PRE-TRIP REPORT - A Disney Anniversary - DLR, UOR and WDW w Star Wars Galaxy's Edge- Sept/Oct 2019

[Lesley Wake]

Interesting thought about not having enough time to photograph Flight of Passage riding first thing or with a Fastpass. I will take it on board, though I'm going to have to weigh up the importance of those line shots with all the night shots in the park we want to take, particular as the park will most likely only be open until 8pm and sunset it at 6:45pm (late sunsets are good, but it does mean less hours when the park is dark!)

I hadn't thought about photographing Everest in the morning at sunrise either. I think we will probably be in too late for sunrise at 8am, as I think sunrise is about 7:20am, but will definitely check out Everest in the early morning light.

Yeah it is so hard to fit everything in with a (relatively) short WDW portion of your trip! Guess it just means more to include for a future trip!

I love AK at night and there is so much awesomeness to see, so yeah I definitely understand your hesitation! Who knows though-maybe hours could get extended closer to your trip?

Frozen Ever After is actually a new attraction for us (I realised I forget to mention that) which is why we are doing it twice. I promised Jared that if there were new attractions I was going to make him photograph we'd do it once for photos and once where he could relax and enjoy it! I'm hoping if we arrive early enough and rope drop it it won't cut into our F&W time too much. On that note, I know WS normally opens at 11:00am. Does it open earlier during the F&W festival, or are the booths in FW open earlier?

That makes sense then for FEA. I believe even during F&W the WS doesn’t open until 11.

I did think about how we could fit in evening photos at DHS, as I really wanted to capture Toy Story Land. The issue is that all 4 days we are in the parks we only have three evenings, and I'm not sure we will fit in park hopping to take pictures at DHS. The only night it may be viable is the EPCOT night, but I really have a full photo taking itinerary there because we have so little photos of EPCOT and because DHS shuts at 8pm on the 1 October. Still if we can fit it in we will try (ideally, if we aren't too jet lagged, we could do it on our rest day, but it would require another days tickets so it depends on if we decided to add on an extra day once there). I would really like to shoot that area though, so I will really think about this a bit more.

I thought about suggesting another day of tickets though didn’t know if it was in your budget. I do actually prefer TSL at night though! The colors of SDD really pop!

I'm so excited for your own Asian Disney Adventure. I hope you post a trip report here so I can follow along . I'm sure it will be completely amazing, I love the Asian parks and I'm sure you will too . How long are you going for and how long are you spending at each park

Yeah I’m excited too! I’m following Disney Tourist Blogs advice of a HalloXmas Trip. Starting in Shanghai, doing 2 full park days and planning on staying at the Disneyland Hotel. Then Hong Kong, another 2 full park days and staying at Explorers Lodge. Then 2 weeks in Japan: 2 days at Tokyo Disney for the Halloween activities, then heading to Kyoto for a couple nights, back up to Tokyo itself for a couple nights, and then back to Disney for the rest, and they should already have Christmas stuff up! I will probably do 4-5 Park days on that end-I haven’t quite decided yet! I was able to get pretty good pricing at the Sheraton in renovated rooms, so I’m staying there (couldn’t swing the official hotels though I will try to check out the lobbies)! It was originally only going to be Japan, but then I saw the Halloween stuff for Hong Kong Disney so decided to add that, and then I didn’t want to leave one park unvisited (I went to Disneyland Paris last summer), so I added Shanghai too! Not enough time to really do sight seeing in either of those areas, but I decided the focus for me this trip is the Disney parks. I’ll have to return for a proper China trip another time!

