Hey! I am so sorry for the delay in my TR / review of this event. Most of you know, but in case you don’t…. a couple days after I returned a truck crashed into my house! My house and most of my belongs were ruined either by the crash or the water damage from the burst pipes…
Anyway…
For context, my DD25 had to use a mobilty scooter due to a knee that was still sore from surgery last year.
FANFEST NIGHTS 2026
TL;DR Version – OMG! It’s still the best theme park “immersive” experience out there. I can’t wait for next year. (TM’s say the Creative Team is on a three-year contract. It’s up to USH to decide if they want to continue doing it after next year!)
Personal Favorites – Scooby-Doo and Jurassic Park. DD LOVED everything One Piece! She met all the characters at least twice and thought the stunt show was great!
Full FanFest Trip Report -
I reconnected with DD close to 5pm. She was late, of course! It was because she and her friend did more than they said they would.
I purchased an Early Entry ticket this year. Last year I bought an Express Pass and regretted it. I never needed it due to the low wait times for everything. (You didn’t need it this year either! Low waits for everything except Character Meets – No Express for those anyway)
DD had two “MUST DO” things, and they were both Character Meetings. She wanted to meet Sailor Moon and One Piece. (She was in costume as a One-Piece character)
I bought the early entry because Sailor Moon starts meeting 90 minutes before the event starts. I knew we needed to be there before 5pm to wait for the first meeting at 6pm. However, because DD was late she got put in the “second group / queue” that wasn’t going to meet until 6:30 or later.
This threw off my plans. I needed us to be in queue at Hogsmeade to do the Harry Potter Hippogriff / Forbidden Forrest Experience. DD chose to stay in queue for Sailor Moon while I did HP solo. I hung out with her for a little bit and got us food from the One-Piece restaurant during early entry to eat while she waited. (The food was GREAT! Review to follow…)
She absolutely LOVED Sailor Moon!
She also did the Sailor Moon 4-D movie solo and liked it a lot. The seats did move and such, but no water or big screen effects. Just watching an original Sailor Moon cartoon in a bouncing seat!
DD truly NEEDED to go get in line for One Piece as that was near the front of the park and the crowds waiting to get in that line were massive. I had no interest so I went to Hogsmeade to wait
The TMs kept trying to encourage people waiting outside Hogsmeade to go do one of the other Early Entry attractions because HP didn’t open until 7:30pm. However, that queue is routinely 90 – 120+ minutes most of the event. (It did go down to 30 minutes after 11pm)
TMs kept saying we wouldn’t get in early, but of course we did! They took us all the way to the front of the entry for the attraction and we started promptly at 7:30pm.
I was so disappointed by this. First, there are no microphones and it’s outdoors. Most people couldn’t hear our “Professor” as she took us through the Forbidden Forrest. The props were either incredible or really bad Spirit Halloween stuff. This experience needs to be done after dark when the fog and lighting hides some of this.
There were two major “WOW” moments. An actor dressed as a centaur pops out and scares everyone. (Which was fun!)
And the big finale with the Hippogriff. I didn’t see any Magical Creature handlers like last year, but I didn’t stay in Hogsmeade long as I needed to get back to DD.
With DD waiting for One Piece, I went to do Scooby-Doo.
Scooby-Doo and the Case of the Phantom Director takes you on a fun “mystery” to figure out who has unleased the Universal Monsters onto the set of the newest film taking place on the Universal Backlot!
I really enjoyed it. You get a “Mystery Manual” with suspect profiles and instructions on how to solve the case / “play the game.”
Universal really made some improvements to the Backlot FanFest experience compared to last year! While I LOVE the Back to the Future experience from last year, you had to “chase” down the actors to get into a scene. This year, you went to “stations” to meet each member of the Scooby Gang individually. You could ask questions about the clues or just chat with them.
Every once in a while, the lights would all go down and the Monsters would “attack.” They’d run around bothering the Gang and guests for a few minutes.
You could stay down there as long as you like. This year USH put port-a-potties and food booths down there unlike last year. I bought the “official” Scooby Snacks. They were just “OK”, but I have a fun box now!! I did see a couple eating the extremely large hot dog with all the toppings. They said it was really good! (I was surprised!)
Whenever you are ready to leave, you can go to “The Big Reveal” and watch a stage show that plays about every 15 minutes. It’s your classic Scooby-Doo finale with people running in & out of various doors while trying to catch the villain. Eventually, the Gang traps our bad guy and pulls off the mask! The best part is that the villain can change each night. The clues can be rearranged to indicate any of the suspects.
The game wasn’t too hard. I did have to ask Shaggy for help once. I spoke to everyone except Scooby. You had to stand in a queue to get a picture. (Sorry! He is in the park every day. I’m not waiting an hour during a limited time event for this character.)
