken and waffle from the stranger things booth, which was a no from us. It was dry as a freaking bone. That was like borderline abysmal.

Speaker: Yeah, it was it was kind of bad. Yeah. um I got the pasta and meatball thing that they had at the Hellraiser booth. It was fine. The meatballs were nice and spicy. It was it was a little soupy, like too much sauce proportionate to the noodles and stuff, but still decent. Tasted good.

Speaker: And then lastly, we tried the Beria pizza fries. And I was super excited for this item. It was good, but I was a little let down. it just like wasn't moist. It was just like dry Beria on...

Speaker: Top of fries. Oh, I would not have expected it to be dry. That's so sad to hear. People just raise about pizza fries and birria fries. Like every single year I hear people raving about it and I've tried it three or four times and I have not been impressed once. I don't know what I'm missing here.

Speaker: Yeah. I think it probably is dependent on who serves it too. Cause she could have put more of the like birria like liquid on there. Yeah, probably. I don't know.

Speaker: But anyways, that's all of the food. We didn't have any alcoholic beverages. ah Other notable things that we skipped this trip, we did not have time to see the Stranger Things Lagoon show, unfortunately. And we decided to save um visiting Dead Coconut Club for another visit. So we did not do that either.

Speaker: But everything else we accomplished. We could have had time for it, but we were extremely tired each night from we getting hashtag so many runs in each house. But we did the math over the four days. We walked over 40 miles.

Speaker: That is wild. Yeah. That doesn't include my runs. I did two five-mile runs, so yeah I'm at 50 for the four days. I did zero runs. Yeah.

Speaker: That's okay. um Okay, let's move on to, we're going to talk about street experiences, zones, and houses. Spoiler free, just kind of like a brief what we thought and rank them. And then Rafa is going to dip out after that be able to talk about to be able to talk about Some spoilers for those of you who would like them. I know it's still early on in the season. Before we move on, Fitz, sorry not to disregard your question of what we thought of the Tripping Animals Sour. We have no comment because we didn't try it.

Speaker: But I'm sure Rafa will try it when he comes to the event. didn't even know they had a Tripping Animals when I know if they had one last year, but i didn't know they had it this year. So I'll definitely give that a try. Yeah.

Speaker: yeah All right. So street experiences first. um What do you think about Mel's? Mel's was much better this year. I feel like they added some more um roller skaters. They put lights on the roller skates. I don't think they had that last year.

Speaker: I think that was new. And they seem to go a little bit further away from Mel's also, which I thought was good. So it's still nothing super special. Probably my least favorite of the zones and street experiences, but they did step it up a little bit this year.

Speaker: Yeah, there were definitely, i agree, there were definitely more actors. And we had a fun interaction with one who kind of like skated along next to us or went next to us for a little while. So that was cool. But yeah, other than that, pretty much the same. um What did you think of Club Horror this year?

Speaker: um Pretty similar. They did add a couple more dancers. They have some male dancers this year. um Yeah, I don't know. We just kind of walked through it. There wasn't.

Speaker: Yeah, we didn't spend a ton of time there. i you guys know I was a big fan of Club Horror last year. I was a little let down. i felt like last year Club Horror was like really sexy and like the outfits were sexy and the dance moves were sexy. This year it was a lot of like, it was toned down. it was like a lot of step touching dance moves and the outfits looked, no offense people, um they looked like they came out of the teen section of Spirit Halloween.

Speaker: So I don't know what was happening there, but... Yeah, if they had a male presenting dancer. There were four dancers out at all times and at least one of them was male presenting. So that was fun. um But otherwise, yeah, I was let down with Club Horror this year, to be honest. Yeah.

Speaker: Moving on to the zones, we'll start with Infernal Carnival of Nightmare's Entrance Zone. I thought that the truss was so beautifully decorated. Like, they only did a couple of extra things, like hung some, like, flags and made it look carnival-y. They had a ticket booth.

Speaker: um The sign, like, the the light-up sign was half red, half purple to represent Jack and Oddfellow, which I thought was a really nice touch. Yeah. They do have them out on the truss, both characters with hot mics, a lot of the time they're there. So that's really fun to hear them interacting with guests. We're being in there a little spoilery for non-spoiler sections.

Speaker: How is that spoilery? Just saying that they're out talking to people and stuff. I feel like that's a bit of a spoilery. Of they are. Where else were they going to be? Well, I know they were going to be out. Okay, never mind. Continue. That's their zone. um And then, of course, they have, like, um introduction to the IPs in that zone. And I think that was really well done, too. Like, similar to how they did it last year. But, yeah. Otherwise, it was a fine. It was an entrance zone, in my opinion.

Speaker: Yeah, the entrance zone is the entrance zone. It's... I think it is better this year than last year. And then they're making it more of just sort of a photo opportunity, I think, when they are introducing you to each house, basically.

Speaker: Yeah, I think leaning into that is better than like trying to call it something that it isn't, you know? Yeah, and I don't think that area is like all that great of an area for like a zone anyway. So it like makes sense to have all the photo ops there.

Speaker: Yeah. We'll go clockwise to downtown Clown Town. What did you think, Tyler? I know you loved it. Yeah, I really enjoyed it. They said it is their largest zone by like geography that they've ever done.

Speaker: um So it extends much further than that zone normally would. But lots of different clowns. so And they're all like different personalities to each clown.

Speaker: We spent, I don't know, probably 20 minutes just sitting on a bench and watching the scare zone and each scare actor. And they're all so good at their job. But... Basically, there's like three different streets of downtown Clown Town.

Speaker: Yeah. And this isn't a spoiler because we they already we already know that part of it was killer clowns. So you see one area is kind of dedicated to them and has their their decor and their music. And then you have a little area for Art the Clown. Yeah.

Speaker: And then the other street is kind of just like all random clowns that are all like dressed different. And like Tyler said, different personalities and different roles. And it's really fun to see all of the different um clowns. Some of them are part of HHN lore. Some of them are just like random clowns and just a ton of different different things to look at.

Speaker: There's one specific clown that is an outcast that you'll have to look a little bit closer to find him. Um, yeah, that's all I'll say.

Speaker: Yeah, he's scary AF, to be honest.

Speaker: You'll know it when you see him. Um, moving on to Fortnite Mares. And all I'm gonna say is I was right, y'all. I was right. Yeah, my hopes were a little too high for this, I think.

Speaker: It's very pretty to look at. I think they did well on the decorations. They are a little sparse and I'm not really sure what's going on. It's bad. really bad use of of Central Park.

Speaker: It's bad. And it's not like, I'm not trying to yuck on somebody's yum. I understand that there are things and IPs and settings and I'll talk about this more when I talk about my thoughts on the houses, but clearly Fortnite is not my thing. That's fine. And I'm okay with enjoying something that isn't my thing. I didn't think that Wyatt Six would be my thing and I loved it. So I, even though I ranked it really low on my hype list, I still went into it with like hopes that like Charles Gray and whoever else worked on the area would make it look beautiful. And the lighting, like Tyler said, is really cool ambiance, but I think a lot of that is just that it's like tree covered and you have the ah ability to to make it look nice pretty easily. The rest of the zone just really not good. Really didn't do it for me.

