Halloween Horror Nights 2022 at Universal Studios Orlando

HHN2022

Dan: Welcome back to another meeting of the Gold Key. Adventurers Society. My name is Dan Leonard, and joining me this week in the studio is special guest end of my life, Kendra Leonard.

Jeff: Candra.

Heather: Yay.

Dan: Heather,

Heather: Hiya.

Dan: Jess Evans

Jess: Hello.

Dan: and Mr. Jeff Williams.

Jeff: That's my name, Dan.

Dan: And I promise not to wear it out. Our show, as always, is brought to you by Key to the World Travel. Key to the World Travel is a full service travel agency specializing in Theme parks, cruising and spooky destinations around the world.

Heather: Ooh.

Dan: Head to www.keytotheworldtravel.com for more details into no obligation quote on the vacation of a lifetime. Or officially four days into spooky season, Kendra has the spooky skull candy dish out on her desk. Kendra has the spooky skull candy dish out on her desk. We've been watching Hocus pocus in Halloween Town on repeat, and most of us here have had the chance to make the pilgrimage to that scariest of Halloween destinations, Universal or Orlando's Halloween Horror Nights.

Who's ready to get spooky?

Heather: Woohoo is how spooky season officially started four days ago. There's a, there's an official spooky season. Explain

Dan: This episode is going release somewhere, actually it's more

Heather: Do we call it official start of fall because Disney started spooky season on August 15th,

Jeff: Yeah. July 12th, I think was the beginning of Halloween  time.

Jess: And the target dollar section started Christmas, are we talking September 21st when fall is official and the temperatures of Michigan dropped 30 degrees.

Dan: That was a magical day.

Heather: was magical.

Jeff: Yeah, they, It even happened in Alabama. Just came in and Yeah, we're gonna just dip it down. We're all the way down into the eighties

Heather: What?

Jess: Ooh.

Jeff: Yeah.

Dan: I hope you got out your heater. Heated blanket.

Heather: Yeah, we had to turn the furnace on last night.

Dan: Yeah, I 

Jeff: I might have to wear shoes when I go to the post office,

Jess: Oh, it's Alabama. You

Jeff: I go to the general store to do my trading.

Heather: You're trading

Jess: Go pick up my chickens.

Dan: All. Heather, Jeff and Kendra all we're at Halloween horn in person, and I've

Jeff: Kendra How many houses did you get to do Kendra?

Dan: We only got in four, so We did not have the express pass. 

Heather: Between us. We did 10 houses

Dan: That's right.

Jeff: But I think they overlap.

Heather: a little bit.

Dan: Kendra did manage to get into Dead Man's peer, which you

Heather: did. I'm so

Dan: So in

Jeff: I'm so miffed. I didn't get to 

Heather: I know.

Dan: Yeah. You do the Halloween house?

that was our first one.

Heather: Oh, good. Okay. We'll discuss. Where do you wanna start this party, Dan?

Dan: Why don't we start with Kendra can tell us a little bit of the secret about how she managed to get into some of those houses early on, especially dead man's peer with

Heather: Oh, yeah. And

Dan: to no wait times, almost.

Heather: ours and then you'll have many different options for skipping those. The lines get crazy long.

Dan: Yeah. Yeah. So the option one that Kendra did is the stain screen, which that doesn't cost you any extra, right? That's, you just got to the right place at the right time. As long as you have a day ticket, then it's free. If you do not have a ticket during the day, then you can pay $35 to add it on.

Jeff: Huh,

Heather: That's

Jeff: I didn't know about

Heather: So is this where they put you in those pens? Is that what they call 'em? The holding pen?

Dan: You have to be in by between three 30 and five. And there's three different ones around different spots in the park. They're near different groupings of houses. Huh?

So you were at which area were you in? We did the New York one, which you can

Heather: Oh good. That's where Halloween is.

Dan: can

hang out 

Jeff: was Halloween. Dead Man's

Dan: until,

Jeff: the co.

Dan: Yep.

So it gets you into Halloween and the Covin at five 15 and then CBRA and Dead Man's Pier at six o'clock.

Heather: and this is actually, that's actually before the following party actually starts then.

Dan: Yes. Yep. We did Halloween and coven before and we're in line for Dead Man's Peer before anybody else was allowed.

Heather: Oh that's ex that's a great way to do that. So you just have to pick which area of the park you wanna go to, and then you go to that holding

Dan: but that's the best one to go to because the houses Halloween and Dead Man's Pier are instantly an hour and a half

Heather: they're the most popular. Yeah, those I thought Halloween was the best, but I didn't get to go to Dead Man's Pier, so that would be a smart one to do.

Jeff: It was the scariest

Heather: Oh

Jeff: one that we did

Heather: Yes.

Dan: and Jeff, what was your method for getting into as many houses as possible?

Jeff: be in the industry.

