Universal Orlando Resort (USO, IOA) Discussion Thread

[OrlandoGuy]

Just officially got done with a great opening weekend of HHN. Overall, I think this year is a great improvement over the last two years--in some aspects, its so much better this year that it feels like a return to form...almost. I'll explain that later; here are the house/scarezone reviews, after going through each at least twice over the weekend. (SOME SPOILERS)

 

AVP (9/10)--I wanted to LOVE this house, and I think my expectations were set unrealistically high. My first run-through was very disappointing as I felt it lacked actors and effects. However, my next few runs were much better as everyone got into synch, and once I had my expectations in check, it ended up being a solid house thats one of my favorites now. The sets are incredible and there are some good effects. The Predator costumes are AWESOME and the alien puppets are everything I hoped they would be...the problem is I wish there were more. I know that the quantity of actual puppets/Predators is ok, but things like the static alien in the ceiling and the Predator who is always out in the open make it feel like the actual scares in this house are lower than they could be quantity-wise. However, the scares that ARE there are intense. I think after some work, the scares could get to that level of relentlessness they ought to be, but for now its a good house for the amazing sets and the intense scares that are there. (Also, can they get rid of that stupid crawl tunnel please?)

 

Dracula (4/10)--I hated this house. The scares are almost nonexistent. The story is incoherent. The source material doesnt seem inherently scary. I enjoyed the sets and details, but as a haunted house I feel that it fails.

 

The Walking Dead (8/10)--I thought this was a great house, honestly. The sets were phenomenal with how packed with detail they are. Now, Im not a fan of the show so a lot of it was lost on me. But the scope of it was enough to make it enjoyable to me (speaking of which, its very easy to tell this is HHN's biggest house ever). I also loved how this house seemed packed with actors--they came out from everywhere! As much as Im ready for HHN to move on from Walking Dead, I really thought this house was a star.

 

From Dusk Till Dawn (6/10)--Ive seen the movie and the first half of the show's first season, so I kinda knew what was up. Like every other house this year, I loved the set design, the scale in this one was great and it felt very organic and "real". But the vibe in here felt off from the show...it didnt seem as quirky as it couldve been, or as "cool" as it should have been--other than the magnificent set design and scanty costumes, it was barely different from any other vampire house. Also, I thought the scares were light. Great final room though!

 

Roanoke (7/10)--I liked this house a lot...it had a few great scares, some good makeup/mask work, a great facade/final room, and a solid original story. I also loved the gory effects and how well the actors blended into the gory parts (something that has been lacking lately). But for some reason every time I left I felt like there was something to be desired. Maybe the actor energy is low? Im not sure what its missing, but its something. Im sure it'll find its stride and improve though. It has all the ingredients of a stellar house, it just hasnt pulled it all together yet.

 

Dollhouse of the Damned (9/10)--holy hell. This is a CREEPY house. Very creepy. The crib room is disturbing. The woman with the melted/morphed doll face furiously combimg the doll's hair is the single most disturbing and resonant image Ive ever seen at HHN since starting in 2007. HHN has been missing this kind of thing and its so good to see it back. Overall, the scares and sets were just good, but the immensely creepy tone really makes this house stand out. The amazing disturbing atmosphere gives such a surreal and intense feeling of dread that makes it something else

 

Halloween (10/10)--my favorite house. Now, I may be bias because Halloween is a dream house of mine and Im in love with the Carpenter film. The crazy faithfulness with which the house followed the movie is phenomenal. The sets are straight out of the movie. Its claustrophobic. There are actual scenes of Michael attacking victims (something thats been missing for way too long), and pitch-perfect music cues straight from the movie. And best of all, Michael is AGGRESSIVE! I could have sworn he was micrometers away from making real physical contact several times. The hall of Michael Myers' is one of the most intense scares Ive ever gotten at the event. This is a gem.

 

Giggles and Gore (9/10)--I had low expectations for this one, but they were far exceeded. First off, the rumors of this house being the shortest ever are nothing to worry about--the house feels perfect in length. And its very dark--theres a creepy-ass opening scene that really sets the tone for a dark and gory house...its not a fun house-type deal. Also, I felt the actors were pretty aggressive. Overall, this is a very solid house with good actors/makeup and scares, but the true star is the creepy environment its set in.

 

 

Maskerade--cool idea and I like the chandelier, but the scares are lacking.

 

Face-Off--if you didnt know what Face Off was, this zone would be no more than a photo op with a few actors thrown in. I am familiar with the concept of the show but didnt really *get* the zone. I thought there would be more of an interactive element, or some makeup effect, but it was just a photoshoot.