Speaker: So this is the way I look at it. It's not for me and that's fine. But if it brings these kids, these 16, 17, 18, 19 year old kids, whatever, if it brings them into the park,

Speaker: and gets them hooked on horror, then I'm all about it. Because when I first went to HHN in 2018, I went because of Stranger Things. that was I didn't know that much about it, but I wanted to see Stranger Things, and I've been hooked ever since.

Speaker: So I'm happy if it brings them into the park and sort of brings in the new generation of haunt enthusiasts. Yeah, I'm not mad that it's there. i just objectively don't think it's a good zone.

Speaker: Yeah, it's bad. Yeah. And then lastly, Sideshow of Decay. That's in Hollywood. I loved this zone. I thought that the lighting that they did in there was really beautiful. Lots of fog. um We know that Cindy is kind of the centerpiece of this zone. So she has a really cool role in storytelling for the rest of the zone. You see lots of throwback characters from HHN past. Just overall, really, really well done, in my opinion.

Speaker: Yeah, the way they were able to tell a story rather than just walk through and see the different things was really good. I liked that. Yeah. so moving on, i thought we could quickly just give our rankings from six to one of the street experiences and zones mixed together. You probably didn't prep for this, but it's okay. I know you can do it. Yeah.

Speaker: I see the fear in your eyes. um I can go first if you want me to just run through mine, unless you think you have it. I can do it off the of my head real quick. Okay, so number six, this is this is out of six because we're combining the zones and street experiences. My number six by a mile is Fort Nightmares.

Speaker: ah My number six is Mel's. My number five is Mel's. My number five is Fort Nightmares. Okay, my number four is Club Horror. Yes. yeah Three, the entrance zone icon.

Speaker: Yes. And we're going to be different here, I'm pretty sure. my number two is Downtown Clown Town 1, Sideshow of Decay. Yep, and just flip it and that's mine. i know Okay, so that's how we rank it. That's what we thought of the zones and street experiences.

Speaker: Are you excited, Rafa? Did we deflate your Fortnite trainers bubble? Oh my gosh. Yeah, because, spoiler alert, it doesn't get any better in the other coast, but... We'll talk about that later. But yeah, I'm very i'm very interested. I mean, I'm excited to hear that the, um not the Icon one, but the one in Hollywood is good. Like, I was excited for that one, i think.

Speaker: Yeah. And then Downtown Clown Town, I'm glad that they extended it a bit. and It sounds exciting and very active. So... I'm excited to check that Very different vibes. Like, Downtown Clown Town is very lighthearted and whimsical, still with good scares, and then Sideshow is very dark.

Speaker: yeah hi Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I'm excited. It kind of fits with the usual differentiation between those two areas. Yeah. And between Jack and Oddfellow, like Sideshow is more of Oddfellow's kind of representation and Jack is more represented in downtown Clown Town. So it's cool how they how they did that.

Speaker: All right. um Moving into houses. I thought we could, i guess the best way to do it would just be to give the basics of the house and then we'll give you our rankings and then we'll kick Rafa off.

Speaker: We'll start and go clockwise as well. So starting with Stranger Things 5, what was your overall opinion of that, Tyler? Tyler? Oh, so disappointed. are big Stranger Things fans, unless in case you're new to this podcast. Yeah.

Speaker: Let's just put that display. This is hard to do without spoilers, because I have a lot that I'm just like, the first thing to say about it. But um yes, very disappointing. They missed what I think are very key scenes in the fifth season. And they added things that I didn't think were that relevant, personally. But just, yeah, not not great.

Speaker: Yeah, and unfortunately, I agree. um I liked the Stranger Things 4 house a lot more than I liked this house. um It did grow on me a little bit overall once we adjusted expectations and kind of got used to the house and could appreciate it for what it was.

Speaker: There were just so many of the of the monster characters and so few of the other characters. really important cast members in the show. And like Tyler said, missing crucial scenes, in my opinion, to season five. um One positive that I will give it is um it made really good use of being in a soundstage. It had very...

Speaker: um very grand in scale scenic design. And there were a lot of use of like lay levels, like things were up. You had to like look up to see them. And so for my advice, for those of you going is to just make sure you're looking all around so you don't miss things when you go in the house. Yeah.

Speaker: The one scene is really impressive. I really enjoyed that one. I will say that. Yep. Just one. and the finale, if you even want to call it that, is absolutely horrible. I'm just going to call it the ending because there's no finale.

Speaker: You just like walk out and you're like, what was that ending? Yeah. Oh, no. Okay, moving on to Evil Dead Burn. I'll go first on this one because y'all know I was a straight hater of the movie and still am. But I surprisingly really enjoyed this house. um It continued to get better and better and overcome any bias I had against the movie. um I thought the casting in this house was very impressive. A lot of the characters, especially the main female character, Alice, looked just like her, even though there were multiple ones of her. i was like, how are they doing that? She looks like her in every single scene. And then also um the grandfather character in the movie. If you've seen it, you know who I'm talking about, the bald guy with the beard. He was really well casted as well. I thought that it hit all of the main scenes from the movie, but still kept it interesting, had really good scares and lots of gore like you would expect. And it was it exceeded my expectations for sure.

Speaker: I still have not seen the movie, which I don't know if that helped or hurt my opinion of the house. But I think it has the best opening scene of any house this year. Just absolutely incredible.

Speaker: um The animatronic that they have in that opening scene is terrifying. Um, just the casting is so good though. The way they make every single character just pop was really impressive. i don't know if, did they have like glowing contacts or something? Some of them, it kind of seemed like think some of them did to look like the dead eyee eyes. Yeah.

Speaker: Very good use of puppets as well. And some unique scares that we don't see too often at the event. Yeah. Um, Cool. Moving on to Jack and Oddfellow, Chaos and Control. You can talk first.

Speaker: I'm a little torn on this one. I think it took me a couple runs to get the story down. But once I got it down, I enjoyed it a lot more. um But it's a great use of HHN lore. Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah. Very pretty house. yeah Some more puppets as well that I enjoyed. The transition, don't know if this is a spoiler or not, but you kind of go from like Jack's universe to Oddfellows universe to the odd verse. That transition is done very well.

Speaker: I'm trying to do this without spoilers. It's so hard. that you're doing you're doing great you're doing great I think one thing I noticed when we were at the event this year is I'm starting to form a new bias that is based on house location. So I go into abduct alien abduction comparing it to hatchet and chains. And I went into Jack and odd fellow comparing it to RT stuff. And like, I shouldn't do that, but it's kind of just like a natural thing that I do. And I felt like the scale of this and kind of my thoughts on it were very L RT. So like, I thought it was very well done and beautiful and grand um,

Speaker: I just like, for some reason can't get myself to love it. Like I think everybody else is like the scares were a little bit mixed. Some, some runs felt like I, like our first run, I was like, I saw like two Jackson, like 10 odd fellows. Like what the hell is going on here? Am I like losing my mind? yeah,

Speaker: They do narrate the story for you as you're going through, but you have to pay really close attention to it. The first couple runs, I kind of lost it. And then I lost what was happening, but I think they increased the volume or at least i was paying more attention to it on our subsequent runs because I did it like hear the narration. um,

Speaker: from the different perspectives throughout the house is visually appeal appeal appealing like it it really is like bright and neon and trippy and like everything you'd expect from like the artwork of the house um there are some really good double scare potentials at the end with both puppets and actors um if it hits right i just i so i agree with tyler i feel a little bit mixed on this house it's definitely like a middle of the pack for me On paper, it sounds like it's going to be so good. It has everything that I like, but I just, I can't quite get there for some reason.

