Monsters, Haunted Houses, Scare Zones and more. HHN 30 fun trip.

[Robo56]

Welcome to my HHN 30 trip report. I usually travel solo for my annual Halloween celebration trip every year to HHN. The celebration of Halloween starts for me on the first day of September until the November 1st. I love everything Halloween.

I have a wonderful husband who understands my need to go to my happy place Universal a few times during the year especially during HHN.

I’am so glad that Universal is celebrating HHN 30 Year. It has been a hard couple of years for everyone.

A special thank you at the beginning to Universal, HHN Creative Staff, Resort Staff, Park TM’s and Scare Actors. Without you none of us would be enjoying HHN this year. Thank you for all your hard work. Thank you for being there.

Let’s get started.

Sunday, September 12

I left home about 10:30 to drive up to Orlando and check in at Portofino Bay. It is one of my favorite Resorts at Universal. Royal Pacific and Sapphire Falls are close seconds. All have wonderful staff and the Resorts are beautiful.

Kate checked me in at the front desk. Kate was very kind and helpful and the check in process was quick and easy.

I went to the ticket desk at Portofino and showed my email paper copies of the tours I had purchased and received the actual tickets.

I’am so glad Portofino is open again.

I knew the room would not be ready yet. That was fine. I needed to travel up to Sanford to pick my niece up from the airport. She was flying in for a short vacation from Sunday to Thursday. Her plane was supposed to arrive at 2:40 pm.

I was there waiting in the cell phone lot when she called that she was out front in then loading area.

I was so glad that B was able to get away for a few days to come and enjoy a little vacation. She is the mommy of a very active happy little toddler. He is the sweetest little fella. Grandma (my younger sister) was off for a few days and she was babysitting him.

After I picked B up from the airport we stopped at the Walmart in Sanford for some fruit, snacks and Gatorade. I already had purchased bottled water so we were set. Then we set off for Portofino. While we were traveling back to Orlando I received the text that the room was ready.

After we arrived to Portofino we got settled in our room. I brought my wand with and our plans were to buy B one at Ollivanders in Diagon Alley.

We took the water taxi to CityWalk and decided to have dinner at Red Oven Pizza. I have never eaten there in all the years I have been coming to Universal.

The pizza and salad we ordered was good. They will alter ingredients to your liking on the pizza.

We finished our meal and off to Universal we went. When we scanned through to the park I realized my wand was not in my backpack. It had either fallen out or I had laid it on the table. Oh well.



My niece celebrating our arrival LOL


The entrance for resort guests was open to the left on the walk leading to Blue man group theatre. It’s between the back of RRR and Hard Rock restaurant.

We decided to have a look at the Scare Zones.


First one was Lights, Camera Hacktion: Eddie’s Revenge

 

[Robo56]

Sunday, September 12th continued

 

[schumigirl]

Looking forward to this one.......

Lovely pictures already Robbie......

 

[Lynne G]

Awesome start Robo. So nice your niece was able to be with you a few days.

 

[macraven]

Yay for Robbie!

She is the first in our group to hit hhn this year
Great pictures and info sharing for us

Lynne have a great smooth flight out!
Hope no all day rain for you!
Our temps are quite similar with Orlando today
Low 80’s here with some rain at times this afternoon

 

[keishashadow]

Great to see you are taking the time to do a TR!Know the pictures will be killer!

speaking of…some great ones in the scare zones above. Did u you use a camera or your phone? Sometimes the scare actors can be rather camera shy.

 

[Robo56]

Looking forward to this one.......

Lovely pictures already Robbie......

Thank you Carole. Welcome along for the trip report.

Awesome start Robo. So nice your niece was able to be with you a few days.

Hey! Lynne....it was so nice to have my niece here for a few days. She flew out Thursday evening. I miss her. She is so much fun to be around.

Yay for Robbie!

She is the first in our group to hit hhn this year
Great pictures and info sharing for us

Lynne have a great smooth flight out!
Hope no all day rain for you!
Our temps are quite similar with Orlando today
Low 80’s here with some rain at times this afternoon

Hey! Mac glad to see you here. You will be here Having a great time at HHN soon.

Great to see you are taking the time to do a TR!Know the pictures will be killer!

speaking of…some great ones in the scare zones above. Did u you use a camera or your phone? Sometimes the scare actors can be rather camera shy.

Thank you Janet for that vote of confidence.

I’am using my 12 pro max for pictures.

The Scare Actors are very approachable. They are stopping for photos. I have seen the stilt walking Scare Actors stopping for guests to get photos even. I can see if it was wall to wall people on busy nights that would be hard to do though.

 

[schumigirl]

I really like that the last 5 years or so they have been better at taking part in pictures, for so many years most of them seemed to avoid the camera, but it makes for much better pictures when they will pose now.

Yes, much more difficult on very busy nights.

 

[Robo56]

I really like that the last 5 years or so they have been better at taking part in pictures, for so many years most of them seemed to avoid the camera, but it makes for much better pictures when they will pose now.

Yes, I noticed that also. I remember the Shining House. The two girls that were walking hand in hand in the Scare Zone would take off in the other direction if a camera was pointed at them. I thought perhaps they had been instructed to do so. Not sure.

 

[Robo56]

Sunday, September 12th continued.

After the Lights Camera Hacktion Scare Zone we walked over to Gorewood Forest Scare Zone.

The Terra Queen looked like she had walked out of a storybook.





It’s funny how after you have attended a few Halloween Horror nights you see different props that have been used before. Like these pikes I remember from “Fallen” which was one of my all time favorite houses. They were also used outside of the “Nightingale House”.



