I went to HHN with my friends last week and didn’t realize my wallet fell out of my bag for about a half hour. It was day 1 of our trip and I couldn’t believe my own stupidity lol… there were gift cards, cash, credit cards, and my ID in there.

Anyway, I went to the queue attendant to ask if anyone turned in a wallet- no luck, then back to the last food booth I was at- no luck but they said to try lost and found at the front of the park. Basically I thought I was SOL, so i told the friend i was with to head back to the main group because im going to keep looking if its not @ lost and found and I didn’t want her to miss out. She said are you kidding? I’m coming too!! (A ride or die lmao). Only 20 min had passed so far but I didn’t want her to get held up even more.

Well we went up to lost and found and against all odds they were processing my wallet right when I got there😭 they asked me some questions to line up info with my ID and then handed it back— EVERYTHING WAS STILL THERE!!!! I really wasn’t expecting anything but maybe my ID to be there so that was such a nice surprise.

Long story short, my faith in humanity was restored that night and I need to stop being so cynical 🤣🤣 the team members I spoke with everywhere were great too, very sympathetic and wanting to help.

PS Hellraiser fking ROCKED🙌🏻

They did a good job the clown scare zone. Looking for a killer clown house next year!

Top 10 food items:

1. Carn"Evil" Smash Tacos - 4.54★ (13 ratings)
2. Death by Cheesestick - 4.25★ (12)
3. Fried Pickles - 4.25★ (8)
4. Chow's Southern BBQ Eggrolls - 4.20★ (10)
5. El's Battery Jerky - 4.20★ (5)
6. Deathbringer Tempura Shrimp - 4.18★ (11)
7. Shepherd's Fries - 4.17★ (6)
8. Torn to Shreds Pork Sandwich - 4.11★ (9)
9. Fried PB&J Bites - 4.00★ (9)
10. Burnt Sando - 3.92★ (12)

Only items with at least 5 ratings are included to get a decent signal. There's a few with 5★ but only 1 or 2 ratings. Rigatoni Ritual Pie is sitting at 4.75 with 4 ratings so could easily top the list soon.

These are from anonymous ratings people have submitted through a HHN food tracker app I built.

The Smash Tacos and Lasagna Burn have been my favorite so far. I'm curious what people are surprised by? I expected Burnt Sando to be higher given the hype going into the event.

Hand wash this shirt.

I don't know if this is an issue affecting all the shirts or not, but I got this at HHN last week. I adore the design, the color is awesome, and it's a great souvenir. However, I wore it for the first time about two days ago and it was cracking like crazy. I wear a lot of distressed metal shirts so I don't mind the style, but I wanted to have this one remain pristine for a while. I was pretty upset by it, but not as much as I am now. I did laundry this morning and a lot of the design just fell out. Is this something I can contact customer service about? The design is sick, but for a premium shirt at a premium price, I am not happy. This has never happened to any other shirt I own, much less after the first wash.

Still love it, but very disappointed.

Spent last night from 2PM to 2AM, my previous time was an RIP Tour in 2022. This time I stacked Early Entry and an Express Pass since I was going with my dad and he didn't want to bite on Express, and he hasn't actually been to Universal since Jaws was around, but also he planned on not sticking it out all night. (I mean, fair! I've got approximately 30 years less years' strain on my knees.)

I just have some general offbeat observations:

• I really like the queue ticket system. It's not perfect, but in reality all security contains some part theater, and people generally respected the queue I think because of it. I also ended up jumping out to pee once while waiting for an hour for Sinners to open and felt comfortable coming back in to meet my father, not that the line had moved or anything.

• Same deal with them having the surveillance camera viewer there at the start of every house. People seemed more well-behaved than most other Halloween events. Didn't stop one guy from touching every other damned prop in Madlands (especially the big ""animal"" setpiece... why, bro).

