Halloween Horror Nights 32

Hello my spooky friends! This year we decided to go to Universal Studios Orlando Halloween Horror Nights 32 on opening weekend, and let me tell you it was an experience. We usually make our trip to Florida during the second to third week of the event but wanted to try something new this year. My one take away from it was I would prefer not to do opening weekend again. From the weather, to not enough actives to pull in crowds aside from houses and lines for food feeling like they were as long as the house lines it was a lot to take in, so let’s dive right into our time in Orlando.

We knew that it was going to be busy and crowded and it was but I think there were a few things that added to the craziness that was opening weekend. Friday around 4:30pm we were waiting to make our way to a stay n scream holding area when a terrible storm hit the area. Not only was is a downpour the lightning was intense and the winds were getting up to 40mph. We saw videos of the umbrellas over the food stand registers being blown away, in the place we were waiting the furniture was being blown all over the place as well. They were struggling to get the park cleared for the event because this storm lasted an hour and people didn’t want to run in the rain or our in the lightning and I couldn’t blame them. This storm obviously made getting HHN started difficult and it was just downhill from there. We didn’t have express this night but we were able to get into two houses and then we just walked around the park. There weren’t scareactors out in the scarezones at that time because of all the rain, we were going to try some of the different food but that was short lived. There were not enough food booths this year, this caused all the lines to be super long. I heard that some people were waiting 45 mins to get a corndog from of the booths. We just decided call it an early night and left around 8pm. On our way out though we did stop in The Dead Coconut Club (some pictures of the decor below) to checkout the theming before heading to the hotel to rest up in hopes that Saturday would be a better night.

Saturday the weather was nicer, no rain just your typical Florida heat and humidity. The line to get into the New York stay n scream was ridiculously long so we choose the Richter’s area instead. Once we were let out we backtracked to Stranger Things 4 and used our express passes before the wait time got too crazy. We had heard that a good amount of the wait times on Friday night with express pass were longer and not really accurate. You should be waiting half of the time of the standby line but it seemed that wasn’t the case for Friday night. I will say though the longest we waited in express was about 35 minutes for The Last of Us, but that wasn’t terrible at all. We ended up doing all the houses Saturday except Chucky: Ultimate Kill Count because it wasn’t high on our list and its express line did seemed backed up every time we walked by. Again we weren’t able to try any of the food from the food booths because the lines were just way too long. We did go to the Peacock bar but that was a disaster. The way in was the same as the way out, they had 4 bars and the lines were getting to be a mess because of the location they couldn’t stretch very far, it was very confusing. We ordered two and the person got the order wrong, when I tried to have them fix it they said they couldn’t sell me two drinks, even though I had just been charged for two drinks and handed two drinks. We finally got it figured out and immediately left the area it was so disorganized. We called it a night at midnight and made our way back to the hotel.

Sunday we were able to get into the New York stay n scream area and got a table at Finnegan’s to have a few drinks and some food while we waited to them to clear the park. I really wanted to try Left Behind Ravioli from The Last of Us food booth, but every time the line was super long. So Sunday after we got done at Finnegan’s we headed to Sting Alley to wait for the booth to open to try and beat the crowd when they let us out of the holding area. We were told that the booth would open at 7pm but while we were standing there at 6pm a manager came over and they moved the barricades over and opened the booth up for people in the stay n scream area. I was first in line and was very excited to be able to try them, I was nervous though because they had a truffle cream on them and I am not a fan of truffles. Surprisingly they didn’t have a strong truffle taste to them and for being $10 you did get a lot of raviolis, I thought it was a good dish. After the food we started doing houses, we started with Stranger Things 4 and then did Chucky just to get it out of the way and then did all the back houses before making our way back to the front. We finished the last house around 11pm and decide to head back to the hotel since we would be driving back home the next morning and wanted to be able to get as much rest as possible.

