It’s that time of year again – Spooky season. Full of pumpkin everything, cooling weather, and best of all Halloween events. By far the most popular, scary, Halloween event in the Orlando area continues to be Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights (HHN). This year’s event includes 10 Haunted Houses and 6 frightful scare zones. This year all the usual additional offerings have made their way back including: express passes, multi-night passes, RIP tours, scareactor dining, and daytime tours of the houses – for extra fees of course. One question that is commonly asked is whether or not the option to upgrade to express is worth it or not. For those not familiar, the express pass option allows you to enter a reduced queue for each house and participating ride one time during your event night. The cost to add the express option onto your admission varies based upon the date selected, with prices ranging from $119 – 209 a person. A hefty increase over and above admission, which is why the question if it is worth it is often asked.
We tracked our time in each queue and the time estimated for the counterpart standby line. The data we have is over the course of two separate Friday’s, getting to each house at least one time.
Opening day – Friday September 2nd
The Weeknd
Standby Estimated Wait: 60 minutes
Time Entered Express Lane: 7:34 pm
Time of House/Maze Start: 7:42 pm
Total Time: 8 minutes
Universal Monsters: Legends Collide
Standby Estimated Wait: 45 minutes
Time Entered Express Lane: 8:03 pm
Time of House/Maze Start: 8:13 pm
Total Time: 10 minutes
Descendents of Destruction
Standby Estimated Wait: 50 minutes
Time Entered Express Lane: 8:37 pm
Time of House/Maze Start: 8:52 pm
Total Time: 15 minutes
Bugs: Eaten Alive
Standby Estimated Wait: 65 minutes
Time Entered Express Lane: 9:14 pm
Time of House/Maze Start: 9:44 pm
Total Time: 30 minutes
The Horrors of Blumhouse
Standby Estimated Wait: 60 minutes
Time Entered Express Lane: 10:01 pm
Time of House/Maze Start: 10:26 pm
Total Time: 25 minutes
Spirits of the Coven
Standby Estimated Wait: 35 minutes
Time Entered Express Lane: 11:38 pm
Time of House/Maze Start: 11:47 pm
Total Time: 9 minutes
Hellblock Horror
Standby Estimated Wait: 20 minutes
Time Entered Express Lane: 11:59 pm
Time of House/Maze Start: 12:10 am
Total Time: 11 minutes
Third Friday of the Event – September 15th
Fiesta de Chupacabras
Standby Estimated Wait: 40 minutes
Time Entered Express Lane: 8:11 pm
Time of House/Maze Start: 8:20 pm
Total Time: 9 minutes
Dead Man’s Pier: Winter’s Wake
Standby Estimated Wait: 50 minutes
Time Entered Express Lane: 8:29 pm
Time of House/Maze Start: 8:36 pm
Total Time: 7 minutes
Halloween
Standby Estimated Wait: 50 minutes
Time Entered Express Lane: 8:47 pm
Time of House/Maze Start: 8:57 pm
Total Time: 10 minutes
Hellblock Horror
Standby Estimated Wait: 40 minutes
Time Entered Express Lane: 9:08 pm
Time of House/Maze Start: 9:15 pm
Total Time:7 minutes
Now in our experiences so far this season the express pass has immensely saved time. We noticed that most standby times seemed to be a decent representation and not over-inflated. We have read in the past to only expect the express pass to cut your wait time in about half. There were a few houses where this was the best that it could do but most others were still even shorter. Granted, this has so far only been the beginning of the season and waits will continue to increase. Especially as we make our way into October.
Is express worth it? Well, based on the data we have gathered so far it definitely is. It’s especially worth it if you’re only going to go to HHN once this season and want to hit up all the houses. In fact, if you want to hit up all the houses in one night, it’s probably your best chance at doing it without running everywhere or splurging for the RIP tour(which has it’s own perks that we’ll be writing about next week!). With that being said, we think that the wait times for the regular queue and express will continue to rise as the season progresses, so keep that in mind, that our experiences may not be the same as the one you’ll have.
