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Jason

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Everything posted by Jason

  1. 1. American Werewolf 2. Cabin in the Woods 3. Evil Dead 4. La Llorona 5. Resident Evil 6. After Life 7. The Walking Dead 8. Havoc
  2. Jason

    10/16/2013

    I have to say that I had a ton of fun and am glad I was able to make it to the event this year after missing last years event due to we'll call it a difference of opinion. Last year was the first year I'd missed since 2002 so I was extremely bummed to have missed one, but getting back into it this year was exactly what I needed. My girlfriend and I decided to make a 3 day trip out of my birthday this year so we decided to get a campsite at Fort Wilderness which is something we'd never done before and hit as much as we possibly could over those 3 days. We decided on a campsite because with our schedule we wouldn't be spending a lot of time in the room so a tent fit our needs perfectly. We checked in on the 16th, and started at the extremely busy Magic Kingdom. We then went and checked into our campsite, set up our tent and then beat feet to Universal to get our evening started. We got to Universal around 3p and picked up our tickets and express passes before heading inside. We walked around the park for a few hours and took in the various set pieces that were scattered about the park, scoped out the location of all the houses and rode all the rides so we wouldn't have to worry about them at night. Since we were already inside the park we decided to take advantage of the 'Stay and Scream' holding area at Finnegans which is something we'd never done before as we'd always arrived prior to gates opening but not early enough to make it inside the park before daytime closing. From an outsider looking in it seemed a bit disorderly and confusing but they got the job done and we had no issues getting where we needed to be. One thing I wasn't aware of was that each S&S location was given access to one of the haunted houses before everyone else and then you were able to roam to the other houses by the other S&S locations. This was a nice little perk as the holding area at Finnegans was walked directly over to The American werewolf house which was the house that I was the most looking forward to experiencing so that was awesome. After the park was clear of daytime guests we were gaggled over to the American werewolf house and brought right into the queue line without having to use our express passes! It was kind of cool being one of the first dozen people through the house that evening. I came into this house with some really high expectations as the TBT had done quite a nice spread on this house and its puppets, set pieces, etc. I can safely say that I enjoyed this house quite a bit! The puppets, the sets, the actors, everything was awesome. I got my 2 biggest scares of the night in this house on this initial walk through so the night definitely started on a very high note. After the American werewolf house we headed over to the other houses that were being offered to S&S guests and the next one we came upon was the Cabin in the woods house. It already had a 20 minute posted wait time so we decided to go ahead and use our express passes as we only had 1 night to see everything and I wanted to see everything! The CitW house was great! Another house that delivered high quality sets and atmosphere! The cast working inside this house definitely put on a great show! This house would end up being my girlfriends favorite house of the night. Once we got out of the CitW house we headed over to The Walking Dead. This house wasn't super high on my list as i'm not a huge Walking Dead fan and hadn't really watched the shows (but I'm planning on jumping on that bandwagon soon). This house advertised a 5 minute wait so again we decided to save our express passes. Overall I enjoyed the house and some of the scenes were really cool but this house hit middle of the road for me as far as favorites go. After TWD we were in a pretty good situation to hit several houses in pretty quick order. As we were walking through the exit of TWD we were able to jump into the line of La Llorona without having to go all the way back up to the front of the kidzone. Thanks to that random team member for saving everyone a lengthy walk, and once again no need for express passes! I didn't go into La Llorona with super high expectations but I definitely walked out a fan! I thought they did a great job with what could potentially be an extremely touchy subject. I had a lot of fun going through this house! Since La Llorona exited right next to After Life we jumped right into that queue line and again no need for express passes so we could save those uses for later! I've always been a big fan of 3D houses, I don't know what it is about them but I've always thoroughly enjoyed them. Don't get me wrong I enjoyed this one, but I don't think it was executed as well as some their others in the past or as well as some of the 3D houses from their neighbors in Tampa. From After Life since we were making great time through the houses and still had a lot of unused scans on our express