We had fun at the event but some of the negatives this year I feel were the shows, food and the scarezones. They only had the Nightmare Fuel show this year, they lagoon show didn’t happen that would help to eat up some of the crowds. Yes they had the Deathereaters out but many people would walk in and see them then leave. It wasn’t something that would hold people for 30 minutes or more like the lagoon show would. Next food as I mentioned earlier there were not enough food booths so the lines for the ones that they did have were long and most people didn’t want to stand in them. The little street across from were the Tribute Store is in New York was lined with them last year and this year there was just one booth there and two on the street beside that area. Waiting for food took up a good chunk of your time if you didn’t get in the line early so I feel like a lot of people would skip them so that they could just get in line for the houses. The houses this year were great but the scarezones just seemed to be lacking.In past years I have loved to just sit in them and watch people get scared but this year I didn’t have that feeling. There also weren’t big moments in the zones and many of them felt empty weather it be not a lot of scareactors or props, they just felt like they were all missing something. Again we understood that it was opening weekend and somethings needed to be ironed out but in my opinion having less food booths and only the one show put a damper on the event.

We enjoyed all the houses except Chucky: Ultimate Kill Count, it just didn’t have a good flow to it. Bloodmoon Dark Offerings which I thought wasn’t going to be good was one of my favorites! The scares were alright (the scareactors were amazing) but it wasn’t a scary house. It was however a beautiful house, all the different vantage points and the depth of the house was really cool. The Last of Us was a good the sets were cool and all the Clickers and Bloaters were scary. There were a lot a double and triple scares in the houses this year which was amazing. The Tribute Store was really cool and I was happy to see it back in its original location in the New York area. The concept was a comic shop and it was like you stepped into the pages of the comics themselves.

The creative team and all the team members that make the event happened are amazing. Everyone will find their groove as the event goes on and I can’t wait to see videos from later in the event. Overall we had a great weekend and look forward to next years event, we’ll just be going later in the season next time.

Halloween Horror Nights 32 Preview

Welcome back ghouls & ghoulets! It’s been a while I know, I really dropped the ball with keeping up with posts. We were able to squeeze in a quick trip last year but it was a bit of a rough year if I’m being honest. But we’re not going to bring you down that’s not why we’re here. We’re here to be happy, haunted and spooky! This year Halloween Horror Nights seems to really be leaning into the lore of the entire event. We had teaser videos talking about “the signs are hidden in plan sight,” you can check that video out here. Universal Studios Orlando Florida Halloween Horror Nights 32 is right around the corner, so let’s dive right in and talk all things haunted houses, scarezones, food and merchandise.

Yesterday Universal Orlando dropped all of the houses and scarezones on us at one time, with the exception of 3 of the houses which had found out before yesterdays massive announcement. Let’s talk about the 3 houses we already knew about. Before HHN31 even ended last year we were hit with our first announcement, on October 31^st the last night of the even HHN announced that the fowl mouth, murderous doll Chucky would have his own house at the event. You can have a look at the announcement video here. Now Chucky has had some kind of representation at the event the past few years. HHN28 had the Revenge of Chucky scarezone, demented toys and Good Guy employees roamed around the zone while Chuck was stuck in a Good Guys box and would insult guests brave enough to step up and talk with him. HHN30 and HHN31 there was a photo op set up where guests could stand in a Good Guys box and a silhouette of Chucky with a knife would appear behind them. But HHN32 Chucky will have his own house and it will follow the SYFY television series. We haven’t watched the series but I’m excited to see how the house turns out. The house will be called Chucky: Ultimate Kill Count, from the sounds of it guests must try and survive and not become another casualty of Chukys Kill Count.

On June 15^th HHN announced that The Last of Us was announced and like last year we were introduced to a Scream Squad if you will. We are introduced to Jordan, Drew and Sofia, they are on a video chat together. Jordan is at home playing The Last of Us, Drew is walking outside and Sofia appears to be at school. They are talking about the video mentioned earlier talking about the lore and conspiracy theories of HHN, you can see the announcement video here. Now this version will be based on the video game (which we haven’t played) but from what I have heard from those that have played the game and watched the HBO series that they are very close. We watched the tv series and we loved it and I am can’t wait to see how this translates into a house, the noises that the Clickers make send shivers down my spine and I know that they are going to be terrifying.