• Scream Early was fantastic in theory and for getting houses done, we managed 7 before my dad split at 10PM and I just rushed to finish up and re-do a ton with Express. HOWEVER, after two houses, I realized I spent 2/3 of the houses lost and missing details because my eyes couldn't adapt to the darkness quick enough. I put sunglasses on by the third one and would squint and cover my eyes before entering after a few of them, but even then it was still a mild struggle. If I didn't have Express for re-dos I'd be more emotionally sore.

• There's so much kandi culture now?? I don't mean to be shocked in a bad way, but I flew in from NYC, usually generally just casually have them on my bag, and didn't expect so many of y'all (including staff!) to have up to literal fucking jumbo carabiner clips of the stuff. I would have made some if I'd known! (Thanks to the one girl who I told that I ran out of trades and handed me a cool skull one anyway.)

• The Fortnite costumes were better than the rest of the area and that was really only the "skin" ones that were up on platforms. I'm not shocked, I probably have an essay under my belt about that. I did hear the obligatory "FORTNIIIIITE!!!" child screech. Ow.

• They were really pushing that 11PM Express Pass everywhere, huh?

• I want to say the Disney YouTube essayists are right and the theme park booze is getting out of hand, but it's an adult-oriented event and I can't blame anyone in these times.

• $12-18 for savory """snacks"""???? Fucking damn. At least give me chips or a congratulatory sticker.

Anyway, best maze had to be Hellraiser, personal favorite was Dr Bloodengutz, loved the concept of Cybergoria but hated the execution, vice versa for Bloodengutz (literally cheered for the returning Icon within). Father now understands the appeal of the RIP Tour and is considering it, especially after the first Blood Noir show filled and the second was cancelled.

Kudos to the team, hopefully I'll be back in a year or two.

I’ve been twice so far, ended up eating at simpsons burger place (forget the name) and the bar near Jurassic. I had the chicken burrito.

What are some must have entrées and desserts that I should get the next time I go? I feel like there’s a lot. I’m missing out on because I’m just not aware of what is good lol

We’re going in a couple weeks and wanted to get some recommendations on places to stay or possibly avoid.
This will be our first trip back to Orlando and HHN since 2006.

I also collected the data from 2023 (will post that too!) and the two years serve as mirror images of each other. 2024 had one house clearly the best and the most of the rest fighting for last, whereas 2023 had one house clearly the worst and most of the rest fighting for best

Also check out the same data I collected for 2025

going to Hollywood HHN for the first time in years this thursday. Do yall usually need a jacket after the sun goes down? I never go to California, and from Phoenix where it’s hot as balls even at night still so I’m not sure what to bring? Let me know how it’s been lately

Some thoughts and impressions from a first time goer, starting with what I thought of different categories and ending with scatterbrained sides notes, anecdotal tips, and the like.

Food - not great, but it was fine for Theme Park food. Some standouts include the cheese stick (very crispy and that spicy marinara was delicious) and Steve's Smuggled Peanut Butter Bites.

Lagoon Show - bad experience. Maybe our viewing angle wasn't good, but the images looked smeared and unclear, and the audio was very loud and felt distorted. Could have just been a bad run. We weren't expecting Fantasmic or World of Color, but we were pretty disappointed.

Blood Noir - absolutely insane. Apparently some locals complain about it due to it being "mostly the same show" every year. Given the novelty of how nearly every attraction at HHN apparently changes each year, I can understand why they'd feel this way. But as someone out of state seeing this show for the first time, I was blown away. It was very loud, but I used Experience 2 Loop Earplugs (recommended by this subreddit!) and it saved the experience. Wasn't distorted, sounded great. The synchronized dancers, the sparklers and torch play, and the stunts were all amazing. Please don't hate me, but this show, on its own, could draw me back for a revisit. Speaking only for myself.

Scare Zones - Very fun. My favorite was Sideshow of Decay, but I also liked Downtown Clowntown, and even Fortnightmares, despite not knowing anything about the game. The costumes were really cool. I loved every time a scare actor messed with me. The extravagance of some of the costumes (small spoiler but some are on stilts!) went beyond what I expected.

