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So, I mentioned that I was having an impromptu solo trip down to the area to cover the Syfy Channels Digital Press Tour over at Portofino Bay at Universal. I'm still working on tons of material for my site on that, but I wanted to take a little downtime to do a "quick" trip report (I know this will be longer than I expect).
I got down there really early Sunday (cheapest flight available), ran over to the POP (it was cost about a third of the discounted price for the room at Portofino Bay) and checked in - room ready at 10! - it was over in the last 50s building, where they are still renovating on the 4th floor - but it wasn't a problem for me since I wouldn't be in the room much - at least I didn't think I would be...
I then ran over to Epcot to check out the Food and Wine Festival. I went to Will Call to convert my GAD voucher to an AP - took just a few minutes, even though I left my voucher in the room. After that, I met up with Cheshire Figment and his purple ECV (another DISer recognized him by it!), and we did a slow tour of the F&W kiosks, picking and choosing a few things while he filled me in with all sorts of information, tidbits, rumors, and such. Such a great amount of knowledge!!! We tried the Charcuterie plate, which had a fair amount of meat for one of the lower priced items available. I also got a Kefta pocket in Morrocco (more meat that two years ago!) We also had crabcakes, and I had a caramel and chocolate covered pretzel from Karamell-Kutche. Alas, I think that's all I ended up having although I planned for more, but I was actually feeling full and with the heat I wanted to get back to the room and wash up before dinner.
Dinner was at Bice Restaurant at the Portofino Bay Resort. Had never been there before, and was impressed. The main entrance doesn't reveal the extensiveness of the resort - if it wasn't for the view from the road shortly before you get there, you'd think it was a small place. I followed the signs towards the restaurant, down the stairs - into the large outside plaza on the water - huge open space! And the theming was great! Bice was a bit of a walk, then up some stairs. After entering I was immediately greeted by a waiter asking what I'd like to drink (open bar), and met with the organizers and some of the Syfy executives and other members of the Digital Press. We sat to eat randomly, and at our table we were joined by Mark Stern, EVP of original programming.
It was a prepared meal, with a couple choices for the courses. I had a decent tricolor salad, and a beef filet for the entree - the filet was actually quite large, and quite delicious. And did I mention open bar? There were quite a few "mojeetos" being drunk at our table...
After dinner, we were brought over by boat to the studios, where we met some of the USO executives including Mike Aiello, the show director for Halloween Horror Nights, where he spoke for a bit before we broke up into smaller groups and joined a guide for RIP tours of HHN. We got front of the line access to all 8 haunted houses, and perhaps a little extra attention from the scareacters in the scare zones and in the streets.
I have to say, I can't IMAGINE trying to do all of the houses, etc. without that access. Lines for the first three houses (Hades, Zombiegeddon, and Psychotherapy I believe) ranged from 60-90 minutes, and we all felt that they were the tamer houses, and were able to do them very quickly in a row. I think with so many people in a conga line going through, it was easy to tell where there would be the scareacters coming out at you, and since they can't touch you it was possible to avoid or ignore them for the most part, which may have reduced the impact at least for me, but most everyone in the group agreed that it didn't seem all that scary.
The later houses were a bit better. My favorite was Havoc, which I compared to walking in to the game Doom 3 - a video game I found rather scary. The actors actually all shaved their heads for the part - and it wasn't certain whether the barcode tatoos were real as well...but there were a couple of them that writhed and screamed in pain with great effect (I can't imagine how they do that over a long period of time).
I also liked the Hallowed Past (where they blended in some of the previous icons). The Orfanage was interesting in that it used Cindy, the icon that was meant for 2001, but was pulled back due to 9/11.
I forget which house had the transparent floor, but we never saw anyone under there. But overall the level of detail was amazing, especially for temporary structures. The synchronized lights and sounds I think really made the scare impact more than the scareacters themselves - and in a couple of cases, the scareacters looked like normal cast members wearing masks, although most were in full costume.
