HHN 32 aka the Year of David Pumpkins-Sep TR-Completed 11/2

[shh]

What shame about the teens!! Heard that a lot this year from both guests and SA friends.

Thank you for coming back and doing your report, you would have been sadly missed as your reports are always wonderful to read.

I really wish they'd mirror their citiwalk policy - no one under 18 at HHN without a parent/guardian. (I think that's still in effect, but someone correct me if I'm wrong.) Those bands of obnoxious teens are really ruining it for a lot of guests!

+1 on the TR - glad you're back. I may have missed you mentioning it, but are you planning on any other orlando-area visits in 2024, other than halloween?

 

[saskdw]

Oreo Cheese Cake Pops!!

 

[Raeven]

I got excited and thought it was going to be a Tiffany as in the jewellery store display....lol......​

Lol sorry for the disappointment ​

The Palm do overseason their steaks for sure, we always ask for a tiny amount of seasoning and even then it`s fine, glad you enjoyed it though.​

Ooo I'll remember that for next time because it really was good other than that.
​

Thank you for coming back and doing your report, you would have been sadly missed as your reports are always wonderful to read. I hope we can say hello again at maybe "our usual tables" in Strong Water Bar.......lol.......​

Aw thank you for reading along, And yes! ​

I really wish they'd mirror their citiwalk policy - no one under 18 at HHN without a parent/guardian. (I think that's still in effect, but someone correct me if I'm wrong.) Those bands of obnoxious teens are really ruining it for a lot of guests!​

That would be great for HHN. Maybe they were older than I thought, but it seemed like a lot of high school age kids with one night tickets. ​

+1 on the TR - glad you're back. I may have missed you mentioning it, but are you planning on any other orlando-area visits in 2024, other than halloween?​

Not as of right now, but maybe. I do still have another trip this year (going for 5 days in Dec with my friend Kayleigh). I haven't really planned much for 2024 yet. So far I'm planning to go to a horror convention in Kayleigh's city, HHN, and I'm not sure what else. ​

Oreo Cheese Cake Pops!! ​

So good! ​

 

[Raeven]

Happy Halloween!

Here's some of our Halloween decor! The new addition this year was the Evil Dead 2 shelf.


(Although this is also our year round decor aside from the garland).

Sleepy Hollow Trip

A little backstory for the Sleepy Hollow trip. We live about 2.5 hours from the Tarrytown/Sleepy Hollow area so I've looked at going in the past, but Halloweentime is always so close to our HHN trip that it never worked out. This year my dad's girlfriend, Alisha saw a video about all the things to do there, and we talked about going on an overnight trip.

When my dad heard about it he wanted to go too, and while I love spending time with my dad; there was a reason we didn't really take trips growing up. He doesn't really like to travel and he complains more than anyone I've ever met . (Usually about the price of things and how he hates when people take too many photos/or any photos of him. But we also didn't think he'd be interested in some of the things we had planned). So I'm glad we went, but traveling with both of them was frustrating at times.

When we arrived we were a bit early for lunch (the restaurant wasn't open yet), so we walked around a bit until we came to The Taco Project.

They had these amazing churros with the best tasting caramel I've ever had.



& these drinks called the Pineapple Express that were incredibly creamy and delicious.



For lunch we were dining at Horsefeathers which is one of the most popular restaurants in Tarrytown for how they decorate during Halloween.



It did look amazing.



We had some burgers and sandwiches and I also got a pumpkin cider.



I thought my burger was pretty good, though the fries weren't that good. My dad and Alisha weren't entirely happy with their meals, and the service was terrible.

There was one guy who seemed to be working all the tables but he was only going back to certain ones. He only came to our table once to take our order. We had to go get him to pay for the meal because we were still sitting there 20 minutes after we finished eating and at that time he asked the table next to us what they wanted for dessert and they informed him they never got their meal. This restaurant is all over the Internet and is the top recommended one, so I was surprised I hadn't read any reviews that mentioned the service.