 

Bayou of Blood--I personally got no scares here but I see the potential. The props and atmosphere are great. The ritual is cool and is reminiscent of the scareamonies and side shows that they used to do which was nice. I liked it, but didnt think it was overly intense.

 

The Purge--great scarezone, but could be amazing with more actors. For such a big area, the actors they have are worn too thin. If they could staff more people, this could be a scarezone for the ages. Its still got a good atmosphere and impressive props, though.

 

 

Bill & Ted--hated it. I cracked a smile a couple times but overall the jokes were forgettable. Also, the shots at Disney seemed kinda obnoxious (as true as some of them may have been). I think the days of funny Bill and Teds are over.

 

 

 

All in all, HHN 24 is a fantastic event. EVERY house had fantastic sets and atmosphere--seriously, every single one. The emphasis on detail down to the smallest thing is more amazing than ever. To be honest, I kinda thought that the event was missing some of those big expansive breathtaking facades/sets the event has come to be known for, but I'll take the incredible detail and intimacy over the over-the-top grandiose stuff any day. I also really freakin liked the darker feel to the houses overall this year--theres more gore, less humor, and more intensity overall. Its great, and I like to see HHN getting more comfortable with letting loose and going crazy even with their new surge in mainstream popularity. Also, I LOVE the return of "victim scenes" and actual gags using humans (for example, the girl in AVP penetrated by the alien claw/the Michael Myers stabbing Laurie watching TV scene). I have been lamenting the absense of those for the last 4 years or so and I loved seeing them back. Hopefully, the gore and dark themes are making their way back for good.

 

As satisfactory as the houses were, despite them approaching their old school flair, theyre not there yet. First off, the scarezones were understaffed and overall not anything too special. But most importantly, the event still feels more disjointed than before. The lack of icon, backstory, meaningful build-up, interactive website, etc. has turned HHN, a formerly completely-immersive Halloween experience into a basic haunt event with really freakin elaborate houses. I miss the old environment story-driven coherent HHN's used to create. If they could take the incredible quality of the newest houses, and mix it with the creative stories that defined old HHN's, I think we would have the perfect Halloween event on our hands. Time will tell what happens.

 

Either way though, HHN 24 is a great time. There are some dont-miss houses this year, and the incredible amount of detail in each one means repeats are going to be very nice. Go as soon as you can!

[ScreaminNewEngland]

How does the park do with weather? Do they shut down with the first drop? It's supposed to rain all this week down there.

[jedimaster1227]

With most of the attractions being indoors at Universal Studios Florida, the park handles the rain quite well, with the exception of Hollywood Rip, Ride, Rockit!, the Woody Woodpecker roller skater and the Universal's Superstar Parade. Islands of Adventure is a little more difficult since many of the major attractions are outdoors (Dr. Doom, Hulk, Dragon Challenge, Seuss Sky Trolley, etc...). Both parks will typically run their rides in the rain and will most often shut them down when lightning has been reported within a relative distance from the park.

[ScreaminNewEngland]

DO they wait for it to pass or do they shut down?

[SharkTums]

^Listen to Adam, the Florida parks know what they're doing with rain. They'll run until the last minute, open back up as soon as they can, even if it's not till late at night after being closed all day.

 

Lightning is the biggest issue, but other than Busch Gardens I can't think of any park that has closed early in Florida due to weather (other than a hurricane).

[chargersmichael]

^Sounds great! I'll be at Halloween Horror Nights next Sunday night! I just rented Halloween and Alien v. Predator to watch before I go! Also watching the 3rd season of the Walking Dead on Netflix!

[adeuce02]

Also if it does rain like it did the whole night on opening night the crowds for horror night's still do not die down. So if that factors into some thinking it will be less busy it won't. Although giggles and gore didn't open up for most of the night on Friday.

[X2coasterfreak]

One of my best memories on any coaster came from riding Chinese Fireball in the pouring rain. We were on the last train to dispatch before they shut the ride down, and it was pretty intense. Definitely made me fall in love with that ride even more. I believe Universal shuts the outdoor rides down with lighting seven miles outside the park, and like others have said they are definitely on top of it with their weather policies.

[PeoplemoverMatt]

In my experience, the rides are shut down literally moments before the heavy rain hits. Even though I'm only at the FL parks annually, it's happened to me multiple times now where I'll be in the station waiting to board, the ride gets shut down, and I can't make it out of the station before the downpour hits. Can't really cut it closer than that!

