Halloween Horror Nights- what happens there?

karebear1

<font color=purple>BL II - Purple Team<br><font co
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Mar 12, 2001
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I will be down in Orlando in October and have just read a little about the Halloween Horror Nights that UNiversal puts on. Can someone please fill me in on the detail? I know the cost of tickets and the nights- but I have no idea what happens in the parks that night! WHat do I have to look forward to if I purchase a ticket? Is it worth the extra money to go? Is it mnore scarey- or fun? Anything you can tell me would be appreciated. THANKS!
 
Here's some trip reports I've dug up:

From 2002

I’ve been to Halloween Horror Nights for the past three years. Although I had fun, I started to get fed up with the lengthy lines. This year, it was time for me to bypass those lines with a VIP tour. I took the tour on Friday, October 11. The tour was a little costly -- $108 plus tax even with an annual pass discount – but it was worth it.

I had arrived at Universal around 3:30 pm and parked in Jaws 116. This spot was by the kennel and was the furthest parking spot at the resort. Even so, it took me about 15 minutes to walk to the front gate.

I spent some time at Universal Studios shooting it up at MIB. I rode it three times using the single rider line. I walked on each time. Without breaking a sweat, I was able to score around 600,000 two times. I had scored 400,000 once, but I blame a bad gun. I then hung around Curious George dumping buckets of water on people.

I had a sandwich at the Beverly Hill Boulgerie, which was a pretty good sandwich. It was a good deal too at $10, which included a sandwich, potato salad, a big cookie, and a drink. At around 6:00 pm, it was time to head over to IOA for my Halloween Horror Nights VIP tour.

I checked at the VIP tour desk. My VIP tour guide tonight was Chris. I was then escorted to the luxurious VIP tour waiting area for my guide. As I waited, I noticed that the waiting area exited directly to the park. While the front gates had security searching bags and people passing through metal detectors, the waiting area exit had none. I guess the troublemakers aren’t going to pay $100+ to cause problems in the park! I wondered what would happen if a guest had huge chains or piercings. Sure enough, a band of kids walked through the gates with huge chains around their necks. They looked like punk rockers. It took them a while to remove and re-wear their chains.

Each VIP tour member was handed a complimentary bottle of water and I met up with the assigned VIP tour guide. I had taken Busch Gardens’ VIP tour of Howl-O-Scream. The tour guides there just escorted you to and from attractions without really telling you where they were taking you or giving a background of the attraction. The Universal VIP tour guide was different. Chris would stop and gather us around before the group entered the area. Then she would tell us a little bit about what the group was going to experience.

The group first went through the Port of Evil, which had a bunch of the Caretaker’s minions wandering around and manning a bunch of torture devices. Those torture machines were scarier than Michael Bolton’s music! We went through Boo-ville, which was Seuss Landing at night. All the Whovillans have gone to sleep and scary things are happening. However, Boo-ville had no Scare-actors. The only scary thing was eerie wind sounds. The first stop was the haunted house, Scream House.

As I was part of a VIP tour, the group could cut the lines, but sometimes we had to go through some unglamorous areas. To take the shortcut to the Scream House, we had to walk beside the lovely dumpster of doom. Then we walked past some offices and through the back of a soundstage on Universal’s lot. The haunted house took up about ¼ of the entire stage and was smaller than it seemed. As for the house itself, I thought it was the best house of the night. It reminded me a bit of the Mortuary at Howl-O-Scream, but a lot scarier.

Scream House had a bunch of gruesome bodies and a lot of screams of terror from chainsaw decapitations from the other side of the wall. The best scares happened in the last parts of the house. The house was very dark and a Scare-actor was hiding in the dark. I couldn’t see him until he turned on a flashlight and went, “Boo!” That made me jump a few times. The group past through some cold body bags – ewww! That gets me every time. Finally, the ominous Caretaker showed up at the end. Creepy!

The next haunted house was Maximum Carnage in Island Under Siege. It seems that Carnage has taken over Marvel Super Hero Island. Villains wandered the street. Chainsaw men that looked like Batman’s Bane wandered around. Police cars from Kongfrontation lined the street.