Heather: We were on an r I P tour. And we were fortunate because we're in the industry. We did not pay for this r i p tour. We were hosted by the Universal Orlando Resort Sales Team. But yes, hashtag hosted, but you can purchase one. And I when when my husband and son did Halloween Horror Nights a few years back, it was before Covid, I think I paid about $150 for each of them the night they went.

It depends on what nights you go. And you can do, there are private r i p tours. It's a lot like the VIP tour that you can do there during

Jeff: private or public, right?

Heather: Yeah. And they did a public one and they got in every single house.

Jeff: Yeah. They will run your butt ragged, but you can do all 10 houses. But it's I was broken by after six houses and when they on this tour, they were like, We're gonna take a break. And I'm like, Great, cuz my feet hurt. And the break was to stand.

Heather: Yes. It was

Jeff: Instead of walking, which actually hurts worse than walking.

So

Heather: it's expensive, but it does include, they take you to a few break stops that include a full bar not a full bar, it's beer and wine and white claws. But they're included

and some, yeah, and some snacks. So you do get a lot for your money and they have an R I P entrance to every house, and we didn't wait at all at any house.

They walk you right up and you're right in.

Jeff: Yeah, the classic Monsters House, which was amazing again, by the way, was the longest we waited, and I think that was perhaps 10 minutes, and it was just because there were so many VIP guides at night due to the big party they were having that we just had to wait our turn for our group, but it

Heather: And wasn't there a character shift change right then

Jeff: We did run into that a few times. That's what slowed us down on some of those. But they bring all the actors out and they get makeup reapplied. They take a break, they get their makeup reapplied and some new costing, and sometimes Frankenstein's now gonna be drac or whatever. They'll change 'em around.

Heather: And I believe there is also an express pass option for expedited access. Correct.

Dan: There is, there's two, Yeah. You can buy a full price one that's good for the whole night, and then you can buy one that's half off from 11:00 PM to 2:00 AM

Heather: Oh, excellent. And those

Dan: night one, there's never any mention of that on the websites or anywhere in advance. So they don't make a big deal out of that.

That's just

Jeff: just buy it 

Heather: That's 

Dan: at the park. They sell it at kiosks around the park area

Heather: The regular one is $139, which

Dan: Our night,

Heather: or more, Right? Yeah. And that's not, that doesn't include your ticket to the party. So that's, That is in addition.

Dan: express, Which, that's

Jeff: This event for anybody that hasn't gone is just world class. Like we have some, we have two really good Haunted house places here, haunted, what do they call, haunted destination, whatever things here, and they're huge, beautiful sets and everything, and they're really scary, but these things just blow those outta the water and there's 10 of them.

So it's, and the scare zones themselves. The whole rest of the park is also full of wandering murderers and shows and street sphere.

Heather: I should mention that it looks like I'm checking out the prices now. It looks like the price on the R I P tour has gone up. It starts at $300 a person now, so not cheap by any means, but if you wanna see if you can only go one time and you

wanna see 

Jeff: worth of whitelaw.

Heather: yes, if you wanna see every single house and the show and have some booze thrown in, it's absolutely worth it.

Jeff: never watched the old show. The Bill and Ted show.

and Ted's show. And I didn't get around to seeing the new one. Did you guys see it, Kendra?

Dan: We did not make it to the shows.

Jeff: It's way in the back. And the way we had worked our way out, they were like, You can go back and watch the show now if you want. Nope,

Heather: Yeah. It's way back there. We could, we pass the, where the show was at the beginning, the way we started.

Dan: And they actually have two shows. They have the stage show and then there's also basically Halloween World of Color in the

Heather: Oh yeah. And that where they do the cinematic thing

Dan: yeah it's a little bit different. This year it's a new story that's based on like old timey kind of Halloween music, but yeah.

Heather: They also have a daytime tour where you could go see the houses with the lights on if you're a chicken.

Jeff: I'd like to see that, just to see more how it's built and everything.

Dan: Yeah.

Jeff: Because it really is so dark in there in some places you can't

Heather: Oh

man, what's

that's happen? It's a really cool use of mirrors.

scary and so good. There were several houses where we turned a corner and walked into a hallway that was just pitch black.

Jeff: Yeah. They overstimulate your eyes first, hit you with a bunch of light and then go fully black and you can't see

Heather: And I I, yes, I jump scare very easily, but I think these are so fun. I just, I get scared. I scream. I can't talk the next day, but as soon as I'm done screaming, I just crack up because it's funny

Jeff: and I just look at everything. I just love scary stuff, so nothing really. Gets me, There was 1,

Heather: Got

this 

Jeff: scare. He fully got me. It was such a cool effect where you're walking forward, it looks like Michael's coming around in front of 

Heather: the Halloween 

Jeff: So he was actually just on the other side of the wall 

Heather: he was behind

Jeff: I thought, Oh, we're gonna turn right. But he may get Heather, but I'll see it developed. And then he came around behind me and blah. That got me and 

Heather: Jeff yelled, and then I realized that Michael Myers is right behind me.