 

[RachelleBeaney]

Yeah I’m excited too! I’m following Disney Tourist Blogs advice of a HalloXmas Trip. Starting in Shanghai, doing 2 full park days and planning on staying at the Disneyland Hotel. Then Hong Kong, another 2 full park days and staying at Explorers Lodge. Then 2 weeks in Japan: 2 days at Tokyo Disney for the Halloween activities, then heading to Kyoto for a couple nights, back up to Tokyo itself for a couple nights, and then back to Disney for the rest, and they should already have Christmas stuff up! I will probably do 4-5 Park days on that end-I haven’t quite decided yet! I was able to get pretty good pricing at the Sheraton in renovated rooms, so I’m staying there (couldn’t swing the official hotels though I will try to check out the lobbies)! It was originally only going to be Japan, but then I saw the Halloween stuff for Hong Kong Disney so decided to add that, and then I didn’t want to leave one park unvisited (I went to Disneyland Paris last summer), so I added Shanghai too! Not enough time to really do sight seeing in either of those areas, but I decided the focus for me this trip is the Disney parks. I’ll have to return for a proper China trip another time!

That trip sounds AMAZING! I haven't seen any of the Asian parks with their Halloween trappings, and haven't seen Chinese parks dressed for Christmas (we did see Christmas decorations at Tokyo Disney the first time we went, and winter festival decorations the second time - and they were great).

I understand about the Tokyo Disney hotels not being in your budget. Looking back at our last trip I'm not actually sure how I got Jared to agree to put them in our budget! They are sooo expensive. It sounds to me like you've got a good number of days at Tokyo Disney though so you should be able to see everything you want without taking advantage of the main perk of staying at an official hotel, the "early entry" (15 minutes earlier than everyone just allows you to "rope drop" the park from inside the park rather than the entrance, and not have to run with all the Japanese guests). Still with a good strategy you'll be fine. Disney Touring Blog's resources and trip reports on the Asian Disney parks are fantastic. I love their site in general. The lobbies are beautiful though if you do get a change to check them out.

Will be excited to hear your thoughts on the Disney Explorers Lodge hotel at Hong Kong Disneyland. It wasn't open when we visited.

Japan itself is fantastic too. And I agree China is a whole other trip. We needed more days to do China proper on our trip, and it was too hard to squeeze in all the Disneys with enough site seeing. Personally, I like Japan better than China so I think you've made a good choice to keep your non-Disney siteseeing to Japan. May I suggest, when you are in Tokyo, that you visit the Harajuku Kawaii Monster Cafe. It is really one of my favourite things in Tokyo (so weird and wacky and fun, and the Parfait dessert is SOOO good).

 

[RachelleBeaney]

it is so cool that you live in Australia and fly around the world for Disney!

Thanks for sharing. Your plans for Star Wars Land are awesome!

Thanks for joining in. It is fun to fly around the world but I do sometimes wish I was closer to Disney. Australia is such a long way from anything Disney related. I had someone from the US tell me once that Hong Kong would be my "local" park because it was really close to Australia. I had to try an explain it's still an 8 hour flight from us here in Perth! I hope my plans for Galaxy's Edge end up being awesome. There is so much up in the air at the moment about what to expect with crowds etc so I will be updating this pre-trip report once Galaxy's Edge opens and I have a better idea of what kind of plan MAY work best.

 

[RachelleBeaney]

Walt Disney World Planning - Dining

As I mentioned earlier, we decided to give the dining plan a go on this trip. We haven't actually opted to use the dining plan before because the value for money for two people just didn't justify it. However we managed to score a deal for a "free" Quick Service Dining Plan, which was available to guests booking at minimum 6 nights, starting before the end of September (so we just squeezed in to being eligible). We were able to get the Quick Service Dining Plan for only $300 USD more than the room cost for All Star Music. When we averaged out the cost of eating over 6 days and 7 nights, we decided this time the dining plan might be worth it. It is also helpful to know we won't need to spend much spending money budget on food at WDW.

Obviously, the Quick Service Dining plan doesn't afford you many options in terms of the table service restaurants I usually like to eat at. We decided this was ok this time around as we are generally only going to be in the parks for one full meal (lunch) each day and dinner was going to have to be at the All Star Resort food court before heading out to the parks for evening photos. As sad as I am to have to pass on some of the better dining experiences at WDW, this was the more economically sensible thing to do.