Chris took the group through the back way to the haunted house. In the back areas, I saw a Scare-actor with a chainsaw repairman and three other Scare-actors hanging out on break. I also saw Universal security take away some guests in a white van. Chris said that they messed with a Scare-actor and are heading to jail.

The group entered Maximum Carnage. I thought this house was pretty well done. The most disorienting part was the Wonderworks spinning room. A starfield cylinder spun around as you walked on a small bridge. The bridge stayed stationary, but not from your point of view. It looked like the bridge was moving! Another good scare was during a strobe-lit room. The strobe would turn on. No Scare-actor. Then it would go off. No Scare-actor. When it came on again, a Scare-actor was there! The haunted house also had the old Fly pods from the Gory, Gruesome, and Grotesque Horror Makeup Show and a chopper from Kongfrontation.

Next up was Spider-Man. The group all fit into one Scoop. During our first ride, it broke down at Hobgoblin’s attack. Chris let us ride again. During the next ride, the ride broke down again! This time, it was in front of the Excalibur Theater. The Scoop was then stuck sideways. So we were levitated sideways, flew over the streets of New York City sideways, and fell down sideways. Whee! We told Chris that the ride broke down again and I think she was going to cry!

We couldn’t be at Spider-Man for the entire night, so we went to Bill and Ted’s Excellent Halloween Adventure. After we left Spider-Man, I checked out the wait time and it was 20 minutes. It was around 8:30 and the wait wasn’t too bad at that time of night. The group sat in the best seats in the house. We got the center seats right behind the A/V guy’s pit. As we waited, a DIS Board visitor shook my hand and introduced himself. He must have identified me from my DIS shirt. He was the DH to Love Rover (I think – sorry, I can’t recall exactly). He wanted to thank me for all the good information on the Universal board! Now that makes all the hard work worth the time and effort.

The Bill and Ted show was hilarious! The stage was the MIB headquarters, but they didn’t really tie it into the show. This was the first year that they had a big screen. The best part was showing the clips from the past few years. The Osbornes and Anna Nicole Smith stole the show. They also made fun of Disney! I only remember one year that they did it and it was very brief.

After the Bill and Ted, Chris took the group to Scary Tales 2. First, we had to pass through Freaks and Foons. We walked through the foam, which was ankle deep. The Scare-actors here weren’t scary, but they were having a lot of fun with the guests. I liked the Freaks and Foons area the best.

What I’ll most remember about the Scary Tales 2 house is that it was hot! It was in the Popeye queue, which can get hot to begin with. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the end prize of actually getting cooled off on the wet ride at the end. Despite the heat, Scary Tales 2 was the nicest-looking house. All of your favorite fairy tales have gone demented, as if they landed in American McGee’s Alice. The best part was when a Scare-actor popped out of a door and booed people. Then he closed the door. A few seconds later, he popped back out and said to me, “It’s Bruce Lee!” I guess I stand out as a 6-foot tall Asian guy!

Popeye had all the water drained out, so the group wouldn’t be riding it tonight. Next up was Fear Factor. Fear Factor was in Thunder Falls Terrace. To get there, we had to pass through JP Extinction, which were the dinosaurs causing chaos in Jurassic Park. There weren’t too many scares in JP Extinction, except for a chainsaw Scare-actor here and there and some Raptors hiding in the bushes.

Fear Factor was my least favorite house. It was supposed to be a dark house, but it wasn’t dark at all. It had a lot of gross things, like intestines hanging from the ceiling and a woman surrounded by rates. One guy looked like he was vomiting. I guess he ate at Mel’s Diner for dinner. Fear Factor had one good effect of the dropping floor.

Next was the last haunted house of the night, Evilution. As Chris led us to the house, I noticed the wait time on Jurassic Park River Adventure and it was 5 minutes. It was around 10:00 pm.

The Evilution haunted house went through the Triceratops Encounter and I think through parts of the Pterandon Flyers queue. The house started you at the end of the Triceratops Encounter where you met the Triceratops. The Triceratops was still there, but surrounded by a box. Although not a great house, it had some nice scares and some good effects. The Triceratops does appear, but only part of it. A Triceratops’ head hung from the ceiling.