On July 13th Stranger Things 4 was announced, sticking with the video chat this one is from Sofia’s point of view. As she is chatting with Jordan and Drew when she hears the chime of a grandfather clock, or as Stranger Things fans know it is the sound when Vecna is about to take his next victim. This house will take guests through season 4 of Stranger Things, can you and your scream squad escape Vecna’s curse? I am excited for this house, season 4 was one of the darkest, scariest and emotional of the seasons. I can’t wait to see which scenes the creative team picked to bring to life! I already have all my outfits picked out, you might say I have a slight obsession with Stranger Things.

On July 28th before the massive announcement we were give the last video from our Scream Squad, Drew is outside running when he comes across a very creepy looking doll. When he picks it up images flash before his eyes, check out the video here. Now I will say I am surprised by this announcement because this movie doesn’t come out until after the event starts. The Exorcist: Believer from Blumhouse, now this movie doesn’t come out until October, Friday the 13th to be exact. This will be like a immersive trailer for the movie. I am not excited for this one, the original Exorcist terrified my as a kid and I still haven’t seen it to this day. I can already say that this will be the scariest house at the event for me.

For the rest of the houses we didn’t get any video but we did get some imagery and descriptions of each one. Lets start with Dr. Oddfellow’s Twisted Origins, now if you aren’t super familiar with HHN Lore Dr. Oddfellow is the guy who ran the circus Jack the Clown worked and he was ultimately the one who imprisoned Jack in the Jack ‘n the box. Dr. Oddfellow will serve as this years Icon and he has a hand in all the houses and scarezones this year which is cool to have an interwoven storyline with everything.

Next up my most anticipated house of the event Universal Monsters: Unmasked. They knock it out of the park every year with the Classic Monster houses, they are always so beautifully eerie. We are getting 4 monsters who don’t always get shown a lot of love, guests will be transported to Paris where they will not only explore what is above ground but what is below in the catacombs as well. We will come face to face with The Phantom of the Opera, The Invisible Man, The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde!

Now if you have been a fan of the parks and rides then you will be excited for this next house, Dueling Dragons Choose Thy Fate. Dueling Dragons used to be a ride at Islands of Adventures but was closed and replaced with Hagrid’s Motorbike Adventure. While attempting to take Merlyn’s spell book, two warlocks are turned into dragons and you the guest is stuck in the middle of these two dueling dragons. The cool things about this house is it seems that there will be two different paths to choose from in the house, which is another callback to the ride where guests could choose between fire or ice as their dragon of choice.

Next we have Yeti Campground Kills, set in the 1950s you and your squad find an old campground that has been taken over by Yeti and you must try and make it to the ranger tower and to safety. This is the 3rd time we have seen yeti at the event so I am interested to see what this installment has in store for us.

The next house is The Darkest Deal Universals take on the Crossroads deal of a Blues player who sold his soul. The story will follow Pinestraw Spruce who sells his soul for fame to the Collector. I am excited for this house I know of the Crossroads myth and I am excited to see Universals take on this story.

The last house is Bloodmoon: Dark Offerings, you and your scream squad stumble into a village of moon-worshippers during the blood moon. During this time the worshippers take it upon themselves to track drown any who do not follow the blood moon, can you make it out before they get you?

Now time for the scarezones, this year they are Dr. Oddfellow’s Collection of Horror, Dark Zodiac, Jungle of Doom: Expedition HorrorVamp ’69: Summer of Blood and Shipyard 32: Horros Unhinged. As I mentioned before Dr. Oddfellow has his hands in everything this year he is the reason for all the creatures guest will encounter in all the scarezones. You can read more about them below. I am excited to see how they are all connected and I am excited to get another variation of the Vamp scarezone. The last one we got was Vamp ’85 and the theming and music was great, I am very much looking forward to this Woodstock type of Vamp scarezone located in the New York area of the park. Dark Zodiac will be located in the Hollywood area of the park and I am very interested in seeing the Zodiacs brought to life. Jungle of Doom will be located in the Central Park area of the park and this is the perfect spot for it, with the overhang of trees and the closeness of the area it’s sure to be one where the scareactors can blend in and scare guests. Shipyard 32 will be located in the San Fransisco area of the park and usually when they do anything with a ship or the water they turn out beautifully so I can’t wait to see what this scarezone holds. Lastly Dr. Oddfellows Collection of Horror will great guest as soon as they come through the gates, in the main drag of the park guests will have to make their way through whatever Dr. Oddfellow has planned for them.