We just passed our 180 Reservation Window and it was a bit strange to only have one table service restaurant to book. We wanted to book Be Our Guest for lunch (one of the only table service restaurants you can use the quick service dining plan on - at lunch only). As that restaurant is still very popular we knew we had to book exactly 180 days out from the first night of our stay to make sure we got our booking. And we did manage to score a reservation for the day we are visiting the Magic Kingdom (YAY).

Before we could book Be Our Guest we had to work out how to link our account with our friends Derrick and Becky's account. This was something I hadn't actually done before, and after a bit of stress (because Becky wasn't showing even though Derrick was) we finally got our accounts linked. It's really quite a simple process through the "Family & Friends" section of your My Disney Experience account. You can choose to "Add a Guest" and link them by their Walt Disney World hotel reservation. It does give you access to all their plans, though you can change the settings so they only have access to alter plans you share. You also have to remember, if your family/friends have more than one person within their My Disney Experience account, to add all members of that account so everyone shows up (I think this is perhaps why we couldn't see Becky at first when we tried to link with her and Derricks account).

So I mentioned earlier that we were going to be experiencing the EPCOT Food and Wine during our time at WDW for the first time. We are really excited about this and so I've been doing a bit of research about what snacks from previous festivals sound good. To me the following things sound really great, but if you have any thoughts or experience with any AMAZING snacks at Food and Wine please let me know (and FYI, I LOVE Cheese):

• Steakhouse Blended Burger from Earth Eats
• Loaded Mac and Cheese from Active Eats
• Blood Orange Mimosa from Shimmering Sips
• The Cheese Trio from The Cheese Studio
• Liquid Nitro Choc-Almond Truffle from Chocolate Studio
• Teriyaki glazed SPAM Hash from Hawaii
• Le Cellier Wild Mushroom Beef Filet Mignon with Truffle-Butter Sauce from Canada
• Crispy Pork Belly from Brazil
• La Passion Martini Slushy from France
• Teriyaki Chicken Bun from Japan
• Belgium Waffles from Belgium

I know that is a lot of food but it will be our morning tea, lunch and afternoon tea, and we will probably have a light dinner that evening. Because we are not really doing a lot of fun dining at any other point during our WDW visit I really want to make the most of the offerings at the F&W festival. Of course, if anyone has a favourite dish they think I should absolutely try please let me know!

Also, I'm aware that we get 2 snack credits per day on the QS Plan but I wondered if anyone knew if there was a price limited to these snack credits and if they could be used at the Food and Wine Festival booths? It could help cut down a little of our cost for that day (as I'm aware F&W festival snacking is expensive).

Continued in Next Post...

 

[PlutosRHM55]

If you love cheese and haven't tried it, the Cheddar Cheese Soup from the Canada booth is not only a F&W staple but a World Showcase staple. It's what I'm looking forward to most trying again at this year's Festival. Also, the Hummus Fries from the Morocco booth are SOOOO good. They are on the spicier side if that's not your cup of tea but they are GOOD.

 

[Lesley Wake]

May I suggest, when you are in Tokyo, that you visit the Harajuku Kawaii Monster Cafe. It is really one of my favourite things in Tokyo (so weird and wacky and fun, and the Parfait dessert is SOOO good).

Yeah, I did note that one! Though I'm trying to pick between it and the Robot Restaurant. I think doing both may be a bit overwhelming!

Also, I'm aware that we get 2 snack credits per day on the QS Plan but I wondered if anyone knew if there was a price limited to these snack credits and if they could be used at the Food and Wine Festival booths? It could help cut down a little of our cost for that day (as I'm aware F&W festival snacking is expensive).

You can use snack credits at the booths for most of the food items. The menus are marked with the Dining Plan snack icon. Most every food item ends up being a snack credit, regardless of price, but there are some occasions when a larger dish isn't, so you should double check beforehand.

 

[RachelleBeaney]

If you love cheese and haven't tried it, the Cheddar Cheese Soup from the Canada booth is not only a F&W staple but a World Showcase staple. It's what I'm looking forward to most trying again at this year's Festival. Also, the Hummus Fries from the Morocco booth are SOOOO good. They are on the spicier side if that's not your cup of tea but they are GOOD.

