Amazon treated us to a spooktacular weekend at Gurney’s Montauk filled with treats, ghost stories, a Totally Killer screening and much more to kick off their Now Screaming campaign.
Continue reading for an in-depth scoop of what happened over this wonderfully whimsical weekend.
Day 1
The Amazon-sponsored journey to Montauk began at the front-doors of the W Hotel in New York City’s Union Square. From there we boarded the 42-seater coach bus which was decked out with multi-colored lights, cobwebs, and a spooky faux-skeleton in the front seat welcoming us aboard. We settled into our seats and noticed they each held a gift bag filled with Amazon swag! The gift bag included an Amazon Kindle, an Amazon Echo-Pop, a spooky black-skull candle, and a bag of gourmet caramel popcorn and milk chocolate s’mores bites from Amazon’s brand Aplenty. The three-hour journey to Montauk began, but not until glasses of Prosecco and Baked By Melissa Halloween cupcakes were passed and tunes from Amazon Music’s exclusive Happy Halloween playlist started playing.
The bus pulled into Gurney’s Resort in Montauk around 5:30 PM, giving us enough time to check in and settle into our respective rooms before the night’s festivities began. Amazon was gracious enough to place us in the Deluxe Oceanfront Two-Queen Room and deluxe oceanfront was right! The 355 square foot room was equipped with floor-to-ceiling windows giving an amazing view of Gurney’s private beach and the rolling Atlantic waves, a private terrace with a daybed, and walk-in rain shower. After oohing and aahing over the room, we refreshed and made our way back over to Gurney’s main building for the evening’s scheduled programming with Amazon.
Amazon hosted a reception for us in Gurney’s Regent Lounge, another room in the resort with Gurney’s magnificent ocean views, where trip-goers mixed and mingle over a charcuterie spread and additional glasses of Prosecco. Attendees took turns walking through an interactive spooky demonstration using the Alexa routine, “Alexa, let’s get scary.” Just this sentence interacted an entire room of scary Halloween sounds, color-changing lights, and Halloween décor, including a talking life-sized skeleton! Back in the lounge, we met our ghost-host for the evening, a gentleman in a suit eerily walking through the crowd, only stopping to utter passages from his book.
We were then led to Gurney’s spa deck for our private viewing of Amazon’s original film, Totally Killer starring Kiernan Shipka (Chilling Adventures of Sabrina), Olivia Holt (Kickin’ It), and Julie Bowen (Modern Family). The movie, which is slasher and time travel flick all in one, was an homage to the 80’s and so was our viewing experience. The screening took place in a large outdoor tent on a massive inflatable projector screen. In front of the projector were rows of lounge chairs with fuzzy blankets and 80’s-style wigs and towards the site of the tent was an 80’s-isnpired buffet, with All-American staples like corn-on-the-cob, hotdogs, hamburgers, and coleslaw. Towards the back of the tent was a full-service bar, smoky bacon flavored popcorn, and boxes of Nerds, Mike & Ikes, Sour Patch Kids, and more. Between the food, projector and gentle ocean breeze periodically making its way over from the beach, it truly felt like a drive-in experience.
After the end of the great screening, the fun wasn’t over yet. The ghost-host read a spooky excerpt from Amazon Music’s Lore podcast. The episode, titled “Legends 5: Long Island Ghosts” was extremely fitting for the weekend’s location! We then had the opportunity to try on Amazon’s new limited-edition Terror Tamer sweatshirts (available to purchase staring this Friday, October 13th for $10.31). This festive sweatshirt includes a glow in the dark bones design, built-in flip down eye mask, lined snack pocket, cell-phone puch and TV-remote pocket, perfect for the month ahead!
Fun Fact: according to a new survey* from Prime Video, the average American is likely to watch six scary movies this Halloween season. However, 74% of Americans can’t bear to sit still during the most frightening scenes. More than a third (36%) say they cover their eyes so they don’t have to witness the scary parts, 35% need a stress-snack distraction, and more than a quarter (27%) reach for the remote to mute or pause the TV.
Day 2
Our second day with Amazon started with sunny skies and the most important meal of the day—breakfast! Amazon provided us with a full breakfast buffet of cereals, bagels, pastries, fruit, yogurt, oatmeal, tea, and coffee.
The sunny skies and time between breakfast and our departure allowed us to explore more of Gurney’s offerings, including a gym, spa, indoor pool, and Scarpetta Beach Restaurant. We then packed our luggage, checked out, loaded the bus and made our way back to New York City, adequately spooked by Amazon and looking forward to month ahead!
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Check out the list below for (some of) Amazon’s Halloween entertainment line-up!
- Totally Killer now streaming through Prime Video
- Halloween playlists and podcasts courtesy of Amazon music
- Alexa routines for your own Halloween decorations
- The Terror Tamer sweatshirt
*Survey conducted by Wakefield Research for Prime Video among 1,000 U.S. adults aged 18+