If you want to learn more and go a little deeper into the houses, scarezones and the overall event I recommend to listen to the Discover Universal podcast, they have a 3 part series on the overall reveal of the event where they talk to members of the creative team. And it also appears that they may do what they did last year which was release short episodes that touch on the original houses and scarezones of the event which help layout the story for guest. The first one is already up and it is about Dr. Oddfellow, if you would also like to learn more about Dr. Oddfellow I suggest checking out Christoper Ripley’s Halloween Horror Nights Unofficial: The Story & Guide. These books not only go over HHN from the very beginning but he also talks about the different characters over the years and their backstories as well, you kind find all his books here.

Other things we learned about the event is that the Tribute Store will be moving back to the New York section of the park and will be called Tribute of Terror and be themed to a NYC comic book shop. The Red Coconut Club in City Walk will once again be transformed into the Dead Coconut Club but with a new menu and theming, below are some picture from last years Dead Coconut Club.

Again Cabana Bay Swizzle Stick lounge will be turned into a themed bar feature Lil Boo and the Pumpkin Lord guests 21 and older can try different themed adult beverages. Again this year any Universal Resort guest with their valid room key will be able to experience Chucky’s Twisted Playground. Open Daily from 2pm-10pm at Cabana Bay Resort guests can pose will different photo ops in an immersive experience based on the Chucky tv series. A new thing added this year is the Universal Monsters Gallery of Legends, guests can take part in a photo hunt for 7 different Universal Monsters at 7 different Universal Orlando Resort lobbies. Also the Endless Summer Resort will also have a Spooky Sunset Lounge where guests 21 and older can try themed Halloween drinks. Nightmare Fuel will be back with a show in the old Fear Factor stage, there is a rumor that there will be a Death Eater show in Diagon Alley but nothing has been released about that at this time. We are also still waiting to hear if there will be a lagoon show as well.

There is going to be so much to see and do at this years event and I can’t wait to experience it all! If you haven’t already you can buy your tickets for the event here all ticket packages including multi-night, single night, tours and express passes are on sale. We can’t wait to be back in the fog!

Halloween Horror Nights 31: Never Go Alone.

It’s that time again, Universal Orlando Resorts Halloween Horror Nights is near! I can already smell the fog & hear the people screaming. The event runs from September 2^nd to October 31^st, if you still needs tickets you can get them here. You can also grab your Express Passes, Multi-night tickers, Tours & Scareactor dinning, that’s right it’s back this year!

HHN31 tagline is “Never Go Alone”, now some people are annoyed that they are reusing this tagline. If I’m honest I felt like last year’s tagline was “30 Years 30 Fears”, truly it doesn’t matter but some people like to have something to complain about. Like last year when dropping the houses HHN made teasers trailers. With each teaser we got a movie character, the first we’re introduced to is “The Snacker”. While leaving the movies the Snacker is attacked when the Mummy, Dracula & the Wolfman tear through the movie posters outside the theater. On May 17^th Universals Monsters: Legends Collide was announced, you can watch the trailer here. Guests will be caught in the middle of a fight between the 3 monsters as they fight over the magical amulet that can break their curses.

The second house announcement we got came on June 8^th, and we are introduced to “The Skeptic. While at home watching a scary movie the power goes out and we see The Shape in the hallway. But this isn’t any shape it’s The Shape, Michael Myers the Boogeyman. You can check out the teaser for the house here, now to my surprise it isn’t based off the new Blumhouse movies but the original ’78 version. I was hoping that we might see the 2018 version of the movie at the event but with them going back to where it all started means that we won’t have to walkthrough the terribly awful Halloween Kills movie. If I would have had to hear “Halloween dies tonight” every time I went through a house, I would have lost it. In the years that we have gone we have only experience one other Halloween house and that was at HHN28 when they did Halloween 4the Return of Michael Myers. I will say that was a fun house, not the scariest but it was enjoyable. I feel like this will be comparable to Texas Chainsaw Massacre at last year’s event, was it a super scary house no but it was fun and felt like you had stepped into the movie. You can never go wrong with a classic and I can’t wait to step foot into the Myers house.

