Theme Park Debrief: Universal reveals multiple HHN houses, Disneyland brings back Fantasmic!, and Legoland gears up for summer party
A recap of the week's theme park and attractions news.
Welcome to the Theme Park Debrief newsletter, a recap of some of the big attractions and theme park stories from the week. In this week's edition, we get a slew of Halloween Horror Nights house announcements from Universal, Disneyland shares a peek at its updated Fantasmic! show and Legoland Florida gears up for its summer celebration.
Universal Drops Back-to-Back Haunted Houses Announcements
Universal Orlando seemed determined to make the wait for any Halloween Horror Nights house announcements a long one.
For months, fans have been speculating about what houses may or may not be part of this year's event. In that same time, Universal's official Halloween Horror Nights social media accounts would post teases and not much else.
And then, Universal decided to give fans what they wanted. Last Friday, Universal revealed Slaughter Sinema 2 house during a panel at Spooky Empire before dropping a new house reveal every day this past week. Hooray!
Every single announcement has been for an original concept house. And of this publishing Universal has revealed six of the planned 10 houses. They include Slaughter Sinema 2, Goblin's Feast, Major Sweets Candy Factory, The Museum: Deadly Exhibits, Monstrous: The Monsters of Latin America and Triplets of Terror.
Now we wait for the rest of the announcements, which are sure to include a few IP houses.
Fantasmic! Returns to Disneyland
If you didn't know, Disneyland's version of Fantasmic! has been on hiatus for over a year.
The show closed in April 2023 after the Maleficent dragon erupted in flames during a performance. There's video out there if you really want to see the burning dragon.
Needless to say, the dragon was destroyed. So Disney needed to figure out how to reconfigure the show without the dragon. And now, over a year later, Fantasmic! is ready for its return.
Earlier this week, Disney released some preview video of the changes it has made to the show, including how it's handling the battle scene between Mickey and Maleficent, which used to feature the aforementioned dragon.
Other Things to Know
One Last Thing
Universal opened its new Summer Tribute Store this week.
If you don't know what a Tribute Store is, it's basically a highly themed shop that pops up a few times throughout the year at Universal Studios Florida. Each one will have a unique concept running through the store as well as merchandise, props and more.
Typically, Universal will create one that's tied to one of its events such as Mardi Gras, the Holidays at Universal and Halloween Horror Nights. In 2021, it added a summer store to the rotation and gave it a Jurassic World theme. Other Summer Tribute stores in the years since have been heavily revolved around movies.
The Tribute Store is first and foremost a store. The point is to get you to buy merchandise. But part of the fun of visiting one is seeing what the merchandising and design team has come up with, trying to catch all the pop culture reference and just gawking in awe of all the special effects and details.
For this year's Summer Tribute Store, Universal took inspiration from the 1980s—a popular decade to look back on fondly. The store is designed to look like a shopping mall and each room inside it themed to different business—Mega Video Rental, a video rental store; Mega Castle Arcade, a neon light arcade with matching carpet; and Tribute Theater, with cool nods to a few fan-favorite blockbusters.
Stepping inside is like stepping back in time, especially if you were around back then. Each room is filled with so many references and nods that you will have to keep coming back just to see if you can spot them all.
In many ways, Universal's Tribute Store is more than just a shop. It's basically its own attraction. And it's worth checking out just for the experience.
That's it for this week's newsletter! Look for more fun and interesting theme park stories to hit your inbox next week. Thanks for reading Theme Park Debrief, and, of course, thanks for sharing it. Your support is greatly appreciated.