The Walking Dead Escape Recap

On Saturday, April 26, 2014, I participated in the Walking Dead Escape hosted by AMC and The Walking Dead creators. It was my brother's birthday weekend and this is how he wanted to celebrate. I didn't complain. Sara, my brother, and I all got VIP passes, meaning we got to be a survivor and a walker and also got special treatment. My sister in law (SIL) was just a walker, but she still rocked it out with the best of them as a cool ass walker bride.

I was worried about this event, because I literally just got over my own zombie like plague called Norovirus the day before. Sara was suffering from a horrible foot injury. We weren't at our best shape. The website said that it was okay for people with lower than usual physical activity, which we found out later how wrong that was, but I will get to that later.

First, let's start with the bad. The event started an hour late (at least). I believe the VIP people should have been in their own area waiting inside the gate, but we were told to wait with everyone else. And I certainly think that they should have checked the tickets to make sure people were in the right groups when they let them inside the gates. I think they just started letting 150 people go at a time to ease the wait, which is why I think this worked against us in the end as walkers. Since my SIL was in the very LONG walker line (as in, when we got done with our survivor challenge, she was still in line waiting 2-3 hours later), we knew why the event started so late. When we got into the first gate, the guy explained the instructions to the group, which we couldn't hear due to talking people around us and the guy not really turning the megaphone our way. And that's about it for the upfront gripes. I will get to my last gripe later in the post.

 

Sara and I sitting down to wait in the line. Thankfully, I had a place to sit, because I was still weak from sickness.

Now on to everything else. 

 

On a side note, I will note that I didn't have many pictures, because I read on the website that we couldn't take photos. After seeing a bunch of people take photos, I joined in on the fun at the end of the survivor time.

 

We got herded into a tent with three zombies chained up, while this soldier lady gave us instructions about our evacuation process. Then, the zombies broke their chains and we were off starting the event. We raced up the ramps of Reliant and around zombies trying not to get touched. My sickness took it's toll and I was glad that they had some space between the groups of zombies so that I could walk. The first stop was a medical tent overrun by zombies. They were everywhere and I got touched. I think I got touched three times total.  

 

Spectators were lined up watching the mayhem and I felt like we were in the movie The Running Man. It was totally cool. I played up the whole we are actually survivors vs. zombies.

 

 

We went down the ramps and to the floor of Reliant where we climbed on the seats of a school bus and jumped on cars to get away from the zombies. This was my favorite part. We periodically would distract a zombie with noise so others could get by, but my brother failed to mention that to Sara and I the first time he did it. So, we followed him. He yelled. It was funny. We ran under cages where I got up too fast and hit my back on the top of the cage...OUCH! We ran up and back down ramps and under more cages. It was total chaos and I loved every minute of it. I just wished I was in better shape.

 

Sorry for the photos being so blurry, but I was running and snapping away. This was on the last ramp down to finale.

 

See, you had to juke your away around them.  I was so grateful for being a football fan and knowing how to juke.

After the girl got by him, he turned his attention to me.

She was the coolest one we saw besides the walker with a baby and fetus and hanging out.

She did contortions to get to us survivors.

They had these missing pictures all over and people kept taking them down for keepsake. I didn't understand it either.

We stopped to take a picture of with a charred zombie.

The last set of cages and by far the hardest to get through.

We got to the final survival tent where we were told to sit down and let them check us for zombie bites. Then, the lady shot my brother and we took off running. I seriously had so much fun as a survivor.

That's my brother after being shot. Loser!

We survived! As VIP holders and survivors, we got a copy of The Rise of the Governor, first edition of the Graphic Novel, and a t-shirt.

Sara and I with some caged walkers at the party.

But the awesome thing about the event was creating a character zombie. Sara and I chose to go with marathon runner zombies. We just finished our marathon when we got bit by the person giving us our medals. My brother was an office zombie and of course, SIL was a bride. As VIP people, we went to the head of the line. Poor SIL was still sitting in line when we easily passed her up. There may have been taunting of our VIP passes in front of her, but who really knows.

The best picture of the night!

My SIL as the bad ass bride zombie; she got a lot of people wanting to take her picture.

The happy couple...or the dead couple...whatever.

My full get up.

The best photobomb ever!

 LOVE LOVE LOVE THIS PICTURE!!!

After we got all done up, we got our instructions as walkers and went to our stages to get the survivors. I believe that because they just did 150 people at the beginning instead of the time slots, there were more walkers and survivors on the course when we went through as survivors. It was pretty much dead when we went out there. There were hardly any survivors and long gaps between the groups. There were no spectators. So, for my SIL, this was a let down. I told her that it was so not like this when we went through. There was more energy and more people and more everything. After our 90 minutes, we left. Other people started to leave, too.

All in all, I had a blast doing the Walking Dead Escape and seeing all the different characters that came out to play. I felt it was a little pricey, especially for my SIL who paid $95 to spend a lot of time in a line and not get all of the fun like we did. I would probably not do it again, but I would definitely recommend it to anyone.

And I found this gem and I laughed my freaking head off, especially the part about Shane rubbing his head. LMAO!