passes we decided to slow it down a bit, have a couple drinks, enjoy the scare zones and casually meander over to Resident Evil. At this point the haunted house waits were starting to climb pretty drastically so we started relying on our express passes to help us get through the remaining 3 houses. So our first stop was Resident Evil. My anticipation for this house was again pretty middle of the road and after going through it stayed pretty middle of the road for me. I enjoyed it but it didn't leave a super long lasting impression and it seemed to be over REALLY quick. The next house we hit was The Evil Dead. I'm a big fan of this franchise and I was looking forward to this house. I thought they did a really good job telling the story and producing high quality sets all the way through. The last house we had to hit before we focused on 2nd walk throughs and shows was Havoc. I thoroughly enjoyed the original version of this house so I was looking forward to seeing what they would do this time. Unfortunately I don't think it was as solid this time around as it originally was. I thought some of the actors put a heck of a show forward and some of the sets were really cool but I left slightly disappointed. We'd managed to hit all 8 haunted houses and only had to use our express passes on about half of the houses. My girlfriend really wanted to see the Rocky Horror tribute show and I had to see B&T before leaving and there were some houses we wanted to try and hit again since we hadn't had to use our express passes. Thankfully it was still early enough that this was all possible! We went right over to American werewolf and hit that house a 2nd time utilizing our express passes. The 2nd time was just as awesome as the first time. I once again thoroughly enjoyed it and was able to focus more on the sets and get more out of it. After our second walk of werewolf it was time to grab another drink and get a good spot for the Rocky Horror tribute show. We both had recently gotten into seeing the live stage shows in Tampa on Saturday nights so we were both looking forward to seeing Universal's job of truncating the movie down into a 30 minute show. We were both blown away! The entire production was sensational! The audience participation, the performers, everything was great! We both thoroughly enjoyed the show and wished we'd had more time to try and see it a 2nd time. My only complaint is that there was no Meatloaf! We were lining ourselves up to see the last B&T of the night but we had a little bit of time to spare. We thought about trying to re-do another house but we didn't want to risk not getting a good seat so we once again grabbed another drink and queued up nice and early and got primo seats just behind all the reserved seating center stage. As always I enjoyed the slightly risqué comedy and the general adult theme of everything but I felt like it wasn't what it had been in years past. Not my favorite year of B&T but not my least favorite either. We had just enough time to see 1 more haunted house before the event closed at midnight and since I got to see American werewolf twice my girlfriend wanted to see La Llorona again, and just as the first time we enjoyed it just as much. The scare zones overall were ok. I know Universal is all about riding The Walking Dead train as far as they can but enough is enough as far as I'm concerned. You've got a haunted house, all the scare zones and most of the merchandise was brandished with TWD. Maybe if I were a bigger fan of the series my opinion would be different, but meh it's my opinion. I enjoyed the scare zones for what they were. There was definitely a few stand out actors and they did a good job with the little mini shows or whatever you'd like to call them but overall they were just ok. I was excited to see the chainsaw drill team again and watching them torment the crowd will always be a favorite of mine. Overall I was very pleased with the event and definitely stoked I was able to make it out this year. I'm truly looking forward to continuing my visitation of the event for years to come! Here's how the cards fell for me: 1. American Werewolf 2. Cabin in the Woods 3. Evil Dead 4. La Llorona 5. Resident Evil 6. After Life 7. The Walking Dead 8. Havoc
  3. Cigarz definitely gets my vote. Their beers are fairly priced, and like everyone else has stated it's not usually very crowded. Finnegan's is another favorite solely for having Guiness on tap. I did try the bar upstairs at NBA City the year before last and It was good, but not somewhere I'd feel the need to go regularly.
  4. That is correct. The Navy calls it A-School, or Tech School if I'm not mistaken.
  5. The dancing security guard is epic! I love that guy!
  6. Leave it to Cleaver definitely gets my vote. I walked into this house really having absolutely no idea what to expect, and I walked out a believer! This house was almost my favorite house last year. The scares were on point, the scenes were great and who could forget about Meaty Meatz! He's what really made this house for me.
  7. This reminds me a lot of the back story for Jack in one way or another. It's funny that he was somewhat involved with your dream.