Speaker: um It does have three very unique elements though. Two, okay, I'll say two and a half very unique elements that I have not seen it in any other houses.

Speaker: Yeah, they also had a ton of different facades. Like you have the facade when you're going in and then there's like other facades throughout the house. Right. Yeah. It's cool.

Speaker: Moving on Ozzy Osbourne, Prince of Darkness. um This one had, i think, the most grand and beautiful scenic design. Um, there was a wide variety of costuming and characters and themes that were representing the artwork of Ozzy's albums. There were some really good scares.

Speaker: This was a house that I like walked out of with like the best initial impression and like the biggest smile. Like I just really had fun and enjoyed it And it was the closest I got to feeling like I felt after like Insidious and Hatchet and Chains. um I loved, we already know because it was released in the description. There's obviously a crazy train part of this house. And I just loved that. Stay tuned for the spoilers and we'll talk more about it. But that was really well done.

Speaker: That scene was awesome. um I think it's a great tribute to Ozzy. I was not an Ozzy fan myself. I could name like maybe two songs of his, but I still enjoyed this house immensely.

Speaker: um Bit of a tearjerker, I think, towards the end, if you were a big Ozzy fan. That's all I'll really say about that. And then there's one part in the middle of the house that is just terrifying.

Speaker: Stay tuned. i don't know you're talking Stay tuned if you want to hear the spoiler. But Rafa, you were onto something with your hype list. I know. i know. I'm so excited. i'm so excited to hear about how it was in Hollywood because I know that the houses are different. So.

Speaker: Yeah. like All right Moving on to Madlands, caged cannibals. i Don't really get it. I know what they're going for, and I was on board reading the description, but I don't think they executed it.

Speaker: It's just, it's very hard to determine what animal each character is trying to be. It's just very loud and chaotic. um There are a couple of very good scenes and the set actually is pretty good. There's so much to look at, but I just don't think they quite executed on what they were going for. It's just very chaotic and just too much going on. I would say just kind of overstimulating, honestly.

Speaker: Yeah, unfortunately, this was one of the houses that we ran through the least. Like we got six plus runs in some houses. This one, we only got two, unfortunately. um So I think it's a little bit challenging to kind of like remember it's it's and hopefully this isn't just location based, but it's giving me a little bit of like the grave of flesh, like forgettable in this house this year.

Speaker: Um, I did actually rewatch a walkthrough on YouTube because I was, when I was gathering my thoughts, I was like, I just like, can't even remember like what room was where and like how this went. And I, I did appreciate it a little bit more when I watched it that way. Cause I could kind of take a step back and and recognize, okay, we're entering this portion of the zoo. So these are the animals I'm supposed to see. But when you're doing that live, it's really hard. And like Tyler said, it's just loud and chaotic, like animal sounds, um,

Speaker: um I did also really like the way that the costumes were designed, though, for the animals, even though if I couldn't tell what they were, they were all kind of like steampunk like style in a way. Like, I don't know how to describe it, but I liked the aesthetic of it.

Speaker: But yeah, the house is a little bit forgettable. I definitely need more runs in it to give it a fair a more fair shot. Yeah. Yeah. That's all I really have to say about it.

Speaker: That one. um Next in Fast and Furious is Cybergoria. This is a really interesting concept, but I don't think the normal non-HHN fan like us would really understand the story, despite them even having like little video and intros in the queue. um I felt like all of the characters and robots in this house were very samey. um The transition between the two buildings is

Speaker: less clear from the inside. Like you, you never actually go outside the way that they set it up, but you can tell that you're like leaving one area and entering the next. And it kind of breaks up the house in like a a non like linear way where you're supposed to be in like, you know, a cold frozen sterile environment. And then it's like hot. Cause you're like going outside. Obviously they can't do anything about how that house is set up and you go into the tent part portion, but yeah,

Speaker: there were some decent scares. There's some really loud sounds. um The runs all kind of felt similar. Sometimes there were some missing scares. This is getting like pretty generally positive reviews in the community. And I might personally myself just couldn't get there. Like I really enjoy sci-fi, but this just, this story just isn't it for me. Like I don't buy into the actual like theme very well. And I just, there were just some aspects I didn't love. That was like a terrible putrid smell entering the house. They played this horrible, like little jingle just over and over again. It was like the company was like jingle or whatever. Tyler says I'm crazy and I'm the only person recognizing this, but you tell me when you go there that that jingle doesn't make you want to just like off yourself.

Speaker: I was like, I can't take this anymore. it was supposedly supposed to be the bloodiest house ever using 12 gallons of blood where Terrifier only had half that amount. I didn't really like feel any of that. I don't know. Like I'm not trying to be a hater on Cybergoria. It's a good house. People will like it. It's just not my cup of tea.

Speaker: I didn't even notice the jingle until you pointed it out. Oh my gosh. It's such a non-issue.

Speaker: Stay tuned. Stay tuned Rafa. You're going be texting about that jingle. Yeah, I mostly agree. um the The plot just didn't get there for me. I don't think they executed on what they were trying to do. And they're like, they're trying to further the plot within the house, which I get, but that's not really making sense slash being demonstrated with the sets. So like they're saying the sound over the speaker, but I'm not really seeing that in front of me, if that makes sense.

Speaker: So that kind of just took me out of it. Some very good scares, lots of blood. it Like Kelly said, it doesn't really stand out as the bloodiest I've ever seen, but it is a bloody house.

Speaker: I just don't think that I'm liking it as much as many others I read the HHN wiki description of the house and it is making a lot more sense to me now that I did that. I wish I would have done that like the first night we were there after I didn't understand because I probably would have appreciated the house more. So if you don't care about spoilers and you're going to stay and listen to our spoilers, I'll talk about it a little bit. you there is a resource HHN wiki where you can understand what the hell is going on if you'd like.

Speaker: pull a love me it though like I've been hearing a lot of people loving this house. Yeah. And that kind of, I tried really hard. I didn't look at any spoilers before we went. I didn't watch any like houses, but I did hear some like reviews and I tried to keep that bias at a minimum, but I did hear like the love for that house. So I was a little bit like underwhelmed and let down by it. I would say, but we'll move on to the next house, which is Hellraiser.

Speaker: Hellraiser is great. It is, I think, the longest house I've ever been through, or at least it felt like that. And I know other people have said the same, so there must be some merit to it.

Speaker: But it really feels like a maze in there. It's not just like linear house where you turn a corner. You really feel like you're weaving in and out. um I think they had some great set pieces, some great prosthetics, definitely, um some good masks.

Speaker: And the only bad thing I will say after you get a few runs in it, it does feel a little, as Kelly would say, samey.

Speaker: um Maybe a little repetitive, I would say. But overall, just very good house. Yeah, um everybody knows if you listened to our Hype List episode, this was my least hype house. I will have to eat my words because I really enjoyed it.

