"What Is This, a Crossover Episode?"-HHN 29, Universal, & A Little Disney (Sep 2019)-Completed 1/6-New PTR Link

Raeven

DIS Veteran
Joined
Sep 15, 2015
For those of you who haven't read one of our trip reports before
:welcome:

My name is Raeven! :wave2:

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I'm 27, and I'm the planner, photographer, and TR writer for our trips. I'm a Slytherin, and my robot friend Jacques says on I'm on my way to becoming a dream warrior. :wizard: I love Halloween Horror Nights, horror movies, music, good food, the show Supernatural, Guardians of the Galaxy, and theme parks.

...Oh yeah and Killer Klowns from Outerspace :laughing:


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This is my trip partner and boyfriend of 6 years, Josh:

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He's 33 Halloween Horror Nights is one of his favorite things too. He also likes boxing, horror movies, roller coasters, coffee, and delicious gluten free food.

However on this trip he was only with me for the last couple of days, and prior to that I was joined by...

@xlsm!


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We met on the boards a couple years ago, and met in person for the first time in 2017. While we were planning this trip, I ended up joining her this summer for a surprise 3 day trip to WDW. (TR link here). @xlsm likes Disney, animals, Harry Potter, Kevin Bacon & figuring out the plots to ridiculous Lifetime movies with me. She's also the perfect person for me to play Heads Up with in lines because we're on the same wavelength when it comes to celebrity gossip (most of the time). :rotfl: This was her first time at HHN, and the first time she got a more in depth look at the Universal parks.

For the 2nd year, Josh and I were also joined by @amalone1013 & her husband Zack for 2 of our HHN nights & a day at IOA which was a lot of fun! I was so happy that our HHN 28 crew was able to reunite for HHN 29. :hug:

A little background: We took our first Disney/Universal trip in September 2015. After that trip we agreed we definitely wanted to go back every year (especially to HHN). We've been AP holders at Universal ever since, and have been going to HHN ever since HHN 25. This was our 5th HHN, and after only going for a long weekend the last 2 years (we were trying not to plan longer trips for hurricane season after we had to cancel one two years ago). We decided to brave it again because I wanted to spend as many nights as possible at HHN, it fit with everyone's schedule, and it would be nice to have more time in order to be flexible if any changes needed to be made. It was also my 10th trip to both Universal and WDW! :cheer2:


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Samantha and I went from Friday the 13th-Wed the 18th, and we stayed at RPR and then Gran Destino. Then Josh and I stayed at Sapphire Falls from Wed the 18th-Sat the 21st, with Alyssa and Zack joining us in the parks the 19th & 20th. While we did add a little bit of Disney to this trip, it was mainly focused around HHN, and I have to say it didn't disappoint! HHN was amazing this year, and there were many incredible and memorable houses.



Stay tuned if you want to hear about:

  • My 6 nights at HHN
  • & all my HHN 29 rankings/reviews
  • How Samantha liked Universal/HHN
  • If we get to ride Hagrid's & what we thought
  • A review of RPR, SF, & Gran Destino
  • MNSSHP's new offerings this year
  • Visiting Batuu
  • Seeing Everclear in Epcot
  • & the Stranger Things pop up at Cabana Bay


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This is the first time I think I've picked a title for a TR before we've even gone on a trip. It's a quote from Bojack Horseman, and one of the character's says it to him whenever they're in the same room because they were both on sitcoms in the 90's. Before going Samantha and I were talking about how being featured in each other's TR's is like a crossover episode, and that quote immediately came to mind, and the name kind of stuck :rotfl:

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If you want to look back on the planning for this trip my PTR is here:

A 2019 PTR: California, HHN 29, & More


And here's my DTR link:

Living the DLuxe Life-Sep 2019 (Universal & WDW DTR)
 
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Wouldn’t miss this one Raeven!!!

I did look out for you......but sadly didn’t see you.......maybe next time.......sounds like a fabulous trip though, excited to read along with you....... :wave2:
 


I'm here!


::yes::

Can't wait to hear all about this trip!

Glad to have you along! :wave2:

Wouldn’t miss this one Raeven!!!

I did look out for you......but sadly didn’t see you.......maybe next time.......sounds like a fabulous trip though, excited to read along with you....... :wave2:

Thanks for following along!

I looked for you too! But yes maybe next time!

Woot!!

Another awesome trip report!!

I’m in again for a great read

Thanks for following along! :thumbsup2
 


looking fwd to another great TR - you guys ALWAYS go about a month before we do...whether it's HHN, Christmas, spring...this is like the 3rd year in a row. Quite nice for me, as I get to read all about my future adventures - lol. Only difference is that we don't dine at anywhere near the number of cool spots you do, since we drive up and our trips are shorter and involve more QS. So I live vicariously there.