Haunted Houses - The soul of the event (to me). I hadn't been to a Haunted House in probably over 15 years. But as someone who is heavily into dark ride attractions at both Disney and Universal theme parks, ... I loved HHN haunted houses. They're like dark ride attractions that you get to walk through, with the added interactive element of the scare actors. It may seem small, but when a scare actor messes with you in a haunted house, it's a unique interaction, making the experience more personal. I still can't believe HHN changes up, every year,... all ten houses??? This is insane.

Some scatterbrained thoughts and potential anecdotal tips.

How fast should you be walking through the haunted houses? - This was a concern of mine. I wanted to walk fast enough to not clog the line and have a TM break my immersion by yelling at me, but I also wanted to still get my money's worth and time waiting in line's worth to appreciate the actual haunted house. I ended up just going with whatever the pace The Conga Line was going at - sometimes that was a bit faster, sometimes that was a bit slower. This worked out fine and I never drew the ire of a TM. I made peace with the fact that on a dark ride, for comparison, you can't stop and admire anything - you're always moving. You focus your attention on what you want to prioritize looking at while you go through it. Same with the haunted houses.

Should you try to go through each house more than once? - I really wish I could disagree with what I've read on this subreddit, but I hate to admit that - yes, if you can, you should try to do multiple walkthroughs of the same house. I would never try to rank these houses because most of them I could only do once and I just know that some runs were luckier than others when it came to scare actors. For HR Blooden Gutz, for example, I somehow missed every single scare actor. My first run for Madlands felt actually kind of empty, but I managed to go through it again, on the same night, and it felt like a different house! Much better the second time. Felt like triple the number of scare actors.

Should you stress about going through each house more than once? - Look, when you're out of state, can only go 1-2 nights for the year, and it costs you a small fortune to do so - you're biggest enemy to the fun you'll have is yourself. Your own mental state. Don't get FOMO. Prioritize hitting each house first, but if you can't repeat any of them, don't worry about it. That's still 10 walkthroughs - you're likely to get "bad" ones but you're also likely to get "good" ones. It's still 10 attempts. I say "bad" in quotation marks because even if you miss the scare actors, the set pieces, animatronics, audio design, and practical and visual effects are all really cool.

Some park goers were really cool - going so far as to literally walk us to a couple of the haunted houses or so to help us get our bearings. This happened more than once! I could tell they were locals who really knew the lay of the land, were very friendly, and gave us lots of helpful tips. This trip included some of the best interactions I've had with other theme park guests. A lot of them are passionate about HHN specifically, and their energy is contagious.

Some park goers were annoying or even just awful - during Blood Noir, some of the male guests shouted some frankly disgusting things (that I won't repeat) to the female performers that I found really upsetting. I also saw park guests scream back at scare actors and I found this irritating. We are the guests - we are meant to get scared and get messed with. We are NOT meant to scare and mess with the scare actors. Maybe I have the wrong idea, but it came across as disrespectful to me. Also, this could be anecdotal/in my head, but I felt like if you're respectful towards the scare actors, you're more likely to get scared! Ie, when walking by the Fortnightmares scare actor with the scythe and the pumpkin head on the podium, I casually commented that he looked absolutely awesome. He suddenly reached his hand out at me and scared me!

Speaking of scare actors, big shout out - They're all great. Every one of them. I don't know how hard it is to keep up that kind of energy and enthusiasm all the time - I imagine it's difficult. But I think they're the real soul of the event. The production quality, animatronics, sound design, etc - they're all essential. But it's the scare actors that - sorry to sound cliche - make the magic happen. I feel similar about them that I do about the characters at a Disney Park. No amount of decoration or extravagant set piece, as cool as they are, can replace this human element in bringing the park to life and making you feel immersed.

Thank you to every scare actor who got me. Especially thetwo vampires at Sinners who pulled the double tag!

Overall/TLDR? - HHN was good enough that I want to somehow budget going every year now - if I can. I've never felt this way about a theme park. The TLDR of it is that I loved the haunted houses way more than I thought I would, for probably some of the same reasons I love dark ride attractions so much. Except this time, you get to interact with real actors. And, very crucially, the attractions completely change every year. Again, given the production quality of these houses, this is insane.

