By Alicia Civita. Posted October 30, 2015 at 11:09AM on “UO Close Up,” the official Universal Orlando blog:
Terror is not my thing, but nothing could have stopped me from sharing with my son his first Halloween Horror Nights, the extraordinary event that Universal Orlando Resort has been organizing for the last 25 years.
He should have been a Halloween baby (it was his due date, although he was actually born on November 3rd) and it shows. He LOVES everything horror related.
Unfortunately—or fortunately, depending whom you ask—he also scares easily. So it took him four years—and an invitation from Universal Orlando around his 13th birthday—to convince me that he was ready for the adventure of Halloween Horror Nights.
However, there was a condition: Whatever happened, this was a one-time thing. What was I thinking!
Following advice from friends that had visited before, we stayed in the park while Universal Studios was transformed into the space where your fears live. This meant that we were among the first people to roam the five scare zones. The level of detail of the decoration rivals any movie or television set. Not to mention the makeup and costumes. Even a handsome prince looks terrifying, don’t you think?
It was a good idea to be there early, so we could see some of it on daylight. This seems ideal for families with young tweens or teens. As the night sets in, the atmosphere gets more and more intense.
For one thing, we will never listen to a chain-saw again without remembering that night. A lot of the scareactors—what Universal Orlando calls the lucky people who get to dress up and scare the bejesus out of you—carry a special version of this tool and are not shy to chase you if you show them any kind of fear.
My boy soon discovered, it was more fun to see them scare other people, so we showed them our biggest smile and ask them for a photo, or a selfie.
It was way harder not to jump, scream or even almost lose control of bodily functions once we were inside the haunted houses. After going through a few of the houses, I was more than happy to wait outside while waiting for my husband and son, who visited all nine of the haunted houses
As much as I hate to send mix messages to my children, I have already told our son to forget about my initial warning. Not only we will happily take him to Halloween Horror Nights next year, but we plan to make it a family tradition. It’s just that fun, both for scaredy-cats like me and for fear lovers like my husband and my son.
After all, it’s the best Halloween party in the world!
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