Speaker: Even though the film is weird AF, I thought the house was well done. Like Tyler said, it it was a great use of the entire tent. It really felt like it was long and winding. There were a lot of scare actors. It felt like this house had more actors than any other, in my opinion. it was very true to the film in appearance. And I guess as the more that I ran it and we ran this house probably the most because it was an early entry house. um It did, i guess, go in chronological order with the movies one, two, and three, but it didn't really tell a story or follow a logical plot. um

Speaker: But I guess if you're a fan of the, of the movies, you don't really need that. And, and even if you're not, I guess like the scares are still there. But I don't know that anybody that hasn't seen Hellraiser would get what's going on and you don't need to, to understand, to like enjoy the house. But um yeah, just like, didn't really tell the story super well for me. um And yeah, the scares are very samey, but overall very well done. Pleasantly surprised.

Speaker: We'll go right next door to sinners. Um, in this house, I also thought the casting was very well done overall. This, the casting this year was great. There was, it was great and true tribute to the movie. I know we talked a lot about in, um, our discussion of sinners, like being a little bit fearful of how this would come across as a house. And I, I really think it paid it, it it paid good justice to the movie. and There were more varied and like set pieces than anticipated. It definitely didn't just take place in the juke joint, which was nice to see that there were some other set pieces and scenes that were represented, um various songs and different types of scares. It was just really fun. Like I really enjoyed it and I was happy with how it was done.

Speaker: Just a great tribute to the movie. um It really was linear, I think, to the plot. I think the first scene was really good at just setting the tone and introducing you to the characters.

Speaker: And I'm excited to hear what you have to say. rafa because i think the sinners in hollywood is supposed to be even better from what i've heard than the orlando one um so i'll definitely listen to that but yeah um yeah good use of screens also in this i'm not a big screen person but they did have um at least one good use about halfway through um yeah if you're a fan of the movie you will be a fan of this house um Next up, we have H.R. Blood and Guts presents a Halloween Frightacular.

Speaker: H.R. Blood and Guts. This one was just so fun. It's obviously the campy, whimsical house of the year. um i think it did a much better job than the Slaughter Cinema houses of differentiating what each um room was going to be.

Speaker: I'm trying not to spoil this on the different rooms, but just... Very fun house. They actually bring some Easter eggs in from hhn past as well.

Speaker: And HR Blood and Guts is just a cool character. Yeah, i pretty much agree with everything Tyler said. I said in my notes that it was really good fun. um There was great transitional media to introduce in every next scene. I also preferred it, much preferred it to Slaughter Cinema. i was a little worried that I don't like this style of house, but I had a great time and there were some really good smells in there. And you know me and my smells.

Speaker: Oh yeah, there's one really good smell. Probably the best smell of the entire event. Yep. And then lastly, invasion and alien abduction. um Really nice facade outside the tent. um There were some good and varied sets. The aliens were not as scary as I had hoped. They're not campy, but they are a little bit small in stature, but still able to provide some good scares. The story was pretty easy to follow.

Speaker: we had some variable runs. We kind of like roped drop the opening of this house a couple of times and the runs were not as strong as like later in the night runs. So just keep that in mind. If you're getting to a house right to open, it might not be like fully ready to go with all of the scare actors full in their boo holes, but it was good. I would say i was, I had hoped I had really high hopes for this house. It was high on my hypeless. I love aliens. I love kind of the story that was presented about this house. And I would say I was slightly underwhelmed, but I still really enjoyed it.

Speaker: I don't think it landed exactly how they were wanting it to. Like they were describing it as scary and not campy. I think it does come across just a little campy, like not blood and guts campy, but just a little bit because the aliens, they're really not that scary.

Speaker: Especially like you said, the small stature of some of them, like a couple aliens could not have been taller than like, four feet it was kind of ridiculous but yeah tiny yeah um some very good effects in there i will say yeah lots of effects which definitely brought the house up in the rankings but overall maybe a little bit disappointing but i still really enjoyed it All right. So we will hit you with our initial house rankings from the weekend. This is waiting for this very much subject to change. And like I said, our rankings are probably going end up being somewhat similar. So sorry for bore if that's the case, but we were together. So the experiences were the same. It's just kind of our personal preferences, really.

Speaker: um Starting at number 10. What do you have? My 10 is Madlands. My 10 is Stranger Things 5, unfortunately. My 9 is unfortunately Stranger Things 5.

Speaker: My 9 is actually, the more I thought about it, Cybergoria. Oh, okay. My 8 is Cybergoria. And my 8 is Madlands.

Speaker: So same 3, just different order. Same My is Jack and same My six is HR Blood and Guts.

Speaker: Same. my father My five is Invasion. Same. Oh my gosh. Here we go. My four is Hellraiser.

Speaker: My four is Evil Deadburn. My three is Evil Deadburn. My three is Hellraiser. And then I think we have the same last two.

Speaker: ah Two is Sinners and one is Ozzy. Yeah. agree Yeah. So pretty close. What I think is so funny about it is that like we were all so different with our hype lists.

Speaker: So for it to be so similar, like I'm very curious like to know how Joey and I are going to rank these houses. Yes, I'm so excited to hear from you guys because I yeah i was looking at other people's lists and it's nowhere close to mine.

Speaker: That's wild to me. But we were all very fascinated by the fact that nobody loved hatchet and chains that much last year. Yes. Yeah. Maybe we have bad opinions. Take them yeah for white.

Speaker: Let me see if I have any good questions we could tie in before spoilers. i'm Sure. Keith asked, what's a better payout for two hours of time running a half marathon or waiting for an HHN house?

Speaker: Well, by the end of the night, they kind of feel the same. My legs feel the exact same. so I'd it's kind of a wash. It depends on who you're waiting with.

Speaker: Yeah. True. yeah Because I'm typically running my half marathons at my lonesome listening to myself suck wind. which is not enjoyable, but I do feel great after a half yeah and the waiting for a four to five minute experience can be very rough.

Speaker: We didn't wait in anything for two hours. We were not willing. So hard to say, but I had a great time. As a non-runner, I'd probably say running only because I feel like it'll feel so, ah like I would feel so accomplished like finishing that. And then like, what if you wait two hours for an HHN house just for you to have a very crappy run?

Speaker: Yeah. you know like you accomplish ger every ah five nights every five nights run um i think we'll keep the rest for the spoilers there's a couple more questions we got that i think will be better answered after we go a little bit more in depth Yes, but of course, so I'm leaving now, obviously, but um obviously next time we're going to record about Hollywood. You guys will hear more from me then. um And then I will be going in a couple of weeks. Well, at the beginning of October. So I will have to wait until then to give my thoughts on all of this. But but yes, in a couple of weeks, just a couple of weeks, I will be back with my rankings.

Speaker: Yes, I'm very excited to hear. And I'm excited to hear about California. And we appreciate you for sitting through talking for an hour half. It was fun. It was fun. We're a good friend, Rafa. Yes. But yes, have fun with the rest of this. Don't take too long. It's getting late.

Speaker: But we will talk to later, other guys. Bye. Okay. So we'll go around again and just, I guess, address anything that, um if you're still here, hi.

