Jack's Back & So Are We!!!-Sep 2021 HHN 30/WDW TR- Completed 12/18

Raeven

DIS Veteran
Joined
Sep 15, 2015
It's been awhile since I did an HHN trip report so...

:welcome:

My name is Raeven! :wave2:


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I'm 29, work as an admin, and I'm the planner, photographer, & TR writer for our trips. I'm a Slytherin, finally got my first wand this trip, and I love Halloween Horror Nights!
This is my trip partner and boyfriend of 8 years, Josh:


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He's 35 and works for the Highway Dept. Halloween Horror Nights is one of his favorite things. He also likes boxing, horror movies, roller coasters, & delicious gluten free food.

However on this trip he had to leave a little early so I spent the last few HHN days with Alyssa & Zack and a Disney day with Michelle & Chris.


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Alyssa and I met on the boards a couple years ago, and met in person for the first time in 2017. Ever since 2018 we've met up for HHN (minus 2020 because there was no HHN, but that year we actually met up on our Denver trip). Michelle and I actually met up around 2017 too, and this was the first trip I’ve been able to meet up with her on since.

A little background: We took our first Disney/Universal trip in September 2015. After that trip we agreed we definitely wanted to go back every year (especially to HHN). We've been AP holders at Universal ever since, and have been going to HHN ever since HHN 25. This was our 6th HHN, and I was so happy to be back!


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Josh and I went from Sep 9th-12th, and stayed at Portofino Bay Resort. (I also spent 2 of the those HHN nights with Alyssa and Zack). Then I spent parts of the 13th & 14th with Michelle & Chris, & the 15th & 16th with Alyssa and Zack. (I also stayed at Saratoga Springs Resort during the Disney portion & Sapphire Falls for the last night). Due to flight changes I ended up going home about a day earlier than planned. HHN was incredible this year & I'm so glad I got to experience it.
Stay tuned if you want to hear about:
  • My 5 nights at HHN
  • & all my HHN 30 rankings/reviews
  • All the HHN 30 snacks (I'll post my DTR links for those)
  • My experience getting an interactive wand for the first time
  • A review of all the hotels I stayed at
  • If I felt Boo Bash was worth it
  • What I tried at Food & Wine this year
  • How I feel about Happily Ever After ending
  • Who won at MIB this time



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

  • HHN 30 & More

    And here's my DTR link:

    Food & Wine, HHN 30, & More
 
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Looking forward to reading along with this one so much Raeven.......and glad to hear it was such a successful trip.......:cheer2:
 
Hey glad to see another TR!! looking forward to hearing all about it! I love the way people meet on the boards and then make friends IRL. Years ago it used to seem odd to make friends online and a bit scary to meet in person, but I love that it's more normal now lol...and have done it a few times myself, and you always feel like old friends from the first meeting!
 

:wave2:

Looking forward to reading along with this one so much Raeven.......and glad to hear it was such a successful trip.......:cheer2:

Thanks for following along!

Hey glad to see another TR!! looking forward to hearing all about it! I love the way people meet on the boards and then make friends IRL. Years ago it used to seem odd to make friends online and a bit scary to meet in person, but I love that it's more normal now lol...and have done it a few times myself, and you always feel like old friends from the first meeting!

Thanks for following! Yes I love that the people I've met on here have become IRL friends!
 


Travel Day

Our travel day started verrryyyy early due to the changes Southwest had made to our flight. We had to get up at 2:45 am...:crazy2:
We were so early that the desk at the airport hadn't even opened yet.:rotfl:

Although it did say it was supposed to open at 4 am and we arrived after that. Once we got through it was all smooth sailing though. I grabbed a breakfast sandwich, and soon we were boarding our first flight. Our first flight was pretty short. Our next flight was about 2ish hours, and I watched a movie.

We got our bags pretty fast, and soon we were on our way to Portofino Bay!
This time we had a room in the East Wing which I don't think we've ever stayed in before. It was very easy to locate, and the decor was slightly different than the other rooms we've stayed in, but I really liked the colors.


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I love staying at Portofino Bay. The rooms feel so large, and they've also got a nice big bathroom too. It's a gorgeous resort and not too bad of a walk from the parks.

When we were in the other wing our room had a speaker in the bathroom, but this one didn't. Not sure if that's specific to one wing, or if that's something they changed since we last stayed. I kind of missed listening to trash tv while I was showering, but it wasn't a big loss. :rotfl:

We watched Killer Couples while we settled in, and the one we watched was so bizarre. This lady named Susan, had a vision that her name was "Suzan", and that started her crime spree.



Next we headed to NBC Grill!
The harbor is one of my favorite parts of Portofino Bay. It's absolutely gorgeous!
Here's one of the items we ordered at NBC Grill:


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But you'll have to read my DTR post to find out how we liked the food this time! :thumbsup2

Before HHN we had to take a nap.

