Marc N. Kleinhenz

Just in case this morning’s big SeaWorld Orlando news – revolving around the family-friendly Ice Breaker roller coaster – wasn’t enough for you, the company decided to one-up itself by announcing another new ride, this time coming to Busch Gardens Tampa. Iron Gwazi is the “evolution” of the original Gwazi, which originally opened in 1999 […]

SeaWorld is currently celebrating its “best year ever,” starting at the end of 2018 and continuing up until this fall, with the opening of such heavyhitters as the Infinity Falls water ride and the Sesame Street children’s theme-park land (and – oh, yeah – let’s not forget all the weekly festivals and revamped season pass […]

Let’s just come right out and say it: Halloween Horror Nights has continued to get bigger and better with nearly every single year. Part of this progression has had to do with Universal’s continuing acquisition of bigger-name intellectual properties, starting with The Walking Dead in 2012 and arriving now at Stranger Things, which has brought […]

After 11 comic book issues, four novels, and one short-story anthology, we’ve finally come to the end of Disney’s Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge publishing program, which endeavors to tie the brand-new theme-park land into the greater Star Wars mythos. And what an interweaving it is – this month’s two books of Galaxy’s Edge: A Crash […]

We got a little taste of what the D23 expo was going to have in store for us this year, but today’s the day when everything gets fully revealed and officially detailed (or as much detail as Disney is willing to divulge, at least!). Called “Sneak Peek! Disney Parks, Experiences, and Products,” today’s big panel […]

The biennial D23 expo kicks off at Anaheim, California today, Friday, August 23, and will run throughout the entire weekend, drawing to a close at 7:00 pm PDT on Sunday evening. While celebrating all forms of media and entertainment that the Disney empire now consists of (a status which is made all the truer by […]

At 7:00 pm tonight, on August 16, Disney officially kicked off the Halloween season in Central Florida by starting its Mickey’s Not-So-Scary Halloween Party, located at Magic Kingdom. This relatively late addition to Walt Disney World’s annual-events roster has easily become one of the most popular at the resort – as its earlier-than-ever start date […]

It used to be par the course for Halloween Horror Nights to feature multiple live shows, but when Bill & Ted’s Excellent Halloween Adventure was cancelled after its 27th season in 2017, Universal allowed its entertainment roster to dip to just one entry. This year, however, the company is setting the production ship straight again […]

It’s the homecoming that we never thought we’d see: Rob Zombie is returning to Halloween Horror Nights, along with his signature creation, House of a 1,000 Corpses. We say “returning” because – well, it’s a long, wild story. You better sit back and strap yourself in. With Horror Nights really starting to take off at […]

Universal told us right from the very beginning of Halloween Horror Nights 2019’s announcement cycle that we would be getting a grand total of five scare zones. While this meant we knew that this year’s event would have the same number of themed areas as the past few years’, what remained unknown was what the […]

Prepare to dance with ghosts in the graveyard. Well, perhaps we should make that “run from” – Graveyard Games has just been revealed as the last original haunted house at this year’s Halloween Horror Nights. As the name might suggest, this latest haunt is a (gorier) riff on the classic children’s game, Ghost in the […]

Jordan Peele was already a well-known commodity when he wrote and directed his first film, 2017’s horror-tinged Get Out: he served as a long-time cast member on Mad TV, the sketch comedy series, before co-creating and -starring in another, Key & Peele; starring in or showrunning a slew of other television productions – Fargo, The […]

Yes, we’ve already received the novel Thrawn: Alliances, which saw Grand Admiral Thrawn and Darth Vader be dispatched to the remote world of Batuu on a secret mission for Emperor Palpatine in the final days before the original Star Wars trilogy, and we’ve gotten the young-adult book Pirate’s Price, which contains the fully-fleshed-out backstory of […]

We know that Universal opted to kick off this year’s Halloween Horror Nights announcement season with the little nugget that Stranger Things would be returning for the second year in a row. We also know, thanks to posts from Universal’s various attached Twitter accounts, that the vast majority of the haunted house will be devoted […]

Be the first to know more about Epic Universe by signing up for email updates! Yesterday, Universal went ahead and did what all of us were openly hoping for: it revealed its fourth park at its Orlando resort, Epic Universe. The announcement itself didn’t come with a bevy of specifics – there was no talk […]

The future of Universal Orlando Resort has never looked brighter: Universal has today revealed that it will be building a third theme park, called Epic Universe, and placing it on a second parcel of land (well, the third, if you count the 64-acre chunk that Endless Summer Resort sits on) that is situated some 15 minutes […]

Universal throws several big parties over the course of the year at its Orlando resort, and these special celebrations are some of the most fun you could possibly have at Universal Studios Florida or the various hotels. But what if you could only attend one, due to either scheduling or expense? Or what if you […]