Speaker: If you don't want spoilers, go away. Bye. We love you. Thanks for listening. But we're going talk more details about what we saw in some of the zones and houses. Do we need to talk about the zones anymore?

Speaker: do you want to? o I'll just add for downtown clown town. Delancey Dan is the creepy clown. He's basically off in the alley by himself carrying balloons and he looks so sad and he's not allowed to join the other clowns. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker: So he's, i he's one of my favorites. I love him. Make sure you go find him. Yeah, and there's some other really funny clowns. There's one that's a, I guess, like, flasher. He, like, walks around and flashes the inside of his, like, coat. But inside of his coat are, I don't know if I want to give this many spoilers. It's a spoiler section. are Inside of his coat are, like, rubber chickens. So he's, like, flashing.

Speaker: Yeah, we get it. Yeah, got it. um There is a puppet show that is put on in the street that the New York zone is typically in That is like the story of Jack and Oddfellow, which is cool to hear. um There is a stage also on that street where Chance comes out and does a little thing. Sometimes Eddie is with her. If you know the HHN lore, that's um Jack's brother.

Speaker: Um, killer clowns is what you'd expect it to be. If you didn't see anything about art, he is in his Christmas form. So he has a little stage. Um, people are not bombarding him in the streets like they were last year, which was nice.

Speaker: um and then And then for Sideshow OK, Cindy and her father, the caretaker, previous icons are kind of on the centerpiece stage. And she goes around and points her flashlight at the different sideshows that exist in the zones and gives a little story about them. There's lots of characters from HHN past. I saw... um Sinister and Surreal in there. I saw cat li a cat from Cat Lady from last year.

Speaker: um Just a ton of ton of other characters. So that was cool. Were you going say that or something different? Yeah, I was just going to say the same thing. Okay. But I think we kind of covered everything else yeah there is to cover about the zones.

Speaker: um So moving back into the houses, Stranger Things 5. Okay. There's no Mr. What's it in the entire house. No Henry Creel whatsoever.

Speaker: Or Max. Yeah. Max isn't there either. What the hell? There's no camazots. That's so much of the season. i was distraught over this. Okay, so let me just run through what actually is in the house, okay? So the facade is Castle Byers.

Speaker: It's a very tight facade. You walk in, you get scared by a demo. There's about 500 demos in this house, and that's like the scare actors, basically. And then Will's being held up in a tree. You enter, you see the Stranger Things 5 sign and you hear the dode in in in into the music and Avekna scares you.

Speaker: Okay, that's the entrance. So we've already gone into the season the way the season starts with episode one, but all we've really seen is like what happened to Will in the past. Fine. Okay. We go into the Wheeler kitchen. Happy to see it.

Speaker: Karen Wheeler is there with the wine bottle. Happy to see it. We get a quick little Derek, suck my fat one on the way out, which chronologically makes no sense. Then we go into the hospital.

Speaker: We get a nice hospital laundry room moment with a static demo dog. Make the thing move. I don't care if it's not a real person. Make it a puppet. Do something. It's just sitting there on top of the washing machine.

Speaker: That was the first thing that really ticked me off. Then we get the best scene of the entire house, which is the Max Z scene. We have a moving vehicle with a demo on it.

Speaker: These are not scare actor demos. They're just demos. We have a scare actor, Will, who is casted very well. He's doing his Will-wise stuff, cracking demos.

Speaker: um That scene is well done. But then you leave. You see the lab with the tank, but you don't see Elle in the tank. You just see that Hopper's shooting the tank. Then you get into the dripping Jonathan and Nancy room, but they aren't in it. It's just drippy stuff everywhere.

Speaker: And then there's a terrible, terrible scene where four of the kids are facing away from you, looking at a screen with the mind flayer in the abyss. And the kids are literally up to your waist, even though they're teenagers at this point. And they are just static.

Speaker: Puppets that don't move. um Mannequins. Yeah, that's a better term for them. Then you get inside the Mind Flayer thing with the kids wrapped up inside of it. Holly's there.

Speaker: You move on to see Joyce coming at Vecna with the axe. And then you get the terrible finale, which is a Scare Actor L... standing behind a screen where they do this trick where it looks like she vanishes and then they play purple rain and you're out into this the street.

Speaker: That's it. That's it. That's it. What else happened in season five? I don't know. Didn't get anything about Henry Creel and his mind shaft, which is the whole story of season five. ah What the heck?

Speaker: Yeah. I thought for sure they would have the scene where Mr. What's It finally like gets control of the kids and their neck snaps back or something like that. That was a terrifying scene. But they have nothing from inside that house at all either.

Speaker: Nope. Nothing at the squawk. True. Yeah, true. Which is, you know, just where like a third of the season takes place, but that's fine. Just not great. And for that to be the finale of...

Speaker: this house after four different houses at HHN. They just did not do it justice. True. I think we'll move on. because i just got real heated about it again. um Evil Deadburn.

Speaker: So I would say we were, we were both definitely let down by Stranger Things, but both definitely blown away by Evil Deadburn. Agreed. Yeah. The animatronic that I mentioned at the beginning is like a sideways severed head and it looks so real.

Speaker: Like i had to stare at it for a few seconds to make sure that it was not real. Yeah. It talks to you also. And they have like the car flipped upside down, which I understand is the opening scene of the movie.

Speaker: Pretty close to the opening of the movie. Yeah. There's a, if you've seen the movie, the, the male character will gets killed in a car wreck with basically a dead eye. And the dead eye is the animatronic that's in the opening scene facade of this house. And behind it, there's a sign of evil dead burn with like flames.

Speaker: Yeah. um There's one incredibly creepy, realistic scare where she's like, what's her name? The main character. Alice. Alice. Alice has like, i don't know, barbed wire or something wrapped around her neck and she's basically like severing her jugular and it's incredibly disturbing and it looks so real. I don't know how she does that. Yeah, a la The Weeknd.

Speaker: Similar scare used in that house. Yeah. If you've seen it. Lots of glowing eyes. There's multiple grannies that are extremely creepy. Mm-hmm.

Speaker: There's the puppet that I mentioned is eye dog and they control that puppet very well. Oh yeah. That looks very realistic. It does.

Speaker: Yeah. um I really liked how they had, so we talked about that facade and then entering into the house, they had like the pages of the book of the dead with like the, the incantation or like the thing that you say, the conjure the spirits, like being like highlighted. I thought that was a really cool way to get into the house. Yeah.

Speaker: And kind of tell the story and tie it into Evil Dead. um The rest of the house does take place inside of the like house from the movie, but they do vary the rooms pretty well and tell the story despite it all being in one setting. Yeah.

Speaker: They have a lot of grandfathers, grandmothers, all of the members of the family that are in the movie are in the house. You do not see, for those of you who are animal sensitive, there is no killing of the dog. The dog appears as the deadite only. So you don't see any of that from the movie. So I know that that is something that I like worry about animals and kids being hurt in these houses. and I'm like, I don't want to see it. So that doesn't happen if you're worried about it.

Speaker: Um, they have like the TV scene showing the wedding of Will and Alice. Then they have like the destroyed dining room table. And then, um, you see like the hallway with the dog scare. There's a basement scene. There's, um,

Speaker: A kitchen scene um with the dishwasher and the bedroom scene with the grandma under the sheet where she looks like a ghost and the bathroom where Alice is like hanging from the ceiling.

