 On Sunday we headed out to Universal Studios Hollywood for some summer fun. Arriving to the park around lunch-time and staying until the early evening. Despite not arriving when the park opened, we were able to have a great day in the park, enjoy a couple of shows and of course check out the progress on Halloween Horror Nights preparations and Super Nintendo World! Written by Gregg Condon  Welcome to Universal Studios Hollywood!  New mask requirements are now in place, and mask wearing was MUCH higher inside the park than even 2 weeks ago.  A look at the Curious George mazes, in this case, Haunting at Hill House.  What is likely to be Pandoras Box  Not sure what these are? Boo boxes? Wouldn't they have been put in the tent already?   A look at the construction on the far corner of the lot. Likely for new soundstages.   The rumor is they are building new soundstages to free up more room around the lower lot for future theme park expansion.  Now that Bride of Frankenstein Lives has been announced, the façade is definitely coming together.   Outside of Waterworld, some changes have happened to the outside of the "rumored" Halloween Maze.  What was rumored to be Halloween III (with Michael Myers) is now looking like it will be for the new Halloween Kills. Makes way more sense.  In a surprise to most, it's now looking like the maze in Stage 29 will be a return of The Exorcist. With it being in a soundstage, guessing it will be a bit different than it was in 2016.  Let's check out the Studio Tour.  Production schedule, probably for this week, not on Sunday.  A look at the lower lot soundstage area. Will be interesting to see if we start to see any activity over here in the near future.  The Great Outdoors house has been moved behind War of the Worlds. Interesting that they've kept this. Maybe we'll see it on the Terror Tram?  Rumor is the back-drop will be removed. Last week somebody mentioned the Studio Tour host mentioned this will be a parking lot soon. (if that's you, please let us know so we can credit you)  Seems like an odd area for just a "parking lot", so I wouldn't expect that to last long. Unless it's going to be for the Trams and the current tram parking area will be used for something else.  Lets move down to the lower lot and take a look at Super Nintendo World.    Lots more hills being added.    From the Studio Tour    Cheers! (totally didn't even notice the plane when I took this pic, happy birthday random person)   We also checked out a couple of shows, including Kung Fu Panda  And of course Waterworld   Before heading out, we had some ice cream for National Ice Cream Day! Thanks for checking out our update! Things are definitely active around the park! This has been one of the most active parks in the country for years, and it doesn't look like that's slowing down any time soon! Related Videos
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 Over the weekend I made a return trip to Universal Studios Hollywood. It was my first visit since they lifted the reservation requirements for annual passholders so I wasn't sure what to expect. And to be honest, I think it was actually less busy than the opening weekend for the Annual Passholder free month. The park seems to be running very smoothly despite the ongoing capacity restrictions on rides. I felt very comfortable during my entire visit, was able to ride quite a few things and had a great day. Let's head into the park and see what's going on! We've got video and pics for you to enjoy! Written by Gregg Condon  I arrived at the parking structure at about 8:35. So it took me 13 minutes to park, go through CityWalk, Security and the entrance gates. Not too bad!  Lots of photo ops for the 2021 graduates  Having a child who graduated with a bachelors degree in 2020 I feel bad they don't have at least one 2020 photo op for those forgotten graduates  Let's check out what's going on with Super Nintendo World!   I know a lot of people feel this is going to open in 2022, but honestly, given the progress being made, I can't see it. At least not in early 2022.   Will be interesting to see how they dress up this side  Still amazed just how close it is to the buildings on the lower lot  Really do hope they do "something" to cover up the soundstages here    The entrance to the land   Halloween Horror Nights is definitely coming, although no official announcement has been made ... yet  In addition to a few normal locations of mazes, two will be in the lot next to the parking structures   A bit of a zoom here, it says HHN 2020 Wall.   A look from above. Next time we're at the park I'll walk around a bit to see the facade of this.   Back inside the park, the upper lot mazes are taking shape    The rumored Halloween 3.5     A few more quick notes from the park. Rode Mummy, super fun as always. 
