The beginning of Halloween Horror Nights (HHN) in Orlando often brings happiness to so many. Yet, each year some kinks need to be worked out. Also, sometimes guests get a lack of information from Universal Orlando about certain procedures. This year continues that trend. Based on opening night, September 2^nd, we learned a few things. By no means would this count as everything learned (or to be learned) for this year. However, I will list some below.

1. This event creates long lines for food and beverage booths. The food and beverage booths drew long queues early especially. As per usual, the food/beverages area even drew longer queues in the middle of the event. If you need food or beverage during the food, be prepared to wait. The specialty beverage queues also created longer waits. Of course, places to sit or tables to use will be hard to find.

2. Blinky cups are back as souvenir cups for alcoholic beverages. Yet as mentioned, you should expect a wait for your cup.

3. Speaking of beverages, expect a lack of ice in the freestyle machines to go with long queue. Since Universal Orlando went to allowing anyone to get water from the freestyle machines, the lack of ice issues has increased significantly. Halloween Horror Nights crowds cause this issue to magnify.

4. Expect queue for houses to grow quickly as night continues until at least 11pm, Houses like Halloween, The Weeknd, and Bugs Eaten Alive drew longer queues than others (at least on the first night). On the second night of the event, the queue for The Weeknd house reached 35 minutes even for those in stay and scream holding areas. The queue for that house leveled out at about an hour soon after that. In contrast, the shortest wait for a house early on that night was the Blumhouse house at 10-15 minutes. The Halloween movie house held the longest posted waits most of the time this past weekend. However, crowds ebbed and flowed so posted waits changed often.

5. No traditional roaming chainsaw hoards this year. Most of the time, the Springfield area will be absent of chainsaws. However, scare actors with chainsaws will wander around so they can appear anywhere not in an obvious scare zone.

6. Yes, the Pumpkin Lord will be there for all to see. He serves as a mascot of the HHN event this year.

7. With no daytime parades this year, the set-up for scare zones functioned far easier. This allowed some stay and scream holding areas to open as early as 5:30. Entire event opened around 6:05pm for example on opening night. Though so hiccups happened on Saturday and Sunday night but in most cases, the event opened earlier than previous years.

8. The “stay and scream” holding areas look different this year.

9. At least for opening weekend, the “Tribute Store” drew long queues. This should be expected on “sold out” nights like opening weekend. Still, the demand for entrance into the “Tribute Store” should die down over the next few weeks.

If you plan to visit HHN 2022 in Orlando this year, these conditions should be considered in your planning. Of course, some things will be solved. However, HHN draws large crowds so expect long queues for most things. Enjoy the spooky!