We did a bit of shopping.


(This was the point when my dad told me to stop taking pictures of things and I told him we were on vacation. )

After checking into the hotel we headed over to Sleepy Hollow Cemetery to look around.



And we also checked out the Hudson Riverwalk.



My dad was not impressed by the Riverwalk, but he did let me take a photo with him.



Continued in the next post ​

 

[Raeven]

The Great Jack O Lantern Blaze

One of the things I knew we had to do was the Great Jack O Lantern Blaze. It's about 20 minutes away from Tarrytown in Croton-on-Hudson, and it's the biggest display of jack o lanterns in the state. (The website says there's 7,000, though they aren't all real pumpkins).

They also had these awesome cake pops.



Here's a few of the displays:













It was a bit crowded there, but it was really cool to get to see in person. My dad was even slightly impressed though he said he wanted them all to be real pumpkins.

After the Jack O Lantern Blaze was probably the most frustrating part of the trip. Prior to the trip neither of them had been too interested in planning anything, and had left it up to me what we'd be eating/doing etc. I love planning trips so that wasn't an issue. But once we got there my dad did 5 minutes of Googling, and decided he knew more about everything and that we should just walk around till we found a place to eat. (Which I knew would be frustrating for everyone since it was near/past when a lot of the restaurants closed).

To avoid this I had picked two restaurants near the Jack O Lantern Blaze. This area was easier to park in than Tarrytown because most places had their own parking lots. However my dad vetoed both restaurants I picked so we drove back to Tarrytown. There almost everything was closed, and we wandered around trying to find a place that was still open and wasn't just a bar. We settled on a Cuban restaurant (who's menu I wasn't crazy about) where we did have some pretty decent sandwiches. My dad than proceeded to tell me I had made finding a place to eat difficult because I was so picky.... (and he was being completely serious).

Luckily everyone woke up in a better mood the next day. (Though they both woke up unreasonably early considering we had no place to be until like 11 am). We went to Bella's Cafe for breakfast, and the food was pretty delicious. I got a bacon, egg, cheese, and avocado sandwich, and they split an omelet and some pancakes.



We also went to find the Headless Horseman Bridge. It's in the cemetery but we weren't sure how to find it the day before. It turns out it was the opposite way from where the GPS was leading us.



There was no one else on the bridge at the time so we got to take some pictures, and I really liked the view.



Next Up
We tour Lyndhurst Mansion & the haunted Armour-Stiner Octagon House
​

 

[amalone1013]

Maybe they were older than I thought, but it seemed like a lot of high school age kids with one night tickets.

In lingerie!!

We had to go get him to pay for the meal because we were still sitting there 20 minutes after we finished eating and at that time he asked the table next to us what they wanted for dessert and they informed him they never got their meal.

Traveling with family is always an adventure lol!

 

[Raeven]

In lingerie!! ​

They were ​

Traveling with family is always an adventure lol!​

It really is lol ​

 

[Raeven]

Lyndhurst Mansion

After breakfast was our tour of Lyndhurst Mansion.

From Wikipedia: The home was designed in 1838 by Alexander Jackson Davis, and owned in succession by New York City mayor William Paulding Jr., merchant George Merritt, and railroad tycoon Jay Gould. In 1961, Gould's daughter Anna Gould donated it to the National Trust for Historic Preservation.



In the early 1900's this area was the place to have a vacation home, but as time went on most people in those social circles moved to NYC. It was decorated for fall/Halloween so there are some decor pieces that weren't there normally.



Also a lot of the windows were made by the Tiffany family (yes @schumigirl of Tiffany & Co ) because they also had a vacation home nearby.

Our tour guide was really into George Merritt's contributions to the house in particular.



This was my favorite room, it looked like it was ready for Thanksgiving dinner.