Jeff: Yeah. That was a good effect. That mirror totally had me fooled, like he was coming from around a hedgerow when he was right next to me.

Heather: also doesn't help when you have someone with you who A points you out to the characters so that they target you and b gets in on it. I I think I died for a minute in the Halloween house because of Jeff. Pretty sure.

Jeff: I saw, I could see over her cuz she's short. So I saw a situation develop where I knew he would be coming from the right,

Heather: Because it was the mirrors

Jeff: but the way the hallway goes, it made you wanna look to the left. So I just stuck my hand so that when she turned to the left, my hand just raked across her face, which scared the crap out of her.

And then she turned away from that real quick to be one inch from Michael Meyer's

Heather: and his knife in my face,

Jeff: Yeah, so good.

Dan: maybe you missed your colleague in.

Heather: I think

so. 

Jeff: to go work in

Dan: You should just be an

Jeff: although I feel like you probably would get punched

Dan: Yeah, you be an itinerant, haunted attraction worker. Before we get to the real spooky stuff, one thing I did wanna talk about we've never really talked about before when we've covered this, is the food and beverage options, which is weird to me that you, Universal doesn't really do the range of really. Their food is not like Disney at all when it comes to snacks and treats and special drinks. But for the holidays celebrations for Christmas and especially for horror nights, they go all out with some really cool special food offerings and some beverage offerings. They have bars, special themed bars all over the place that they all have a signature drink.

Kendra had one at the weekend bar. I was very jealous of. It sounded delicious. Yeah, so they save your tears.

Heather: Oh,

Dan: is bourbon and peach brandy that has peach bulb balls and

Heather: Oh

Jeff: That was my nickname in high school.

Dan: Yeah,

Heather: That sounds really good.

Dan: it was really good. Did you all have a chance to check out any of the special food they had while you

Heather: We had special food in the,

Jeff: were hashtag

Heather: Yes, . They had a party

Jeff: it started off with a big party with catering, so maybe some of that was also in the parks.

Heather: my favorite was they had this. It looked like an oldie times butcher case, and it was like all humid and drippy and gross, and it looked like it was full of packets of ground beef, and I really thought this was real ground beef and scattered through it where severed hands and

Jeff: they call it Grand Princess.

Heather: Yeah. Then I saw someone taking one of them and eating it and I was like, Ugh, what is that?

Jeff: I thought it was a prop. I didn't think it was real

Dan: Cuz it's wrapped up just like a package of ground

Jeff: and they even have the stain on the little

Dan: Oh, the

Jeff: drippings catcher.

Heather: Yes. It's on a styrofoam tray, looks like a patty of ground beef and then wrapped in plastic and it says Ground princess. It was Rice Crispy treats. And I don't know if they sold this anywhere in the park. They did. Okay, good. Because it was, it

Jeff: They're delicious

Heather: They were really good and it looks exactly like ground beef.

You can really fool somebody with that

Jess: And then they had a bowl that said eyeballs and it was peeled grapes.

Jeff: Yeah,

Dan: Yeah.

Jeff: they had a lot of that kind of thing at that party. Everything was called, like something

Heather: Fried zombie brains was spicy Cauliflower.

Dan: I really liked the looks of Kendra. You tried they that skull in the pepperoni pizza skull.

Heather: Oh

Dan: So it's like a hot pocket just shaped like a skull and then they give it to you in a bowl of marinara that looks like blood. Yeah. So it's

Jess: I've seen recipes for that. Cuz you can get the little like skull molds pans. Yeah, that's a cool idea.

Heather: That's cool.

Dan: Yeah. They did a lot of special foods that kind of looked like. Weird stuff. I know there was like some kind of gumbo that had a cornbread, voodoo dolls sitting in it and stuff like

Heather: Oh, yum.

Jeff: I would love.

Heather: You could just go over to Voodoo Donuts and get a Voodoo doll Yu

Jeff: I bet they're they maid of potato, remember from last week

Heather: not a spu nut.

Jess: It's been so long. What a great

Dan: You wanna do another, a tight five on nuts again,

Heather: That's

Jeff: I don't know how tight that was.

Dan: Oh, we're off the track already. Yeah. So did you try any, the food or drinks though?

Jeff: thought the weekend house was really neat and I didn't expect it to be Was that bar by that house, Kendra? I didn't notice it.

Dan: So it was by Mels dying.

Heather: Oh, okay. Not that's it's a little far, but it close-ish.

Dan: yeah. It.

Jeff: I didn't know what to think of that weekend house, but it was really cool.

Heather: Great music outside and then it was a lot, It was

Jeff: was like being in like a crazy haunted disco.

Heather: Yes.

Dan: Yeah, it looked weird. I don't think you got enough. We didn't make it to that one. That was an 85 minute wait all night.

Heather: Ooh.