One of the more interesting effects was one of the simplest. In between two of the main areas of one of houses, or perhaps just before the exit, where there was all the psychedelic paint and strobe lights, there was a simple ghostly image on the wall you approach before turning. The strobe light however caused your eyes to fool you into thinking it was coming out of the wall towards you...a simple effect, but one of the best.
The scare zones I wouldn't exactly call scary, but they were neat. I liked the glow-in-the-dark costuming of Esqueleto Muerte, but Saws&Steam was the only area where they managed to startle me - the fog effect kicked in as we were walking through, and it came in thick - and as soon as I came out the other side, one of the scareacters popped right out...even expecting that, it was startling.
Finally, we got to see Bill & Ted Excellent Halloween Adventure, which was a good comedy show filled with recent pop culture icons and funny, if predictable at times, jokes. "Justin Bieber's a guy?!?"
After that, we were free to roam around further, but most of us headed back, and it was around 1am before I got back to POP. I got up at 3am the morning before, so I was exhausted.
Overall, I think they do an incredible job, especially on the details and most of the scareacters (like I said, a few seemed like the CMs wearing masks). I definitely wouldn't bring young kids, not that there wasn't any - we saw a few, and in one scare zone I could hear the parents telling their son it isn't that big a deal. But there is also lots of drinking going on (jello shots in blood bags available EVERYWHERE!), although I didn't see anything really get out of hand.
On Monday, I was back at Portofino in the morning for the press panels. There was a quite extensive breakfast buffet, with an omelette chef but I don't think anyone opted for an omelette - kind of felt bad for him. I'm not sure too many attendees actually ate breakfast.
I won't bore you with the panel details, although a surprise guest (at least to me - perhaps she wasn't confirmed but I know some women's web site reporters were there and I didn't know why then...) was Ashley Eckstein (Ahsoka in The Clone Wars and Star Wars Weekends stalwart), who was announcing the joint venture between herself and Syfy to launch HerUniverse.com, a web site to promote merchandise for the "forgotten" half of SF fandom...got my picture taken with her, and when my wife told my oldest daughter (a major fan), she got all huffy and mopey...
Anyways, after the panels we gathered in the lobby to take coaches over to IOA for dinner at Mythos, followed by exclusive access to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter (IOA was closed). Another open bar(!) for cocktails, which included an ice sculpture with the Syfy logo which they poured the drinks through to chill. Blue drinks work really well for that - but they had a limited selection of liquors so martinis were primarily the results.
While enjoying the drinks and appetizers, someone thought it would be a good idea to turn on the fog machine under one of the chairs by where we were standing...and very quickly we were totally engulfed in fog - to the point of making it uncomfortable to breath. Another person came and shut it back down, but after we moved.
Dinner was a plated affair. It started with a combination corn chowder and lobster bisque, with a dollop of sour cream. One of my dinner mates at the table was lactose intolerant, so she told the waiter, who checked with the chef, and came back and took away the bowl - and brought back another one, just without the sour cream. Ummm...what about the chowder and bisque?? The waiter then handed out a roll to everyone, and apparently they were different types - and she got a cheese roll...
It was followed by a tasty small salad (not sure what it was specifically), and the entry was a combination of sea bass and beef filet. Of course this filet was much smaller since it wasn't the only item, but even if you added in the sea bass it still wasn't as much as the filet from Bice. It was still tasty though.
After dinner we headed over to WWOHP. Now, figure that in total there were probably 60-70 of us attending. And no one else. In WWOHP. With all three ride running plus Ollivanders and the other stores (of course, merch wasn't free) and carts. There had to be more cast members working than guests. And even then, I got the sense of the smallness of the area. The darkness probably didn't help.
We were greeted by the Hogwart's Express conductor, and had yet another open bar, nice dessert buffet, and the Hog's Head was also open for free drinks, as was the butterbeer cart.
We had free roam of the area - no tour guides or anything like that, although most people strolled through Zonkos and Honeydukes first. While in Honeydukes I ran into Ashley Eckstein again, and asked a big favor (I felt horrible for asking), but she spoke to my daughter on the phone for a few minutes. It was mostly one-way, as my wife had to answer for here because she was totally gobsmacked that Ashley was talking to her. But I think I was elevated to Most Awesome Daddy Ever status...Ashley's husband David Eckstein of the San Diego Padres was also there, and I talked with him briefly.