Next up was Not Necessarily the Eighth Voyage of Sinbad, which was essentially the Sinbad show MST3K’ed. The two people from “Will and Grace” (whose names I can’t recall) did the MSTing. The actors even replied back. It was still the same old show, though.

We had done all the Halloween Horror Nights stuff, so Chris took us to Dueling Dragons. We rode Fire in the back and Ice in the front. The Dragons seem a lot faster at night. I couldn’t see the near misses, but I could feel the rush of the ride!

Chris wasn’t sure if we had time to hit the Hulk since it was closing at 11:30 pm. We had about 15 minutes until 11:30. Chris had a maintenance guy call the Hulk. The Hulk queue was 10 minutes. The ride will close at 11:30, but it will stay open until the queue was empty. That meant we had 10 minutes to get to the Hulk. Chris double-timed the group to the Hulk and we made it in time!

We rode the Hulk near the back. No one got the back row, though. The Hulk was pretty fast tonight. An added bonus was the strobe effects. When we pulled into the station, Chris asked if we wanted to ride again. We did! This time, I got the back row! We pulled into the station again and the Hulk ride supervisor asked us if we wanted to ride again. Two people (not part of our group) wanted to ride again. We said sure! We rode near the front. We pulled into the station and yet again, the supervisor asked us if we wanted another ride! Why not? Fourth time’s a charm! We didn’t even have to get out of our seats! After the fourth ride, we had to leave. One girl in our group had perfectly-styled hair. After four rides, her hair was all messed up!

It was approaching midnight and the end of our tour, so we said our goodbyes to Chris. We could still stay in the park until the 2:00 am closing. I tried, but I couldn’t do it. I did ride the Cat in the Hat with a 5-minute wait. Then I rode Storm Force Accelatron with a 5-minute wait as well. You may not spend a lot of money to ride Storm Force, but it is a much different ride at night. They had strobe effects and fog effect going. It was much wilder at night. I left at around 12:30 am for the long walk back to the parking lot.

I was so glad that I took the VIP tour. On Saturday, I had a regular ticket to Halloween Horror Nights to go with the Florida Coaster Club. It was pretty packed! The longest posted wait was 75 minutes for Evilution. My maximum wait was 45 minutes for Evilution. Dueling Dragons had a 45-minute wait and we rode it. We even got to wait in the unused queue area by the Flying Unicorn! Hulk had a 110-minute wait! We did not wait in that line!

I was so impressed by our VIP tour guide, Chris, that I even wrote a compliment letter. I always wondered if these letters really make a difference. I heard through the grapevine that because of the letter, she received Universal’s equivalent to employee of the month, which had prizes of a free dinner, free movie tickets, and a special parking spot for a month! Thus, it would seem like compliment letters really do make a difference in the employees’ lives. I just hope that she didn’t get a parking space in Jaws 116!


From 2000:

At Universal Studios, I bought my Halloween Horror Nights ticket. I had an annual pass, so my ticket cost was $19.95 ($21.15 with tax). The ticket seller was nice, but she had some trouble processing my annual pass discount. I can overlook that since it is the first night.

I sat down for a while and rested. I was looking for some fellow DISers who were visiting Halloween Horror Nights. I didn’t have my lime green ribbon, but I had my DIS moderator pin. It did me no good since it fell off while I was walking through the Dueling Dragons queue (I had retrieved it). I was kind of scared of Halloween Horror Nights, based on what I read. I thought it would be a non-stop terror night. I hoped I would not be cowering in fear in a corner. The scary music played over the speakers didn’t help much.

I was reading a sign outside the front gates. The sign said, among other things, bags will be searched. One part said that anyone who had illegal items would be “at the mercy of the Orlando police.” I imagined that the police would take you into the back room and beat you senseless. Don’t ask me why I thought that!

I walked around the lines a bit. I saw some people wearing Halloween Horror Nights t-shirts and I wondered if I could find the person with the earliest Halloween Horror Night t-shirt. I saw a lot from 1998 and 1999. I saw one from 1997, but it was a staff t-shirt.