Around 8 we got ready to go! We both wore Beetlejuice shirts for the occasion. :rotfl:


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I was so excited that we were finally at HHN!

We went through the first scare zone as we entered the park, and I have to say I wasn't super impressed with this one. The 30 Years, 30 Fears one I thought would involve the icons, which might've been my mistake, but I didn't recognize any of the characters in it. It's one we walked through most nights to enter the park, but other than that didn't pay much attention to. Although the entryway into it with the flames was pretty cool.

The waits were pretty long this night, and though we had EP we didn't do a ton of houses. Our first was Revenge of the Tooth Fairy. This one wasn't top of my list, but I did enjoy it. I thought the fairy monsters looked a little bit like the Weasel character in the new Suicide Squad though.:rotfl2:

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(Well maybe if you shaved him :rotfl:).

Next up we headed to the Tribute Store! I was so excited to see this store in person because it looked amazing this year.
It was really detailed and had a lot of great little things about the history of HHN throughout.

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Here's the busts of the Icons in the second room:

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I was trying not to buy too many things on the first night, but this cute little bat caught my eye. I thought maybe it had something to do with Legendary Truth? But I'm not entirely sure.

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After that we headed through Seek & Destroy which was okay, but also not my favorite scare zone, and then headed into CryptTv.

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So leading up to the event I watched many CryptTV shorts, especially the ones that were to be featured in the scare zone. I wasn't really impressed with most of them. I know they are supposed to be short, but most of them didn't even have a storyline or at least not a clear one just a monster popping up. Some of the monsters were kind of cool, but some of them didn't look that great. The one I liked best would probably be "The Door In the Woods". It was longer than the others, and actually had a story, but a lot of it was not focused on the monster.
I was not really expecting to like the CryptTV scare zone, but I really enjoyed all the photo ops, and little shows in that area. I also think being familiar with the shorts did help because if I hadn't watched any of them I don't think I'd have known what was going on in that scare zone at all.


Next up we did Puppet Theatre. I was really excited for this one because it reminded me of a really creepy Criminal Minds episode where the guy makes people into puppets.


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The house was just as awesome as we thought. There was guy in front of us that got scared by a scare actor who was hiding in a clothing rack, and he just stopped and went "hey good job!" :rotfl2: With our EP we only waited about 5 mins too.

This night was also the longest the food lines were, but I had to get some S'mores Fries.
We were getting pretty tired at this point, but we had to go through Beetlejuice since we were wearing our Beetlejuice shirts!


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Beetlejuice was a lot of fun, I especially loved that they had some of the big puppet scares because I always love looking at those. I've always wanted a Beetlejuice house and this didn't disappoint. (I'm going to rank the houses later on so I don't want to give too much away now).



On the way out we headed through the Terra Queen scare zone and Lights, Camera, Hacktion. I really liked both of these, and the last one was definitely my favorite. I loved seeing all the past scare zones recognized, and I remembered quite a few of them from past years. I also liked that many were on stages again because it made it easier to see and photograph them.

On the way back to the resort for some reason a lady was filming the entire inside of the water taxi with the flash on :confused:, but other than that it was an uneventful ride back.
Back at the resort we (well I mean I, because Josh instantly fell asleep :rotfl:) watched What We Do In the Shadows, and went to sleep.

Next Up

We head back into Universal Studios during the day before heading back to HHN!


 
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I enjoyed seeing your Halloween decorations. Halloween is one of my favorite times to decorate. You did a great job.


Great HHN photos.
 
While waiting in line you pass all these amazing desserts. I think the snacks at HHN this year were so creative, and I couldn't wait to try these.

How strategic of them!! I would have wanted everything...

Next up we did Puppet Theatre. I was really excited for this one because it reminded me of a really creepy Criminal Minds episode where the guy makes people into puppets.

I remember that episode...super creepy indeed!
 
I enjoyed seeing your Halloween decorations. Halloween is one of my favorite times to decorate. You did a great job.


Great HHN photos.

Thank you!

How strategic of them!! I would have wanted everything...



I remember that episode...super creepy indeed!

haha yes I did want everything! (& we tried quite a bit :rotfl:). That episode gives me chills whenever I watch it especially at the very end!
 
I remember that creepy episode too, it was very freaky even for that show!

Loving your pictures and S`mores fries is something I have to try and recreate at home for sure!!! Hope they were delicious.

Enjoying your decriptions of the houses so far, and yes, eagerly anticipating your final review of the order they fall into!
 
I remember that creepy episode too, it was very freaky even for that show!

Yes! The guy that plays Reid actually directed it. I think he's done a few and they're always the creepiest ones.

Loving your pictures and S`mores fries is something I have to try and recreate at home for sure!!! Hope they were delicious.

Thank you! S'mores fries would be fun to recreate at home!

Enjoying your decriptions of the houses so far, and yes, eagerly anticipating your final review of the order they fall into!

