September 9th marked the first night of SeaWorld Orlando’s second year of Howl-O-Scream SeaWorld. This year at the event, there are more scare zones, more houses, and more screams! The event features the sirens of the lagoon wreaking havoc on parkgoers. This was my first year experiencing this haunt and I’ve got the good, the bad, and the creepy!
This event is a lot of fun — emphasis on fun. This is not a Halloween Horror Nights clone and, honestly, I say that’s a good thing. The seven different scare zones aren’t trying to be “horrifying” and get as many scares out of you as possible. We walked around and saw scare actors engaging in spooky comedic conversations with guests. Side note: Deadly Ambush has an RV in its zone and you better not touch it!
Now, does this mean they aren’t trying to scare you, Absolutely not! The scares are there and the tag teaming these actors are doing is fantastic. They’ve mastered the art of misdirection by distracting you while another performer sneaks up on you and scares the crap out of you!
Don’t touch the RV! You’ve been warned!
Next, we have to talk about the event entertainment. The shows offered at SeaWorld's Howl-O-Scream are so good! First, let’s talk about the weakest show — and by weakest, I mean one that needs tweaks at best. A new show to the event this year, Lurking in the Depths: An Adventure Tale is a comedy show featuring Hudd who is a monster hunter. He tells you the story of the Sirens and how he’s been hunting them. This show was fine, however, there were audio issues and it ends abruptly. The audience sat there for about a minute in silence before we knew it was over.
Next, there was Sirens Song. This show features all of the sirens and explains why they are here and doing what they are doing. It’s a fun show with stages set all around the audience, so there isn’t a bad seat. The runtime is about 15 minutes, which was a perfect length for a show like this.
Lastly, we have Monster Stomp: Slasher Alley. This is the fan-favorite show, and as soon as it starts, you see why. The dancing was incredible. The singing was great. The story…well, okay, the story was a little silly, but that’s expected at a theme park. I mean, Jack the Ripper singing 2000s hits while killing his victims isn’t exactly going to be a Broadway hit, but for this event it was perfect. The skeleton dance was the best and the knife drummers were excellent. Overall, this is the best show at the event. There is also another new show Lost Souls that we, unfortunately, couldn’t get into because there is limited seating. The show is described as a drag cabaret and if you’ve been to anything featuring drag queens you know this is a must!
Okay, let’s talk about the houses. There are a total of five haunted houses in the park. When it comes down to it, these haunted houses are fine for this event. You have to remember SeaWorld can only work with what they have. They don’t have massive soundstages or unused land like Universal has. So, these houses are small and in existing structures, but that doesn’t mean they are bad. The first house we did was Blood Beckoning and it was alright (but it was much better at night). The top two houses in my opinion were Siren of The Seas — a haunted cruise ship that offered a bunch of scares and jumps. The next best house was Beneath the Ice. This house was at the event last year and is in the old Wild Arctic queue. In my opinion, this one is their strongest and should be the first house you do. Plus, all the other houses are outside and are best experienced in the dark.
Captain’s Revenge: Drowned in Darkness A Pirate themed haunted house filled with plenty of treasure!
Finally, let’s talk about food and merchandise. The merch is pretty good for a small event like this. There are plenty of t-shirts and cups for every spooky creature in your group. Among those was a light-up that will turn off on its own after a certain amount of time. Anyone who’s had those light-up cups has drained the batteries quickly. There’s a photo op with Scratch the Siren. However, the one item I suggest everyone gets is the light-up skull. This thing is awesome! Yes it’s expensive and, yes, it’s just a necklace that you wear around the park — but there’s a catch. You can fill the skull with water and it becomes your own personal fog machine! Not only that but it also connects to the area of the park you are in and will light up and blow fog out differently depending on where you are. The best part is that, if you have it on the interactive mode, it will turn off when you enter the house so you don’t have to remember to do it yourself. Also if you are worried about having to fill it with water all night, we filled our skulls up once and the fog still worked the next day.
Glow fog skull, event t-shirt, and light up sipper!
As for the food, it’s interesting. There is Crawling Cravings, a quick service restaurant that features actual insects in all of their offerings, such as the Chipotle Cricket Sandwich: a crispy chicken sandwich with dehydrated crickets. Or there’s the Ant Pretzel Rod, a crunchy pretzel dipped in white chocolate and topped with ants. Then there is Jack the Ripper Eats featuring a burger, candy apple and the stand-out item Ripped Up Ribs. Deep-fried ribs topped with pickled red onions, it was delicious! Don’t forget if you get thirsty there are five themed bars throughout the event area with lots to see and even more to drink.
Howl-O-Scream Orlando is a perfect event to bring someone who isn’t brave enough for Halloween Horror Nights but loves spooky stuff. There’s a perfect level of fear but it’s not overdone.
This is an event I’d bring someone to who’s never experienced a theme park haunted event before. I’d say it’s a perfect event to introduce younger eager fans to events similar. Howl-O-Scream opened its gates on September 9th and will continue haunting through October 31st. Don’t miss out on this fairly new but promising event! They’ve just scratched the surface.