Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights Strategy

Our family of five has our first ever trip to Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights (HHN) scheduled for October 2023. With that comes the need to strategize how to maximize our time at getting most everything done while also trying to minimize the outpouring of cash.

This post is not meant to be an all-encompassing Hollywood Horror Nights post with every detail and strategy of the event. It is honestly more of a means for me to organize and talk through my own thought process to try and justify the cost and planning strategy. In no way is this going to be the perfect HHN strategy guide, and in probably most cases, will not impact your planning process. However, it really helps me with the planning.

Tickets and Frequent Fear passes are now on sale for the 2023 season, and OMG. I know anytime guests visit Disney or Universal, it is stupid expensive, but the prices are crazy. How do these parks remain packed to the walls at these prices? As you will see at the end of this article, the HHN are not even necessarily the high costs; it is the crazy approach they take to pricing day tickets when it is essentially the same number of hours in the park.

From what we have seen during our research, one thing HHN is not short on is crowds. Which means the parks are going to maximize the amount of money they can bring in, all while trying to manage crowds. So maybe, just maybe the high prices will defer some people from attending and make our visit more enjoyable. Wishful thinking.

Lets start with single day tickets.

The Universal Studios side of the park shuts down and reopens under a separate ticket for Horror Nights. This means guests are paying full price for a day, but only getting part of it. You would think tickets might be cheaper. For example, a 1-park, 1-day ticket to either Universal Orland or Islands of Adventure during the HHN season is the exact same price (i.e. no discount for the Universal Orlando side which closes early) (I get the whole argument that guests still have full day access to the Island of Adventure side if buying a 2-park ticket.)

However, on the day of our visit, a single day, two-park ticket runs $204. After tax, we will be shelling out $1086.30 for one day. And we still have to add on evening tickets for Horror Nights. That is absolutely insane when you are only giving me a part day at one of the parks.

So the question is then how to we maximize our strategy? Day tickets are what they are unfortunately as we are visiting with a friend who has never been and want to spend the day with her seeing Harry Potter.

Due to logistics of our family’s schedule and flights, we have the potential for 3 days/nights at Universal on this trip, encompassing a partial day Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. We had hopes that the Frequent Fear pass would save us some money versus purchasing single night HHN tickets. However, here is the breakdown.

3 nights of Horror Nights tickets (Wed-Fri)- $1437.59
Frequent Fear Passes (include Friday nights)- $1437.70

Therefore, the only way to make the Fear Pass that include Friday nights viable is to visit more than 3 nights, which is not feasible for our trip. So now we need to realistically look at how we will approach visiting the parks.

Universal Studios Halloween Horror Nights Strategy

Wednesday

When we get into Orlando on Wednesday, we can not check into our house until 4, which means we have two options. Either go straight to the parks and then when we stumble out of Horror Nights potentially at 2am, then we are trying to check into our rental home that we are sharing with lots of other families. That could not bode well for both us trying to figure out the configuration of the house in the middle of the night and the potential of waking other guests. Not the best strategy to start out a shared vacation with other families.

The other option is to check into our home and then make our way over to Horror Nights. This means a more casual evening enjoying the sites and sounds of the event without too much focus on knocking out too many of the haunted mazes. This seems to be the ideal situation for our family. And maybe we get lucky knocking out several of the haunted houses.

Our Horror Nights tickets for Wednesday evening will run $452.57. I find it humorous that HHN tickets get me access to the park from 6:30pm-2:00am (7.5 hours) and are far cheaper than a day ticket that only gets me into the park from 9:00am-5:00pm (8 hours).

I also want to make sure our very first night doing Horror Nights, we do not go balls to the wall trying to fit it all in, and then be bored with it come Friday.

Thursday

Assuming we stay till 2am from our Wednesday visit, the idea would be to rest during the day, taking in the enjoyment of the shared house and pool.

Our initial thoughts of the Frequent Fear passes was to head back at night for another evening of fun. However, we also need to think about Friday, where we plan to spend the full day at Islands of Adventure and Universal Studios and Horror Nights in the evening, meaning a very long day. So going Thursday evening and staying till late is not the best strategy.

Maybe we take a swing over to Disney Springs during the evening or something casual. I think our best strategy for Thursday is lay low and prep for Friday.

Also saving the money of another $85 HHN ticket per person.

Friday

Again the plan is to spend all day and night enjoying Islands of Adventure and Universal Studios and Horror Nights.

The nice thing about our visit on this day is we will already be in the park and can easily take advantage of the Stay & Scream strategy, where we will be able to queue for select houses inside the park and ahead of other guests.

The cost for day ($1086.30) and evening ($532.45) tickets will run $1618.75. That’s insane! The day tickets are what really is just absolutely shocking.

Express Passes Strategy

One of the options we had to determine if it was worth was adding on Express Passes to one of our visits, giving us quicker access to all the haunted houses plus select rides and attractions. This is a very enticing option given limited time to take advantage of HHN.

However, that would add on another $1064.95 to our trip, and I just can not justify the additional cost.

I had considered it if the Express Pass gave us access all day to both parks and the rides + HHN. However, I called and confirmed the HHN Express Pass was only for the special ticketed event.

Scream Early Strategy

Universal also offers an add-on of allowing guests into the park early ahead of Horror Nights. This runs $40 per person. The idea is guests can queue early ahead of guests who come in from the main gate. Since we would not be able to use it on Wednesday due to checking into our house, and Friday we will already be in the park, this option was not necessary.

Is it not just crazy the idea of having to pay to queue early?

Summary

Before we finalized our itinerary, I wanted to look at one more option.

The current plan calls for:
– HHN on Wednesday
– 2-park day + HHN on Friday

The total cost for those two days would be $2071.32 for our family of five.

However, what if we skipped Wednesday, doing only Friday and adding Express Passes.

The cost for day ($1086.30) and evening ($532.45) tickets will run $1618.75. Adding on Express Passes for our Friday nights adds another $1064.95. Bringing the total to $2683.70…for one day! Yeah I can not justify the extra $600. I would much rather spread it out over the two nights.

In summary, we determined doing one evening Horror Nights tickets + one full day + evening tickets was the best strategy for our family. Everyone has their own preferences to what they feel comfortable spending versus the luxury it provides. When you scale in our family costs multiplying it by five, you can quickly see how the costs skyrocket and maybe are not as easy to swallow as those that might be single or a couple.

We are really excited to finally go to Hollywood Horror Nights and scratch off that bucket list item. Since we are not local, I can not see us outpouring this kind of cash again in the future when we get such great Halloween passes with HalloWeekends and Haunt at Cedar Fair parks thanks to our Cedar Fair season passes. Follow along on our sister site, the CPFoodBlog, for all things Cedar Fair related.

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