Thanks for this recommendations! Need to try that cheese soup! I’m not a huge fan of spicy food but Jared is so I might get him to try them and see if they are my cup of tea

 

[RachelleBeaney]

Yeah, I did note that one! Though I'm trying to pick between it and the Robot Restaurant. I think doing both may be a bit overwhelming!


You can use snack credits at the booths for most of the food items. The menus are marked with the Dining Plan snack icon. Most every food item ends up being a snack credit, regardless of price, but there are some occasions when a larger dish isn't, so you should double check beforehand.

Thanks for the info about the snack credits - that makes me feel a little better about the cost of F&W!

Yes Robot Restaurant vs Kawaii Monster Cafe is a tough one! With RR you get a great show and atmosphere but terrible food. With KMC you have fantastic atmosphere and food but no real show - if that helps you with your decision!

Another question - with your snack credits - if you don’t use 2 per day can you save them up to use over 1 day of your trip? Or is it a use the 2 per day or loose them situation?

 

[angelmav]

Hey we will be at Animal Kingdom on the same day! Hope you have a great trip!

 

[Lesley Wake]

Thanks for the info about the snack credits - that makes me feel a little better about the cost of F&W!

Yes Robot Restaurant vs Kawaii Monster Cafe is a tough one! With RR you get a great show and atmosphere but terrible food. With KMC you have fantastic atmosphere and food but no real show - if that helps you with your decision!

Another question - with your snack credits - if you don’t use 2 per day can you save them up to use over 1 day of your trip? Or is it a use the 2 per day or loose them situation?

You can use them any day of your stay, including check-in or check-out day. So you can use all of the credits the same day at F+W (good idea financially). You can also exchange a QS credit for 3 snack credits, but it has to be in one transaction (so 3 snacks at once).

 

[RachelleBeaney]

You can use them any day of your stay, including check-in or check-out day. So you can use all of the credits the same day at F+W (good idea financially). You can also exchange a QS credit for 3 snack credits, but it has to be in one transaction (so 3 snacks at once).

Ohh that's super good to hear! Thanks so much! I thinks that's how we will play it because we are not really snacky people so it would make a lot more financial sense to save our credits for the F&W day. Last question, can we use all credits we've accrued up to the day we are at EPCOT on the EPCOT day, or all credits accrued for our entire dining plan?

 

[RachelleBeaney]

Hey we will be at Animal Kingdom on the same day! Hope you have a great trip!

That's awesome! Perhaps we will run into each other . I hope you have a fantastic trip too!

 

[RachelleBeaney]

Universal Studios Planning - Bookings

We have yet to actually book anything for our day at Universal Studios, as we only need tickets. We will be purchasing 2 x 1 day park-to-park tickets plus 2 x 1 use Express Passes for Monday 30 September 2019, the day we will be visiting.

The only annoying thing about the day we will be visiting is that Halloween Horror Nights will be on. I am the first to admit, I DO NOT get horror or wanting to scare oneself so bad you jump. Halloween Horror Nights would honestly be my nightmare! So of course we aren't planning to visit. For those of you who do enjoy this perhaps you can explain the allure to me?

But this does mean Universal Studios Florida won't be open past 6pm the night we visit, so no night photos in this park . Last time we at Universal Studios we did take a few pictures at that park in the evening, but we decided not to wait in the Wizarding World for Blue Hour (Big mistake in hindsight) so we don't really have any night shots of that area. Island's of Adventure should be open until 8pm, which means we can take some evening photos over there, but I'm still slightly bummed!

I thought for about a second about buying Halloween Horror Nights tickets just for photos (how crazy is that) but as I understand it the entire park becomes one giant scare zone. It appears Diagon Alley isn't one, but we've still have to walk through scare zones to get in or out of the park. I also couldn't justify the cost since I really didn't want to actually participate in any of the activities on offer.

I actually have a friend who has a similar view of haunted houses and physical scares to me. She and her husband visited Universal Studios Orlando on their honeymoon and he loves that kind of stuff and made her come with him, needless to say her description of the event has been enough to turn me off it forever!