The third house announcement came on June 23^rd and is a 2 for one house, gracing the event with its presents again, The Horrors of Blumhouse. This year featuring Freaky and The Black Phone. Following the same format as the others we are introduced to “The Cringe Couple”. While walking through a parking garage a couple is chased by The Butcher from Freaky, they try to get into an elevator but when the doors open The Graber from The Black phone is waiting for them. I am trying not to judge too soon but I find this an odd pairing, I wish they would have let either of these titles stand-alone but regardless I will hold off until we actually get to experience it.

On Friday July 22^nd we got another teaser GIF of a girl in a bathroom taking a selfie (you can see it here) , We would have to wait until July 26^th to get the house announcement. But before we got the house announcement, they dropped multi-night tickets for the event as well as Scareactors Dinning to the website. Now I will say I was very surprised to see Scareactor Dinning come back, mostly because the restaurant that they used to have it at The Monsters Café was closed a couple months back. This year it will be held at Louie’s Italian Restaurant which is located in the New York area of the park. You can find the multi-night tickets as well as the Scareactor Dinning experience here.

If you are not familiar with the Scareactors Dinning Experience, it is an add on ticket, you must have a ticket for that night of HHN as well. Guests will enjoy a themed dinner buffet while Scareactors running around and interacting with guests while they eat. You can take photos with them as well as get a digital download of a photo taken while there. Tickets are $54.99+ tax, we have never done it but I have seen videos and it looks like a good time.

Now to the house, we are introduced to “The Selfie Queen”. We knew this house was coming, a few months back The Weekend tweeted about YouTube pulling one of his videos and he much said that it wasn’t too much for HHN. The Weekend: After Hours Nightmare will be the last house that is shared on both coasts. Even though I am not well versed in The Weekends work from what I have seen and from the teaser they dropped I do feel like this house will be very creepy. If you would like to read about the concept of the house you can do so here. This article from Entertainment Weekly dropped right before the trailer, it almost seems like they had to announce the house because of this article being posted but I’m not mad about it. And if you are like me and not as well versed on The Weekend this YouTube video is a compilation is the storyline of the house.

As mentioned all four of the previous mentioned houses will be at Universal Orlando as well as Universal Hollywood. I look forward to seeing the walkthrough videos because even though both coasts share these houses, they won’t be identical, which is nice because there are some people who will go to both events. Moving forward the houses we talk about will only be at HHN Universal Orlando.

This year the Original Concept houses outnumber the Intellectual Property (IP) houses. On August 16^thHHN dropped another video, this one longer than the four previous videos. It had the four people we previously mentioned and then it introduced the rest of the “Scream Squad”. We see a group of friends attending HHN but they are all slowly separated and run into a character from one of the houses or scarezones, you can check it out here. Let’s take a closer look at the 6 OG houses.

The first one is at the top of my list, Dead Man’s Pier: Winter’s Wake. Guests will enter a New England fishing village and come face to face with undead fishermen. This house got the Trick ‘r Treatment, going from a scarezone to a house. At HHN26 Dead Man’s Wharf was a scarezone in the San Francisco area of the park. Snowy or water houses are usually really pretty and you can guarantee that this house will be blasting the A/C, which is a nice break from those hot Florida nights.

Spirit of the Coven is set in a 1920s speakeasy, I am interested to see how this house turns out. In the description they describe the witches as flappers and that is a new take on witches for me. Now this next house already makes my skin crawl and we haven’t even seen anything from it yet. Bugs Eatin Alive”, bugs why did it have to be bugs! The description of the house is a bit confusing to; guests will be “touring a 1950s house of the future”. I don’t really know that means but I doubt I’ll be able to focus on that detail too much as we are walking through it. Universal released a podcast talking with some of the creative team behind HHN and while they were describing this house I was screaming “nope, don’t like that” repeatedly in my car as I listened. You can find the podcast where ever you listen, it’s the Discover Universal Podcast and it is an official podcast from Universal Orlando.