I had a bit of the desserts, including a Trifle Pudding. I've had trifle many times before, but as I was eating it, I noticed an unexpected taste - slivers of something solid, sweet - strawberry like. Uh oh. I'm allergy to strawberries. I stopped eating and hoped that they either weren't, or that I didn't eat enough. I'd know in a few hours.
Then it was time to try some rides. I got a ride buddy - Rosa, a reporter for Gizmodo (and I have to say, the BEST dressed attendee - everyone was casual but she wore a red cocktail dress) and we went first to Flight of the Hippogriff (building it up slowly - she was something of a ride wimp), just the two of us, walked on, up front...it isn't much of a ride - a pretty tame steel coaster.
Then we went to Forbidden Journey. The queue is quite well done, lots of details in areas, with all the paintings that move (every one I looked at seemed to move), and several spoke as well. There was Dumbledore's office, with Dumbledore himself greeting you. A little further is the Dark Arts classroom, which is a switchback area, where Harry, Ron and Hermione talk to you. Then there is the Fat Lady painting and the Gryffendor Common Room, and then the ride boarding area - but first - the execution - I mean, test chair, to see if you can ride at all. I thought my beer belly might earn me a check, but he just waved us through, and I had no problem at all. I liked the floating candle effects in the area as well.
The ride was fun - I'd call it sort of an extreme Soarin', with your vehicle moving from room to room. However, some of the transitions from area to area broke the illusion. And the spiders looked way too fake - but that might be on purpose given the young audience.
Lastly, we went on Dragon Challenge. Again we breeze through the line, but I did notice the Goblet of Fire and Tri-Wizard Cup on display. Then came the choice, the Chinese Fireball (Red) or Hungarian Horntail (Blue). I knew one was supposed to be more intense than the other, but didn't know which, and Rosa certainly would rather try the tamer one. But we flipped a business card (didn't have a coin), and went Red.
It was a fun ride - the interesting thing is, it wasn't illuminated, so it was a dark ride outside. It made for an interesting view when doing the loops. It was fun though.
I went solo to Ollivanders. When I went in, I was alone, and Ollivander started to strike up a conversation when several more came in, and suddenly his focus shifted to one of the girls. It was so blasted dark in there. I tried to videotape it, but all you could see was a shadow talking. Then of course was the option of buying the wands...
Then it was finally time to head back.
After getting back and saying my goodbyes I headed back to the POP to try and get some rest. I had thought about going to EMH at Epcot, but not having slept much I was going to take it easy, and got to sleep - for a couple hours. Around 2:30am, I woke up with a stomach ache - maybe it was the strawberries. I never got fully sick, but I felt lousy for quite a while and only got a couple more hours of sleep. I would have stayed in bed all day but had to get out by 11, so I eventually packed up and out and went over the Epcot anyways. I started to feel better, so I ate a couple more things (pork skewer from Brazil, beef skewer from Argentina), and then remembered to go back to get a Fastpass for Soarin' (I'd ride on my way out), and then went to Captain EO. My stomach ache kicked in a bit again, but I sat through it. I looked like I went back to the 80s, with cheap 3D.
I then went back to the WS and got the cheese soup in Canada, and the warm chocolate lava cake with Bailey's ganache from Ireland (AWESOME!!!!!) and creme brulee in France, but eating again affected my stomach. I watched Matsuriza for a bit, then watched American Adventure followed by the Voices of Liberty (they did an awesome version of You'll Never Walk Alone). I felt good enough to go back to the Australia booth for the lamb chop, but again felt it afterwards. I would have liked to try the festival beer from Sam Adams and several more items, but it just didn't seem like a good idea. In fact I didn't eat again for almost 24 hours. I just slowly worked my way and rode Soarin', then headed back to the airport...