Dan: Yeah, but we watched a video of it and it looked pretty crazy. I must admit that it probably would've made more sense to me if I had seen a single the weekend music video. When

Heather: Or his performance you see him on the Super Bowl?

Dan: that's the one thing, There was the one room that was straight out, like straight out of the Super Bowl looked like it would be

Heather: all the bandages and the Yeah, and that's what, I guess that was the cover of one of his albums was him bandaged up like that. It was supposed to be some deep saying something about the plastic surgery and all that

I just really like his music and the house was scary,

Jeff: I liked it too.

Heather: I thought all the houses were scary this year. The last time we were able to go was 2019. And one of the houses we went into, we just, that your timing has to really be right cuz if you go through when they're not popping out of the boo holes at the right time you won't think it's very scary.

And we did this one that was like gladiators with giant birds. It was so

Jeff: That one was so bad.

Heather: But my family went and they thought that one was terrifying. So it really does depend. I thought it was stupid. They both are like, Oh, you could smell the blood. And we just were, it was off. There was somebody in front of us who

was 

Jeff: cheese.

Heather: There was somebody in front of us who like had a light on and was filming, and we just didn't get any of the characters jumping out at the right time. So I just walked through that one and went, Ugh. It

Jeff: I just always know where they're gonna be. Cuz it's like anytime you're around a corner, you just glance and Oh, hello

Heather: And I know where they're gonna be and they still scare me every time. Sometimes they,

Jeff: three, so I can see over the ladies in the crowd and just see it develop

Heather: Sometimes it has a board that comes down or something that hides it, and then that slides up and they jump out at you. Not every house is like that, but some of them. And I'll see that it's sliding up and I know that someone's coming out of it and it still scares me.

Jeff: Kendra, what was the plot of the one that everybody loved? The peer. What was that one? Dead man's

Dan: that is a fisherman takes over an old town during the winter

Jeff: he killing people with like 

Dan: with his fish hook.

Heather: Fish hooks, not fish sticks.

Jeff: Yeah, I know what fish sticks you ate last summer.

Dan: It was

Heather: It's the gorton's fisherman. Holy. He's gone.

Jeff: And it looks all frozen from 

Dan: It's like the second you walk in it, you feel like you're outside. In the middle of the winter. It's really cold, and they have the wind blowing and the light's going

Heather: And it's the biggest house, I think. Isn't it? The biggest set.

Dan: is. It's huge. Yeah. They have a full size ship inside of it.

Jeff: I think that's the one they did the Ghostbusters house in last

Heather: Oh yeah, that one

Jeff: or 2019.

Dan: Yeah, I think the story officially is that that he died at sea and his widow is trying to raise his spirit. But accidentally brings a whole bunch of other ghosts back with him and they take over the town. So yeah. But she's on the big ship and playing a violin to summon him back.

Heather: Oh,

Jeff: Yeah, I often like their original stuff better than the IP I.

Heather: Although this year my favorite was Halloween, and my second favorite was classic monsters. And I did like bugs. Actually. I thought I wasn't gonna like it, but I did. And I will say this, the night before we went, we met this nice couple at a bar who said, Oh don't be scared of bugs.

It's can't be and fun. It's not scary.

That is not true. It was campy, but also terrifying.

Jeff: It was seven. It was like a sci-fi horror movie with giant bugs and army people and all that, and the whole set was mid-century modern schlock. It was

Heather: Yeah. But there were also many simulated small bugs that were crawling. There was this hallway that was pitch black and it kept like shooting puffs of air at you, like a bug was flying past your face.

Jeff: Yeah, it's similar to the Indiana Jones ride with the kind of

Heather: Yes.

Jeff: I'm not scared of air.

Heather: And there was all this crap hanging from the ceiling that made it feel like you were walking through spiderwebs

or 

Jeff: And what that was very dark in there, and they had just black thread hanging from the ceiling. So as you walk through

Heather: just touching your face.

Jeff: felt like stuff was crawling on you, that was so good. But a simple, cheap effect.

Heather: not campy. Scary.

Jeff: one room that had they had projection mapping of bugs crawling, but they also had literally like thousands of roaches glued around.

So if you were, so some were still, some were moving, but the effect was that the balls were just crawling with roaches.

Heather: It was disgusting, you guys. It was good, but I liked it. It was good. I did not laugh. I screamed. And I thought bugs were growing on me. And when we got outta there, I'm like, Ugh. I feel like there's bugs in my hair. Probably because people were sticking their fingers in my hair to freak me out.

Jeff: Nope

Dan: So one of the

Jeff: did not do that.

Heather: No, that wasn't you. That was Robin.

Dan: So one of the other houses you made it in was Cove. Did you guys do that one?

Jeff: We did not, The three we missed, I think were the three best ones. It was co Dead Man's peer and Juka.

