Orlando Halloween Attractions 09'

This time of year has been one of my favorite for many years now. (actually now that I think about it I can’t remember when I never liked this time of year!) Getting free candy from trick or treating has been one of my favorite things to do since I can remember. Unfortunately for the majority of my childhood I lived up north and was not able to part take in the many activities Orlando had to offer. However since I’ve moved down to this wonderful city I’ve been to every Halloween attraction that every park had to offer and had a great time at each and every one of them. The first park I visited was actually not so scary at all, considering the fact it was geared towards children. I took my niece to the Sea World Spooktacular which was a very interesting event, she was able to dress up in her costume and go trick or treating all around Sea World. We also got to “meet” some interesting sea creatures and even see some of Orlando’s favorite aquatic animals perform a unique Halloween show. Since my niece was only in town for a few days I decided to take her to as many Halloween themed attractions as possible in such a short time, the next one I attended was Mickey's Not-So-Scary Halloween Party. This event offered almost the same things as Sea World however the magical Disney touch impacted this event by a long shot, there’s just some things Disney does that cant be measured that make the events magical and fun for the children and adults, my favorite part of this event was the Happy Hallowishes with all of the fireworks themed as if the Disney villains go trick or treating in the sky. My personal favorite event this year was Gator Hollow which was hosted at Gatorland, this event was unlike any other Halloween event I’ve ever been too-first off costumes were not allowed but that was no problem at all, with all of the things Gatorland has to offer there would be no time to Trick-or-Treat which would rule out the need for a costume. The storyline to Gator Hollow was pretty unique- Zombies vs. Aliens competing to see who will take over mankind and not only is that bad enough the act takes place deep into the swamp where you are surrounded by hungry American Alligators. Over the course of the next couple weeks I ventured to some of Central Florida’s more popular Halloween themed attractions. The first one I attended was Busch Garden’s signature Howl-O-Scream this year the theme was Vampires, for this event you had to be the age of 18 or older which was a great sign that it would be a very scary event. Every single one of the haunted houses was as scary as can be, as part of my job I had to write brief descriptions of what these houses were to be like and I can honestly say the descriptions make the houses sound like playhouses compared to what they really are, all sorts of scary things were constantly jumping and popping out of nowhere every time you’d least expect it the best part about the Howl-o—Scream attraction is that we are able to ride the roller coasters all night along with going into the houses. The last event I attended was Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights and it was okay, it was better than last years attempt however the thing that I’ve disliked about Halloween Horror Nights is that only a select few of the rides are open to a certain time. The fact that the rides are closed means two things 1) There are less things to do 2) More people are in line for the haunted houses making the lines unbelievably long at times. The houses were relatively scary but it honestly wasn’t worth the 1+ hour wait. Overall this year was a great year for Halloween attractions in Orlando. Gatorland’s new addition has become a personal favorite of mine and I hope they continue to do it next year as well as far as the events geared towards children they were great too!