I've got some pictures from Harry Potter here (let me know if they don't seem to be public), although I should have some better versions of the dark pics up tomorrow along with the few I got from HHN.
There, see? Nice and short!
I got down there really early Sunday (cheapest flight available), ran over to the POP (it was cost about a third of the discounted price for the room at Portofino Bay) and checked in - room ready at 10! - it was over in the last 50s building, where they are still renovating on the 4th floor - but it wasn't a problem for me since I wouldn't be in the room much - at least I didn't think I would be...
I then ran over to Epcot to check out the Food and Wine Festival. I went to Will Call to convert my GAD voucher to an AP - took just a few minutes, even though I left my voucher in the room. After that, I met up with Cheshire Figment and his purple ECV (another DISer recognized him by it!), and we did a slow tour of the F&W kiosks, picking and choosing a few things while he filled me in with all sorts of information, tidbits, rumors, and such. Such a great amount of knowledge!!! We tried the Charcuterie plate, which had a fair amount of meat for one of the lower priced items available. I also got a Kefta pocket in Morrocco (more meat that two years ago!) We also had crabcakes, and I had a caramel and chocolate covered pretzel from Karamell-Kutche. Alas, I think that's all I ended up having although I planned for more, but I was actually feeling full and with the heat I wanted to get back to the room and wash up before dinner.
Dinner was at Bice Restaurant at the Portofino Bay Resort. Had never been there before, and was impressed. The main entrance doesn't reveal the extensiveness of the resort - if it wasn't for the view from the road shortly before you get there, you'd think it was a small place. I followed the signs towards the restaurant, down the stairs - into the large outside plaza on the water - huge open space! And the theming was great! Bice was a bit of a walk, then up some stairs. After entering I was immediately greeted by a waiter asking what I'd like to drink (open bar), and met with the organizers and some of the Syfy executives and other members of the Digital Press. We sat to eat randomly, and at our table we were joined by Mark Stern, EVP of original programming.
It was a prepared meal, with a couple choices for the courses. I had a decent tricolor salad, and a beef filet for the entree - the filet was actually quite large, and quite delicious. And did I mention open bar? There were quite a few "mojeetos" being drunk at our table...
After dinner, we were brought over by boat to the studios, where we met some of the USO executives including Mike Aiello, the show director for Halloween Horror Nights, where he spoke for a bit before we broke up into smaller groups and joined a guide for RIP tours of HHN. We got front of the line access to all 8 haunted houses, and perhaps a little extra attention from the scareacters in the scare zones and in the streets.
I have to say, I can't IMAGINE trying to do all of the houses, etc. without that access. Lines for the first three houses (Hades, Zombiegeddon, and Psychotherapy I believe) ranged from 60-90 minutes, and we all felt that they were the tamer houses, and were able to do them very quickly in a row. I think with so many people in a conga line going through, it was easy to tell where there would be the scareacters coming out at you, and since they can't touch you it was possible to avoid or ignore them for the most part, which may have reduced the impact at least for me, but most everyone in the group agreed that it didn't seem all that scary.
The later houses were a bit better. My favorite was Havoc, which I compared to walking in to the game Doom 3 - a video game I found rather scary. The actors actually all shaved their heads for the part - and it wasn't certain whether the barcode tatoos were real as well...but there were a couple of them that writhed and screamed in pain with great effect (I can't imagine how they do that over a long period of time).
I also liked the Hallowed Past (where they blended in some of the previous icons). The Orfanage was interesting in that it used Cindy, the icon that was meant for 2001, but was pulled back due to 9/11.
I forget which house had the transparent floor, but we never saw anyone under there. But overall the level of detail was amazing, especially for temporary structures. The synchronized lights and sounds I think really made the scare impact more than the scareacters themselves - and in a couple of cases, the scareacters looked like normal cast members wearing masks, although most were in full costume.
One of the more interesting effects was one of the simplest. In between two of the main areas of one of houses, or perhaps just before the exit, where there was all the psychedelic paint and strobe lights, there was a simple ghostly image on the wall you approach before turning. The strobe light however caused your eyes to fool you into thinking it was coming out of the wall towards you...a simple effect, but one of the best.