Dan: Conveniently, Kendra did all of those. So tell us about Cove. Yeah. Coven you start out is in 1920s. Set and you're in a bar. It's like a speakeasy. Like a speakeasy.

Heather: Oh, cool.

Dan: And it starts out and the witches are all really beautiful and trying to seduce you. And then the further you go, they turn into olds and they are chopping you up to turn you into like their big witches brew and

Heather: cool.

Dan: the big final scene.

They have three corpses on the wall that the main witch is controlling and manipulating and making them do things. It was really

Heather: gross. Cool.

Dan: said that one the the very first guy to the really good jump scare, that one was my first jump.

Heather: Ugh.

Dan: Cause we got stuck at the beginning for a decent amount of time and there was a guy there, but he wasn't moving at all.

So I was a hundred percent convinced he was fake

Heather: Oh no.

Dan: out like an inch away from my face . And so that one got me really good.

Heather: That's awesome.

Jeff: Yeah, the Halloween House has a thing where there's

Heather: Oh, that final scene,

Jeff: Michael Myers. Some are real and some are fake. And you know this, you don't know which ones are gonna get

Heather: and it looks like you're in a, like a mirror maze and they're just everywhere. And we step in there and I'm like, Okay, I just have to walk forward. I

know at least one of em. 

Jeff: hands out to tell where you are and then they move on you.

Heather: Those three, three of them were real

Dan: Yeah.

Jeff: The plot of that was exactly like the 1970s old original Halloween. And so the set, it starts from the outside of the house and like the, like you're going through the hanging laundry, it's exactly like that.

And you go in the house where the boyfriend's got the glasses on, over the sheet, all that. It's just so creepy.

Heather: And there's

so many mirror effects, 

Jeff: he comes busting out of. Closets. He's coming around. Hedge.

Dan: And that's the thing though, is that I just laughed the whole time through. When, a few years ago, it was Halloween, three was the Theme, the Halloween house, and it was just like, there's so many Michaels, Meyer Michael Myers is Michael Myers. That it just got to be absurd. At certain point it's Oh, there's another one, there's another

Heather: there are so many, but they had so many mirror effects that I thought he was coming from one direction and then all of a sudden he was right in my face. It

Jeff: I have not seen that mirror, the mirror effects used like that. Like just totally to make you think that he's in front of you when he is

Heather: when he stopped to the side or there was a one point where he, it looked like he was at the top of the stairs and then all of a sudden he's right there in front of me. It was, and we had, the timing was perfect, like

Jeff: did see a shift change, which to speak to that, Dan, I think there was like 60 different Michael Myers, they're all like, and casting has them all at the same height now. It was like the roquette's, but wearing jumpsuits

Jess: I'd love to see 'em all check in and punch their cards to, to start their shifts. Hey,

Jeff: yeah. Like that. Like that cartoon, The Warner Brothers

Heather: that's one thing

Jeff: Time to go kill the guests.

Heather: on the r p tours, you see a little bit of some of the ways that they take you to get. Most effectively, you see some of the, like the lounging areas where people are just hanging out

between shifts or getting their makeup on. Yeah. and you, We did see a lot of the shift change with the characters, which was cool, but they still scared me. Classic monsters was one of my favorites the last time we went, and this time as well.

Jeff: They've done a great job updating them, making. Cool and modern, but still retaining This year, there's like a rotating storyline and a different monster wins depending on which time you go through.

Dan: They got that from last year when they did, they had the house with all of the, Cuz last year was the big anniversary. And they had the house that had all of the different icons from each year battling it out. And a different one would win at the

Jeff: Oh yeah.

Dan: so

Heather: we didn't go last year. It was still, there was still some covid

Jeff: They didn't have crusty the clown or whatever it is this

Heather: Yeah

Jeff: Jack, yeah. Jess, did you go last year during the Covid times?

Jess: I haven't been in a few years. It's been a.

Heather: I heard last year like they, they did their best, but all the characters were still behind plexiglass. So it's really hard to hide behind something and jump out and scare somebody. You have to stay behind the plexiglass.

Jeff: The most effective thing there is to bang on the plexiglass and make noise.

Heather: Yeah, that's true. The scare zones just scattered throughout the park are also terrifying. Those fricking chainsaws it.

Dan: Those just wear you down. It's just like again and again with the

chainsaw. 

Jeff: me is that like she's so scared of him, but yet. Somehow they're directly next to her before she, She never sees it until they fire it up. There's a guy with the chainsaw, he's gonna 

Heather: I'm always talking to somebody and having a good time.

Jeff: Plus I am in front of her doing this. It's like 

Heather: Go get. 

Jeff: at this one. Go get her.

Heather: Yep. Every time.

Dan: with friends like Jeff, who needs it. Who needs ah You, you

Heather: Oh yeah. We didn't see that one.

Dan: We, our timing was off on that one, so I didn't think it was scary at all, but it was a really cool set. So the idea is the town people are sacrificing you to the cobras to keep

Heather: Which is like a ghost goat demonn or something.

