HHN Express Passes - really worth it?

[soarinfan]

Hi all,

My first visit to HHN will be this October - can't wait though I have been warned and have read online in a lot of places, to get ready to queue for the mazes, sometimes for astronomical amounts of time.

My question is this - we will be getting the Rush of Fear pass as we will be visiting the 2nd, 3rd and 4th October - so we have the potential to experience HHN for 3 nights if we wanted to. Is it worth getting an Express Pass that covers 3 nights? The mere fact they sell them covering the entire period seems to point to yes, but I'd like someones opinion who has actually experienced HHN before committing to £150 on top of my annual pass

[lyn22]

If you we're going 1 night only yes , like me you're going several nights & I'm not bothering with express , last time we did more or less everything on 1 night except 2 houses ( 1 of which didn't interest me anyway , make sure your in the park in the afternoon so u get put in the holding pen & get released before the hoard of people outside queuing to get in come , if you make a run for it you can get 2 houses done before they get there lol

[hawki]

I agree with the last post, been last 3 years & never bought express & got most done in 1 night, by being in the park before 5, & going to the holding area.

2 houses open early so they're done before the park even opens!
You just need to keep moving!

[soarinfan]

That does alleviate some of my fears of not seeing everything - thanks. Does anyone know if Express is available for purchase on the night like during the day? Or is it always sold out/not for sale by that point?

[lyn22]

I think they are usually available even tho they claim to sell out , give universal their due the night we went it was spur of the momemt as we hadn't planned it with daughter only 8 , spoke to guest services & they daud Deprnds on the child , we felt she would be fine ( she totally was ) & bought tickets , asked about express pass & he didn't recommend it as it wasn't a very busy night ( it was still v busy but I guess not compared to s lot of other nights ) we didn't do any of the normal rides open at night on HHN tho as we'd done thrm through the day , this time 1 of our HHN is to do the rides & experience them at night when it's dark

[rens]

If you know that you are going 3 nights then make use of the early entry for the 1st two nights and then resort to express pass for the final night if there are things that you haven't managed to do.
We got everything done over 2 nights without expresses passes last year and we didn't stay later than 10pm on either night

[johnscone]

I went last October and I was really glad we got the express passes.

We only went for one night and we managed to do everything easily in the one night (but only because we had the passes).

Some of the queues for the more popular mazes (The Walking Dead springs to mind) were a couple of hours long without passes.

[floridabuddies]

we went last year and spread HHN over 3 nights. We managed to get everything done without purchasing the express pass, just try to get to get to the most popular mazes as soon as they open. Last year we walked straight out of the holding area and straight into the Halloween maze queue which was showing as the longest queue throughout our trip. I think we waited about 15 minutes for it to actually open and then walked straight through. The smaller, less popular mazes were a walk on. We went during the first two weeks of October. I imagine it gets busier the nearer to Halloween. i think really you will need to judge it when you get there.

We made a point of spreading it across a couple of days as there is so much other stuff going on that we didn't want to try and cram in the mazes and miss spending time in the scare zones, etc.

Its so fun though, you will love it!

[g1970]

Its a lot of walking for 3 nights. We only ever go one night with a fast pass. As others have said, we've seen queues of over 2hrs for some houses.

My other half point blank refuses to go again this year

[Shooby doo]

We haven't needed them yet, in 2012 we went on both a Fri & Sat night & completed all the Houses by 22:30. If I was going for 1 night I would perhaps think about it but tbh the way to look at it is that you actually only need it for about 4 Houses as you can easily get the others done with a minimal wait! We also have the ROF but still plan on being in the park before closing, this way you can easily get the first 3 Houses under your belt before encountering any queues. Our basic plan is that as long as we can get 4/5 per night & then use the 3rd night to re-do the good ones.
SD