About 15 minutes before the gates opened, about a dozen clowns walked up to the gates. A small crowd gathered and the clowns were trying to scare the crowd. One clown made a breaking sign with his hands and pointed at a kid. The kid turned his head around and was smiling. Another clown stuck his hands up to scare another kid. The kid tried to put his sister in between him and the clown. The kid, the sister, and the mom were all smiling, yet they seemed to be pulling themselves back. A group of teenagers were yelling, “Whazzup?” at the clowns, but the clowns seemed to be ignoring them. The clowns were pretty funny and they help to calm me down. I didn’t feel scared and I was ready to go into the park.

Every front gate line was now back to the ticket booths. I decided not to stand in line. I wanted a good spot to watch the “We’re not going to take it” truck. I liked the truck last year, but I was in a bad spot to see it. I was looking for the plant in the audience and I think I found him. The truck came out. It was a beaten-up truck that was missing the doors and hubcaps. The hostess asked for a volunteer and picked the guy who I thought was a plant. When he was picked, I was right!

The plant was Hank, who was very annoying. That was good, since he got his hand and legs chopped off. His head also got crushed. The hostess on the truck was explaining the rules of Halloween Horror Nights. Hank was strapped into a chair on top of the truck. If we violated the rules, she showed us what would happen. The mutilations would happen if we violated the rules. At the end, the hostess announced a bloodbath. Everyone started backing up, but the bloodbath was just squirts of water.

After the truck show, the gates opened and we were let in. I found the shortest line and I it took me about 15 minutes to get in. The ticket-taker ran my ticket through the machine and kept it. Last time I was here, they ran the ticket through and gave it back. It was a nice souvenir. Oh well, the ticket didn’t look any different from a normal Universal Orlando ticket. The security guards also searched my fanny bag. They only looked in the main compartment for alcohol. I had nothing to hide, so I freely let them go through it. The security guard just shined his flashlight into my bag and waved me on.

I was checking the map for showtimes. The Bill and Ted show was set to start at 7:30. I wasn’t planning on going through the haunted houses, so there wasn’t a need for me to see a later Bill and Ted show. I decided to go to the 7:30 show. The Bill and Ted show was at the Wild Wild West Stunt Show theater. I stopped by the desk to get a drinking wristband. You had to show your ID and if you were of legal age, they wrapped a blue band around your wrist. That way, you didn’t have to flash your ID all the time. I wasn’t planning on drinking, but I may get in the mood for a beer. I grabbed a map from the table. I had already gotten one at the front gates, but I figured I might as well get an extra.

Scareactors were on Hollywood Blvd., so I walked on the sidewalk to avoid them. I noticed that no scareactor had rocks-in-cans. Last year, nearly every scareactor had them. The rocks-in-cans were what made an average scare into an exceptional scare. When you walked past a scareactor, he shook his rocks-in-can. The rattling noise spooked you because you didn’t see it coming.

I was walking past Mel’s Die-In and I was set to walk across Woody Woodpecker’s Kidzone as I normally do to get to the Wild Wild West Stunt Show. The whole area was blocked off. The only way to get to the other side was through Apocalypse Island, a scare zone. I was trying to find a way to squeeze through the fence, but they had the area blocked off pretty good. I had to walk through Apocalypse Island. Apocalypse Island was on the path that ran by the lagoon.

There was a good-sized crowd going through Apocalypse Island, so I decided to be one footstep behind the people in front of me. I could avoid being scared and laugh at others who were scared. The scare zone wasn’t that scary. I could see the Scareactors from a while away. Some Scareactors were well hidden. They shook planters and trashcans, but I could avoid them when I saw someone else reacting to the scare.

One Scareactor in the area just stood around and had his finger on his chin all night. I wonder what he was thinking about. I guess he was thinking, “This is the easiest $6/hour I’ve ever made! All I need to do is stand around with my finger on my chin!” A neat Scareactor had a long beard and was darting this way and that. Another Scareactor was dressed as a zombie. He walked in a zombie-like Cab Calloway kind of walk and following a young girl as neared the exit of the scare zone. She was screaming and laughing at the same time. The zombie must have thought, “Yum, fresh young brains!” I wondered if the scare zone would be scarier in the dark. When I walked through it, the sun was going down and seemed too bright for a good scare. No scareactor here had rocks-in-cans either.