Dan: a goat 

Jess: like a vampire 

Heather: Goat demonn. 

Jess: coyote type bat

Dan: Yeah, Looked more like a coyote with just really giant shape

Heather: All I remember about

Dan: out of goats.

Heather: Oh, That's where the goat

Jeff: Oh yeah, the goat

Heather: All I remember about cobras is from the XFiles.

Jess: Historical accuracy.

Heather: Yes, that's correct. That's right.

Dan: Yeah. The puppets they had were amazing. We just, they didn't jump on and scare us at

Heather: You were the, your timing was off. Yeah. That tends to happen. We didn't have that happen this time, which I thought was great. Our timing was great on all of them. We started on what was that

called? 

Jeff: I could tell what the cycle was and would either get in front or behind of view behind you to make sure that you were on the proper

Heather: This, I wondered why you were rotating.

Dan: Crowd control.

Heather: The bloom house. That was what we did first. It was

Jeff: Yeah. I didn't know either of those properties. One was the Freaky Friday type movie with Vince Vaughn. I didn't, I don't know. I didn't like either of the, It was like a two part house and I didn't care

Heather: I wasn't familiar with it, but I, there was lots of jump scares,

Dan: think they're both new movies or one of them was, we watched the black phone. The black phone movie was pretty

Heather: I hadn't heard of either one

Jeff: Neither of them had very inspired design and I don't know. It was fine.

Dan: That's what I heard. The, We've seen some reviews that one's kind of the least one of the least favorite ones. Part of it's, they broke one house up into two different

Heather: Yes.

Dan: movies. That might've been a mistake.

Jeff: Yeah. Black phone looks like a good movie, but it was not a good house.

Heather: What was the name? Oh, it was called Descendants of Destruction. I think the one with the. Subway cars

Dan: Oh.

Jeff: Oh, 

Heather: like you were down in the subway. It was very cool. It smelled like the subway. The set was really cool. It was like you were walking through wrecked subway cars. Really

Jeff: it felt very underground in the. You went through different, like they took real subway cars and distrust them, and you had to work your way through three or four trains with stuff attacking you and

Heather: The story is that you're in this deserted subway tunnels in New York and hungry Mutants are looking to eat you.

Jess: So normal New York City life 

Dan: Right.

Jeff: Kinda 

Jess: that used to live there that's no different than

Jeff: yeah. It's just like trying to take a train to work.

Jess: to work.

Jeff: That one was awesome to look at. Nothing really scared me much, but I love, I would've liked to see that with the lights on.

Heather: Oh yeah.

Jeff: look at the sets. It was amazing.

Heather: That one scared me. Those, when you're moving through the subway cars, it gets very,

Jeff: It's narrow.

Heather: narrow and I know that something is gonna jump out at me

Dan: Be very close to you.

Heather: yes.

Jeff: I have not experienced the. Halloween Horror and I just as a consumer, buy a ticket, go in and all that.

Heather: I think I would want to stick with the r I P tour and

Jeff: Yeah. Or I'm just glad to know there's other options besides that for like the thing Kendra did sounds really good if you needed, particularly if you needed to pick up four houses you didn't get to the previous time you get in the other quadrant.

Heather: Yeah, because you can buy a frequent, what is it called? Frequent Scream Pass, something

Dan: Frequent Fear Pass, I

Heather: Frequent Fear Pass.

Dan: Yeah.

Jeff: If I lived local, I would get that. I 

Heather: Oh, for sure. And then you could go and just go into one of those pens and bang out three of the houses and then go back the next time.

Dan: The nice thing about those pens too is while you're waiting, they all at least have one bar, right? That you can sit in.

Heather: Oh, nice.

Jess: That's smart

Heather: You can buy a Halloween Horror Night's Ultimate Frequent Fear Pass and go every single night that they have the event.

Jeff: I don't think I'd wanna do that.

Heather: Yeah, that seems like a lot, but it certainly would be a way to

see 

Jeff: is that? Are you looking at it right

Heather: I am it they, It starts at $324.

Dan: That's really

 bad. 

Jeff: That's two. times going, or two, two and a half times.

Dan: Oh,

Heather: you can upgrade it with express access.

Dan: that seems pretty reasonable. I don't think I'd even need express. If you could go several times, just go bang out a house or two, have a drink, enjoy the vibe, and then leave before the crowds.

Heather: Just especially at once, it gets really dark and all the scare zones are very scary. I'm, It's so fun. They just, it is a truly Halloween scary event and And those scare zones really make it, We didn't cover those. We should talk about those real quick. Did you all have a favorite of the

Jeff: I never know what the heck they

Heather: Yeah, I liked the one up front that had the scary pumpkins and you walked through this,

Dan: pumpkin

Jeff: Yeah, and there was like a pumpkin king or whatever talking. I didn't know what the hell was going on, but it

Jess: Sometimes they have a, have cool themes, like they had a fifties like diner run over by vampires one year. But yeah, most of the time it's like old trees and people on stilts with pumpkin heads. And I'm like, how is this any different than any of the other

Heather: there was one that was like, people plastic

surgery gone bad. Yes.