Continued in Next Post...

 

[Lesley Wake]

Ohh that's super good to hear! Thanks so much! I thinks that's how we will play it because we are not really snacky people so it would make a lot more financial sense to save our credits for the F&W day. Last question, can we use all credits we've accrued up to the day we are at EPCOT on the EPCOT day, or all credits accrued for our entire dining plan?

You can use all of them! Once you check-in, all the credits are loaded into your account. So you could use 1 on your first day, none on your second, 5 on your third, etc! All the way up until midnight on check-out day!

Same for QS credits. So if there are days you want to use 3 QS credits, you can, or days when you don’t use any, that is fine too. They also work for treats at the shops, so if at the end you have extra snack credits, you can exchange them for packaged things like candies or Rice Krispie treats or something. And since you’ve last visited, they have mobile ordering on the app and in the past year they added the ability to pay with dining plan credits. Let’s you skip the main lines! (Disneyland has it too but no dining credits, just saved credit card info.)

Something else I was just thinking would be to track any Disney After Hours events. Even if you don’t pay for the ticket, that means the park will stay open later and you could get more night photos with even fewer people. They only really check for the wristbands when you are going on rides. MK won’t have them because of the Halloween party. Epcot doesn’t typically have them. AK could have them and maybe DHS, but who knows with SWGE.

 

[Lesley Wake]

Universal Studios Planning - Bookings

We have yet to actually book anything for our day at Universal Studios, as we only need tickets. We will be purchasing 2 x 1 day park-to-park tickets plus 2 x 1 use Express Passes for Monday 30 September 2019, the day we will be visiting.

The only annoying thing about the day we will be visiting is that Halloween Horror Nights will be on. I am the first to admit, I DO NOT get horror or wanting to scare oneself so bad you jump. Halloween Horror Nights would honestly be my nightmare! So of course we aren't planning to visit. For those of you who do enjoy this perhaps you can explain the allure to me?

But this does mean Universal Studios Florida won't be open past 6pm the night we visit, so no night photos in this park . Last time we at Universal Studios we did take a few pictures at that park in the evening, but we decided not to wait in the Wizarding World for Blue Hour (Big mistake in hindsight) so we don't really have any night shots of that area. Island's of Adventure should be open until 8pm, which means we can take some evening photos over there, but I'm still slightly bummed!

I thought for about a second about buying Halloween Horror Nights tickets just for photos (how crazy is that) but as I understand it the entire park becomes one giant scare zone. It appears Diagon Alley isn't one, but we've still have to walk through scare zones to get in or out of the park. I also couldn't justify the cost since I really didn't want to actually participate in any of the activities on offer.

I actually have a friend who has a similar view of haunted houses and physical scares to me. She and her husband visited Universal Studios Orlando on their honeymoon and he loves that kind of stuff and made her come with him, needless to say her description of the event has been enough to turn me off it forever!

I would definitely not get tickets just for photos. It does seem the whole park becomes a scare zone with crazy clowns and fog and loud noises and lights. Not fun for me either!

 

[RachelleBeaney]

Universal Studios Planning Itinerary

It was surprisingly difficult to try and work out how best to see the highlights of both Universal Studios Florida and Islands of Adventure in one day! Obviously, in a perfect world, I would spend at least 2 days at Universal Studios Orlando. We've actually spent 3.5 days there in the past, and believe that the parks do offer a decent amount to fill that kind of time frame. Obviously we have much less time this trip so we had to squish our Universal touring into one day.

I honestly love Universal Studios Orlando. I think it's heaps of fun, and it might not be as magical as Disney or as thematically immersive (overall) but it has GREAT attractions and to date (in my opinion), The Wizarding World of Harry Potter is the best theme park land ever created (I haven't seen Pandora or Galaxy's Edge yet so it may shortly have some competition). It also helps that I'm a HUGE Harry Potter nerd (the books, not the movies) and love being able to explore my favourite world in reality. I was really surprised when I heard that the new WWOHP attraction, Hagrid's Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure (seriously Universal, reconsider that name) was opening in June this year, and would be open when we arrived. It always seems to me like Universal's construction time frames are much shorter than Disney's. That being said, they did start work on the new coaster in October 2017, so it will have been a good 21 months of construction. Perhaps it's because they don't tend to announce things until they are much further along with their construction than Disney! Either way, I'm so excited we will get to experience this new attraction!