Most of the walls are paneled in a faux material then hand painted to look like marble or other materials. That may sound ridiculous now, but back then this was more expensive than actually covering a room in marble because of the time/effort it took to hand paint them was far more expensive.



It was also expected you'd have an art gallery of some type in your home:



I loved these windows.



Our tour guide also told us about Helen (Gould) Miller who was Anna's sister. She was fascinating.

From their website: She studied law and New York University before the passage of suffrage. She championed women’s economic equality, helped finance the Spanish-American War, and married for love at the age of 45.

They also told us she donated to numerous charities, adopted several children (which our tour guide said was looked down on at the time), and she opened trade schools on the property for people to attend free of charge.



Lyndhurst was where several movies were filmed including the 70's Dark Shadows movies (House of Dark Shadows, Night of Dark Shadows).



Some photos from around the grounds:



Continued in next post ​

 

[Raeven]

The Armour-Stiner Octagon House

(One last picture from Lyndhurst. I was shocked when my dad asked me to take this with his hatred of photos and all, but I guess he really liked this horse. )



Next up was the Myths and Mysteries tour at the Armour-Stiner Octagon house:



This is one of the most uniquely shaped houses, and supposedly has a haunted history.



It was also the filming place of a horror movie called The Nesting.



I have not watched it yet, but it is on Tubi. Our tour guide had seen it, and seemed to think once was enough so I'm guessing it's not the best movie she'd ever seen.



The haunting on property involved a girl running away with a boy so they could marry (their parents disapproved). There was an accident with the boat they were on, and they died. But that night as her mother was calling for her for to come home, she appeared in front of her and story has it; never left the house again.



An author also lived here who wrote a book about it.



They also said parts of Across the Universe were filmed at the top of the house. (We were not able to go up there which was a shame because it looked really cool).



The Egypt room had some of the original furniture. The owners that restored the house had found the original furniture for sale at an antique shop. The chairs were then restored which is why the colors are so vivid. I really love the color of these chairs.



I will say our tour guide claimed to have had an experience with the ghost, but it was not much of a story. (A candle fell over). For how haunted she was claiming the house was I would've thought she'd make up something better.

They also had weird little effects going on like they'd say the ghost had loved the scent of lavender and then they'd pipe in the scent of lavender, or they had a door on a mechanism that was creaking open and closed. (My dad kept trying to look behind it to see how they were doing it. ) I know they were probably meant to be fun, but it just seemed a little weird they'd fake a bunch of stuff since the tour was interesting without them.



Continued in the next post ​

 

[Raeven]

Cabinet of Curiosities

In the basement they had a Cabinet of Curiosities display. This was not related to the house or the owner's of the house at all, it's a collection from a well known oddities collector, Ryan Matthew Cohn. (I guess he had a TV show).



It was really cool they had this exhibit though, and I think I liked it more than the house tour.



More pictures:











My dad again surprised me by telling me he wanted me to take a picture of him "telling secrets" with this bird. I'm not sure why but he thinks "telling secrets" is a photo pose people do but this is not the first time he suggested it that day.



Of the two tours we took I would say Lyndhurst was the better one. They were different types of tours, but Lyndhurst seemed to be the more authentic of the houses since it had been preserved by the historical society. At the Octagon house we did take a tour that was more specific to Halloween, but it felt like they were trying too hard to make it seem creepy and that took away from the tour since all of that was obviously fake. I did like the Cabinet of Curiosities a lot, but was only at the Octagon House seasonally.



And with that our trip to Sleepy Hollow was done, I hope you enjoyed following along!

In less than a month I'll be off to Disney and Universal again for a few days with my friend Kayleigh for our annual Christmas trip. I'll be updating it with some new info about our trip this weekend now that this TR is done.

Here's my PTR:
Two Trips for 2023
​

 

[schumigirl]

Love a good old haunted house, but both were beautiful in their own way! I did laugh at the Tiffany connection...lol.....

Not sure which one I liked better.

Glad you had such a fun trip!