On the night of September 15^th, 2022, I got the privilege to be a part of a private RIP tour during Halloween Horror Nights 2022 in Orlando. During a private RIP tour, your group gets a tour guide to take you literally to the front of the line for the houses. Since Halloween Horror Nights runs until 2am each night this year, Kate, our tour guide, helped us have a wonderful evening until 2am. I will not be delineating everything we did. I just want to give you a basic understanding of these tours. Yes, these qualify as very expensive being a private tour after all.

The prices range from $279.99 to $399.99 per person depending on the night and if you choose the regular RIP tour or Private RIP Tour.

Both RIP and Private RIP include:

• Priority VIP access to each haunted house and participating attractions
• Reserved seating to live shows
• Unlimited Express Pass to all other attractions and rides
• Pre-tour reception in Cafe La Bamba
• Complimentary Valet Parking
• Commemorative R.I.P. Tour credential, lanyard and pin

With regular RIP tours you can only access houses once and you will be with other people. If you do the Private RIP tour you get to access houses as often as you would like and it’s only you and your party in that tour group.

These start with check-in around 5:30pm. You get to move from the check-in area at guest services to your buffet meal at 6:00pm. Based on how events unfolded, we got to view the opening scare-a-monies from above the masses then go to eat. Rain started to fall as we went to eat.

The buffet would not qualify as fine dining. Still, the food tasted a bit better than last year. Also, on the buffet, guests could get pizza fries and “Fried Zombie Brains” (spicy Korean style cauliflower) which are Halloween Horror Nights food items. Sadly, those items lacked flavor and solid preparation compared to versions served during the actual event.

The rain continued. In fact, it rained so hard that some minor flooding happened. When it rains, scare actors will not be out in scare zones. Also, since some of this time lightning strikes were happening, no one in my group expressed eagerness to get started, For record, Universal Orlando provides plastic ponchos for RIP tour guests when it rains. We eventually left Café la Bamba (around 7:10pm), where buffet happens, to walk to area for Descendants of Destruction and Bugs: Eaten Alive houses. We experienced those houses quickly, but the rain continued.

Based on that, the decision happened to go watch Halloween Nightmare Fuel Wildfire show for the 8pm show. Since this show features the same elements as last year, fire would be a key component of the show. For record, the show this year qualifies as offering more fire, more excitement, more athleticism, and more adult movements. In other words, I might not be old enough to watch this show. Despite that, the quality of this show merits the price of admission almost all itself. By the way, we got special reserved seats near the front as RIP tour guests. We also felt a bit dryer.

After that almost 30-minute show, we ventured back out in the rain. The rain lessened, however. We went to the Lombard’s RIP special bar area for a break and to plan our next moves. Our guide then took us to the front of line for The Weeknd house and Universal Monsters Legends Collide house. I found The Weeknd house enjoyable. Yet, most of my group did not. Also, I have heard many complaints about the Monsters house providing very little Dracula. In our trips through this house, that problem appears solved.

Working our way to the New York area next, we entered the Blumhouse house. Our tour guide saw a cast change happening so had us wait about 5 minutes before entering the house. This touch showed a good grasp of the event.

After this, we walked through “Sweet Revenge” scare zone. Though it was after 10pm at this point, the scare actors finally returned to the scare zones since weather allowed that now. As you might imagine, this night counts as a rainy evening.

We then took a break to enjoy the RIP tour area above Jimmy Fallow attraction. This allowed some to purchase Halloween Horror Nights food and beverage.

We started moving through houses again around 11:15pm. We knocked out the other five houses in a little over an hour. At around 12:30pm, several of our group decided to call it a night. The rest of us enjoyed a few scare zones. Then, we went back to Café la Bamba for some complimentary soft drinks and bottled water. Following that, the remaining people with our guide easily went through five more houses. Yes, we had been through these before. Still with a guide on a private RIP tour, you can do whatever you want in terms of number of houses.

Fun appeared to be had by all this evening. For a way to maximize your Halloween Horror Nights experience, a private RIP tour works very well. Of course, you will need to spend some significant money. Thank you for reading. I will be spending several more days at Halloween Horror Nights so look for more blogs about the event soon.