Halloween Horror Nights Guide 2023
It’s officially fall, which means it’s time for Halloween. The spooky season always feels like a blip in time and I’m here to savor it this year. We kicked off the Halloween season by visiting weekend 2 of Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Hollywood. I’m here to give you the tips, tricks and what to to see when visiting so you can have the best time!
Are you afraid of haunted houses? I’ve always loved going to them. When I was a teen, they scared me, but as an adult, I just find them so fun (and less scary). Even if you’re easily spooked, but love Halloween, I think you’re still going to enjoy visiting Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights. It’s a wild ride that may start with scream but I promise will end with laughter…hopefully. lol.
The part I struggle with the most are THE CROWDS—big yikes. As someone who’s been going to Horror Nights for over 10 years, this event has grown to insane popularity. It’s unfortunately common for haunted house wait times to reach over 2 hours on a weekend in October. It shocks me every time when I see wait times at 180 minutes *cue panic* Last year we went in early October on a Saturday and only managed to get through 2 haunted house before getting so frustrated with wait times that we just rode rides before leaving. This time we got in early enough in the season, that a Sunday didn’t feel too bad.
So, here are what you need to know, including my tips for having the BEST time, and what haunted houses you’ll want to visit!
Need to Know:
Tickets: starts at $77 and goes up depending on the time of the month/day of the week. Buy online to save
General admission allows you to enter the park when Horror Night opens at 7PM
If you want to go to the park during the day, there is a ticket where you can enter at 2PM to enjoy non-horror night things, which costs $142
If you want faster haunted house entry they have express tickets starting at $249, but does not include admission
Parking: $35
No costume masks or costumes allowed
No food, drinks, bottles, recording, flash photography, flashlights or laser pens are permitted in the haunted houses
This sucked. I wish I could bring my water bottle but we didn’t chance bringing it in.
Avoiding Crowds:
The earlier in the Halloween season you visit, the less crowds there will be
Go on a weekday if you can. Weekends will always be busy
Start at the bottom of the park and make your way up
Download the Universal Studios app to view haunted house wait times while walking the park so you can better plan your night
What to See:
Haunted Houses:
The Exorcist: Believer
I did this maze because I read online that this was the scariest maze at Horror Nights. As a fan of Exorcist, I really enjoyed this maze and its jump scares, but they really went hard with the scary girl holding the cross.
Last of Us
This highly anticipated maze has been touted as one of the best of event as well. Someone said on reddit that this is a highly enjoyable maze even if you haven’t seen the TV show or played the game. We never made it to this maze because it never dropped below a 2 hour wait by the time we left. So, if this is at the top of your list, make sure to plan ahead.
Stranger Things
For the past few year Horror Nights has had a Stranger Things maze and they’ve all been great, but I saw on Reddit that someone mentioned it might not make sense if you haven’t seen the most recent season of the show.
Chucky: Ultimate Kill Count
Chucky is quintessential horror and this year Universal brought it to Horror Nights to support a new Chucky TV series. I wanted to do this maze so bad, but ran out of time. Chucky always freaked me out growing up, so how can a freaky doll maze not be scary?
Terror Tram: The Exterminator
The Terror Tram is normally something I look forward to, but this year the theming was pretty week. Last year they did clowns, this year they did exterminators? I mean, they were creepy bug people exterminating the human race, but with such a vast space and it being so cool to walk the back lot, there seemed to be a lot of open spaces with no scares and when there were scares, they weren’t that great. I always enjoy walking the backlot, and the highlights are the Nope, War of the World, and Psycho movie sets you get to walk through. The good part was, this line is always moving so it usually goes by pretty fast. This experience does end early at 11pm each night, so you might want to plan on getting it done earlier in the night.
Evil Dead Rising
This haunted house was a nice surprise. There isn’t much buzz around it but we totally enjoyed it! Great jump scares and more variety than other haunted houses we did. We did this one on a whim because it had a reasonable wait time of 45 minutes toward the end of the night. We thought it was sort of a hidden gem of the night.
Universal Monsters: Unmasked
Universal Studios is known to be responsible for most of all the classic horror movies and monsters. In this haunted house you’ll come face to face with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the Phantom of the Opera, the Hunchback of Notre Dame and the Invisible Man—all original Universal Monsters!
Monstruos: The Monsters of Latin America
We wanted to make time for this maze because we loved the theming around myths of monsters around Latin America. I wish I did this haunted house right when we got there because the wait was always fairly reasonable, and but the end of the night we needed to head out.
Holidayz In Hell
Flip the joy of the holidays on its head with this haunted house. From happy to horror, you’ll have a more haunting experience as you witness the classic holidays with a terrifying twist. Another maze that seemingly had more reasonable wait times and less popular than other haunted houses.
Scare Zones:
Wizarding World: Hogsmeade
I love the Wizarding World during Halloween. They fill the area with fog and green light, and dark wizards wander around trying to spook you. And if you walk the alley way, entrance near the Hogwarts Express train, you get a dark wizard experience which I just adore. The rides and shop are all open, too!
Scare Zones
There are areas throughout the park designated as “scare zones” so if you’re worried you’ll miss out on the haunted maze experiences because of crowds, just know that you’ll get the spook-factor just walking around. The main entrance walkway is filled with fog and giant/tall crows, and doll-like characters with chain saws walking around—so fun!
How We Spent the Day:
We live in Orange County, so Universal Studios is only an hour away, and since entry to Horror Nights entry wasn’t until 7PM, we decided to make a day of it in LA.
Morning: Getty Villa
We’ve always wanted to visit the Getty Villa, located near Santa Monica. Admission is free and all we had to do was reserve a time slot online. We got admission for 11AM and headed out around 9:30AM for the day. We’ve always wanted to visit the Getty Villa and was so impressed with the collection of Greek and Roman sculptures, pottery, jewelery, and more—they even have a mummy on display! We spent about 3 hours wandering around before heading out for
Lunch: Gangnam Station Korean BBQ
We love Korean BBQ and made it a point to try Gangnam Station KBBQ in Korea Town because it had great reviews on Yelp. It’s all you can eat and also partially self-serve. This spot was delicious and we’re totally going to come back. We were planning on getting full before heading into Universal Studios so we didn’t spend money on overpriced park food.
Drinks: Margaritaville
With some time to kill around 5PM we decided to find some liquid courage before entering the park and had a couple drinks at Margaritaville. RIP Jimmy. The drinks were delicious, the service was great, but the onion rings we got were meh, lol
Spooky Time: Halloween Horror Nights
We were surprised to see such a large crowd waiting at security to enter the park for Horror Nights right at 7PM. We lined up with the crowd and swiftly made it through security because I don’t like dealing with a bag and had only my wallet with me. We immediately headed down to the lower lot to do The Exorcist: Reviver and the wait time was already 90 minutes. We managed to do three haunted houses total and wandered Hogsmeade for awhile. We could have squeezed more haunted houses in but since it was Sunday and we had work the next day, we headed out around midnight, getting home by 1:30AM.