The scare zones I wouldn't exactly call scary, but they were neat. I liked the glow-in-the-dark costuming of Esqueleto Muerte, but Saws&Steam was the only area where they managed to startle me - the fog effect kicked in as we were walking through, and it came in thick - and as soon as I came out the other side, one of the scareacters popped right out...even expecting that, it was startling.
Finally, we got to see Bill & Ted Excellent Halloween Adventure, which was a good comedy show filled with recent pop culture icons and funny, if predictable at times, jokes. "Justin Bieber's a guy?!?"
After that, we were free to roam around further, but most of us headed back, and it was around 1am before I got back to POP. I got up at 3am the morning before, so I was exhausted.
Overall, I think they do an incredible job, especially on the details and most of the scareacters (like I said, a few seemed like the CMs wearing masks). I definitely wouldn't bring young kids, not that there wasn't any - we saw a few, and in one scare zone I could hear the parents telling their son it isn't that big a deal. But there is also lots of drinking going on (jello shots in blood bags available EVERYWHERE!), although I didn't see anything really get out of hand.
On Monday, I was back at Portofino in the morning for the press panels. There was a quite extensive breakfast buffet, with an omelette chef but I don't think anyone opted for an omelette - kind of felt bad for him. I'm not sure too many attendees actually ate breakfast.
I won't bore you with the panel details, although a surprise guest (at least to me - perhaps she wasn't confirmed but I know some women's web site reporters were there and I didn't know why then...) was Ashley Eckstein (Ahsoka in The Clone Wars and Star Wars Weekends stalwart), who was announcing the joint venture between herself and Syfy to launch HerUniverse.com, a web site to promote merchandise for the "forgotten" half of SF fandom...got my picture taken with her, and when my wife told my oldest daughter (a major fan), she got all huffy and mopey...
Anyways, after the panels we gathered in the lobby to take coaches over to IOA for dinner at Mythos, followed by exclusive access to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter (IOA was closed). Another open bar(!) for cocktails, which included an ice sculpture with the Syfy logo which they poured the drinks through to chill. Blue drinks work really well for that - but they had a limited selection of liquors so martinis were primarily the results.
While enjoying the drinks and appetizers, someone thought it would be a good idea to turn on the fog machine under one of the chairs by where we were standing...and very quickly we were totally engulfed in fog - to the point of making it uncomfortable to breath. Another person came and shut it back down, but after we moved.
Dinner was a plated affair. It started with a combination corn chowder and lobster bisque, with a dollop of sour cream. One of my dinner mates at the table was lactose intolerant, so she told the waiter, who checked with the chef, and came back and took away the bowl - and brought back another one, just without the sour cream. Ummm...what about the chowder and bisque?? The waiter then handed out a roll to everyone, and apparently they were different types - and she got a cheese roll...
It was followed by a tasty small salad (not sure what it was specifically), and the entry was a combination of sea bass and beef filet. Of course this filet was much smaller since it wasn't the only item, but even if you added in the sea bass it still wasn't as much as the filet from Bice. It was still tasty though.
After dinner we headed over to WWOHP. Now, figure that in total there were probably 60-70 of us attending. And no one else. In WWOHP. With all three ride running plus Ollivanders and the other stores (of course, merch wasn't free) and carts. There had to be more cast members working than guests. And even then, I got the sense of the smallness of the area. The darkness probably didn't help.
We were greeted by the Hogwart's Express conductor, and had yet another open bar, nice dessert buffet, and the Hog's Head was also open for free drinks, as was the butterbeer cart.
We had free roam of the area - no tour guides or anything like that, although most people strolled through Zonkos and Honeydukes first. While in Honeydukes I ran into Ashley Eckstein again, and asked a big favor (I felt horrible for asking), but she spoke to my daughter on the phone for a few minutes. It was mostly one-way, as my wife had to answer for here because she was totally gobsmacked that Ashley was talking to her. But I think I was elevated to Most Awesome Daddy Ever status...Ashley's husband David Eckstein of the San Diego Padres was also there, and I talked with him briefly.