It was pretty hot and humid this evening and my niece and I were laughing about the fact we had sweat running down our backs already and we had just started out. Then out of an unsuspecting rock formation off to the side jumped out this creature........LOL....wasn’t expecting that. Not sure what you would call it, but looked like a very large rabid gerbil with the mange.



I can remember as I know a lot of you do the first time they had the Pumpkins up in the trees in this area during HHN it was so visually beautiful. I was wondering if the veining going up the trees was supposed to stand for venous and arterial blood. Not sure but it was striking.




This creature was standing almost stone like. I was not for sure it was real until the scare actor moved. The costume blended into the surroundings really well. I’am always in awe of how these Scare actors are able to walk on those stilts.

 

[Robo56]

Sunday, September 12th continued.

After we went through Gorewood Forest we decided to go through Puppet Theatre.









I really liked the facade of this house it was so detailed. Universal’s haunted house creators are awesome. Just looking at the amount of detail that went into the outside of this house is amazing.

It’s Sunday in real-time and I decided to do some pool time then rest today. I’am in my room here working on the trip report at the Portofino and It started raining buckets just a few minutes ago.

My niece and I had commented on how the local weather folks were accurately predicting the rain within a half hour of the predicted start time.


Ok back to trip report.


It was very hot and humid this evening and it was very busy for a Sunday this early in the HHN season. There were long lines for the food and drink tents.

One of the nice things about Universal is there is a back story to all the houses they present. If you know the back story it does bring the house to life for you.

The exterior of the “Puppet Theatre:Captive Audience” looked like a Theatre that had been damaged by a earth quake. It was well done both inside and out. There were some nice scares inside and some gore for the hardcore fans.

 

[Robo56]

Sunday, September 12th continued

I should clarify before I continue. I’am moving between my IPad and phone. Writing the text on iPad is easier for me and then I’am coming back in and attaching photos from my phone.

After we finished with Puppet Theatre we decided to go to Diagon Alley.

Not sure why, but there seemed to be a dense bottle neck of people congregating a distance from the MIB store. I would have guessed they were trying to enjoy some of the cool air that comes out of the store, but they were to far away for that.

There are entrances to houses back there, but that was not it either. There are some merch carts in that area and places to purchase drink back there also. I surmised it is the place to see and be seen by the youngsters. This scenario would be played out on the nights I attended HHN.

Of course the first view upon entering Diagon Alley through the moving brick wall is Dragon on Gringotts bank.





To be continued

 

[J'aime Paris]

These photos are awesome!!!!
So nice you get to have this experience with your niece!!

 

[keishashadow]

Yes, I noticed that also. I remember the Shining House. The two girls that were walking hand in hand in the Scare Zone would take off in the other direction if a camera was pointed at them. I thought perhaps they had been instructed to do so. Not sure.

i had given up trying TBH. Going to give snapping some pics a whirl again this year

Like these pikes I remember from “Fallen” which was one of my all time favorite houses. They were also used outside of the “Nightingale House”.

nice catch!

know a lot of you do the first time they had the Pumpkins up in the trees in this area during HHN it was so visually beautiful.

every year we are hopeful

 

[Robo56]

These photos are awesome!!!!
So nice you get to have this experience with your niece!!

Thank you. I’am so thankful she had the time to fly out for a few days.

i had given up trying TBH. Going to give snapping some pics a whirl again this year

Yes, give it another try and have fun snapping pictures. I love to see how others interpret with photos. Look forward to seeing some of them.

every year we are hopeful

You will be in Pumpkin heaven outside The Wicked Growth. Make sure you see it at night though.

 

[Pumpkin1172]

Great trip report so far!!!!! I love the HP pictures at night I can't wait to hear more!!!!

 

[vinotinto]

Following!

 

[Robo56]

Great trip report so far!!!!! I love the HP pictures at night I can't wait to hear mor

Thank you Pumpkin. Glad to see you here along for the trip report.

Following

Welcome vinotinto. Thank you for coming along for the trip report.

 

[Robo56]

Sunday, September 12th continued

After we entered Diagon Alley we noticed there were only a few people milling around. That was fine with us. We had magic plans. My niece B and I went to Ollivanders Wand Shop. I wanted to buy her an interactive wand. I also needed to replace my wand I had lost.

We were the only magic folk (definitely not muggles....LOL) in Ollivanders other then the Wizard who worked there and he was very helpful.

My niece decided on Sirius Black’s Wand. He was one of her fav characters in the Potter movies. He was an Animagus as he could change himself into a large black dog and he was Harry’s Godfather. His nickname to his Marauder friends was Padfoot.




My niece was curious about the writing on the wand and the Wizard in Ollivanders told her it was ancient writing that included a spell that protected the wand from anyone else using it except Sirius Black.

I have not been able to confirm that information yet, but either way it’s cool.


A picture of Sirius Black’s Wand





And picture of the Wand I bought again.......Seraphina Picauery’s Wand. She was the President of the Magical Congress of the US in The Fantastic Beasts.





After our wands were purchased off we went to cast spells.


If you go to Hogsmeade or Diagon Alley they are both usually very busy during regular park hours, but during HHN Diagon Alley is pretty empty. It is a wonderful opportunity to have a nice time doing the spells at the various sites.

B making it rain


And we had to stop for a photo entering my favorite place.


This spell spot in Knockturn Alley seems to give people the most trouble. A teenager who was running around doing spells while we were in there told us just to point the wand and hold it straight at the sensor and the interactive skeleton would work. Following his advice it worked perfectly.


B waiting to ward off any dark wizards that could possibly walk out of Borgin and Burke’s….LOL





and tasting Fishy Green Ale for the first time…


more to come…

 

[J'aime Paris]

Beautiful wands! Glad you are/were having such a super time!