Retro digital photo essays from DisneyFans.com. Home of the Universal Orlando Resort Garden Walk maps.
I have now sorted the latest SeaWord Orlandos enough that they are ready to share. This batch includes a daytime visit to the park when family Halloween festivities were going on, and an evening/night visit to Howl-O-Scream. This will bring the total Universal-SeaWorld photo gallery to over 38,000 images.
It will take a few days to get everything processed and uploaded, but when complete, they will appear here:
More to come…
Photos from this year’s Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Florida and Howl-O-Scream at SeaWorld Orlando will be added to the gallery in coming weeks. We were able to visit all ten haunted houses, the scare zones, and the one (!) show at Universal, and also all five haunted houses, the scare zones and three (!) of the four shows at SeaWorld Orlando.
While Universal’s offerings had zero scares (the only time we heard anyone scream all night was from a chainsaw in a scare zone), they sure were amazing walk through theatrical experiences.
SeaWorld, however, actually had real haunted houses — letting in groups rather than a large conga line. The groups were too big so most scares were spoiled, but we were certainly startled many times during that four hour event (mostly in the scare zones).
Over at my Des Moines Haunted Houses website project, folks there know I scream like a little girl and am a pretty easy target. Seeing these two big theme park haunts be so tame was a surprise — especially with the reputation of HHN being one of the biggest haunt events in the nation.
More to come, and much more to say…
NOTE: This post was originally written a few years ago.
I was working for a startup tech company in Silicon Valley when 9/11 happened. I remember going to the lobby of the hotel I was staying at and the front desk clerk saying “I hope you weren’t flying out today.” I was not, and I had no idea why she said that.
After the hotel shuttle dropped me off at work, I learned of what was going on. I spent my work day distracted as I kept an eye on news websites. Many must have been doing the same, as “big” news sites were reverting to very sparse, simple web pages to keep up with the traffic.
And even though Disneyland and Walt Disney World were far away from the attacks, the parks closed — something they rarely did. If you tried to go to the official websites, you saw the following:
It took years for tourism to recover. Hotels closed. Disney projects were canceled. But recover it did, and here we are, almost twenty years later, with some of the busiest parks and largest expansions those parks have ever seen.
Today, as we “Never Forget,” I hope all continue to move forward.
Until next time…
Within a short four hour drive is a place called House on the Rock. Folks have been telling me about it for the past two decades, but I knew nothing about it. I have now visited it, and think I still know nothing about it.
A short drive from there is Wisconsin Dells, home of endless tourist traps such as Top Secret, Ghost Outpost, Haunted Mansion and Lost Temple. Some higher end attractions such as Wizard Quest (in a new location) and Ripley’s Believe it or Not make this a great way to spend part of a day.
I have about 1900 photos from House on the Rock I need to sort then share, and hundreds more from spots in the Dells.
What a short, strange trip it was. And on the drive home, we found Hook’s Cheese Company where they actually make cheese, and had a small refrigerator of their cheeses for sale.
I was fooled by the House on the Rock, but some quick research when I got back home explained a lot of what I saw. And now I am even more impressed.
More to come…
Tracks from the official Universal Studios Escape (as it was known back then) Islands of Adventure theme park have been posted to the official Universal Orlando Resort (as it is known today) YouTube channel:
https://youtube.com/@UniversalOrlando
The soundtrack was released for the 1999 opening, I believe, but these tracks are listed as being from a “2000 reissue” version. I may have the original disc somewhere, and I know it had many more tracks than what have been shared so far.
I am just hoping the crazy track from Toon Lagoon makes it. The custom soundtracks were one of the best things about Islands of Adventure. Toon Lagoon especially stood out with its massive multi-track arrangement with speakers all over the land playing parts of the looping soundtrack. (This would be done two years later with the opening of Disney’s California Adventure when it had something similar for the Paradise Pier section of the park.)
Enjoy!
The Theme Parks gallery has been updated with a batch of photos from Lost Island Themepark in Iowa:
http://themeparks.disneyfans.com
The Other Places gallery has also received a huge update, adding photos taken as far back as 2015 from events and places in Iowa, Texas, Illinois and more.
These include:
There are still dozens of galleries to be sorted and added, but this is at least progress.
I have seen so many videos taken at Universal Orlando Resort on attractions that specifically forbid photos or video recording. I wondered if there was some kind of exception for video bloggers, so I asked…
Please know that Universal Orlando Resort does not condone the behavior you described of these YouTube vloggers. For the safety of our Guests, as well as show quality when applicable, we do not allow filming, flash photography, or Go-Pro style mounted cameras on our attractions.
Universal Orlando Resort Guest Communications
So, yeah. I guess all the signs that say don’t do it actually are there because you aren’t supposed to do it.
Updates:
I created some Google Maps layers that show the walking path (called “Garden Walk”) between the on-site hotels and the park entrances. It includes markers for the boat docks, bus dropoffs and security checkpoints, as well. You can enable just the items you want to see. (For example, you only care about the walking route from Aventura to Universal Studios Florida.)
West Side – Cabana Bay, Sapphire Falls, Royal Pacific (for Aventura, you can walk across the parking lot to Sapphire Falls and then use their map)
https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1rqDurcJoaW48Ppmmxk-yXpuHxbJphBA3&usp=sharing
East Side – Hard Rock, Portofino Bay
https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?mid=12rcfdPcjgizN3UQ8KPZqchAdG1eJUxF1&usp=sharing
Enable the “Legend” to see the different layers you can turn on.
Please comment if you find any mistakes, or if you have items that should be added.
Haunted Mansion, not to be confused with The Haunted Mansion (2003), opened in theaters today. Since most of the movie is set in the mansion, product placement was not as easy to do. Watch for verbal references to:
What others did you notice? Please leave a comment and I will update the list.
After an initial attempt to sell tickets on July 6th, ticket sells resumed on July 11th. A short time before the selling queue opened at 9 a.m. PST, folks were able to join a holding queue which was (so we are told) going to randomly insert us in the actual ticket queue.
I was there before 9 a.m., and remained in the queue until just after 8 p.m. PST when all tickets were sold out.
During the day, the screen would update as certain days became “limited” or sold out. I took screenshots every time I noticed a change, and if there is interest, I’ll write a post that shows which dates sold out first.
It was quite the waste of a day. And this, my friends, is the same company that folks are saying is in financial trouble because Indy is only the 12th highest grossing film in the world, currently.
Until next time…