Getting settled for a great read....:wave2:
 
We recently came home, so I’m definitely looking forward to all the stuff!! We stayed at SF and I’m telling you if I had extra cash I’d be calling out of work and headed right back.
 
looking fwd to another great TR - you guys ALWAYS go about a month before we do...whether it's HHN, Christmas, spring...this is like the 3rd year in a row. Quite nice for me, as I get to read all about my future adventures - lol. Only difference is that we don't dine at anywhere near the number of cool spots you do, since we drive up and our trips are shorter and involve more QS. So I live vicariously there.

Getting settled for a great read....:wave2:

Thanks for following along! It's true we always seem too :rotfl: Being within driving distance is pretty cool though! If we could drive there, I think we'd be making even more trips though. :scratchin

We recently came home, so I’m definitely looking forward to all the stuff!! We stayed at SF and I’m telling you if I had extra cash I’d be calling out of work and headed right back.

Same! I wish we could go back and spend even more time at HHN :rotfl:

Joining in! Can't wait to hear about it all!!

Thanks for following! :wave:
 
Following along. Looking forward to reading more. I am staying one night at GDT in Nov when I go to MVMCP before my Universal quick trip.
 
Following along. Looking forward to reading more. I am staying one night at GDT in Nov when I go to MVMCP before my Universal quick trip.

Thanks got following! You'll love GDT it's really beautiful there!
 
HHN Day!
September 13th, Part 1

We'll start this TR here:


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If that's not spooky enough HHN day for us this year was also Friday the 13th, the blood moon, the 50th anniversary of Scooby Doo, and the 15th anniversary of Supernatural!

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So it was finally the day of the trip, and I woke up at 6 am to get ready. My flight was at 10:55 am so I got there around 8:50 am. Security only took a few minutes, and soon I was waiting for my flight. On the flight I sat in the aisle seat, watched Killer Klowns again, and I think dozed off for a bit. I had a full row this flight, and we had to play a bit of musical chairs when everyone in the inner seats of my row decided to they had to use the bathroom at the same time :rotfl:, but other than that nothing really happened.

Once I got to the airport, I headed right for the rideshare area. This was my first time taking Lyft by myself, and I was a little nervous. Luckily, I got someone who did not kidnap me, but he did shame me for liking Disney!

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It was an awkward ride. Somehow we got on the topic of when I was in Orlando last and I mentioned I had been going to Disney with my friend (and he picked me up just now knowing I was headed to Universal)...to which his response was "I mean c'mon don't you think you're a little too old for Disney?" Common sense would dictate that the person who just said they recently went to Disney doesn't think they're a little too old for it. :sad2: He tried to backpedal a bit at first, and tell me the 90's classics were great (we were about the same age), but then he was mostly silent.

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Having survived my first very awkward solo Lyft ride, I was able to head right up to our room because @xlsm was already there! We stayed at the Royal Pacific for the first few days which is probably my favorite hotel at Universal. (Although we did have a slightly older looking bathroom which took me by surprise because as far as I knew all the rooms had been refurbed awhile back, and we've never had an older looking bathroom?)


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For the first couple hours after I got there we caught up, and watched a Friday the 13th marathon.

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Here's us cleaned up and ready to go:

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We took the water taxi into Citywalk. And had dinner before entering the parks.

Airport Starbucks & Toothsome Chocolate Emporium Review

It's HHN time!

I was so happy to be back! HHN is my favorite thing, and with all the weather issues around that time of the year it always seems a little dicey in the weeks leading up to things whether everything will work out to get us there. But we made it!

We started by walking through Anarch-Cade. A scare zone that takes place in an 80's arcade with "neon slashers". I expected to really like this scare zone, and maybe misinterpreted the description a little because I thought it would be a little more slasher movie, and a little less actual neon. I will say it's definitely a better scare zone at night, but still not top of my list.



The Killer Klowns entrance was on the other side of things so we kind of went down and around to get there. (I'll put any pictures from the scare zones together with when we went through them later), but this little photo shoot at Mel's did happen when we went around this time.


Loved how it looked with all the clouds:


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The first house I wanted to go through/take Samantha through was Killer Klowns From Outerspace. She'd never been in a haunted house before so I wanted to ease her in, and I figured Killer Klowns would be my favorite so I wanted to see it asap.

The wait was 45 minutes, and we passed the time playing Head's Up. (Though a drunken lady did try to insert herself into our game).


