Halloween is a very different holiday. It’s not like any others, is it? Every year Dave and I try to do something special on Halloween. We visited a couple of Haunted houses in previous years and, of course, we carved traditional pumpkin Jack-O Lanterns.
This year we combined our visit to Florida with a trip to Universal Studios in Orlando. During the 2 hour flight from DC we watched as hurricane Sandy was moving towards the Northern States of the East Coast, including our home. JetBlue is one of my favorite domestic airlines for its spacious leg room and for the direct TV, which makes it possible to follow real time events.
The view from the airplane before the landing in Orlando.
After the landing we rented a car (now we know which car not to buy) :), and checked into a hotel close to Universal Studios.
Tonight we were going to celebrate Halloween at Universal’s Halloween Horror Nights 22, the annual haunted event for 22 years. On the way to Universal we enjoyed a beautiful sunset:
And a cute setting at the entrance to Universal.
It was already crowded at the entrance. After waiting about half an hour in line we went through security and entered Universal Studios.
The park met us with the a real Halloween atmosphere. The streets were filled with manmade fog, music, all kinds of monsters, and other scary creatures. Universal was completely reconstructed and adjusted for Halloween Horror Nights. All regular attractions were closed. Instead, Halloween Horror Nights (HHN) offered 7 haunted houses, a couple of live shows, a lagoon show, the street experience, the Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit roller coaster and other attractions. Since it was very crowded, HHN were extended until 2 a.m. instead the scheduled 12 p.m. closing time. Here is a short, less than a minute, video to convey the street atmosphere.
We decided to skip the shows, but to visit all the haunted houses and some other attractions, if we would have enough time for it. While we were trying to move through the Halloween mob looking for the Haunted houses, we saw the Hollywood Rip Ride Rockit roller coaster and decided to start from there. It was a thrilling experience, especially at night. The ride is fairly new (2009) and high-tech. The coaster features the world’s largest non-inverted loop, one of the first-ever maneuvers implemented there. The riders can choose their own music using a personal touchpad mounted on the ride vehicles and to purchase a video. They did not allow us to use our own motion camera, so we were offended not happy with that and did not buy theirs 🙂
Then we moved towards the Haunted houses. The lines there were unbelievable. Each house had an electronic stand, with the waiting time displayed. The waiting time was from 75 to 120 minutes for the 4-6 minute walk through the haunted house. Thankfully, we purchased express passes, which shortened our waiting time to 15-20 minutes on average. Photography and video were prohibited there, so I will provide a short description of the each house and post some pics from the Internet. The first haunted house that we bumped into was Silent Hill a 75 minute wait time.
From insidethemagic photostream
Silent Hill. The theme was based on the popular video game and the horror movie with the same name Silent Hill. The walk through the house started at the “Welcome to Silent Hill” sign while thin “ash” was falling from the sky. We got a chance to see Silent Hill: Revelation 3D, released in October before our journey to Universal. By the way, 3d effects have really been improved in this movie. I cannot say the same about the story itself. At least, I was familiar with the characters and the scenery, which I could recognize here after seeing the movie. Yes, there were vicious nurses and a triangle head and scary bunny. We were wondering what the ash was made of. The ash resembled silk to us.
From insidethemagic photostream
From insidethemagic photostream
Dead End. In Carey, Ohio, the perception was that countless horrific acts had occurred in the old Hartford Mansion. The reality was that the curse which befell the house was far worse than any story ever told. I remember, that hands were sticking out often from the shelves, while we were walking through the house.
From insidethemagic photostream
From insidethemagic photostream
From insidethemagic photostream
Moving towards Gothic Haunted House.
Gothic. The Catedral de Caementum Animus was undergoing a building-wide architectural refurbishment by day. By night, the many stone gargoyles came to life with the mission of protecting this sacred place against any intrusion. It was an impressive, beautifully decorated house with gargoyles flying over the visitors heads. Some of those stone creatures were hiding and trying to scare the visitors. They were successful most of the time and we had some good screamers. Honestly, it was not easy to scare people who walked so close to each other and could see each trick several steps ahead.
From insidethemagic photostream
From insidethemagic photostream
From insidethemagic photostream
The Walking Dead: Dead Inside. Waiting time was 120 minutes. Dave and I watch the AMC series “The Walking Dead”, so we were looking forward to see that house. There were familiar scenes from the show: the barn, the cafeteria, the door with the sign “Dead Inside”, but it was a little disappointing in a sense that there was not enough action from the walkers there.
A car, familiar to AMC’s The Walking Dead followers, was displayed outside the haunted house. The show characters were checking out this place every day, while waiting for Sophia.
A familiar scene at the cafeteria from the show .
From insidethemagic photostream
One of the scenes from the barn.
From insidethemagic photostream
We had 3 more haunted houses left to see. Luckily, Universal provided clear directions. 🙂
Alice Cooper: Welcome to My Nightmare. This house offered a journey into legendary rocker Alice Cooper’s twisted mind. Here the visitors were able to follow the iconic characters from many of Cooper’s works, especially spiders.
From insidethemagic photostream
Penn & Teller New(kd) Las Vegas. World-renowned magicians Penn and Teller have accidentally nuked Las Vegas. We had a chance to come down to New Las Vegas after the nuclear explosion, wearing 3D glasses. This house differed tremendously from the other haunted houses and the 3D effects were incredible.
From insidethemagic photostream
From insidethemagic photostream
Universal’s House of Horrors. This house represented the original icons of fear in blinding black and white. In here, lightning slashed through the darkness to reveal terror’s true faces. Actually, it was really a lot of light show, so it was hard to see all of those monsters.
From insidethemagic photostream
Men in Black Alien Attack. We experienced the Men in Black 3D ride at Alien Invasion, where each passenger was able to use own futuristic gun and could shoot the aliens. It was quite an interesting ride.
The Alien Attack Entrance.
At the Alien Attack souvenir store.
Lagoon Show. Just a glimpse of it, while walking by. It was 2 big screens across from each other and a fountain light show. Not as impressive as Belagio’s in Vegas.
We noticed a couple of classic cars next to the Kitty Kat Club in the fog.
The same cars without the fog.
There were many different Halloween theme structures all over the park. Some of them did something different if you touch or pull certain parts with the sign “Do not touch” or “Do not climb” like on the following picture. We did not try it, but we did take some pictures. 🙂
There were many street vendors and cafes with horrific names, such as “Monsters Cafe”. They were crowded. It was acceptable to eat while walking and carrying an alcoholic beverage in your hands. I will show some pictures of the Halloween crowd in Best Halloween Experience! – Part 2.