I finally made it through the scare zone and headed to the Bill and Ted show. The show was in the Wild Wild West Stunt Show theater. I heard there were no safe zones (zones without scareactors), but the area between Animal Actors and Jaws had no scareactors. I walked by Men in Black as I headed to the theater. Men in Black looks beautiful at night, which was a pleasant surprise. The whole front is lit up and looks like a huge starfield. Red and green shooting stars fly along the front of the building.

The Bill and Ted show theater was about half full. I was at the first show and the show gets more crowded as the night goes on. The show is the reason why I visit Halloween Horror Nights. The announcements before the show said, among other things, you will get wet if you sit in the splash zone. Only one guy was sitting in the splash zone and he seemed pretty excited to be in the zone!

The show was great as usual. Who appeared? Among others, Mr. Burns, Smithers, Scooby-Doo, the Rock, the X-Men, Tom Cruise from Mission: Impossible 2, the crocodile hunter guy from Animal Planet (he covered himself with alligator poop, iguana poop, and mutant poop), Jack from “Will and Grace,” Britney Spears, Lil Kim, and others. Even Janet Reno and Elian appeared! Lots of butt kicking happened. One lady performer I couldn’t recognize, but she had lost her wig during the show and had to put it on quickly. Storm appeared and was supposed to slide down a rope, but there were technical difficulties and she didn’t do the stunt. In previous years, the DeLorean that’s displayed at the Back to the Future ride entrance gets a chance to move. This time, the Mystery Machine from Scooby-Doo appeared. I wonder if the van will be part of character meet and greets. I’ve never seen it before. I was going to try to see a later show, but I never had the time to do so.

I went to Jaws after the show. Jaws was one of the haunted attractions. During Halloween Horror Nights, it was renamed Jaws: Bloody Waters. I wondered how they would make the ride haunted. I kept on thinking scareactors would jump out of the water, but that would be hard on the scareactor. If that happened, I imagined that a boat would break down. The scareactor would be sitting in the water for five minutes, thinking, “Where’s the boat? Where’s the boat?” A few minutes later, the boat would pass by him and he’d be doing a dead man’s float!

The haunted elements of Jaws weren’t very scary. The first haunted element was a man fishing. As the boat passed the lighthouse and you heard the screams from the other captain over the radio, a man catches something with his fishing pole and he pulls out a severed head. He looks at it in shock and plops it back into the water. The second haunted element was in the boathouse. When you hear the noise of Jaws and the metal barrels tip over, a fisherman appears from the darkness on the dock and waves around two scythes. It wasn’t very scary. My mom would probably tell him, “Put those things down! You’re not scaring anyone!” The last element was at the end of the ride, when Jaws meets his end. On the dock, the fisherman bangs around a bunch of boxes. Most people just ignored him and watched Jaws’ end. I wanted to yell, “Cut that out! It isn’t scary!”

I was disappointed with the haunted Jaws. The haunted elements weren’t incorporated into the storyline and weren’t even scary. Still, I ride Jaws at Halloween Horror Nights because it’s really my only chance to ride it in the dark. The gas explosion is quite lovely at night. The haunted elements were more of a distraction than anything. I think our skipper wasn’t used to the haunted things because the skipper turned around and looked at the guy with the fishing pole before we passed him.

Next on my list was Kongfrontation. I had read that you could escape by tram or escape on the ground. If you escaped on the ground, you had to walk through the haunted maze. If you escaped by tram, you could ride in the tram and see people being scared. I decided to do the tram. The Kongfrontation maze was named Nightmare Creatures II on the map.

I headed to Jaws to Kongfrontation. To get to Kongfrontation from Jaws, I had to walk through the Midway of Dr. Morose (the Amity Games area). The whole area was fogged up and scareactors were hiding in the fog to get you. I did not hear any rocks-in-cans from the fog. I avoided the foggy area and walked on the sidewalk by the games. I ended up getting haggled by the games’ operators to play a game. I think that is a fair exchange to avoiding the scareactors.

As I was going to Kongfrontation, I was looking for two entrances – one for the tram and one for the ground. All I saw was one entrance. I kept on looking and I did not see one. I figured the entrance would break off in two as I entered the line.