:thumbsup2
 
Surprise Dinners, HHN, & Haunted Masks

So to start this morning I realized I didn't bring any scissors to cut my moleskin. :rotfl: We decided to ask if they had any in the lobby because we've been able to borrow some at RPR before. Well...the guy told Josh they could cut it, but even if they watched me do it they couldn't let me have the scissors. I get the policy of not giving customers’ scissors, but could see why people might need to borrow something like that in a hotel? They heavily implied it was because they didn't know what we'd do with them.

And while I wouldn't argue their policy that seems like a strange stance. We were able to find children's craft scissors at the store in the hotel which was surprising (I don't think I've ever seen scissors in a hotel's store), but they worked for what we needed them for. (The other thing I was confused about was why they didn't just refer us to the store to buy some, but I don't know if they even knew they were there).

With that problem sorted we were off to the parks!


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I wanted to check out this display in the store at front of Universal Studios:

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I also ended up in the tribute store again where I bought the annual passholder tee, and Josh wanted the Beetlejuice socks.

I tried some tribute store snacks, but I'll save that for the DTR post. :thumbsup2

We rode Men In Black and Josh actually beat me this time!

Only by a little bit though....


On the way out I saw an HHN spirit jersey that I had to have. I hadn't seen it before, and I think they may have been put out that day. This is what it looks like:

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We had gone to the parks kind of late so we had to hurry back to the hotel to get ready for our dinner reservation.

I think I explained this in the intro, but we found out less than a week from leaving that Josh wouldn't be able to stay the whole time. For awhile we weren't sure he'd be able to go at all, but he was able to stay until Sunday morning. Because he'd only be there for a short window of time I decided to book a little surprise for him. We never really had our anniversary dinner a few weeks before because we were waiting to have it on the trip so I booked The Palm! He really liked it last time we went, and I was hoping I'd enjoy it more this time.


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I've been a little slower updating my DTR, so when I get to the next day's post on here, I'll also include a link to my review of The Palm (and the other things we ate this day).



Ready for HHN!

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(I got that shirt on Etsy and I liked it a lot better than the Hill House shirts they had at the event).

The first house we did tonight was the Icons house!


I liked this house, and it made me wish I'd be going longer so I'd actually experienced the years with the other icons. (I've only been on years when Jack & Chance were the icons).

Then we went to the CryptTV scare zone. I think I mentioned this in my last post, but I watched a lot of these shorts and wasn't really impressed with many of them, but I did think this scare zone was a lot of fun for pictures.
I don't remember which monster this is, but I liked how this picture came out :rotfl:


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Krampus really liked sniffing people's hair:
:rotfl:


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Next we went through Wicked Growth.

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This was my favorite one so far! I've heard a lot of people say this was the best house at the event, and I agree. This was one I didn't think I would like much based on the description, but it was so much better than the description implied.

We had to do Hill House.

Besides the people in front of us covering their eyes and screaming the whole way through, and the fact that no one says the phrase "screaming meemie" in the whole house this house was really cool, and definitely one you'd have to go through more than once to see everything. I love the show, and I really liked how they made it into a house.

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Lights, Camera, Hacktion:

I finally got my chance to take a picture with the Invasion alien. :rotfl:


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I think this scare zone was at HHN 27, and I liked it a lot. However I couldn't get the alien to stay still long enough to take a photo with me.

For our last house we went in the Legendary Truth one. (I did go through it another time and it cleared things up for me), but the first time they had us go through it so fast that it was hard to grasp the story. I took it to be kind of like a Men of Letters thing like in Supernatural where a group had been hunting the supernatural throughout time. This was kind of the opposite of the Wicked Growth house where based on the summary I thought this one sounded like paranormal investigators in a haunted house, but the actual house was very different than I thought.

Back at the hotel we watched a haunting show about a lady with a bunch of haunted masks. They kept telling her to get rid of them, but she just kept buying more. :rotfl: I wasn't sure if they were claiming the haunting was making her buy more or if she just kept buying them because she thought they looked cool. But they'd find trails of things that led to the masks, and her son would be like "mom they're haunted", and she'd be like "No, not those strange masks I found in a weird store that a psychic told me were haunted".



Here's the dining review from the last post:


NBC Grill Review

Next Up

I get my first wand & meet up with Alyssa and Zack at HHN!


 
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You look beautiful in that dress, it is stunning!!

I love your pictures....I know I sound like a broken record, but you do take such good images.....

What a fun night.....loved reading about it and glad you got your picture with the alien finally lol......

That spirit top is reminiscent of Freddie Kreuger somehow from the back! And Krampus with the hair.....I read someone else say that somewhere......love a spooky santa!

I`m looking forward to your review of The Palm....I made a reservation for one of my cousins when they stayed at RP last month, and I was so happy she had a lovely experience...hope yours was as good and that was a lovely surprise for Josh!
 

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