  Rode Transformers as well, not a huge fan of this, but it's always fun.  Always forget just how long this queue is  This is new since opening weekend  Some land clearing going on in the far back corner of the lot (beyond the little Europe area). Most likely more soundstages.   Waterworld has resumed shows!  Unfortunately no Sea Plane for our show  But super fun nonetheless  Dongpo is still closed, anybody know if it's reopened at all?  No visible work going on with Toothsome  It looked like iFly was back open  Alright, that's a wrap! Thanks for reading! Cheers! Related Videos
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 The Halloween Season is officially here. On the west coast we're starting off with Halloween Horror Nights Hollywood. Over the weekend we enjoyed two evenings at the event, the first during media/fan preview night and the second on Sunday night using our Frequent Fear Passes. We'll start off with saying that in our opinion, this is a VERY strong year for the event. One of the main reasons is that it seems they've actually learned how to have fun. More on that below. Let's get to it. Written by Gregg Condon Our media night started right at park opening as we made our way all the way from the entry plaza to the backlot. On Sunday we used our Halloween Horror Nights Hollywood Survival Guide utilizing early entry and no express passes with some success. Make sure you check it out prior to heading to the event. We stopped by the Universal Store to check out some of the amazing merchandise. They've really upgraded their merchandise game this year.  Slideshow of some of the awesome merchandise  The amount of mazes available for Early Entry is kind of insane, and is all of them except 2 (and Walking Dead)  Quickly pointed out that Ghostbusters is not on this, but still some amazing artwork.  Let's go to the mall!!! Today!!!   Scoops Ahoy, wouldn't mind if this was a permanent addition  Waffle Sundae  These Universal Monster murals by Tristan Eaton are seriously amazing. We love, love, love them so much.    So let's get on with our maze reviews. We'll preface with this ... we think that overall this is one of the best line-up's of mazes in HHN Hollywood history, if not the best ever. There is a great mix of horror, comedy, pop culture, IP's and great scenery. We'd been considering getting the frequent fear for years and are very glad this is the year we finally did. Let's head into the mazes!! Stranger Things We are huge fans of the show, in fact, after Season 3 we re-watched all 3 seasons again. And even enjoyed Season 2 (that this maze is based off of) more than the first time. So we were pretty excited about this maze. Unfortunately the maze didn't really translate from screen to maze. The maze suffered from a lot of duplication of scares, with Demigorgon's, Demidogs at pretty much every turn surrounded by a lot of black walls. The maze started off strong however. One of our biggest concerns was the scene depicted in the artwork for the maze not being included in the maze itself. Not sure if the budget was smaller this year due to all of the other IP and extra mazes. We're very much hoping this one improves over the next few weeks as it's a great IP, a popular IP and we'd love to see it back in the years to come. But with it being a very strong year, something has to be last, and sadly it's this one. House of 1000 Corpses House of 1000 Corpses sufferers from being compared to the amazing 3D maze that was at HHN previously, and it's really not fair. Because this maze is great fun. The talent in here is fantastic and really understands the source material. Curse of Pandora's Box The first of the original mazes for 2019 this maze has some amazing scenes, amazing talent and a great score. Also, probably our favorite opening scene of any maze at the event. Lots of props from last years Universal Monsters and House of Horrors in here, which we absolutely don't have an issue with. Just a fun maze that has a high repeat factor. Us I'll be honest, I didn't really find Us, the movie, to be scary. Disturbing, absolutely. Interesting story, for sure. Amazing directing and acting, without a doubt!! The maze however, probably had the most amount of "scares" and creepiness. We absolutely loved this. Not only did it tell the story of the film, not only did it capture without flaw the feel of the film, but the talent really seemed to enjoy bringing these characters to life. It was just great. Frankenstein meets the Wolfman A continuation of last years amazing Universal Monsters maze, this one definitely takes a more Gothic feel than last years maze, but is still just as great on the characters, talent, scenes and scares. The music definitely sets this one apart and is just such a part of the legacy of these two characters. Holidayz in Hell  Our absolute favorite scare zone at this event last year, and maybe one of our favorite of the entire year, this year it was brought to life as a maze. And it didn't disappoint AT ALL. So much so, somebody (me) forgot to hit record when we got in the maze, so sadly no video. But seriously, check this one out. The line has been very manageable during our first two visits. Not to be missed. Creepshow I'm a HUGE fan of the original two Creepshow movies, they were kind of my first foray into horror when I was growing up. So I had really high expectations for this maze. And I absolutely LOVED it. It really is kind of a love letter to the films with a bit from the upcoming series thrown in. And if the walk-through is any indication, the new series will definitely capture the look and feel of the source material. Can't wait to see the show and go through this maze again. Killer Klowns from Outer Space Remember when I said at the beginning that Universal finally figured out how to have "fun" with their mazes? Well they did. It's no coincidence that our top two mazes of this year are based on 80's horror comedy movies (and one pure comedy if we're being honest). Are you going to get huge scares in this maze? Probably not. But you're going to have fun. And the talent in the maze knows it. You always know when the scare-actors at any event know they've got a good time going on, and it definitely shows in this one. Ghostbusters That leaves our absolute favorite maze of Halloween Horror Nights 2019. And that's Ghostbusters. To say that we were all looking forward to this maze would be an understatement. And that's usually when a maze doesn't live up to expectations. That's not the case with this one at all.     This maze isn't exactly a literal retelling of the film, and has some typical HHN effects, but it has so much more than that. It has a lot of dedicated talent, some really cool effects and again, just a lot of fun. Well that wraps it up for this HHN Hollywood update. Since we have Frequent Fear so we'll be back a few more times including one night for the amazing Chainsaw Chaseout. Be sure to share your thoughts on the event below. We'd love to hear what your rankings are. Related Videos:
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