Speaker: um so all of the main like so scares and gore from the movie are really really, really well represented. You see a little bit of the attic where all of like the relics from the research that the grandma, the, um,

Speaker: other, i guess the great grandfather's stuff. I get the jackhammer at the end. There's a really good scare with a deadite right at the exit.

Speaker: Yeah. she's yeah I just, it it was, it was well told. and They made the movie look better than it was. I enjoyed it every time. It's definitely one that like I would, if I had limited time and had to choose a house to see, it would be on my list for sure.

Speaker: yeah absolutely. Okay, moving on to Chaos and Control. feel like we said most about this one. um they have a Yeah, I can kind of like briefly walk through it. Yeah, go ahead. um The facade is like a carnival tent, as you would expect. It's got like Oddfellows symbol on it. And you enter through the side where there's like a carriage with a fortune teller and then like the bunks of other performers that Jack has killed. And then you come upon him sitting at like a mirror in a makeup room and in the mirror there's an effect where you see him as like the jack the clown we know with his hair and makeup done but he turns around and it's just like a man so it's like him like getting ready to be jack the clown then you have a couple of small scenes where jack and odd fellow are fighting and odd fellows like pissed at him for like using his his circus to like hide out and murder people um and that ends with him putting jack into the famous box and

Speaker: And then we kind of go into this green spinning tunnel, which is one of the effects I think you were talking about, Tyler, where you like a fun house where you're walking, but the room is like spinning around you. Very disorienting, did not like it personally, but I understand why they used it. and it kind of signifies going like into the adverse, which the box is supposed to be a portal for.

Speaker: um Then you go into the odd verse. It's very chaotic. There's like Jack body parts everywhere and he's kind of like around um and odd fellows like welcome to the odd verse and they have kind of like these hanging lights and like very like um whimsical and neon and trippy carnival vibes. It's like a deliconess.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah, that's a good word for it. And then you hear them playing the Pop Goes the Weasel, which is supposedly Jack like escaping from the box. um And you find him, he's like, I'm back. And he's like outside of the Shadybrook Asylum where there's like a totally separate facade.

Speaker: um And then you go into a room that's very similar to like the terrifier bridge room last year where there was like the the art on the bridge, like conducting which way to go or whatever. They had a Jack doing that. And then it leads you into this.

Speaker: checkered room where the floor is slanted and they have like mattresses or pillows on the side wall where scare actors kind of like pop out and Tyler got got on our first run through because he like thought it was just like to help you from like not falling into the wall so he like went to put his hand on it and a scare actor popped out it was a good scare yeah almost stiff-armed that man in the face so sorry to him yeah not even on purpose yeah Um, and then after that you go, you hear odd fellows whistle and there's like a whole odd fellow room where there's really colorful creatures. It kind of reminded me of like the jungle of doom atmosphere from the scare zone a couple of years ago. and then you finally come to this room with a giant glowing green skull where Jack and odd fellow are on either side of this, like broken open skull. And they're like, if we join forces, like we can whatever together. And that's like,

Speaker: You walk through the skull and there's a couple of puppet scares of their giant heads. And then at the very, very end, there's like a double scare of both Jack and Oddfellow if you get it timed right. And that's how the house ends.

Speaker: yeah Is that everything? i think that's kind of how it went. Yeah, that's pretty much it The double scare is so good if you get it at the end. Those yeah are always good. The ones where you're out of the actual house and you're just in the black curtain part.

Speaker: I never expect them. I know. and And it's like they do it all the time. It's like by now we should be ready for it. But it gets you like every single time. Yep. Moving on to Ozzy.

Speaker: So Ozzy, very grand sets. um It kind of starts with the facade. There are like two little like ponds and it has his face in them. They're like screens in the ponds. Yeah, think it's like prior concert footage even. Oh, really?

Speaker: Yeah, I think so. Okay. i didn't get a chance to look at it too much. um You enter through the song. Sorry if we're not like super Aussie fans. I'll try to like name some of the things that are represented. But you the song when you enter is Straight to Hell.

Speaker: I don't even know if that's what it's called, but I think it is. He says it a lot. So probably. Yeah. um I don't remember the order that well, but you have like the Howl at the Moon.

Speaker: room um The crazy train one awesome. Yeah, sorry, Bark at the Moon. um The crazy train scene is awesome. People are just absolutely raving about that.

Speaker: It's so good. Yeah, it's like showing this couple in different stages. So they're like normal at the first part. And then the second part, they're like dead and decomposing. And then the third part, they're like skeletons. And they have...

Speaker: I don't know the Aussie lore, so this probably sounds dumb if you're an Aussie fan, but they have like, I guess like the Grim Reaper um above them. And then the scare actors are coming out of the Grim Reaper is like long cloak, which is a great scare. Obviously they have the song playing at the time.

Speaker: um oh before they utilize they utilize the same um if you remember in hatchet and chains there was like a train screen they utilize that technology to make it look like the train's moving again which was really well done yeah and before you go in you have a conductor on stilts with like a super creepy mask on okay um you continue Yeah, there was, um so you do the straight to hell. You go through that facade. Then there's like a castle, which is like, I guess supposed to be his like crypts or like the dungeon. um it has a bunch of like creepy guards with masks on. And then you have like the outdoor section, which has like the wolf for Bark at the Moon. And then there's like a bat section with a giant puppet bat that I really liked. and There's a storm room that I think is supposed to be Blizzard of Oz, where there's like a lot of wind and like some mist.

Speaker: um it really feels like it's raining in there. It really does. um Then the crazy train. and then there's like a steam factory facade. And then you go into the throne room where he is sitting on the throne talking to you. And then you have a final scare with an onji, an onji, an Aussie on a bungee cord. And he's saying, I love you all.

Speaker: So really poignant. And in his real voice. Yeah, it's his actual voice recorded. Yeah. So we both loved it. Obviously, we have it as our number one house right now. um We only got three runs because the line is just so heinous. You have to just rope drop it or have express. There's no other way.

Speaker: Yep, definitely. ah Madlands. I think we both have the least to say about this. I don't have a single other thing to say. Yeah.

Speaker: yeah I read the wiki. So I did, I did kind of recognize some of the rooms that are supposed to be there. So the facade is is the zoo entry. A lot of these facades look like they have been repurposed from facades in sound stages past. and But this is a zoo you go in and there's some like horned creatures Then you go into an aviary where there's some feathered things and birds.

Speaker: Then there's supposed to be a reptile exhibit and then a cave where there's bats. And then there's a venomous scorpion exhibit, which is like where they're really looking punk rock kind of styled. Then there's a frozen Arctic, which I don't even remember. And then it ends kind of with this workshop where the cannibals are like making machines. They make this giant rhino machine that like the...

Speaker: what is this thing called on the rhino? It's like horn, whatever. yeah like horn. um Is like a killing machine. It's like a drill a drill bit. A drill, yeah. yeah And then there's supposed to be lions after that, which I don't really recall. So we obviously need more runs.