Our next original house is Fiesta De Chupacabras, if you are unfamiliar with the Chupacabra it is a cryptid that drinks the blood of animals, it translates to goat sucker. Depending on where you are located the description varies, according to the HHN description guest are visiting a Latin American village were a fiesta is being held to celebrate the chupacabras. According to the internet in Latin America it is described as a reptilian alien like creature. Can you escape the fiesta before the chupacabras get you?

Hellblock Horrors is our next house, the description of this house makes me think of the scene in Cabin in The Woods where Dana and Marty see all the different monsters in their holding cells. Guests enter a prison holding “savage inmates and monstrous creatures”. Will you get out before they break free of their cells? The last original house is Descendants of Destruction. While traveling through the subway of New York, mutated creatures have taken up residence and they are looking for their next meal and it may just be you and your scream squad if you’re not careful.

This is a strong year for originals and I am very excited for them! Many of my favorite houses have been the originals; Slaughter Sinema, Carnival Graveyard, Dead Waters, Wicked Growth just to name a few. The creative team has a lot more free range when it comes to the originals so I can’t wait to see what they’ve come up with.

On to the scarezones, again these are all original concepts. Sometimes the scarezones are based on Ips but not this year. Going counterclockwise around the park because I want to save the best for last in my opinion (as of right now, this might change after the event). Up first to the right if the Today Show Café in the Hollywood Blvd section we have Graveyard Deadly Unrest. Tread lightly as you make your way through Nettlewood Cemetery, spirits of those laid to rest awaken on All Hallows Eve. Can you make it out or will you be trapped for all eternity?

Guests will then come upon Scarecrow: Cursed Soil, this scarezone is a continuation from a house that was at HHN21 Scarecrow the Reaping. Located in the Central Park area of the park, make your way through an abandoned farm where scarecrows have come to life and looking to harvest any who they come across. I am excited to see this scarezone in person, usually this is one of the pretty areas when it comes to scarezone. Continuing around the park to the San Francisco area, we have Conjure the Dark. A sorceress is conjuring creatures from the dark dimension to feed on unlucky guests.

In the New York area Sweet Revenge, arriving at The Bicentennial Hometown Fall Halloween Festival Parade, sponsored by the candy company Major Sweets. Think of this as a horror Willy Wonka, candy from Major Sweets has started to turn the children of the town into killers. Listening to the Discover Universal Podcast the creative team says that they reached out to the company that makes the Universal Mardi Gras floats, throughout the scarezone will be parade floats from the Halloween Festival Parade.

The final scarezone is located in the Plaza od the Stars at the front of the park and its Horrors of Halloween. Like Scarecrow: Cursed Soil this scarezone is also based off of a house, Wicked Growth: Realm of the Pumpkin. The Pumpkin Lord has returned! This character from last year was amazing, he is Halloween. The Pumpkin Lord is summoning terrifying creatures to terrorize unsuspecting guests. The carved pumpkin from the façade of last year’s house are back along with fan favorite Lil Boo! Lil Boo became an unofficial icon last year and Universal heard the people and how much they loved this little pumpkin that they brought him back and put him on some the merch for the event.

This brings us to the shows, the Nightmare Fuel team is back with a new show. Located in the old Fear Factor stage, this show is full of pyro, dancing and aerial work. We enjoyed last years show it was different than anything we had previously seen. It is also a nice break from all the walking you will be doing around the event. The second show is the lagoon show. This year it’s Ghoulish! A Halloween Tale. The description says it’s a ghost tale. Using fog, fountains and laser effects the show is projected onto a water screen over the Universal Lagoon. Usually, the show is about 10-15 minutes long, you will have to stand compared to the other show but I still say check it out. We’ve enjoyed the past shows the past 2 years and look forward to checking this one out. It seems like this year it will be more of a story whereas the Marathon of Mayhem shows mostly showed scenes from the IPs that were at the event that year.

