 Our Halloween coverage continues today with opening weekend of Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Orlando. The Frequent Fear Pass is a thing of beauty which means we should have a few updates from this amazing event this season. Check out Renée's opening weekend fun. Written by Renée Girard Heading into Universal Orlando for the opening night of Halloween Horror Nights!  If you can do the Stay & Scream it's totally worth it!  American Horror Story is our first house of the night. It features Asylum, Coven & Roanoke from the series. Loved it!   Next up is Dead Waters. Very cool house with a voodoo theme. I just wish it was longer!  The Fallen wasn't one of the best houses, but maybe our timing was off and missed some scares.  I like the addition of the Tribute Store from last year, and how there are displays for some of the houses. #     The Purge scare zone is back once again, and it's always a crowd pleaser.     At Orlando HHN, where alcohol has always been served, it seemed like the options were more limited this year.   Really loved the Trick R Treat scare zone! Definitely the most elaborate and fun of those we experienced     Caught a performance of Bill & Ted tonight too, in their final HHN appearance. They will be missed. Be excellent to each other!  And it wouldn't be HHN without Mel's Die-In. That's all for tonight in Orlando, but we'll be back for more soon!  Back at HHN Orlando tonight!  Some of the houses are already getting longish wait times. So worth it to get here early!  Trying one of the signature drinks, Midnight Madness. Anyone know where to get the pumpkin, s'mores & candy corn drinks?   Characters from all the houses gather in the Alters of Horror scare zone at the front of the park.   Students of Hogwarts support the Purge.  Enjoyed visiting the vampires of The Hive. Creepy and cool house, really long too!   Walking through the Invasion scare zone, for terror that is out of this world.    Blumhouse was one of the ones I was looking forward to the most. So much fun!Featuring scenes from Sinister, Insidious & The Purge.   Lower crowds at HHN tonight than last night. Loving having a Frequent Fear Pass again. Be back in a few days I'm sure!   Related Updates:
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 Welcome to another year of Halloween Horror Nights Hollywood, where your favorite scary movies come to life. Our opening night report is here, we have some great pictures of the mazes and scare zones and we definitely recommend the event this year despite a couple of repeat themes. Enjoy! Written by Gregg Condon Pictures by Matthew Nelson and Gregg Condon Welcome to Halloween Horror Nights Hollywood where we are kicking off another year of amazing Halloween events.   This was EASILY the lowest temperature for the opening night of HHN Hollywood for as long as we can remember. And it was AMAZING!!   Before heading to the park we decided to head in early and grab some food and butterbeer. And since Wizarding World wasn't open for HHN, some Forbidden Journey.  After leaving our extra people in the park we headed out to check in for the media portion of the event. No red carpet for us this year, we had another reason for getting here early.  We wanted to check out this years Opening Scaremony with a whole bunch of new friends.  The opening moments of HHN 2017 ... we shared this during the event and a lot of people loved it. We hope you will too. But Matt had other ideas and they headed in a bit earlier to see how the early entry worked (and since so many of you have been asking about it)  Insidious  Some sunset pics from the backlot   As the sun began to fade it was time for the rest of us to head deep into HHN  The Shining   Would have loved to see an actual maze, but capacity would have been the scariest thing of all  How you doin' ...  Here's Johnny!!! Heading into the backlot ...    Really fun scare zone as you headed to the three backlot mazes  Some sunset/nighttime pics for you to enjoy
       This scene was really hard to capture in pictures, but we wanted to give this actress a shout out. She was AMAZING. If you know who she is please pass it on. Her hard work was appreciated.    Dead ...   The first of the backlot mazes was American Horror Story  This year they stuck with one season and I think it worked much better this way  Ash vs Evil Dead which was my favorite maze of the night. But I'm a HUGE fan of Evil Dead and the TV show ... so that may have had some influence.   Ashy Slashy ... Ashy Slashy ... Ashy Slashy ...  Ash's room   Saw   Not really our thing, but a lot of you love Saw so we totally understand why it's come back   Let's head back upstairs  Time for the Titans of Terror Tram with our amazing host Chucky
