What the heck happened??? Last Saturday night ( Oct 1) we had RIP HHN for five of us. $499 per person- $2500. Our tour was for 8:30pm. There were 11of us in total. When I called the VIP tour office that morning to ask if they thought they might get some extra tickets or cancellations, the lady on the phone was so rude to me and said "No way would tickets EVER become avaialble 48 hours before the tour time." I told her that this is how we bought the first two tickets. We called back and got tickets with a different agent.
Upon arrival- parking ( we did not Valet) was an absolute nightmare in Preferred and regular. It took us about 40 minutes. Security check was equally a mess. People were pushing the barriers to break through areas to get in.
The tour guide told us that we were eating dinner at 10:45pm. Our group told her that we unacceptable and we were all hungry and concerned because we knew they closed the dinner down at 11pm. She said "Don't worry we will make sure they stay and you get dinner."
Off we go to the RIP tour at a pace that a snail would have passed us at. I am not joking. The group thought we were being punked. It was not a normal walking pace. The crowds were pushing and shoving us because we were going too slow. It was super stressful.
Crowd control was non existent and the number of people in the park was, in my opinion, DANGEROUS. The wait times for lines, even Express pass was 2 to 3 hours. The tour guide got on a loud speaker and told the people in The Weekend line, "Hey you are almost there." "just Kidding- no where near the front" It was cringe worthy-those people had a 2 to 3 hour wait ahead of them.
The tour guide left us behind, at least 3 times upon exiting the mazes. This was so frustrating. How do you leave half your group and not notice?
She never mentioned nor took us to the RIP section of The Weekend bar.
The tour was a short tour. I believe it was 3 hours and change.
She got us to the buffet late 10:55pm ( late) and we only got there at that time because she got us in a bus to the lower lot, taking a short cut through the metropolitan area. And told us to immediately get food and then maybe take pics with the costumes in RIP restaurant ( we could not do that, scare-actor in the costume had left). We got salad and then the restaurant shut the lights off in the buffet and told us we could not come back for food. So no dinner. It was so miserable to go through the mazes feeling hungry.
The tour guide left us at Jabbawockeez show because according to her, she was going to Taco Bell.
When we exited the La Llorona maze and the tour guide had left us again, a scare actor came up behind me and put there hand over my face and pushed their pelvis into my rear- this was upsetting as nobody has the right to touch you, especiually like that and that person followed me down the way and tried again but I stopped them by confronting them and saying "No."
We called the next day, spoke to the original rude narcissistic lady in VIP sales from the morning before ( who tried to make the call about her not us), she was as rude AF and then refused to give her name or her supervisor's name. Called the main customer service number and spoke to Joan who claimed she was a supervisor (lies) and hung the phone up on us then emailed and claimed we hung up on her and then said she was not a supervisor. This was about 4 to 5 hours of waiting and talking on the phone. So, we had to drive several hours to the park itself, go through nightmare parking for $30, 40 minutes trying to find a space, nightmare security lines, just to go to Guest Relations in person because they hung up on us after hours of waiting.
Had to wait a really long time in line. Then, we had to stressfully explain everything again to some random person in the booth who didn't care one bit and was sour in attitude. Eventually, after a long time, a supervisor, who was nice, Jenny, did apologize and EVENTUALLY decided to do somewhat the right thing. We got a partial refund. She said she was charging us only a basic HHN admission for Saturday. But I just noticed, she overcharged us. It was supposed to be $102/person but charged a general admission theme park ticket of $124/person-not the correct price. so we still need $22 x 5 back to our credit card. More insult to injury.
Universal -Look at what you made us go through. Why not just do the right thing from the beginning? Why ruin our whole day. We had plans to go to Knott's Scary Farm and could not go do to you guys.
It's what you do and how you treat people when something goes wrong.
Shameful way to treat guests. And the way they are packing the park for HHN, in my opinion feels unsafe.
Save your money. This was not good and I probably will not ever return.