Our Experience at Universal Orlando Halloween Horror Nights 2024 with the Express Pass

Hi everyone!

Universal Orlando Resort invited us to Halloween Horror Nights for 2024. We weren’t in town for the official media event, but the resort did give us tickets and the Express Pass for a subsequent night.

We visited on Thursday, September 5th with relatively mild crowds – and yet the Express Pass saved us several hours at the ten houses.

Here is our experience from that night with 40 photos.

The weather was threatening as we arrived, but there wasn’t much rain to contend with at the park. The sign and banner at the entrance promote Halloween Horror Nights 2024, including the ten haunted houses.

Houses include Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire and Universal Monsters: Eternal Bloodlines.

Universal Orlando Halloween Horror Nights officially runs from 6:30 a.m. through 2:00 a.m. We entered the park a bit earlier than 5:00 p.m. so that we could do the Stay & Scream. I can’t recommend this enough if you have a day ticket or Annual Pass.

Guests are met with a Halloween Horror Nights banner on the way in. We didn’t see the chainsaws at the beginning of the night because we were already into the park (but we did see some on the way out).

Guests were lining up in the Stay & Scream queue for quicker entry to their first house. Since we had the Express Pass, we sat and enjoyed an area with food booths.

The Twilight Tavern is one of the food booths available for Halloween Horror Nights. These booths were all open for 5:00 p.m. and these were by far the shortest lines (almost non-existent) that we saw all night. This area got very busy later.

We ordered the Forbidden Falafel (we did pay for our food and used our Annual Pass for a discount). A friend had ordered the In the Fog Fish ‘n Chips with pub fries and recommended it.

There were only two falafel balls in the pita. I though the price was high for it, though it was tasty.

The Twisted Tater was a popular booth later on.

We also ordered the Mini Stay-Puft S’More. It comes with a mini Stay-Puft marshmallow man, chocolate bar and graham cracker.

 

Here is a look at the treat. The one we received came out perfectly, I know that isn’t always the case. There was no line when we purchased it just after 5:00 p.m.

It was cute and delicious for $6.99.

 

This is what the lines for the same booth looked like at 7:00 p.m. It was very busy at that time.

The Ghostbusters sign and Slimer were lit up on the booth.

We entered the Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire queue at 5:33 p.m. The wait said 35 minutes, but with Express Pass we had a minute or two wait. Guests without Stay & Scream were not yet in the park.

Good shoes are helpful since there is quite a bit of walking through queues.

To the left is the standby queue. We couldn’t film in the houses, so we enjoyed them as guests. Jeff went through all 10 (he does not startle easily) and I went through a few of them (as I do startle a lot). I found the Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire House much more atmospheric than scary – it is so well done and it was lighter on the jump scares.

I took this photo at 5:48 a.m. as guests were waiting to enter the park for Halloween Horror Nights. While the event officially opens at 6:30 p.m., it seemed that guests were let in around 6:00 p.m. on this day.

Scare zones are much easier for me to navigate during the early evening. The scare actors are always incredible, but you don’t want to turn your back on them.

The Express Pass also included select rides in the park, and we used it for two. The rides on this night were not busy, so the Express Pass saved us a few minutes or so each time. I would expect the rides are busier on weekend nights.

We rode Revenge of the Mummy, which is one of our favorite rides at Universal Orlando.

The sun was setting, and Halloween Horror Nights takes on a more spooky atmosphere.

We went through the Major Sweets Candy Factory house. The sign showed 40 minutes, which is still on the lower end of the houses for the evening. We probably waited about 5 minutes with Halloween Horror Nights Express Pass.

I asked friends which houses I should do as someone who does get scared easily, and this was recommended. I did find it much more startle-inducing than Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire.

The Wolfman was out from the upcoming film (coming to theaters January 17th). At this time, he had a relatively long line of guests taking photos with him, so we didn’t get video.

We also rode Harry Potter and the Escape from Gringotts with the Express Pass.

Jeff’s three favorite houses were Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, Universal Monsters: Eternal Bloodlines and Insidious. They are very different houses. Eternal Bloodlines was one of the last houses he did for the night. And just FYI – Insidious can be very scary for many guests. Jeff didn’t find it that way for himself, but almost everyone else I have seen online has been unnerved by it.

HHN 33 was projected on the Men in Black building.

Mel’s Drive-In is lit up as “Mel’s Die-In” during Halloween Horror Nights.

We arrived before 5:00 p.m. and left at 10:30 p.m., with all the houses complete with Halloween Horror Nights Express Pass. We weren’t racing around the park, we took our time and enjoyed the evening. Guests were still arriving as we left.

It has been a number of years since we attended Halloween Horror Nights and we had a fantastic night. I would always choose midweek and if we went on our own, we would purchase the Halloween Horror Nights Express Pass, which starts at $159.99 plus tax, in addition to the event ticket. It allows guests to skip the regular lines one time each at all haunted houses, plus at participating rides and attractions, and it saved us many hours in line.

The Stay & Scream option was invaluable also. We were able to relax, try some specialty food items with no wait, and then entered houses earlier than guests entering the park around 6:00 p.m. Having that in tandem with Express Pass (on a moderate night) made our evening very easy overall.

 

Thank you to Universal Orlando Resort for inviting us out. All views are ours.