 

 

That's also one of the most fun parts of visiting the FL parks - they don't have completely asinine weather policies like CA parks do. CA parks will freak out and totally shut down at the hint of drizzle, and the surrounding traffic acts worse. Disneyland does ok with it, but even they will sometimes make some head scratch-worthy calls. FL parks just roll with it. They hunker down when the rain hits, then open back up basically like nothing ever happened about as soon as it's done. It makes for a much less stressful way to consider a park day when the weather forecast isn't so great.

[Brad]

One last little note that impressed me was that they let us stay in Diagon Alley Friday night until 8, even though the rest of USO "closed" at 5 for HHN. Kudos to them for that, as we basically had the whole area to ourselves, and Gringotts was a walk-on for over 2 hours.

So how exactly did they do this logistically? How did they get people from IOA into Diagon Alley and what did they do to stop you from leaving Diagon and just entering the park during HHN?

 

Around 4:30 they put up barriers at both sides of London with employees posted, only letting people in who had park hopper tickets. If you had one they gave you a blue wristband. Around the same time, or shortly after, employees started walking around the whole area and asking people who didn't have a wristband if they needed one, or informed them they had to leave at 5 if they didn't have park hopper. They were pretty strict about this, there were employees even posted up outside the restrooms in Diagon Alley.

 

Around then is also when they closed off the Gringotts line (posted 30-minutes) to non-wristbands. It seemed as though anyone with that wristband could freely travel back and forth on the train pretty close to 8:00, although I'm not sure what they did about the people over in IOA. I left DA a bit after 7, and there were still people getting off the train from IOA, so they must've had some type of system. The only way out of London/DA, however, was the train...I don't know what would've happened if it had broken down.

 

All in all it was a very smooth process. As soon as I found out what was going on, I was cringing at the thought of what could become of the whole situation, but they handled it well.

 

Do you know if those with HHN tickets were allowed into the park from Diagon Alley, or did they have to take the train back to IOA? Either way, this is definitely an unexpected perk if operations continue like this through the HHN season.

[OrlandoGuy]

^if you had a HHN ticket, you could go right into Universal from Diagon Alley after 5.

[robbalvey]

Here's a video of the From Dusk Till Dawn maze:

[robbalvey]

....and a video of Alien Vs Predator maze:

[Hilltopper39]

Wow, seems like there is some pretty amazing "scenery" in the Dust Til Dawn House. I can't remember that much Themeing in a haunt Attraction in recent years, if you know what I mean......

 

 

Reviews of this year's event so far have been overwhelmingly positive. Seems like every year the reviews are all over the board from good to bad to the best thing ever to the worst HHN in 20 years or whatever, but this years event sounds like a pretty solid offering overall. I really hadn't planned on going this year ( was only planning on going to HalloScreams at Busch Gardens) but I might have to reconsider it!

[cfc]

Wow, seems like there is some pretty amazing "scenery" in the Dust Til Dawn House.

 

Well, Mexico is very nice this time of the year.

 

Great videos of the mazes, Robb.

Edited September 24, 2014 by cfc

[Hilltopper39]

 

Great videos of the mazes, Robb.

 

Yeah the videos were great! Did you take these as part of a media day activity or are they letting guest take cameras through the mazes now?

[BlahBlahson]

^Just from walking through the mazes this year, I've seen people told at the entrance to put their cameras away. That doesn't mean videos won't surface anyway. Robb surely did his officially as is the policy of this website.

 

From working last year at HHN as an attractions attendant, I can say it is very difficult to police all the cameras and cell phones (probably 1 in 60 guests has theirs out, seriously), and on busy nights the endless groups of smokers are impossible to curtail.

 

At the Bill and Ted show they are very strict about cameras due to all the celebrities and media parodied in the show.

[robbalvey]

^Just from walking through the mazes this year, I've seen people told at the entrance to put their cameras away. That doesn't mean videos won't surface anyway. Robb surely did his officially as is the policy of this website.

We filmed during the media event, but they might actually be allowing cameras this year (without flash or lighting) as I've heard conflicting reports. Apparently it no longer says "no video" on some of the rules of the house signs. They just asked the we don't post the "complete" walk-through as they wanted to leave some of the element of surprise, so we are just doing highlights from each house.

 

And here is The Walking Dead house from this year:

[robbalvey]

Got to interview Laura Tyler, the winner of Face Off Season 5, who is also a veteran make-up artist at Halloween Horror Nights! (be sure to watch the ending of the video!)