They basically separated the three area's of the Terror Tram among the three Titans of Terror    Sawyer Meats ... get it?   Lots of different Freddy's running around    Catawampus?     We loved the theme of the Terror Tram but without using the back trail (which so many people complained about in years past) it just didn't seem long enough this year.  Headed into the Blumhouse maze   Started off with The Purge ... this part reminded us a lot of the Purge Gauntlet from last year, which we loved.     Headed inside the maze portion  The first part was dedicated to Groundhog ... we mean Happy Death Day. =)   And finally Sinister  Let's check out the Scare Zone on the upper lot  Despite not having fire this year we really enjoyed this scare zone. Wish it would extend throughout the entire upper lot though. It was a lot of fun.    Trick or Treat ...   Lots of Chainsaws  Our last maze of the night was Titans of Terror. We weren't really sure what to think of this one but we absolutely LOVED it.  You could tell they had a lot of fun with this one  Thanks again to Universal Studios Hollywood for having us out for another year of Halloween Horror Nights. We had an AMAZING time as always. Check out my Maze rankings below (Gregg):
 Check back tomorrow as we'll have our update from the first two nights of Halloween Horror Nights in Orlando. Related Updates:  Yesterday Universal Studios Hollywood announced the on-sale information and prices for Halloween Horror Nights. And prices have gone up, pretty much across the board. But what really seemed to stick out in people's minds was the price of the R.I.P. Tour. And yes, it's a SIGNIFICANT investment, for our family, 1 night would be an investment of about $1200. That's a LOT for us, a lot for pretty much anybody. But once we began to break down the price a bit there is actually value there, yes, value in a $299 ticket. Written by Gregg Condon I sense a similar situation at Halloween Horror Nights to what Disney is going through with APs. The event is packed EVERY.SINGLE.NIGHT. If you don't have Front of the Line passes you are going to spend probably 75% of your night in line, and there is absolutely no guarantee that you'll see everything, especially if you don't plan ahead. (don't worry, we'll have our Survival Guide up soon). So what's one to do? Get the Front of the Line Pass of course. But wait, that's either $169 or $199 depending on the night. And I only get to do each maze once? And I have to pay for parking, and dinner, and all kinds of other things.  So what's the next step up, well of course I'm talking about the return of the R.I.P. Tour. The cost: $269 on nights that the front of the line pass is $169 (or weeknights) or $299 on nights that the front of the line pass is $199. There are a few nights where the R.I.P. tour is $329 as well. So basically $100 more than a standard Front of the Line pass. And what do you get (we're going to use Friday September 29 as an example)
Right off the top if you include Admission, Front of the Line, Parking (Standard rate only) and dinner we're up to $274. So essentially for $25 you're paying for a VIP Entrance, Unlimited Front of the Line, Guided HHN Tour and VIP Seating. That's a LOT of extras. And of course, there is no price associated with the Unlimited Front of the Line or Walking Tour as those aren't available a la carte.  Sure, you CAN just do the regular admission, and that's fine. We'll help you plan ahead with our upcoming survival guide, it CAN be done. There are so many Halloween events each and every year it's hard to fit them all in. Trust us, we know. We're trying to figure out days off, half days, budgets and all kinds of other things for the next 3 months. It's not easy. But with a bit of homework it's possible. What the R.I.P. pass does is take away the need for all that homework. And for a lot of people, that's worth the price.  What the R.I.P. pass isn't is a R.I.P.-Off. Our Hobby isn't cheap. Theme Parks aren't cheap to build, run or maintain. Most of us have Annual Passes which significantly cut down the cost. Unfortunately Halloween is the one time of year those investments don't typically come into play. Halloween has become big business, and it's getting bigger each and every year. As always, do what works best for you. If general admission on a Saturday night in mid-October is all you can do Halloween Horror Nights, then do it. We wouldn't recommend it, but again, we'll help you figure out the best plan of attack as we do every year. If the R.I.P. Tour works best for you, then do it. And if you want to write a report about your experience, then let us know. We'd be more than happy to post it. =) Related Updates: |
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