Dan: but That was a different year. Wasn't that was a couple years.

Heather: This year the chainsaws were just roaming everywhere. They were not just in the scare

Jeff: The area in 

Dan: they're just in Simpsons. 

Jeff: Born Show and the

Dan: for us.

Jeff: Yeah, The Simpsons Meet and Greet, The Born Show and the Hello Kitty store, All that area was so foggy. I think the Theme was just fog

Heather: it

was really 

Jeff: don't know what it 

Dan: you remember what that was?

Heather: sinister scare zones. The horrors of Halloween was the pumpkin Lord

Dan: Yeah, that's, They always have one area. They always have one area that's shows little bits of each of the scare zones has elements from all of them. And that's what that one is.

Heather: this one I remember. Sweet Revenge. The major sweets candy company turned children into crazed killers. That was back by,

Jeff: Was I there? I don't, None of this sounds familiar.

Dan: I think the one with the fog, Jeff, might've been, was that maybe the cemetery one? That

Heather: Deadly unrest. Yes.

Dan: That one in the scarecrow were both very foggy.

Jeff: it had rained and rained, so there was actual fog there. Plus then they were pumping in the fog and it was just like I, I was, and I was on a mission to get to the Halloween house, so I was just blazing through there.

Heather: Yeah.

Dan: There's why that's a cemetery and they have some really cool like stilt walkers that are made up to look like cemetery statues.

Heather: I remember that one.

Dan: That's what most of 'em are. They're all various, like cemetery statues in that area.

Jeff: 2019. My favorite scare zone was the, It was like a whole rob zombie zone. So it had And then they had a Rob

Heather: zombie house. 

Jeff: zombie music playing and all, and it all led up to the house of a thousand corpses house, which was a good one.

Heather: It was a

Jeff: whole area was great. 

Heather: swore at us 

Jeff: biker suits that were gonna kill you.

And like it was, the whole thing was like a naughty biker bar murder thing

Jess: Next year, they're gonna bring back Rob Zombie, but they're gonna do something even scarier and just do a house where you go in and you just have to watch his new Monsters movie.

Jeff: Awful looking Munsters movie. I had such high hopes for

Dan: Somehow that turned out even worse than you told me. It was going, Oh my God. Once I finally saw footage and trailers. Holy

Jeff: looks awful.

Jess: I think it comes out in two days. It's, I 

Dan: It's straight straight to Hulu. Hulu. Straight to Hulu.

Jess: Or it's coming to Netflix or Hulu, one of those. And then also, yeah, you can buy it or rent it, but who would want to pay for it?

Dan: theater.

Jeff: liked some of his twisted other movies, but I don't know

Dan: looks so bad. So bad. I dunno, did we

Jeff: best house y'all have ever been in? Kendra, was this your first time at Halloween or

Dan: It was, and I wanna go back every year.

Jeff: me too.

Heather: My favorite, God, gosh. Halloween was my favorite this year, and I think last time we went, my favorite was that graveyard. One.

Jeff: Graveyard kids.

Heather: Yes.

Dan: think I was in the

Heather: that scared me and then laughed at me.

Jeff: Yeah, I liked that one a lot. My favorite last year was the, or 2019 rather, was the classic monsters. The. Bride of Frankenstein just kept showing up and screaming in your face, and it was scared me every time. It was good stuff. And then this year my favorite was probably Halloween or bug.

Halloween and bugs were even, but Halloween scared me more bugs was just so creative.

Heather: I liked the weekend, but I think my two favorites this year were Halloween and classic monsters.

 I really liked, aside from Bloomfield, whatever, Bloom something, whatever that

Jeff: Bloom

Heather: those were okay. Every other house we did, I loved and thought they were fantastic.

Jeff: what's your favorite? Everyone.

Jess: I've been to Halloween Horror nights once, and I've never been in one of the houses.

Heather: Oh my,

Jeff: you kidding?

Jess: no. I went once,

Jeff: the lines are too crazy.

Jess: yeah, the lines were crazy and I started feeling really sick, and so I left early and yeah, so I'm still holding that hope one of these days.

Heather: of these days.

Jess: It was funny cuz we were just at Universal and they had all the decorations up and my son, who is the biggest scaredy cat in the world was like, I wanna come back for Halloween horror nights.

And I was like, Not until you're 20. Like you can't 

Jeff: old? 

Jess: teeth with the lights off in the hallway like you're, there's it's not gonna happen.

Heather: Oh,

Dan: some really little kids there,

Heather: I forgot about the US house.

Jess: Yeah. I'm, I've seen, yeah, I saw a lot of little kids when I was there, but,

Jeff: Yeah, Wyatt was not that kid either.

