HHN’31 RIP Tour
Headed into the park around 6:30, taking the water taxi in to save our feet.
Crowds were already building – we dodged the main entrance and went to the RIP lobby.
Checked in and were given lanyards with our passes on. Up until our tour time (and afterwards) these act as express passes saving on queuing time.
We just picked up some drinks and watched a couple of scare zones.
It’s fun to just sit back and watch the scare actors picking their targets.
At 7:30 we went to the RIP Guest Area to get snacks and drinks.
It used to be the case you waited in this area and your pre-assigned guide came over to collect you. Now you can spend 20-60 minutes eating/drinking and when you are ready you head across the street…
To the horror make up show lobby where you were placed into the next available group. We were placed into a group with Tour Guide Shelby (whose name only now strikes me as a coincidence considering our rental car!)
Shelby was hugely upbeat. Seemed to be known by every scare actor, house teams and security staff. People kept shouting her name out as they passed. It made for added entertainment as she actually came into some houses with us and drew quite a lot of the scares.
You are unable to photograph or video the inside of the houses. So, no pictures to place here…
Crowd levels were high – no house had a queue lass than 65 minutes by 8pm. A couple of houses were 90-100 minutes. Shelby navigated us through the crowds, to each house. I think we only waited three minutes at one whilst a shift change happened within it. At each house she gave us the back story then they stopped the queues and sent us in.
We ticked off four houses within the first hour!
Fiesta De Chupacabras was an unusual house – seemed to have as many animatronic “scares” as scare-actors. Probably the weakest of the houses and we went through so quickly you kind of missed any details.
Dead Man’s Pier – we had seen the inside of this yesterday. Really impressive set and really chilly which was nice in the 80+ degree heat outside!
The Halloween house was good – we hadnt seen this in the behind the scenes tour. The last section was a series of mirrors and Michael Myers manequins interspersed with scare actors. It was a bit disorientating!
The Hellblock Horror house was slightly dissappointing – many of the posisble “boo holes” seemend empty and some of the expected actions were missing. Maybe it was bad timing for our particular group?
Spirits of the Coven – This was okay, some nice effects but in all honesty, fairly forgetable.
We had a break for 20-30 minutes inside the Jimmy Fallon show building. Chatted with Shelby. Apparently she had been a dancer in the Spongebob Squarepants parade previously! then she auditioned for scare acting and eventualy onto the VIP experience team.
After the break we headed off to the next batch of houses – Descendants of Destruction and Bugs:Eaten Alive. The latter was excellent. Some of the effects felt like ants/bugs running over your legs and feet. A girl in the group behind us screamed her lungs out all the way around! Good house with a real sense of humour to it.
A short bathroom and drinks break before moving onto the final few houses.
Universal Monsters:Legends Collide where the Mummy, Dracula and the Wolfman battle it out was another good set. Classic scenes from various movies and Dracula won! (the result changes from time to time).
The Weekend – another headline house which is based on an after hours party in Vegas was good. Relied a bit heavily on strobe lighting, but a good house all the same.
The last house The Horros of Blumhouse (Freaky and Black Phone) we had scene in the tour yesterday. Both were good although Black Phone was the better of the two. I had intended to watch the film on the plane on the way over but wasnt able to. If i cannot sleep on the way back i shall watch it.
After we left the last house we headed to the San Francisco area of the park to the Lombards restaurant which had been setup as an RIP tour rest area with bar. We were to relax here until taken to the 12:30 show.
A great night – we walked some 18000+ steps and had no intention of getting up for breakfast! I think we finally got to be around 2am.