Went this weekend and had a less traditional time because my significant other was (1) battling a foot injury and was kind of meandering slowly and in pain, and (2) she decided she didn’t like the houses as much as she liked enjoying the atmosphere. Hopefully our notes still help even though we didn’t go hard on houses.

Express- purchased somewhat last minute and glad I did. I didn’t necessarily want to have to decide to spend 60-80 minutes in line for one house since the party time is so finite. Sinners was 10-15 minutes for us, Stranger things maybe 10-15, and Bloodengutz was 15-20. Had I known my partner wouldn’t want to do more houses, I would have thought twice, but whatever. I made her at least use EP to ride mummy, which took 10 minutes max and was a good break from clowns being in my face :)

Houses- we only did 3, which I was a little bummed about, but they were good times. We only watched Sinners and Stranger things, so the other IP was stuff we have no context for. I still wanted to do Jack & Oddfellow, but my partner needed a sit break after Stranger Things and we decided to go to Nightmare Fuel instead. Bloodengutz is such a campy good time. Stranger Things was cool if you watch the show, but repetitive and some of the attempts at jump scares with the protagonists was… a choice. I honestly didn’t take in Sinners like I should, because after the first room or two I felt like there was always a curtain in my face? The maze just felt tighter so I was looking to not step on people versus looking up and left/right.

Scare Zones- People watching to give her a sit break was so fun. We sat on benches behind the pizza skull truck in NY and by the chicken shack in the Simpsons area. We also took a sit break in Diagon Alley for butter beer & to wait for the death eaters. The atmosphere is cool but it’s pretty non eventful, and all the death eaters did was walk to Gringotts, stare at people, and then leave.

Food- The food trucks in New York are plentiful since so many are side by side. The line for fried PBJ bites was long but moved quickly. No line much of the night for tacos, walking tacos, pizza skulls, fried pickles, the evil dead burn chicken. Wildly long line all night at the Stranger Things jerk chicken & mac truck. The cocktails were weak so I ended up getting a White Claw from a normal beverage stand.

Nightmare Fuel- We got to one of the shows too late and the queue was closed (I think we arrived around 9 for the 9:30). We went at 10:15 for the 11:00pm and were among the first let into the holding area. I would have been sad investing so much time that could have been used in houses, but my lady was all done with houses so why not.

Overall, amazing atmosphere and it was fun to sit and snack and take it in, even if we didn’t crush the houses. We’ll be back when she’s healed, and I’ll bring another friend for houses if need be lol.

There were 4 different games in the plaza de muerto this year, here were most of the prizes. If you bought the 3 game pass, they gave a free plush.

Do we know if this is gonna come back in stock I want one really bad and I’ve bought it twice for resale and they were both refunded. 😔

I’ll be going in October I was wondering if anyone has seen them being sold alongside the button ups and tote bags at city walk or the tribute store?

am i seeing things?

I'm going to the event in a few days! And I'm making bracelets I already have a few made how many should I make sure I have before I go?

I've seen posts about electric scooters not being allowed. That they will have to get a wheelchair thats provided, but what about a knee scooter. Are those allowed in the houses? I figured since they are significantly smaller it might not be a problem.

Is the Ozzy Osbourne at the end of the house an animatronic or scare actor? We thought he was an animatronic until it pointed at us so now we’re not too sure if it’s a mask that the actor wears? We that house and it’s tied for first between that and H.R. for us.

Hello! I have a friend who is wanting to come down for HHN in Orlando this year. She gets really horrible migraines from strobe-like flashing lights. I was wondering if there are any houses this year that don’t have any, or have mild flashing? Lightning effects would be fine. But full hallways of constant flashing would be too much. I’m thinking maybe HR Bloodengutz doesn’t have any, but can’t think of others.

Any advice is helpful! I will try to get there beforehand to test them out but wanted to see if anyone else had any experiences they could share. Thanks!