Heather: My 16 year old still doesn't wanna go.

Dan: They say they don't recommend under like 13. For it, so yeah.

Heather: I forgot about the US House in 2019. That one was pretty terrifying

Jeff: That was great.

Heather: So good. That was another one where you come out at the end and there's a line

Jeff: Yeah, anytime they've got it's if you're going in the rise of the resistance and there's a hundred storm troopers standing there, and if five of them would try to kill

Heather: Yes.

Jeff: you don't know which

Heather: you don't know

Jeff: that's the feeling there.

Heather: that year also had. The Stranger Things House was great and Ghostbusters

fun. It wasn't scary, although

I I did still get jump scared.

Jeff: It was an enormous, massive set and they had a full to scale marshmallow dude, state F marshmallow in. 

Heather: So good. 

Dan: it's been a few years since I went, but I was there the first year that they did Stranger Things and. That was amazing when you step into the upside down and it's the ashes snowing and all that stuff. And again, it wasn't scary, but they did such an amazing job of building those sets and the actors that they found that were really good doubles for the kids and they just really did a good job of.

Building that atmosphere and putting you in there. That was amazing. And the same thing, honestly, for the Poltergeist house was that year too. And

Jeff: Ooh,

Dan: and it wasn't super scary, but yeah, like you walked into the door to go into the house and.

Jeff: claim.

Dan: You, you walk into the house and you're in the swimming pool and it's raining on you, and from a distance you hear the voice yelling.

You left the bodies, and then you go into the house to complete. That was, it was a, it was really cool and the same thing. It wasn't super scary, but just they put you into the scenes and even like some of the weird fantasy scenes that the sun has with the clown and the hallway and stuff. It was really good.

Those were my two

favorites. 

Jeff: you're in those houses, you touch like the, I'm always touching everything that's real, like solid. That's an amazing. Solid thing. These are not temporary seeming like a lot of your local stuff that may be cool and scary, but they feel rinky-dink and scary. These are amazing. I don't know what their budget is, but it's gotta be at least $40.

Heather: At least

Dan: Per house. Yeah, they they bring in ho Hollywood set design people and actually build these out, so That's cool. Any other final thoughts, closing arguments?

Heather: I love it and I'm so glad that it's

Jeff: the defense rests.

Heather: to its full glory post Covid. It's fantastic event.

Dan: No.

Heather: And I say, Go for it. Even if you're somebody who gets scared easily. Just have fun with it.

Jeff: Yeah, and Jess take ash if he just gets super scared. He brought it upon

Heather: Yes. We had someone in our group that, I don't know why she even came. She wouldn't go into the houses.

She just followed Us around and it was a bummer.

Jeff: Because every house, she's I'll wait. And then the lady was like, Okay, then I'll wait out here with you. Our guide didn't get to go in anything and do anything like everybody was. One time she offered, so it was a group of 20 of us or whatever, and the group. Do y'all wanna go into the next house or take a drink, break far from this house, and then walk all the way back to this house?

She's I need a break. Like I don't understand why we didn't go in the house while they took her to get a drink, but that's

Heather: Just, if you're gonna go to this event, just go for it. You're

Jeff: Put on an astronaut diaper and

Heather: Exactly.

 You're a

panty liner.

Dan: need to share your tip? Oh, yes. One of the people in our group had a tip that if you're going to be scared, you just bring pads or liners,

Heather: Yes,

Dan: everybody in our group brought them just in case.

Heather: Cause you will pee your pants

Dan: And did you No,

Heather: I didn't either.

Jeff: Yeah, you were swimming out of there. If you'd quit knocking her up, that wouldn't happen, Dan.

Dan: Bakeries closed. Thank you, Kendra, for joining us this week and sharing your insights on those houses that they didn't actually get into.

Heather: I'm

so jealous. 

Dan: Yeah. And thanks for hanging out with us again this week. If you are excited to be scared to death in a fun way at Halloween horror Nights, or explore anywhere else around the world, Key to the World Travel has a gigantic 2,700 pound jackal lantern full of expert travel players ready to make your vacation dreams a reality. Head to www.keytotheworldtravel.com to get started with a no obligation quote.

Don't forget to catch up with our friend, the Theme Park Professor for all the latest Theme Park news and tips at www.themeparkprofessor.com.

Word of mouth is the best way to help us grow our show. If you have a friend or two who you think would appreciate our special brand of Jack Assery, tell them what makes our show so great and send them our way. You can find links to subscribe to the show on your favorite apps and all the latest updates at www.goldkeyadventurers.com.

We can't wait to hang out with you again next week, and we'll see you real soon.

Jeff: Thank you for the privilege of your time.

Jess: Yeah, no. So I haven't been to any of the Halloween Horror Nights houses, but I've been to somewhere much scarier.

Jeff: Is it the bathroom? At Flo's

Jess: Yeah. While you were in there.