Celebrating Christmas in July? Good – it’ll whet your appetite for the real deal (which is just around the corner now!). Much as it has for the past few years, Disney has decided to experiment a bit with its 2019 holiday festivities at Walt Disney World Resort, adding a few new elements while still including […]

Attendees of the ‘80s-themed Halloween Horror Nights last year got an unexpected treat: a scare zone based off of the 1988 cult classic Killer Klowns from Outer Space. Though not a particularly large zone, situated on the waterfront in the New York backlot, it was still jam-packed with a surprisingly large number of elements from […]

Who you gonna call? If you’re Universal and you’re looking to fill up the roster of this year’s Halloween Horror Nights, the answer, of course, is the Ghostbusters, one of the biggest names in comedy/horror over the past three-and-a-half decades (and a property that is celebrating its 35th anniversary this month!). Indeed, despite long gaps […]

One of the greatest strengths – not to mention draws – of Halloween Horror Nights each and every year is how Universal manages to build in a great deal of versatility into its haunted-house roster; last year’s event, for example, featured the likes of extra-dimensional monsters, carnies, witches, ghosts, masked killers, werewolves, and zombies. It’s […]

By this point, we feel like we’ve been in the Forbidden Forest with Rubeus Hagrid for forever now – we’ve pored over the concept art, analyzed the importance of having the jolly half-giant as the protagonist of the ride, deconstructed its story, and, of course, toured its queue. Because of this long history, you might […]

The last time we checked in on Bigfire, Universal Orlando Resort’s newest gastronomical addition, the venue had just been announced; now, two months later, Universal invited us to a tour of the soon-to-open restaurant as part of a media event. We were taken with Bigfire’s culinary premise, aesthetic bent, and – of course – tableside […]

Although CityWalk – that giant collection of restaurants, night clubs, stores, and entertainment options – might have arrived first, it’s actually with Islands of Adventure that Universal’s toehold in Orlando was truly able to transform into a full-fledged resort. It’s hard to imagine that momentous event happened 20 short years ago, but it’s true – […]

Are you ready to plumb the depths of your fear? Universal has announced its next original haunted house for this year’s Halloween Horror Nights, and it looks to be a doozy: Depths of Fear. Set within a deep-sea underwater mining rig, the workers have dug too deeply into the ocean floor and accidentally unleashed a […]

Be the first to know about any future announcements by signing up for email updates! Orlando Informer got the chance to check out Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure last week, getting a personal tour of (most of) its queue, learning some intriguing tidbits about its wild ride experience, and watching as the magicked motorcycles went […]

Today, Universal has made many fans’ dreams come true by announcing that it’s going to take the most seminal film property in its library out of the dusty vault that it typically keeps it stored in and set it loose at this year’s Halloween Horror Nights. Yes, that’s right – the Universal Monsters are coming […]

What would Halloween Horror Nights be without the occasional homage to years past thrown into the mix? For this year’s event, a blast from the past is exactly what we’re getting – in more ways than one – in the form of Nightingales: Blood Pit. The Nightingales only made one (major) appearance, all the way […]

On May 8, 2018, word unexpectedly arrived that Emeril’s Orlando, that long-standing anchor of CityWalk, would be permanently closing up shop on July 7. Speculation immediately turned to just what would be succeeding the venerable venue, given its central location in the dining/shopping/entertainment district, specifically, and given the trend of what all the other recent replacements […]

There are four Universal theme-park locations around the world (for now, at least – an absolutely-mammoth Beijing resort is currently being built, with it already having nabbed the title of being the most expensive theme park in the world). Of these, Universal only owns three, meaning that the fourth, in Singapore, has largely been left […]

When it was originally announced that Netflix’s Stranger Things would be making its way to last year’s Halloween Horror Nights, we found the little nugget that only the absolutely-mammoth show’s first season would be realized in haunted-house fashion to be a little suspicious. And even though the event’s designers later told us that they had […]

On the one hand, the new Sesame Street land at SeaWorld Orlando is a pretty standard children’s area of a theme park; with its bright colors, happy music, and inviting design, it’s actually fairly reminiscent of the Shamu’s Happy Harbor land that it only recently replaced (especially considering that all six of its rides are […]

Be the first to know about any future announcements by signing up for email updates! First, Universal unveiled Hagrid’s Magical Creatures Motorbike Adventure’s setting. Then the company gave us the new ride’s name, main character, and opening date. What more could possibly be left to discover? Well, how about the actual premise of the ride? […]

After months of wild speculation, rumors, and anticipation, Busch Gardens today announced what is going to replace Busch Gardens Tampa’s long-suffering (and -shuttered) Gwazi wooden roller coaster. This brand-new, as-yet-unnamed coaster is yet another hybrid coaster from manufacturer Rocky Mountain Company, which has quickly obtained a sterling reputation for laying new steel track over the […]

