And so it begins...
Tonight's crowds were, in a word, ugly. A stark contrast to last Sunday. By 6:30pm, the queues for CitW and AWiL were over approaching 45 minutes and RE and ED already were building even though the houses hadn't opened yet. At 11pm, pathways were extremely crowded and it was getting really difficult to navigate through the crowds. We finished our assignments from the LT game and got the heck out of Dodge because of the crowds. From here on out, I think we can only expect it to get worse. The exceptions may be Halloween itself and possibly the November dates. As much as I hate Express Pass, for anybody who is only visiting on one night, I strongly suggest the investment if you want to be sure to see all 8 houses, enjoy both shows and spend some time in the Scare Zones.
The only other way to possibly visit every house is to take advantage of Stay and Scream and knock off 3 or 4 houses before things start getting busy. If you plan to do this, your best bet might be to S&S in the Kid Zone/Animal Actors holding area where you can quickly hit WD and LaL. Next, hit Afterlife and then make a quick march past London and San Francisco to Havoc. Because Havoc and Afterlife are post-show dump houses, it will be important to try to get to them BEFORE the first B&T and RHPS shows end. When these shows dump, the start a domino effect that the houses really don't recover from until maybe the very end of the night. If you are able to get through your first 4 houses by 8, you should be okay to get through the remaining houses. You'll probably have really long waits, but you should be able to get through them all. For the front houses, save RE for last unless you are an uber-Fan of the games.