[Guy T. Koepp]

^That was great! She was one of our favorites as well from the show. Very well done interview Robb.

[SharkTums]

I wanted to share a few of my thoughts from the event.

 

Keep in mind:

 

- I am severely jaded with Halloween Events.

 

- I do not get scared.

 

- I barely get startled.

 

- I am old.

 

 

The event itself 'looked' good. The houses seemed very hit or miss. As always it also seems to matter when you went through the house, what talent was in there, time of night, etc. Bill & Ted is dumbing down quite a bit but as long as the guy who plays Zac Efron continues to dance around shirtless I will enjoy.

 

Roanoke - I thought this was the weakest house in the history of the event. It felt like a Fright Fest level of Quality.

 

Halloween - I thought Universal Hollywood did a better job with this house.

 

Alien vs. Predator - I like SciFi, this was my favorite house. I loved the part at the end where you had to get down low and there was a scare down there. It reminded me of old school HHN where they were doing and trying different things every year. The only bummer was that it was so short and at the end!

 

Dusk till Dawn - Boobs.

 

Walking Dead - I gave up on this series a few episodes into Season Two. Looked good, LOTS of scare actors, but nothing stood out.

 

Dracula - Meh.

 

Giggles & Gore / Doll House - I don't even know which is which.

 

I really missed some different or interesting things we've seen in the past. Where are the flying scare actors? Where are the bungee scare actors? Where are the mine hats to wear? Where are the indoor/outdoor mazes? I miss when this event used to push the limit and try new things even if they didn't work.

 

Scare Zones were ok. I liked the Purge and Face Off ones. Due to the rain I think the others were suffering a bit.

[cfc]

I appreciate your Hemingway-like, economical use of language here.

 

Dusk till Dawn - Boobs.

[Guy T. Koepp]

^I just like Boobs. Soooooooooo...

 

...thumbs up from me!

 

Oh, and on a side note. I totaly respect a woman who can respect boobs. In fact, I can't think of a reason why anyone wouldn't respect boobs. They're magical.

[OrlandoGuy]

Roanoke - I thought this was the weakest house in the history of the event. It felt like a Fright Fest level of Quality.

 

Halloween - I thought Universal Hollywood did a better job with this house.

 

Alien vs. Predator - I like SciFi, this was my favorite house. I loved the part at the end where you had to get down low and there was a scare down there. It reminded me of old school HHN where they were doing and trying different things every year. The only bummer was that it was so short and at the end!

 

Dusk till Dawn - Boobs.

 

Walking Dead - I gave up on this series a few episodes into Season Two. Looked good, LOTS of scare actors, but nothing stood out.

 

Dracula - Meh.

 

Giggles & Gore / Doll House - I don't even know which is which.

 

I really missed some different or interesting things we've seen in the past. Where are the flying scare actors? Where are the bungee scare actors? Where are the mine hats to wear? Where are the indoor/outdoor mazes? I miss when this event used to push the limit and try new things even if they didn't work.

 

Scare Zones were ok. I liked the Purge and Face Off ones. Due to the rain I think the others were suffering a bit.

 

Interesting to hear Roanoke described as the worst of the event's history. I didnt *love* it, but I thought that just the aesthetics of it all put it above quite a few houses Ive been through at HHN (including practically every one in 2012). I liked the ceiling scare and some of the burn victim make-up/masks, and I thought just the sheer scale and detail in the finale room was very well-done. Like I said in my earlier review, it left a little to be desired but I thought that how it looked alone makes it a worthy addition to their lineup.

 

I agree about pretty much all the rest (although I LOVED Halloween and cant imagine Hollywood doing it better as I thought ours was perfect...I must have really missed a great house in Hollywood). I would reccomend another run through Dollhouse though. If you have good timing, it is easily one of the creepiest houses tone-wise and has one of the strongest uses of atmosphere Ive seen in any HHN house.

 

And I definitely agree about the lack of innovative scares a la the "old" days. However, I was really happy to see the return of physical effect gags (such as the alien dragging the soldier through the floor and the scene in Giggles with the intestines being ripped out) and the "scene" rooms (Michael Myers stabbing Laurie, for instance). I loved how HHN does those and after a few years without those things, I loved seeing them back this year. It restored a little bit of my faith that they havent completely lost their edge.

[Meteornotes]

I think at this point this event mainly exists to sell alcohol, and as long as they're still making insane money doing that, there's no reason to put any effort in to any of the houses.

 

Though Elissa did sell me on Dusk Till Dawn...

 

dt