The last two things to mention are the Cabana Bay themed bar and the merch. Like last year when Cabana Bay turned the Swizzle Lounge into the Icons bar and had the Jack’d Up Experience that are once again going to offer a spooky good time. This year they are offering Universal Monsters Gallery of Legends. There will be a Universal Monsters themed photo gallery experience, Universal Monsters Gallery of Legends. Now this part is exclusive to Universal Orlando Hotel guests (you will have to show a Universal Resort hotel key). But anyone can check out the Swizzle Lounge, last year they had themed decorations and specialty cocktail drinks. This will be open daily from 5pm-12am. I say if you have a chance and can check it out, I highly recommend it, we had a nice time to hanging out at the bar and trying the different drinks. If you are staying at one of the Universal Orlando Resorts, head up stairs and next to the Galaxy Bowling there is an immersive photo ops set up. This will be open daily from 2pm-10pm but again you must be staying at one of the resorts and be able to show a room key. The merch this year is great! It has a vintage Halloween feel. If you don’t want to wait to get your merch you can find some of it on the Universal website. You might have to keep checking because it does sell out, but don’t fret you can contact customer services and if you provide the skew number and size, they can ship it to you if it is in the park. If you are in the parks, you kind find it at the 5 and Dime at Universal and The All Hallows Eve Boutique in Islands of Adventure. The HHN Tribute store should be opening up any day now and there will a good selection there as well.

All and all I’m very excited for the event, I love the traditional Halloween feel. I especially love the original concepts! Don’t get me wrong I like the IPs but I can’t wait to see what the creative team has cooked up this year. We look forward to this event each year and we’re so close I can practically smell the fog. Keep an eye on our social media channels, Twitter, Instagram and Tik Tok.

Credit for all the pictures used for the Houses and Scarezone goes to Universal Orlando Resort. Cover photo by me.

HHN30 : 30 Years 30 Fears

We’re back from our jam packed vacation! This year treated ourselves to the Hard Rock Hotel and 6 nights of HHN, 4 with Express Pass and 2 without. We drove down on a Saturday and arrived at the hotel around 1:30pm. Since we had been on the road since 6am we decided that we would save our BOGO HHN ticket and we decided to go and check out the Icon Bar at Cabana Bay. When we arrived at the bar it was a bit packed but as we were ordering two spot opened up at the bar and we were able to snag them. We tried the Black Magic (360 vanilla vodka, grand mariner, fanta orange & edible black glitter), The Skeleton Key (marker’s mark whiskey, st. germain elderflower liquor, agave nectar, fresh lemon juice, q ginger beer & angostura aromatic bitters), The Grinder (deep eddy ruby red vodka, barrows intense ginger liquor, grapefruit juice, agave nectar, lime & edible black glitter) and The Jack (jack daniels whiskey & coke with lime). They weren’t bad, they were interesting flavors. The bartenders were great, funny & entertaining. We decided to skip the Jack’d Up Experience, after watching videos on it we realized it was mainly photo ops. The decorations were cool, they had a banner with the Icons it. They also had costumes and props from some of the Icons with little cards with information about the Icon. If you would like to check out the menu you can do so here.

Our first night we had express & we made it through 5 of the houses before calling it a night. Now I know what you’re thinking “how did you only make it through 5 houses with express?”. We I’ll tell you, as we were in line for Beetlejuice (our 4th house of the night) it began to down pour. Water was up to our ankles in some parts of the par. When we looked at the radar it was going to continue raining for the next 2 hours, so we decided to call it a night. As we made our way to the front of the park to leave we passed a house entrance & decided to go through it to get out of the rain for a quick moment. It sucked to call it an early night but we knew our feet would be wrecked if we stayed, I HATE WET SHOES & SOCKS!!

