So this time of year is basically the best time of year! Not only is the weather getting cooler and more bearable, but the spooky month of October is something that both Ryan and I enjoy so much. This year, we made it a goal to attend as many Halloween inspired activities as we could. We tested them out for you and here is what we found.
Thanks to an invite from Vault of Souls, Chamber of Terror, and Scream-A-Geddon, we had the opportunity to get our pants scared off of us in exchange for some social media love and a blog post. All opinions are my own.
Vault of Souls| The Vault Downtown: We were lucky to have been invited back again this year to experience all that they have to offer.This event is more of an experience, broken into four “acts.”Act I: The Arrival is your first step: soul cleansing. Once inside, you are greeted by a ballroom of light hors d’oeuvres and craft cocktails with live dances and music. For Act II: The Ritual, guests are told to place a white mask over their faces to guard their identities from those souls lost down below the old bank. Once the mask is on, there is absolutely no speaking whatsoever; you wouldn’t want the lost souls to hear you! In this area, there is no defined path way per say, but if you look for clues and get creative, you may be able to find your way out safely before the souls realize you are not one of them. If you navigate your way to the exit and find a way out, you will be directed toward Act III: The Gin Joint.
The Gin Joint is a refreshing and enjoyable opportunity to have another cocktail while relaxing as live jazz music played in the background. The space is decorated with the 1920s time period in mind and we hope to see it join the area as a permanent bar in Downtown Tampa. Finally, The Epilogue of the evening, The Reader’s Clearing, is an opportunity for guests to have their futures’ read by local tarot card readers and psychics alike. Guests can also enjoy a fresh espresso or iced cappuccino and gelato as well. Before heading out, we suggest you snap a few pictures of your experiences as it is one we have enjoyed on more than one occasion.
Chamber of Terror| USS Victory (Channelside): Priding themselves as the most unique haunted house in Tampa, we say they are definitely well deserving of that title. Guests at this attraction head onto the old, USS Victory ship docked in Channelside right near the Florida Aquarium. We waited in line for about 30 mins until it was time to actually explore to old, rickety ship. Just the atmosphere of the whole place made for that much more of a creepy fright. With so many nooks and crannies and darkness all around, it made it difficult to anticipate where a spooky friend would pop out from next. We went with a small group of friends and found that we were all screaming out throughout our entire walk of the multi-levels of the ship. With so many twists and turns, there was always someone coming around the corner or often times behind your back to try and spook you! We highly recommend checking this out if you are looking for something scary and fun to do with a bunch of friends and want to stay local.
Scream-A-Geddon | Dade City: For the month of October, guests can travel out to Dade City to get their pants scared off of them in the middle of the woods. Experiencing this last year didn’t make it any easier or less scary when we returned this year. Last weekend, Scream-A-Geddon invited us out to their over the top attraction to put their scaring skills to the test. Described as a haunted houses horror park, it sets itself apart from any other attraction like it because it offers guests six different attractions in one place! A short 40-45 minutes drive from Downtown Tampa will lead you to a secluded, wooded area out in the middle of Dade City. This is THE perfect setting for a horror park, so thats the first perfect thing about this place. Once inside, you have 6 attractions to choose from. What we probably loved most about this experience was how they changed it up from last year.
This year, there are TWO experiences, Infected and Blackpool Prison, where you can opt into wearing a glow in the dark necklace around your neck in order to signal to the scarers that you are willing to be touched AND separated from your group. Being the whackos that we are, we convinced the whole group of 8 friends to join in the fun! So in two of the attractions, you are grabbed, separated, and at times tortured into thinking you are seeing your final sights, however, its done tastefully (HAHA). Other attractions offered are the Cursed Hayride which has guests riding along through the dark woods as you see different vignettes of small towns and its inhabitants. This one is for the weak at heart who can’t stand to actually be scared!
The Midway is where guests can grab some carnival food, a fresh soda or beer, some awesome Scream-A-Geddon swag, or play a game or two like Paintball for Zombies! The other attractions include Bedlam 3D which is pretty much ALL CLOWN THEMED and super trippy since you wear 3D glasses throughout that house and finally Dead Woods where you walk along a pitch black dirt path with only one glow stick to share amongst your group. This makes it easy for the bad guys to see you, but far too difficult for you to see them.
The one downfall to these great times we have had is the fact that we were unable to use our phones/cameras when we were inside to take lots of pictures, so we don’t have many to share. But, we are hopeful that some more fun activities will pop up before the end of the month, so feel free to share any ideas you have with us! We are always looking for a good scare.
-Nicholas
NHIE Guys 