  8. So there has been further deterioration of the photographs, and we're still waiting for a further release from Senior Staff of the C.I.L. On one of the photographs it almost looks like you're looking at a portrait of someone, or a group of people.
  9. Congratulations and best of you luck to you guys for deciding to enlist. I enlisted in the Florida Army National Guard, and I barely made HHN in 2007. I graduated from AIT on November 1st, and made it to the event on the 2nd. Again guys, good luck with your enlistments, and I'd be happy to have a drink with any of you.
  10. RUN back in it's original form would be epic. I feel like there is going to be a lot of that. Where we may have new ideas for houses, etc but also a lot of recurring ideas or scenes. A lot of culminating seems like it would make sense, like a lot of other people have been saying especially with the scare zones and shows. It all could just be a continuation of old ideas, or maybe a way to tie it all together and give it an appropriate ending?
  11. I'd love it if some of the roles cast for the Hollywood show would also be cast for the Orlando show, but it doesn't seem like it from the lists. For example, Mel Gibson. They could use him in the Orlando show even if they didn't physically cast someone for his role by just having one of the characters receive a violent voicemail from him. That would be hilarious. Jersey Shore seems like it would be an obvious choice, especially now that they've invaded Southern Florida, but I guess we'll see on that one. As far as themes go for the show, BP seems like such an obvious choice. I mean you already have parodies of the oil spill all over the place, like BP Spills Coffee on Youtube. I'm sure Universal can think of another way to turn that situation around. Another one I had thought of was the World Cup. That was a huge thing earlier this year, and maybe they can make it a giant competition between the characters or something. I know I'm stretching for it a little bit here, but the thought just came to me. If nothing else they could probably bring it up somehow in the show.
  12. All the evil from the past 20 years culminating in a giant evil mosh-pit if you will. The lantern is the initiator, which gives us the pieces to our puzzle. All the terror comes together when the pieces are put together. The puzzle is the center of the world of evil, and ultimately leads to our demise. Each piece to the puzzle bring us one step closer to total and utter terror, thanks to the lantern. Maybe the LT is trying to prevent the puzzle from being completed, by feeding us these clues and telling us that what we're being told isn't the truth.
  13. That is beyond great, thank you so much! I greatly appreciate it! Jason
  14. One of my biggest Pet Peeves is when guests bring in their glow in the dark/ light up necklaces, bracelets, souvenir cups, etc. If you bring it in, turn it off or cover it up so that it doesn't take away from the experience of the maze. I voted for mazes not being dark enough, but this is the angle that I'm looking at it from. Not so much that Universal doesn't make it dark enough, but that guests find someway to detract from the experience by trying to brighten up their walk thru.
  15. Reaper, I was curious if you'd be willing to make me a sig? I'm just looking for something dark and ominous featuring the Caretaker, with my name on it. I'm also looking for just a simple avatar featuring the Caretaker if possible. Other than that I'm completely open! Thank you in advance, and I appreciate it. Jason
  16. To answer the questions of the poll, yes and yes to have a better time! Much like just about everyone else who is of legal drinking age I do enjoy drinking while I'm at the event. I do tend to pre-game before coming to the event as it is more expensive to drink while I'm at the event instead of elsewhere off property. However last year Cigarz did have a great deal for employees at their bar, so I did spend a good bit of time at Cigarz before actually venturing thru the entrance turnstiles. When I'm at the event I might buy a few drinks, but the very conveniently placed bars in the middle of the queue lines are quite tempting. I don't go to the event looking to get hammered, but I do go to the event trying to maintain a buzz as like others have said, it helps the experience by seemingly making one more jumpy. Drinking at HHN is like drinking at any other large scale event like a hockey game or a concert. If it is something that is offered up to us, and we're legally allowed to do it then we're going to do it. Many people do it just to get into the event a bit more, it's all about being social. It is an individuals responsibility to know their limits, and to not get sloppy drunk and end up causing a scene. As long as people are able to do it responsibly I 100% support drinking at HHN, and I'll be there beer in hand!
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