I'm also pleased that the Harry Potter attractions (the existing ones) now offer Express Pass. The last time we were there this wasn't the case, so you would always have a decent wait for either Forbidden Journey or Escape from Gringotts. When we last visited last Diagon Alley (in 2015), it was quite new, having only opened the just over 6 months before, so there was also often a long line for the Escape from Gringotts and the Hogwarts Express (which also didn't offer Express Pass). Being able to use Express Pass for all these popular WWOHP attractions is a huge help for us trying to fit everything we want to see into 1 day.

Anyway, thanks to the use of Express Passes (and having testing this plan through Touring Plans personalised touring plan system) I believe we should be able to get all this done in one day:

• Arrive at Universal Studios Orlando - 1 hour before opening. This may be SLIGHTLY pointless, as the WWOHP will be open 1 hour early (so from 8am) to guests staying at the official hotels. I assume early entry will be for IOA because of the new attraction there, so we won't be behind ALL the crowds. Still, we will be in front of the general public for that day and that's something
• Hagrid's Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure
• Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey
• Hogwarts Express to UOF
• Fast and Furious - Supercharged
• Escape from Gringotts
• Men in Black Alien Attack
• The Simpsons Ride
• ET Adventure
• Hogwarts Express to IOA
• LUNCH: Mythos
• Skull Island - Reign of Kong
• Spiderman
• The Incredible Hulk Coaster
• Transfer back to UOF
• Jimmy Fallon's Race through New York
• Revenge of the Mummy
• Transformers
• Explore Diagon Alley
• DINNER: Cowfish
• 6:30pm - Night Photos - IOA and Ride Hagrids Magical Creature Motorbike Adventure (if lines are short)

It is a lot to fit in one day. But we are passing on a few attractions we'd normally do, such as the three water rides (particularly at that time of year when it will be hot and humid), the Rip Ride Rock-it coaster and Despicable Me attractions. I really had to cut things to make it fit, as there is so much at Universal Orlando now! And of course we won't be seeing any shows or other entertainment. I'm hoping our plans will work because crowd levels at the parks on the 30 September are predicted to be very quite (around a 2 out of 10). We will also have Universal Express, so I don't expect we should wait more than 5 minutes for any of the attractions other than Hagrid's Motorbike Adventure (based on my previous experiences using Express Pass at Universal).

Again, I'm super excited to visit Universal because there are so many new attractions in the park that we haven't yet experienced (a total of 4 since the last time we were there) which include Hagrid's Magical Creature Motorbike Adventure, Skull Island - Reign of Kong, Fast and Furious - Supercharged and Jimmy Fallon's Race through New York.

Continued in Next Post...

 

[RachelleBeaney]

I would definitely not get tickets just for photos. It does seem the whole park becomes a scare zone with crazy clowns and fog and loud noises and lights. Not fun for me either!

Thanks, yes I'd pretty made my mind up this way anyway - but will now officially say I'm not doing it! Would rather not scare myself to death!

 

[RachelleBeaney]

You can use all of them! Once you check-in, all the credits are loaded into your account. So you could use 1 on your first day, none on your second, 5 on your third, etc! All the way up until midnight on check-out day!

Same for QS credits. So if there are days you want to use 3 QS credits, you can, or days when you don’t use any, that is fine too. They also work for treats at the shops, so if at the end you have extra snack credits, you can exchange them for packaged things like candies or Rice Krispie treats or something. And since you’ve last visited, they have mobile ordering on the app and in the past year they added the ability to pay with dining plan credits. Let’s you skip the main lines! (Disneyland has it too but no dining credits, just saved credit card info.)