Speaker: Yeah, I do think that can move up a little bit in my rankings, honestly. But I just, I need more time in there. Yeah. Cybergoria. So the theme is that you're like being frozen at the beginning and you walk through the little freezing chamber, but it's not cold at all. They didn't even bother pumping any extra AC in there.

Speaker: yeah Where's the immersion? I don't know, but let me tell you something I learned. Apparently after we walk through the freezing process and you get into the first room where like you can see like the poor people in the bags and then like some of the cryogenic chambers, apparently that's where we are. They are waking up and the year is, it's October 31st. So Halloween 3535 is the year.

Speaker: So now we're in the future and they're all waking up. I didn't get that from the house. I got that from Wiki. Yeah. Yeah, that's not portrayed well. Yeah.

Speaker: But yeah, the transition part, you know, because of Fast and Furious location is two separate buildings. You have to walk outside and into the other one. So last year for Jason, they had a good outdoor scene. It used that space very well. This year, they just sort of continue the same theming that they already have.

Speaker: However, you go from this supposed very cold, freezing, unfreezing type thing to the 95 degree, 100% humidity Orlando outside, even though you're still inside. And it just it ruined the immersion for me.

Speaker: Yeah, it did kind of kill the story. Well, what there was of a story, because we clearly didn't understand what was going on anyways. But apparently you're being, they're waking up and then you go through some like little rooms where there's like robot scientists and surgeons like doing experiments on like the bodies. Yeah.

Speaker: Then you have a lot of hallways with a lot of metal and you come upon this robot that says like, don't go in there or you'll die. And we go in there and it gets a little bloodier. And i don't know, it's a lot of the same. There is a cool so kind of like effect where they have like an inflatable tarp that kind of runs into you with a lot of blood on it. yeah.

Speaker: They try to do like a hallway similar to the appearance of the Jason hallway with multiple scares, but it doesn't really hit. I don't know what else to say. yeah I was confused about that transition where they're like, don't go in there or you'll die.

Speaker: i thought I was already dying before that. I'm not really sure what was going on. So you say that those were like the the robot doctors or whatever doing experiments on other people, I guess.

Speaker: Like I think trying to keep the the people that have woken up alive. Cause like the goal is that technology has advanced by the time that they are unfrozen enough to make them immortal.

Speaker: Okay. So I think those robots are trying to make humans immortal, but it's like gone wrong. Okay. And then we go into the second part and it's the are the experiments trying to kill us.

Speaker: Yes. Okay. I mean, that does make a little bit more sense. I just don't think that's. You wouldn't know that. The costumes aren't differentiated. Like there's. Right. I don't know.

Speaker: I'll have to pay a little bit more attention with that plot in mind. Next time I go through. Yeah, me too. I mean, I just read that on wiki and that's how I took it. So ah we didn't get that from the house. We just saw a bunch of robots. Yeah.

Speaker: Um, okay. Let's move on to Hellraiser. Um, we're getting close to two hours. We're not going to make it probably, but we'll be close. Um, obviously these, these newer tent houses, there's no facade. There's just the poster of Hellraiser and sinners on them. Um, Hellraiser did have a couple of like boxes outside and there was very loud playing of the, of the theme song. So that was cool.

Speaker: Yeah. Um, yeah. You go through the puzzle box, like into it, which I think was a unique way to sort of introduce the house. um Some other standout parts you have Pinhead up on a stage.

Speaker: And he, I think, is the only one that doesn't have a full mask on. He just has like prosthetics. And man, he is creepy. He looks so good. Yeah. He plays that part really well. I'm like staring I feel like there were so many actors I was just like staring at, like trying to figure out. I'm like, this is weird. Yeah. but And even the masks were well done.

Speaker: The one part that felt a little cheesy was, um I forget her name, but the from the first one, the wife. or Yeah. Coming out of the mattress with like the red bodysuit that felt a little cheesy to me.

Speaker: Yeah. I don't know how they were going to make that look. Yeah. Better, but yeah, I agree. There's like a sex scene in it. You see, yeah, there's like a moaning sound effect and you see some booty cheeks through the window.

Speaker: a mannequin. Yeah. be clear. Yes. Um, Yeah, I mean, i think the design was really well done with all the winding. You can kind of look through in various parts of the pathway and see other parts of the pathway, like truly like a labyrinth. um All of the Cenobites looked really well done. They were scary. There were a ton of them.

Speaker: I don't know what else to really say. yeah I think we said most of it earlier. There's there's not too many spoilery moments, I guess. Yeah, it's the movies. Yeah. Like the scenes from the movies, I guess. um Sinners, though, i just love this house. The more I think about it, I'm like, this was so fun to walk through. I'm so glad it did the movie justice. It's good. And some people say it's not scary. I think it's scary.

Speaker: Yeah, the vampires are really in your face. They really are. Yeah. But it starts off with Smoke and Stack just on stage. And they're not trying to scare you. They're just talking to you. And apparently they have around 20 different dialogues that they say.

Speaker: Wow. I didn't recognize them being different. Yeah. But let me tell you, these men not only looked like each other, but they looked like Michael B. Jordan. Yeah. I was like, we did how are they doing this? I'm like, is this one of those moments where Michael B. Jordan is here?

Speaker: um But you have Sammy playing the guitar in the juke joint. um You have, what's her name? Mary murdering stack, cornbread in there. Murdering that like family beforehand. Yeah.

Speaker: Um, cornbread, cornbreads in there. You have outdoor scenes. do You have a screen. I'm jumping around here, but you have a screen at the end that shows like all the people burning, which I thought was cool. Yeah.

Speaker: Um, Great use of music. You hear, obviously, like the entry music is from the movie. Then you hear i lied to you That scene, even though they they teased, that was one thing I thought would maybe have a little bit more people. It was kind of just like Sammy on stage with like some shadows of people dancing. Yeah, there was another screen with some silhouettes, basically.

Speaker: yeah And then at the end, you hear like the Irish music when you're going through kind of like the onslaught of vampires from outside. So that was cool. Yeah, just really well done. Chronological, fun, scary.

Speaker: Yeah, liked it a lot. Each are Blood and Guts. So this one is just super silly and fun. The transitions, what they are is you have like an old-timey TV in there, and then they play maybe a two, three-second loop.

Speaker: introducing with ah blood and guts, introducing what the next movie or whatever you want to call it is going to be. Which I think for Slaughter Cinema, it was not that complex, right? I think there was just movie posters. Yeah, it was just like a poster. so This was good because it had audio. So even if you couldn't read it fast enough walking through, you could hear what it was supposed to be. Right. Even if you're halfway through the curtains, you can still hear it.

Speaker: You didn't have to actually read it. um Let's see. I have... I thought the facade was pretty well done. Like it really looked like a, like a station. And then he you had like the van from the prison where he escaped kind of like parked into it outside. Right. Yeah. With the the audio, like Mr. HR blood and guts escaped from carry penitentiary or whatever, be on the lookout. Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah, i thought that was good because you're going to be in that line for a while. So you get to take it all in yeah This line, and I think Tyler will agree, is becoming worse than fast and Furious Q. Yeah, it just absolutely crawls. The Express always seems to be, i don't know if it's mismanaged or we just time it wrong every night, but it just takes forever.