I had a bit of the desserts, including a Trifle Pudding. I've had trifle many times before, but as I was eating it, I noticed an unexpected taste - slivers of something solid, sweet - strawberry like. Uh oh. I'm allergy to strawberries. I stopped eating and hoped that they either weren't, or that I didn't eat enough. I'd know in a few hours.
Then it was time to try some rides. I got a ride buddy - Rosa, a reporter for Gizmodo (and I have to say, the BEST dressed attendee - everyone was casual but she wore a red cocktail dress) and we went first to Flight of the Hippogriff (building it up slowly - she was something of a ride wimp), just the two of us, walked on, up front...it isn't much of a ride - a pretty tame steel coaster.
Then we went to Forbidden Journey. The queue is quite well done, lots of details in areas, with all the paintings that move (every one I looked at seemed to move), and several spoke as well. There was Dumbledore's office, with Dumbledore himself greeting you. A little further is the Dark Arts classroom, which is a switchback area, where Harry, Ron and Hermione talk to you. Then there is the Fat Lady painting and the Gryffendor Common Room, and then the ride boarding area - but first - the execution - I mean, test chair, to see if you can ride at all. I thought my beer belly might earn me a check, but he just waved us through, and I had no problem at all. I liked the floating candle effects in the area as well.
The ride was fun - I'd call it sort of an extreme Soarin', with your vehicle moving from room to room. However, some of the transitions from area to area broke the illusion. And the spiders looked way too fake - but that might be on purpose given the young audience.
Lastly, we went on Dragon Challenge. Again we breeze through the line, but I did notice the Goblet of Fire and Tri-Wizard Cup on display. Then came the choice, the Chinese Fireball (Red) or Hungarian Horntail (Blue). I knew one was supposed to be more intense than the other, but didn't know which, and Rosa certainly would rather try the tamer one. But we flipped a business card (didn't have a coin), and went Red.
It was a fun ride - the interesting thing is, it wasn't illuminated, so it was a dark ride outside. It made for an interesting view when doing the loops. It was fun though.
I went solo to Ollivanders. When I went in, I was alone, and Ollivander started to strike up a conversation when several more came in, and suddenly his focus shifted to one of the girls. It was so blasted dark in there. I tried to videotape it, but all you could see was a shadow talking. Then of course was the option of buying the wands...
Then it was finally time to head back.
After getting back and saying my goodbyes I headed back to the POP to try and get some rest. I had thought about going to EMH at Epcot, but not having slept much I was going to take it easy, and got to sleep - for a couple hours. Around 2:30am, I woke up with a stomach ache - maybe it was the strawberries. I never got fully sick, but I felt lousy for quite a while and only got a couple more hours of sleep. I would have stayed in bed all day but had to get out by 11, so I eventually packed up and out and went over the Epcot anyways. I started to feel better, so I ate a couple more things (pork skewer from Brazil, beef skewer from Argentina), and then remembered to go back to get a Fastpass for Soarin' (I'd ride on my way out), and then went to Captain EO. My stomach ache kicked in a bit again, but I sat through it. I looked like I went back to the 80s, with cheap 3D.I then went back to the WS and got the cheese soup in Canada, and the warm chocolate lava cake with Bailey's ganache from Ireland (AWESOME!!!!!) and creme brulee in France, but eating again affected my stomach. I watched Matsuriza for a bit, then watched American Adventure followed by the Voices of Liberty (they did an awesome version of You'll Never Walk Alone). I felt good enough to go back to the Australia booth for the lamb chop, but again felt it afterwards. I would have liked to try the festival beer from Sam Adams and several more items, but it just didn't seem like a good idea. In fact I didn't eat again for almost 24 hours. I just slowly worked my way and rode Soarin', then headed back to the airport...
I've got some pictures from Harry Potter here (let me know if they don't seem to be public), although I should have some better versions of the dark pics up tomorrow along with the few I got from HHN.
There, see? Nice and short!