Something else I was just thinking would be to track any Disney After Hours events. Even if you don’t pay for the ticket, that means the park will stay open later and you could get more night photos with even fewer people. They only really check for the wristbands when you are going on rides. MK won’t have them because of the Halloween party. Epcot doesn’t typically have them. AK could have them and maybe DHS, but who knows with SWGE.

Thanks for that info Lesley! You have been a hugely helpful source of info! I think that means in total we will have 14 snack credits each as we have 7 days from the date of our check in (Thursday 26 Sept) to the date of our check out (Wed 2 Oct). I believe we get 2 snack credits per day, which should be plenty for the F&W Festival, provided we can use snack credits rather than meal credits.

I did look into Disney After Hours at Animal Kingdom. At the moment AK is doing DAH but only until July. I'm half hoping they will (at some point) announce DAH after July, and that it will fall on the day we are at AK. If it it does I will definitely be purchasing tickets because extra time in the park is worth it to me (plus I've heard the lines for Flight of Passage are almost non-existent during those events).

Maybe you can cross your fingers for me they'll release DAH events for our visit!

 

[PlutosRHM55]

I'm gonna challenge you a bit on Horror Nights. I used to hate haunted house event type stuff. People would pressure me to do that stuff and I'd have break downs including the time someone actually managed to get me to go to one. And this one, the night we went, we were practically the only people there so all the scareactors who wandered latched onto us and even stalked us through the houses. I originally chickened out and hid and had a major freak out, but then my friends finally got me in and I honestly had a lot of fun and now it's my favorite thing to do on Halloween. Also recently I ended up getting a friend who was not big on haunted houses to do one and now she's into it so I'm gonna try to maybe challenge you and tempt you a bit. Feeling confident, ya know?

Halloween Horror Nights is honestly really not super scary and less about scaring you but more-so giving you a really unique Halloween experience.. It's more about the incredible work that goes into it and just the energy of the park. It's so hype and fun. It's just incredible to see the sets they make with the scare zones and the houses. Also, with the scare zones, you rarely will get scared in them. There's A LOT of people who go to Horror Nights in one night so you can easily walk through a scare zone and not get jumped at or anything amidst a crowd. There are also many scare zones that have kind of campy or dark humor themes where the characters just interact and talk with you which is so much fun. To talk about the houses, it's not like typical haunts where they send you in small groups since it's such a popular event they must have a constant throughput. With that in mind, most scares are on a timer and just jump out then go away so sometimes you won't even hit every scare or will see it prior to actually hitting you. So really, it genuinely is about appreciating the craftsmanship in the houses because it's almost like you get extra attractions to what you experienced during the day. But then again, if it does get too much, scareactors do not go into Diagon Alley or areas where there are food. Not to mention, there are little lull areas here and there so it's not like the entire park is mobbed by scareactors, there are places they just don't go. Springfield for example is off-and-on when it comes to scare actors. Sometimes the roaming hordes are there, sometimes they aren't. Not to mention, they do have stage shows that go on and scare actors avoid those areas or can't go into them. Academy Villains is pretty beloved so it's a good diversion. Also, the event is definitely geared towards a more adult audience so lots of specialty adult beverages.

However, it is up to you what you decide to do and it does save my money but that's my pitch. HHN's just too much fun and such a cool experience to miss it in my opinion.

Also, since it sounds like you were trying to fit in more than you intended with your attractions list, I recommend not doing the Fast and Furious: Supercharge attraction. Every person I've talked to when I mentioned riding it says it's a waste of time. Like they regret even going on it once it's that bad. I've also heard the same for Jimmy Fallon, but people say the queue is what makes it worth the ride. Fast and Furious on the other hand, it can be skipped if you really want to fit Rip Ride Rock It or Despicable Me. Otherwise ignore me, but I thought I'd put that two cents in since I've heard overwhelmingly bad responses to it and cutting it could be a nice break for y'all or be a way to make room for a more worthy attraction.