Before I entered, I stopped to watch the chainsaw gang. They lined up about face and turned on their chainsaws. As the dispersed, they chased after people. After watching them, I decided to enter Kongfrontation. The queue was kind of dark and the queue videos showed scenes from horror movies. The moldy-oldy Kongfrontation queue video wasn’t playing tonight. I bet those WWOR reports aren’t even working at the station anymore. The “New Adam 12” and the “New Dragnet” never made it past one season. Why are they still on the air?

Anyway, I was looking for the line to the tram, but the line seemed to move in one direction. I looked up at the tram and it wasn’t moving. I realized that there was only one way to escape – on the ground. I was a bit nervous in walking through the maze and I almost ran to the nearest exit. While standing in line, I realized that this may be my only chance to walk through Kongfrontation on the ground. I’d never get this chance again. I figured I would keep on footstep behind the person in front of me (like I did in Apocalypse Island) and watch other people get scared.

The wait was about 20 minutes. I was one of the last people in the group to be let in before they stopped the next group. The maze began with a bunch of fog and they played the theme to Batman: Mask of the Phantasm. I was one footstep behind the guy in front of me. He held onto his girlfriend’s shoulder and the girlfriend held onto his friend’s shoulder. I borrowed one of the guy’s shoulders. I wasn’t worried about the scareactors. I was more worried about the wet floor. The floor in the first half of the maze was wet. I was more afraid of slipping than being scared! From the ground, I could see Kong in his two appearances: when he is hanging from the bridge and when he is bursting out of the tunnel. I was more amazed by Kong here than I ever was while riding the tram.

The maze wasn’t very scary, though. The walkways were too wide. Usually, when the walkways are narrow, a scareactor can hide behind a blind corner and spook you. The wide walkways allowed you to see a scareactor from a short distance away. You could take action to avoid him. None of the scareactors here had rocks-in-cans either. Rocks-in-Cans, Inc. must have went out of business!

After Nightmare Creatures II, I headed to Men in Black. The line was pretty short – the wait looked like it was 10 minutes. I hit the single riders line and I was to the front of the line in a few minutes. Another guy was behind me in the single riders line and he wore a Haunted Mansion t-shirt. I thought that he may be a DISer, but I did not see a lime green ribbon. The ride had technical difficulties and it took about 10 minutes for the ride to work again. While I waited, I looked at my map and the next Jacked Up show was at 9:15. I had some time before the show was set to begin.

The ride ops sent in several unoccupied vehicles into the ride. One vehicle was a handicapped vehicle. The gun in that vehicle was pretty neat. One gun had a big plastic bar on it. It seemed like it was for a guest to lie across the wheelchair. We finally got on. The single rider and I were in the back seat. Three guys (who looked like fraternity buddies) were in the front. I was feeling a little tired and I didn’t score very well this time around. I scored 271,000. Our car still made Galaxy Defenders. At the end, when the Fraternity Buddies saw that they had made Galaxy Defenders, the cheered and high-fived the other single rider. The single rider just shrugged. I thought that they had one too many beers.

I headed to the Jacked Up show, but the show time was marked as 10:00 on the sign. I looked at my map again and it said 9:15. I wondered if this was a last-minute change until I looked on the front of my map. The map dates were for October 13, 22, 29, and 31! I wonder how this map ever got to the show floor. I found the map that I picked up at the front gates and it said the right date. The Festival of the Dead was going to begin at 10:00 and I had about 50 minutes until parade time. I decided to ride Back to the Future.

Back to the Future had a 10-minute wait. I rode it and only the first row was open. As a group was entering the queue line and as they headed to the open door, they noticed that a rope was up and no attendant was there. They looked angry and went to a ride op to complain. I know better. A ride op would come and direct them to the correct row. The ride up that got the complaint explained to them how it all works and I heard a collective “Oh…”

I was in the same car as five Latino girls. They kept on teasing me about being the only guy in the group. I should be so lucky to be in the same room as five girls! As the queue video ran, the girls kept on saying that none of them wanted to be in the front seat. I don’t think they all could fit in the back! I dutifully volunteered for the front seat. I knew better anyway – I didn’t feel like getting my head banged in the back seat!