Be the first to know about when the Dark Arts show opens in Orlando by signing up for email updates! Inserting a projection-mapping show in The Wizarding World of Harry Potter – Hogsmeade is, arguably, one of the most clever developments we’ve seen come out of Universal across the past several years, if not longer – […]

One of the new imperatives that Comcast installed when it became the owner of NBCUniversal in 2011 is rather well known: open at least one new attraction each and every year, preferably at all three of the theme-park locations it fully controls (those would be Universal Studios Hollywood, Universal Orlando Resort, and Universal Studios Japan, […]

Be the first to know about any future announcements by signing up for email updates! For Harry Potter (and Universal Orlando Resort) fans, July 24, 2017 is a date that’s etched in the collective consciousness – the day that Universal first announced the existence of a brand-new roller coaster set in the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. And since […]

It’s time for a little update on what is shaping up to be one of the single biggest projects that Universal Parks and Resorts has ever embarked upon in its roughly 55-year history. First, though, we should probably (quickly!) backtrack. Universal Beijing Resort, just the second full-fledged theme-park resort that Universal has ever made, was […]

UPDATE: Disney and Lucasfilm snuck in a quick follow-up to the book Pirate’s Price, adding one more (brief) chapter to Millennium Falcon: Smuggler’s Run’s backstory, which we cover in a brand-new section below. – For a planet that was supposed to be brand-new to Star Wars fans around the world, Batuu sure has been seeing a […]

When you’re a (relatively) big, thriving theme-park resort like Universal Orlando is, one that receives hundreds of millions of dollars each and every year in new upgrades and improvements and for future expansions, you see quite a bit of change over the course of 12 months – attractions closing, hotels opening, and flurries of other […]

This time last year, Universal Japan made waves when it announced that its new 2018 attraction would not only be state-of-the-art, but also Harry Potter-infused: Universal Spectacle Night Parade – Best of Hollywood, which the company proudly boasted was “the world’s first next-generation parade” (thanks to its heavy utilization of projection mapping). Beyond the wonder […]

Two years ago, upon the release of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them – the first of the new Harry Potter prequel/spin-off film series – we sketched out our three best ideas for theme-park attractions based off of the new Wizarding World tale. Now that the second installment, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, is here, it’s […]

Loews Hotels, the company that manages all of Universal Orlando Resort’s various on-site hotels, started to experiment just a few years ago with two items that are gaining more and more traction among the public, particularly the younger demographic: handcrafted cocktails and limited-time, exclusive experiences (something which Universal itself has mastered, thanks to the likes […]

Last week, Universal Studios Hollywood made something of a surprise announcement: it was going to do an one-week-only lights-on, daytime tour of its Stranger Things haunted house, at no additional charge to park attendees. Though unprecedented (no, the West Coast doesn’t offer a version of our Behind the Screams: Unmasking the Horror Tours – which […]

UPDATE 10:13 AM 11.14.18: at the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions Expo 2018, The Walt Disney Company announced that the Disney Skyliner will officially open in the fall of 2019. UPDATE 12:40 PM 10.19.18: Disney showed off this spiffy little video that’s meant to give us the best illustration yet of what the new […]

It is no secret that Stranger Things, the hit Netflix original series, has been the flagship haunted house at this year’s Halloween Horror Nights – not only has it dominated the annual event’s social-media and press coverage, it’s also attained a place of prominence amongst its food and drink lineup and, of course, has garnered […]

SeaWorld feels like, just maybe, it’s standing on the precipice of a full-fledged revival, rising up from a years-long period of controversy and economic difficulties and potentially emerging as a leaner, meaner theme-park operator: its stock has been on the rebound, fueled by a nearly-five-percent increase in its quarterly revenue and attendance; it’s doubled down […]

On July 24, 2017, Universal made an announcement that was widely expected but which was nonetheless sad to many a Wizarding World of Harry Potter fan: Dragon Challenge, that massive, formerly-dueling inverted roller coaster, would be shutting down for good on September 5 of that year. Ever since then, the company has kept its wizarding […]

UPDATE (8:45 am 10.16.18): today is the day that the new, date-based pricing structure goes into effect at Walt Disney World Resort. To commemorate the occasion, Disney has released this infographic, to try and help explain when the new system will cost guests less or more when heading out to the parks: Furthermore, today is also […]

UPDATE 3:23 pm, 10.22.18: Universal keeps rolling out mobile order to more and more locations, and doing so in a much faster fashion than we had initially thought, just four short weeks ago – now four quick-service restaurants brandish the smart-phone feature, with more doubtless already in the pipeline. Each venue’s dedicated guide page in the […]