 

[RachelleBeaney]

I'm gonna challenge you a bit on Horror Nights. I used to hate haunted house event type stuff. People would pressure me to do that stuff and I'd have break downs including the time someone actually managed to get me to go to one. And this one, the night we went, we were practically the only people there so all the scareactors who wandered latched onto us and even stalked us through the houses. I originally chickened out and hid and had a major freak out, but then my friends finally got me in and I honestly had a lot of fun and now it's my favorite thing to do on Halloween. Also recently I ended up getting a friend who was not big on haunted houses to do one and now she's into it so I'm gonna try to maybe challenge you and tempt you a bit. Feeling confident, ya know?

Halloween Horror Nights is honestly really not super scary and less about scaring you but more-so giving you a really unique Halloween experience.. It's more about the incredible work that goes into it and just the energy of the park. It's so hype and fun. It's just incredible to see the sets they make with the scare zones and the houses. Also, with the scare zones, you rarely will get scared in them. There's A LOT of people who go to Horror Nights in one night so you can easily walk through a scare zone and not get jumped at or anything amidst a crowd. There are also many scare zones that have kind of campy or dark humor themes where the characters just interact and talk with you which is so much fun. To talk about the houses, it's not like typical haunts where they send you in small groups since it's such a popular event they must have a constant throughput. With that in mind, most scares are on a timer and just jump out then go away so sometimes you won't even hit every scare or will see it prior to actually hitting you. So really, it genuinely is about appreciating the craftsmanship in the houses because it's almost like you get extra attractions to what you experienced during the day. But then again, if it does get too much, scareactors do not go into Diagon Alley or areas where there are food. Not to mention, there are little lull areas here and there so it's not like the entire park is mobbed by scareactors, there are places they just don't go. Springfield for example is off-and-on when it comes to scare actors. Sometimes the roaming hordes are there, sometimes they aren't. Not to mention, they do have stage shows that go on and scare actors avoid those areas or can't go into them. Academy Villains is pretty beloved so it's a good diversion. Also, the event is definitely geared towards a more adult audience so lots of specialty adult beverages.

However, it is up to you what you decide to do and it does save my money but that's my pitch. HHN's just too much fun and such a cool experience to miss it in my opinion.

Also, since it sounds like you were trying to fit in more than you intended with your attractions list, I recommend not doing the Fast and Furious: Supercharge attraction. Every person I've talked to when I mentioned riding it says it's a waste of time. Like they regret even going on it once it's that bad. I've also heard the same for Jimmy Fallon, but people say the queue is what makes it worth the ride. Fast and Furious on the other hand, it can be skipped if you really want to fit Rip Ride Rock It or Despicable Me. Otherwise ignore me, but I thought I'd put that two cents in since I've heard overwhelmingly bad responses to it and cutting it could be a nice break for y'all or be a way to make room for a more worthy attraction.

Thanks for all that info! I'm still not sure if I'm brave enough and want to spend the extra money, but I will think about it. It will depend on whether or not we get the opportunity to do Disney's After Hours event at the Animal Kingdom because I only want to pay for one of the other. So far the DAH events have only been released at DAK until July. I am hoping Disney might extend them at some point into our dates of travel.

The other thing that would concern me about HHN is, even though I'm sure the haunted houses are well done, I don't find horror design really exciting. It's not just about being scared but about not loving that style of design. Also being from Australia, we don't really celebrate Halloween here, so we are not hugely into it as a concept. I've enjoyed the Halloween stuff at Disney but don't really feel the need to "experience" a new type of Halloween experience.

It's good to hear from someone who has a different perspective on HHN though, and I do appreciate it!

Thanks for that info about Fast and Furious and Jimmy Fallon. I had heard similar things but i'm kind of in the "I have to see for myself" camp when it comes to these things. I honestly hate Rip Ride Rock-It though Jared enjoys it, so I guess that would be up to him (I don't like how you feel like you are going to fall out of the seats or how rough it is). Despicable Me is a fun simulator but Universal has lots of better ones so I'm not too worried about missing it. I wouldn't mind doing some of the water rides though so I guess it's going to be a toss up for me if I think those attractions are worth it (maybe I'll watch some ride videos, even though I've tried to stay away so I didn't ruin the attraction).