Speaker: I watched them. I tried to count the people. I lost count, but it was probably 200 express people that they put in before a single standby people person. Yeah, it was bad.

Speaker: But I did um write down the movies and are the rooms in chronological order. so obviously this is a heavy spoiler, but we can kind of go through them that way. So you enter into the like studio foyer and you see Larry with his intro. He's like torturing someone and then you go into the different rooms. So the first one was called Horseless Hollow.

Speaker: There was definitely a horse from Hatchet and Chains in there. The Puppet? Yeah. Yeah, I think it was probably really... Oh, like I know you! But they're just all silly themes like that. Oh, he lost his horse.

Speaker: He lost his horse. The next one is Tiki Terror. It's like a werewolf in tiki bar. And I don't think I... It's got coconut in there. Did it? Yeah. Yeah. Oh, don't know if I noticed. I did. i don't remember where I saw this or read it, but the um one of the characters in there is Eddie from horror movie makeup show.

Speaker: Oh, yeah. I didn't realize that. But now that I'm thinking back on it, that's true because that's under refurbishment right now. Yeah, interesting. Yeah, we only did this house twice like Madlands 2. Unfortunately, the line was just so long. But yeah, good to know. Now I'm definitely going to do my research since I've been through the houses and make sure I know what to look for when we go back. And they say that if you do the hand movements to him, he will do the hand movements.

Speaker: You know, the part where they're like, moving your arm like that when he's pretending to be fake. Yeah. If you've seen that show, then you know what I'm talking about. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's cool. Also, I forgot to mention there is a guest activated trigger in this house in the first room that you can push.

Speaker: Yeah. um And the only other ones we saw were like in the killer clown section of downtown clown town. Maybe there's more. Let us know if you've been and you saw some. The next movie and room represented was grayscale graveyard. This was so interestingly done. It really looked black and white in there. They really did. Yeah.

Speaker: Even their hair was black and white. Yeah, it was really good. Then there was Cult of the Pumpkin Lord. That was a huge, I guess, scare actor with costume.

Speaker: yeah yeah, it was a real actor, but he's just on top of a gigantic pumpkin, basically. Yeah. Then we had your favorite, Conjure the Funk. Yeah, it's just... It's like the most I've ever but it's a disco. Yeah, I don't even know what type of creature they were.

Speaker: I don't know. They were doing. but they're seven Yeah. Doing disco moves. And then we had schoolhouse resurrection would had the, one of my favorite scares. There's a bunch of like students at desks, but um only some of them are mannequins.

Speaker: Yeah. I think two are real for a mannequins maybe. Yeah. And then the best smelling room madness of pumpkin spice, which is like, um he's like, I don't know, a scientist and it smells like pumpkin spice in there.

Speaker: Yeah, he's making coffee, basically. um I don't really know what was scary about it, but it nothing absolutely smells like pumpkin spice and it's very strong.

Speaker: Very strong and very good. And then you end with like the feature presentation, which is you go back to Larry Kurtzberger, HR Blood and Guts yeah back on stage. He's like torturing the prison guard.

Speaker: Yeah. And you get a bonus scare at the end also, potentially. Yeah. right Lastly, alien invasion, alien abduction. Like I said, this facade is really well done. You're looking at the farm that this is taking place at. um You enter the barn um of the house and you see like Different people and goats being kind of sucked up by the spaceship that has landed on top. And you see like claws coming down and grabbing things. um It goes into the kitchen, which is like all in disarray. um you see a bunch of little alien scares in there. and There's like a scene with the dad and a dead mom and he's holding a gun. He's like, you don't know who you messed with. You killed my wife. I think it was a crossbow actually.

Speaker: Oh, was it? I wasn't paying attention that close, I guess. And you see a grandfather in a wheelchair being sucked up. um You go into this bedroom, which is like sideways, um which is really cool kind of aesthetic. Yeah.

Speaker: Then you go into a hallway with a bunch of doors and the floor is vibrating in this whole hallway, which was cool. New technology used. And you see a pretty gruesome scare with like a girl with like a giant claw through her abdomen.

Speaker: The more I was thinking about that, I was like, wow, how'd they make that look so real? yeah look at that look It's really well done. Um, and then you go outside the house and there's a bunch of alien scares. And apparently i did look it up, Tyler. I saw on somebody's video that the shed outside the house or the little outhouse does sometimes have an alien scare in it.

Speaker: I'm wondering if they stopped that after the first weekend. Maybe. And only the meeting night people got it. Cause we didn't even see a semblance of anybody being close to there.

Speaker: Yeah, true. Well, that's that. We did it. That's the spoilers. We have a couple more questions and we'll wrap this up here. um Let's see. We have Mullet asked, did the Aussie house do the legend justice?

Speaker: I don't think either of us are really the best people to answer this. I definitely am a casual Aussie fan. I enjoy his music. I watch the MTV show of him and his family and that's about where it ends. Yeah. i like I said, I know maybe two songs,

Speaker: um i did we did love I did sometimes watch that show with my mom also I didn't know anything about it but yeah we loved the house if non fans can still love the house I would think that it does him justice but and it does have a very like meaningful ending like a poignant ending so yeah hopefully all the audience fans love it let us know if you are one C-Pred asked, given that you've now gone and memories are still fresh, what would you have changed? What went really well and what still needs improvement?

Speaker: i think we kind of... We kind of covered that in our reviews of the houses. I think the the things that need the biggest change for me are obviously you can't redo houses at this point, but stranger things really missed the mark on some important scenes. I think in Jack and Odd Fellow, it's crucial that you can hear the narration in the house. Yeah.

Speaker: I think they need to do a better job of telling the story of Cybergoria before you go through it. If they're going to take that approach and have a video being played in the queue.

Speaker: Those would be some main things I would try to improve. Yeah. At a more macro level, I would say the cohesion was really good this year between the scare zones.

Speaker: Yeah. um And what still needs improvement is just... the line management between express and standby. We saw both sides of it. We had express one night. We only had standby the other nights.

Speaker: Some days it was fine. And some days it was like, what are you guys doing? We're not moving at all. This is ridiculous on both sides. Yes. So agree.

Speaker: And then Allison asked us of the houses you experienced, which one would you most want to be a part of as a scare actor? Yeah. We actually talked about this. um I said I would rather be in a zone, but if we're sticking to houses,

Speaker: um i don't know. Do you have an answer? I could come up with a couple of answers. I could say the Aussie house because there's good music, but I don't think I would really fit as any of the specific scare actors in that house. I think I could be a good, i think I would prefer to be a scare actor where I'm face showing rather than masked because I think I can like emote pretty well with my face just from having like a background in performance. So maybe a vampire in sinners. I really liked the vibe in that house.

Speaker: I think I'd like to be in stranger things just cause I was a fan of the show and maybe I can make it a little bit better. oh Yeah. Well, thanks for hanging in there. I know we're a little over two hours. this is one of our longer episodes. I think the following one will be long as well. We're doing our best to get you the content we wait all year for. So we know you're listening at 1.5 or two anyway. So Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah. All right. So um thank you for listening. Give us a follow um on Instagram if you don't already at thrills, chills and spills.

Speaker: And we will be back soon with some more info from California. Stay spooky. Bye. That's tea, actually.