At this point DD and I met back up. We decided to go see the One Piece Stunt show. Originally it only had 3 viewings each night. Due to popularity, they added a fourth show at 1am!
I have never seen or read anything related to One Piece. I still really liked the show! I was able to figure out from context with cheers / boos who was a hero and who was a villain. It’s a shorter show than the WaterWorld Stunt show. Also, it is performed at night where MANY of the effects DEPEND on the darkness. It was a lot of fun but didn’t have a big finale or WOW moment at the end. The heroes leave “before the place explodes” and after they’re gone multiple fire effects happen quietly… (kind of like a small fireworks show with no music)
After the show we went to the lower lot…
BTW – if you are in a scooter, you must go to a shuttle station (near Simpsons) where they load up the scooter and drive you down there.
We were dropped off right at the entrance to the “Jurassic World a Journey through the Eras”
In my opinion, this is what replaced Back to the Future more than Scooby. You can hang out talking to the actors portraying Ian Malcom, Dennis Nerdy, John Hammond, Dr. Wu and Alan Grant. They have photo stations to take pics with dinos and famous JP / JW props (from the actual movies!!)
There was also a Raptor show. It was, basically, an extended version of the USH raptor encounter. In Hollywood, the raptor, Blue, walks around freely (surrounded by handlers!) In this show a raptor went wild and attacked the trainers. (of course!) It was fun!
From here we went to the D&D experience. It was exactly the same as last year. DD did have an issue using her scooter during this experience. People blocked her view and wouldn’t let her into the next rooms. I had hoped this would be her favorite, but too many other people being unkind didn’t allow her to truly see anything. I got upset at people and she didn’t want to repeat it because she felt embarrassed. (I didn’t yell or anything but loudly stopped people from LITERALLY climbing over her and the scooter to get past us.)
We stopped to get D&D drinks so she could collect herself from being overwhelmed and upset by the guests (and my reaction)
We got the Eldritch Blast - Vodka, green apple, kiwi, Sprite, Electric dust, and boba. It was very refreshing and good EXCEPT they didn’t have boba straws. You couldn’t easily consume the boba bubbles!
This was a longer break than I wanted as she when she gets overwhelmed / overstimulated it’s a mess.
We might have been able to get into Super Nintendo World before it closed, but this “time-out” took a while.
TBH – I think SNW looks great! However, it’s just a “kiddie” land that has amazing decor. The rides are incredibly slow and dull. The PowerUp bands look like fun, but I haven’t really taken the time to try them. I will ride Donkey Kong at Epic someday, but after that I don’t know if I’ll routinely “take a warp pipe” to see SNW after that!
By this time, it was close to midnight. I tried to get DD to go see the Hippogriff experience as it had gone down to a 20 minute wait. She was concerned about navigating the experience after what happened at D&D.
It was probably for the best as that experience was LITERALLY in the extended queue area of Forbidden Journey. Picture all the space you have in the tight iron bar single file queue at that ride. When the queue turns, a corner has a wider area. That area was where the show scene space was while everyone packed the queue trying to hear anything.
All DD wanted to do was go meet One Piece character AGAIN for the third time!
We took the long commute back up the hill via the shuttle for scooters and got back up to the One-Piece area before 12:45pm. They were closing the M&G area and DD actually hopped up and RAN to the queue. (Why does she need a scooter?? LOL!)
However, she left the keys in the scooter with me just standing there. I had no idea she was going to take off!
So, I was stuck just sitting there for the last hour or more. I couldn’t get access to the area where she was because it was the last meeting of the night. Too many people were coming up to TMs begging to be let in. I didn’t know how long DD would be, so I just sat on the scooter and waited… (I would’ve gone back to WWOHP to do the ride or something!! Or even watched the One-Piece show again! SAD!!)
She was done around 1:30am. When did some last-minute shopping and left for the airport by 2:30am. Our plane took off at 6am (Pacific time) and we got home around 2pm (Central time)
I love FANFEST SOOOOOO MUCH!
EDIT - I realized I didn’t say much about the food. IT WAS SOOOO GOOD! It was great last year as well. It was really well themed and delicious!
The drinks were great too!
I sincerely encourage everyone who loves “immersive” experiences with character actors to do this!!
I said it last year and I’ll say it again… This event is EVERYTHING that Disney tried to do with Galactic Starcruiser and failed. You get 7 hours of awesome immersive entertainment for $80 versus $5K for a weekend inside a hotel.
Finally, I’m not a anime or manga fan. Yet still, these offering impressed me so much! IMHO - These IP are the next generation’s nostalga. My DD25 loves Pokemon, One-Piece, Sailor Moon, Hello Kitty, Attack on Titan and so many more manga and anime that Universal is associatied with. The attractions that had consistant multi-hour lines all night each night of the event were the anime related ones.
I went the first Friday in May 2025 and 2026. My countdown to Friday, May 7, 2027 has begun!!
Jealous!!! 
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