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We both LOVED Killer Klowns. Our favorite parts are the guy that says "what are you going to do knock my block off?", and the part where you first see the cotton candy cocoons because in the movie the girl goes "that's not how they store cotton candy", so we call it the "improperly stored cotton candy" scene. :rotfl:

You come out of Killer Klowns over by Transformers so we must've went that way. All I know is our next stop was the Academy of Villains: Altered States show. We had a pretty good seat compared to previous years, and there seemed to be less people inside. In fact we had no one in front of us which was pretty great, but most rows did have someone in front of them so we may have just got lucky.


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I liked the show as always, and I know it's been better received than last year's show, but I actually preferred last year's show. I felt like it had more of a story, and this one had a story, but was more like a clip show of their greatest hits. (Specific things they've done in past shows that were popular). I thought last year's was a full story, and I liked the lead girl (I believe she's actually the leader of the dance trope) who I felt was barely utilized in this show.

On the way out we also took a look around Diagon Alley at night.



Next Up
The 2nd part of our night at HHN


 
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Yay!
We started by walking through Anarch-Cade. A scare zone that takes place in an 80's arcade with "neon slashers". I expected to really like this scare zone, and maybe misinterpreted the description a little because I thought it would be a little more slasher movie, and a little less actual neon. I will say it's definitely a better scare zone at night, but still not top of my list.
I'm in pretty much full agreement here. Not quite what I expected I guess.
I liked the show as always, and I know it's been better received than last year's show, but I actually preferred last year's show. I felt like it had more of a story, and this one had a story, but was more like a clip show of their greatest hits. (Specific things they've done in past shows that were popular). I thought last year's was a full story, and I liked the lead girl (I believe she's actually the leader of the dance trope) who I felt was barely utilized in this show. As always the music was good (I liked the use of "Tear You Apart"), but it felt weird the songs have to be edited for curse words at an adult event.
I kind of felt like the ladies were under-utilized in this show, like they were just eye candy/background, vs last year where it seemed more evenly distributed. Here, just hang here and spin... We could barely see them at that point and we were pretty much center halfway up, and could just see their heads over the crowd. I didn't realize the songs were edited since I wasn't familiar with them, but that's silly. Last year they were yelling at us to get off our butts... adult event... :confused3 I felt like sometimes the video screen was just distracting when they had people performing like the contortionist/ribbon guy/soccer ball guy.
 
I'm in pretty much full agreement here. Not quite what I expected I guess.

Ok good I'm not the only one who thought of something different when I read the description :rotfl:

I kind of felt like the ladies were under-utilized in this show, like they were just eye candy/background, vs last year where it seemed more evenly distributed. Here, just hang here and spin... We could barely see them at that point and we were pretty much center halfway up, and could just see their heads over the crowd. I didn't realize the songs were edited since I wasn't familiar with them, but that's silly. Last year they were yelling at us to get off our butts... adult event... :confused3 I felt like sometimes the video screen was just distracting when they had people performing like the contortionist/ribbon guy/soccer ball guy.

Yes! I really felt like they were background, and for a dance troupe with so many talented female dancers I was surprised that almost none of them were featured more prominently and that they mostly relied on people with that could do tricks like the ball bouncing and contortionist. I felt like those took up more than half the show. I follow them on Instagram and the way they posted prior to the show I thought they'd do a similar thing to last year (with characters). I wonder if the songs were edited in case they use video of the performance elsewhere? I was familiar with pretty much all the songs I think and in "Beautiful People" and "Tear You Apart" I noticed it the most. But it was a little weird to me and took me out of the moment each time I heard an editing noise or they skipped a word. Especially since I don't think music in other areas of the park was edited.
 
Sounds like a great start to the night! Do most areas of the US not do a lot of haunted houses? Where I live we have like three or four places that run some pretty decent haunted houses around this time of year plus just over the bridge in Canada theres a haunted house where they can touch you. I'm always surprised when people say they've never been to a haunted house! I'll have to check out HHN at some point to see how it compares!
 
Sounds like a great start to the night! Do most areas of the US not do a lot of haunted houses? Where I live we have like three or four places that run some pretty decent haunted houses around this time of year plus just over the bridge in Canada theres a haunted house where they can touch you. I'm always surprised when people say they've never been to a haunted house! I'll have to check out HHN at some point to see how it compares!

I’m not sure. I know most major cities have them, but since we’re from NY I feel like maybe that’s why we have quite a few. Locally, we have tons and I’ve been too quite a few of them. None stack up to HHN but several are really good or have won state wide awards. Not sure about Arkansas, but I’m not sure Samantha was too interested in them in the past. But HHN won her over! She’s made a few for her son’s school, but she’d never been through one she hadn’t made.

There’s a local one where they can touch you, but I don’t really like that. We went once, and I much prefer the ones where they can’t. :rotfl: HHN is amazing! If you like local haunts HHN is even more immersive, super detailed, and they have licensing to do IP properties in a way local haunts usually can’t.
 

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