As we loaded up, I was in the driver’s seat in the front. Two girls were in the front and the rest sat in the back. As we flew around in time, one of the girls in the front seat kept on flinging her headed back and forth. Her head tapped the lap bar, the front panel, and the seat. The ride wasn’t as rough as some other cars in the first row. At the end of the ride, the girl that flung her head around said that she had a headache. Gee, I wonder why!

I went through Apocalypse Island again so I can find a good space for the Festival of the Dead parade. I also needed a rest. Apocalypse Island was now very dark, but you could still see the scareactors from a short distance away. The scareactor with a beard was still darting around and the scareactor who had a finger on his chin still had the finger on his chin. Some guests were posing with one scareactor and another kept on yelling “Whazzup?” at them.

I staked out a spot for the Festival of the Dead parade. I found a spot by Mel’s Die-In. The parade would start here and I would be in a good position to catch beads without fighting a crowd. Like Mardi Gras, the best place for beads is to be at the start of the parade. People generally don’t crowd around at the beginning and fewer people are jumping for beads.

I bought a Coke and rested at a table outside Mel’s Die-In. I watched people get scared by scareactors on Hollywood Blvd. Then I walked around the block to check out more Halloween events. I saw the Gauntlet scare zone, but I didn’t go through it. The line for the Fearhouse looked like a 45-minute wait. The queue snaked all the way around the front of the Blues Brothers show. A DJ was entertaining the queue line guests with music. I worked my way around the block back to Mel’s Die-In.

The parade started and it was like Mardi Gras, only the floats had a Halloween theme. I was able to get three beads. Two I caught. The last bead hit me in the face! The parade was short. It only lasted about 5 minutes. I think the Mardi Gras parade is much longer. I went back through Apocalypse Island to ride Men in Black again.

Men in Black was a walk-on into the preshow area. The single riders line was open, but I decided to go into the preshow. I thought I would be able to walk through the queue with no wait, but the queue line stopped before we got to the big screen control area. I decided to jump the queue and go through the single riders line. I was on the ride in a few minutes and I only scored 181,000 (without the bonus). My shooting was off tonight. I might want to rest up and duel with aliens tomorrow.

After Men in Black, I went back to Jaws for one more ride. The wait was about 10 minutes. As I waited in the queue, a staff member escorted a fisherman through the queue to his location in the ride. This time, the skipper asked the guy with the fishing pole if he caught something big. When he pulled the head out, he screamed. That was the only time the skipper referred to a haunted element. In the boathouse, the fisherman came close to the boat and waved his scythes around. One kid looked scared. I just rode it again to see the gas explosion in the dark.

The last Jacked Up show was at 11:00, so I went to that. The show was at the Animal Actors stage. The show was set up with a trampoline, a few boxes, and four boxes that spelled “Jack.” The show was strangely familiar. It reminded me of the same show that was held two years ago (I can’t recall the name). Performers danced at that show and at Jacked Up. Performers climbed up and twisted around on long pieces of cloth at that show and this one. Jack waved around his swords during the show and lost his wig. This must be a wig-losing night.

The performers (male and female) were quite athletic. The men were pretty muscular, a fact not overlooked by a few women who sat behind me. When the men had their tops off and were wearing tights, the women behind me said, “Aw, yeah!” They also said some other things, none of which can be repeated here. They applauded loudly after each half-naked man performed. I was expecting these women to start waving dollar bills! They need a cold shower! The performers were Jack’s clan. Like a card deck, they were named one to ten. The eleventh one was Snake Eyes. Even though the show reminded me of the one two years ago, I found Jacked Up more entertaining that the other show. Perhaps it’s because Jack had a better persona. An evil persona, but a persona nonetheless. I saw the Cold Shower Girls outside the theater as we were exiting and they were making a lot of comments on how hot the men here!

It was around 11:30, so I headed through Apocalypse Island one more time to the exit. I went back to my hotel, took a much-needed shower, and relaxed in the recliner. I’ve got to get a chair like this for myself! I then fell asleep at around 2:00.
 












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