On Wednesday we started our morning with a 3 house Unmasking Tour. The 3 houses was Universal Monster: The Bride of Frankenstein Lives, Revenge of The Tooth Fairy & Case Files Unearthed: Legendary Truth, we also got to see the facades for Texas Chainsaw Massacre & HHN Icons. It was crazy to see that two houses share one soundstage but you can’t hear the other house because of the soundproof curtains. Well there was one acceptation, the curtains separated between Tooth Fairy and HHN Icons, so you could hear the music from Icons along with the narration of Tooth Fairy when you first entered Tooth Fairy. This was the first year we had done an Unmasking Tour, it’s really cool getting to see the houses with the lights one because there are so many tiny details you don’t see when you’re going through the house during the event. One of my favorite details was in the Bride house, in one of the rooms they had a skeleton hand from The Creature (this can be seen in the bottom left picture above), Draculas ring and the Wolfman’s cane. You also learn more of the stories of the house. Bride & Tooth Fairy are pretty understandable but Legendary Truth not so much. Now if you’re an HHN “super” fan & know about the Collective & where there the year Legendary Truth was a big part of the event you understood this house. As someone who had only read about the house & group I didn’t understand the story when we went through before our tour. It was definitely a house built for the fans of the event who have been coming for awhile. Below are some more photos from our tour.

This year is like a love letter to the fans, a lot of past elements were brought back & it was cool to experience things from before we started going. Wednesday was our first full night at the event, it rained for a bit but we were able to get a table at Finnegan’s to wait it out. We were able to hit all 10 houses since we had express passes again. All the houses were really good, I was disappointed with Beetlejuice because we never got a good run through of the house. The best thing about the house was our first night I wore a Beetlejuice themed outfit and the scareactor at the entrance of the house commented on my outfit. We did get caught in a cast change for Texas Chainsaw Massacre we were trapped between two Leatherfaces. Which was pretty funny because the group behind us were scared so the scareactors just kept starring out them and they kept freaking out.

The scarezones this year were alright, there felt more like photo ops & were more congested than usual. Two of the zones; Seek & Destroy & Lights, Camera, Hacktion seemed unnecessarily loud. There is nothing wrong with lots of noise in the zones but these two almost made it less enjoyable with the amount of sound effects that were being pumped in. We did both of the shows; Marathon of Mayhem : Carnage Factory & Halloween Nightmare Fuel. This years Marathon of Mayhem wasn’t as good as HHN29, the stage show Halloween Nightmare Fuel was fun. The magic tricks & fire dancing was really cool. It was also a nice touch that Jack was walking around the event, you never knew where he was going to show up. We saw him while we were in line for houses and outside the Tribute Store.

I do wish we had tried more food & treats (totally forgot to get any at the Tribute Store) but again this year there weren’t a lot of options that jumped out at us. Most of it seemed too heavy & that is not food you want to eat in muggy FL. We did try the Pumpkin Guts (vegan; zucchini & squash ring with toasted hazelnuts & pumpkin seeds, the Field of Screams Gyoza (spicy ground turkey & butternut squash filled dumplings) as well as the Bag O’ Donuts with powdered sugar. The Pumpkin Guts didn’t really have any flavor, they also got cold pretty fast, the Field of Screams Gyoza was really good though. The first time we had the gyoza they had been sitting under the heating lamp for a bit and weren’t the best but the second time we tried them they were fresh and tasted much better. They filled you up without making you feel heavy and gross. The Bag O’ Donuts were alright, you got 6 mini donuts with your choice of powdered or cinnamon sugar. I didn’t think they were worth the price, they were really light and fluffy which was nice but they were just bland. I really hope that they bring back the mini pumpkin donuts they had at HHN28 they were AMAZING! We tried 3 of the cocktails; The Bog Slime (gin, lime juice & house made matcha-cardamon syrup), Poison Tea Party (iced tea & lemonade rum punch with huckleberry & allspice) & the Ghoul Juice (mango rum with cherry lime & allspice). Of the 3 the Bog Slime had the best flavor but the only downside to it was the matcha-cardamon residue that formed at the bottom. Poison Tea Party was the next best while the Ghoul Juice was the least, it was just too sweet.

Over all it was a great event, the vinyl & masks on the characters didn’t bother me or take away from the experience. After 2 years I was just happy to be back at the event and in the fog. And there is still a month left of the event so you have time to check out the event. You can find all the information & tickets here. Make sure you’re following us in Instagram @themeparkcorner & on Twitter @CornerTheme & be on the look out for our next blog that covers our time at Disney.