With our butterbeers in hand we left the Wizarding World for the day and Islands of Adventure in general. We made our way thru City Walk and on to Universal Studios Florida. We passed the Rockit (the Hollywood Rip, Ride, Rockit Coaster) and I was saddend to see such a fun ride sit empty. But its for our safty so hopefully they get the thing fixed and going again soon.
We quickly made it into the park and still had a half an hour to kill before it offically closed and we had to be in the Stay and Scream holding area. So we headed for the best ride in the park. Revenge of the Mummy. It didn't hurt that the ride was located next to the holding pin ether. However upon arriving to the ride we saw many people walking out of the building where you enter and Team members turning guests away. We never knew what happened to it. We just assumed it broke down and since it was so close to closing time they just closed it early.
With that closed we decided it was time for Dinner. We would eat at the Irish Pub restaurant called Finnagans while we waited for HHN to start. We ate there last year and loved it so it was a must go to again this year. However we were very suprised when we walked in and the place was packed wall to wall with other people waiting for HHN. We didn't think we would get in as many people were waiting with buzzers however they walked us strait to a table for six. That was very convinent. We spent the next 45 minutes or so eating delicious irish food enjoying one anothers company and listoning to the live music. If your in Universal Studios I highly recommend checking out this place for dinner or lunch. Prices are very reasonable as well.
Many of you who may have followed my vacation planning knew that we were planning on going to Universal pretty much since the get go. However we didn't add HHN to the plans til about a week before the trip. Kiera and I went to HHN last year. I absolutly loved the event but Kiera didn't care for it. So when our friends told us they wanted to go the the event this year I was very excited but nervous if Kiera would like it since she didn't last year. I just kept my fingers crossed that since we were with a funner group this year that would help her have fun too.
If you do ever go to HHN get the stay and scream tickets. You can only get these if you have a park admission from earlier in the day. They cost $35 and are are well worth the cost considering you get 8 houses and 6 scarezones plus 2 shows for a little more then what normal 1 house are costing back home. Its really the best deal as I couldn never justify spending upwards of $80 admission like some do. Also try to go on a Thursday or Sunday evening as they are much less crowded then Friday or Saturday (typically. Not for us unfortunatly). The other advantage is they allow the Stay and Scream holding pin to start going to the houses 30 minutes before they let the main crowd outside in. So you get the early jump on everyone.
When we walked out of Finnigans they had just barely opened the gates for us to start going to the houses. They stagger there openings though every 15 minutes until the park reopens for everyone. So being at finnigans we found ourselves in the back half of the group and everyone went to the same house. It wasn't too bad of a wait though and got to see the broken Rockit up close.
The first houses that open are in the Soundstages. Universal always does an amazing Job on these houses cause come on. A freakin movie studio is building them. This year they were beyond amazing in detail. All of them were excellent. The first house we went to was called Legendary Truth. I guess this is the first time Universal has attempted an actual "haunted" house. As in the house relys on paranormal ghosts to get the scares out of you. This also has new technology in it to try and scare you. Keep you eyes open on the floor, at some of the walls, and the bed. I didn't think this house was going to scare us at all but we got a couple good jumps out it. This wasn't the scariest house but it was the most detailed and the one I liked the most.
After finishing that house we now had a choice. Do we wait for Pschycoscareapy to open at 6:30 or do we wait 20 minutes for Haides. We chose to go to Pschycoscareapy and wait it out. I don't know if we made the right decission or not as we waited probably just as long if not longer to wait for it to open. finally we did and we were finally inside. This house is themed to an insane aslym. It too is well detailed and had a lot of good scares. I knew a little secret in this house. I didn't know what the secret did but just in case I made sure that the girls that got scared most were in front of Kiera and I in hopes this secret would scare them. So heres the tip if you go this year. PUSH THE RED BUTTON. I won't tell you what it does other then it scared the crap out of my wife lol. This house was probably my 3rd favorite.
We next went to Haides where the wait was now almost none existant. This house was cool too. We got the most scares in this house out of any of them. However there were alot of sheets and stuff that hung down that were constantly getting in our face. So although we got the most scares this house kinda turned me off because of that and placed it as my 4th favorite.
Next we headed out of the soundstages and to the outdoor houses. First was Zombiegeddon. This was the "humor" house and I really wanted to see it. When we got in line the wait said 15 minutes. Not too bad we figured. Yeah the time was way off and we ended up waiting for probably 35 minutes. There is a pretty funny video that plays outside but not much else to keep you entertained. We were tired especially after walking the parks all day. The house was pretty good. Having alot of funner funnier sets in the beginning (I love the Zombie baby) and turning more dark and scary at the end. However we didn't get any scares in the house but for the laughs from the video and early part of the house it gets my 2nd favorite house spot.
After Zombiegeddon your dropped off in the Zombiegrah scarezone. It was pretty funny to see Valisa get pretty scared by one of the actors here. But other then that it was just kinda meh.
The next house we came to would unfortunatly be our last of the evening. The house was called the Orphanage. My review of it? It was just really odd. Really I didn't really understand what was going on. There were some "kids" in cages and some people walking around with zebraheads and a fire effect at the end that used real fire. The fire thing was pretty cool but other then that the house really sucked. I guess that was just cause I didn't understand what was going on. Cindy scared me pretty good at the very end of the house though. This house is diffenitly skippable.
With that house done everyone was getting really tired and wanted to sit down. So we decided to take a Night ride on Jaws. Everyone online says Jaws is much better at night. Last year Kiera and I (other then for nestolgics sake) didn't care for the ride much. However this thing is completly different at night and if you ever have the chance pick to ride this thing after dark instead of during the day every time. In addition to the whole ambiance of the ride being much creapier at night they also turn on many more fire and fog effects. I loved our night tour of Amitiy and so did everyone else. Thats the only way i'll ride the ride from now on.
With Jaws done everyone was way tired now. It didn't help ether that by this point every house in the park was between 45-60 minute wait. This evening was very very very crowded. Much more so then normal. Even regular HHN goes said that it was unusually crowded. Because of this everyone but me and Kiera decided to go back to the hotel. Everyone was tired and Valisa was literally pretty sick. So they headed back to the hotel.
Kiera and I stayed really for one reason. She is a big fan of the show GhostHunters and the stars of the show were in the park that night. So she wanted to see them. We made our way over to where they would be only to find a line that didn't have an end waiting for them (seriously where did all these people come from with this line and all the house now over a 60 minute wait). Because they weren't out yet we decided to walk back by later and snap a photo from the distance. However while walking to some of the scarezones we walked right next to the GhostHunters. Like I could have touched them. Unfortunatly my camera delayed to long and I missed them.
We walked around and checked out many of the scarezones. Some were better then last year. some weren't. One thing though was people actually tried scaring us this year. Last year none of them did anything. It is also the 20th year of halloween horror nights so they had many past Icons and scary people out and about looking for more scares. Also unlike last year I tried taking pictures of them. So since all we did for the rest of the night was walk around the scarezones heres a bunch of random pictures clumped into one.
The Icon of this years event. Fear Himself:
Afterwalking thru all of the scarezones we walked back to see the ghosthunters from the distance. So we took this picture of them and then made our way to the front of the park. Of course we couldn't leave without going thru some scarezones again though.