Best Theme Park Halloween Event (2019)

The fall Harvest Festival at Dollywood includes a spectacular evening event known as Great Pumpkin LumiNights. Thousands of carved jack o’lanterns illuminate the night in what is the largest addition to Dollywood’s fall festival in the park’s history. The family friendly event includes giant sculptures, pumpkin-themed food options and live entertainment.
Photo courtesy of Dollywood

Celebrating 29 years in 2019, Universal Orlando’s Halloween Horror Nights immerses gleeful guests in gore from end to end. Killer clowns, brain-starved zombies and violence-bent Purgers are among the characters you might meet as you navigate the streets – which transform each evening into a hellscape of bone-chilling screams. You’ll find little refuge in any of its nine horrifying houses.
Photo courtesy of Universal Orlando Resort

The Kings Island coasters aren’t the only things making park guests scream. Come September, the park’s annual Halloween Haunt adds frightening mazes and live shows designed with one purpose: scare you just enough to haunt your dreams until next year’s event comes ‘round. Among the upcoming attractions for 2019 are the Coney Maul, Pumpkin Eater, Chaos maze and a Haunted Homecoming stage show.
Photo courtesy of Kings Island

For nearly two decades, Phantom Fright Nights has been luring Kennywood fans back for Halloween-themed thrills they can’t get any other time of year as their favorite attractions go Jekyll-Hyde, transforming into dark, fearsome alter egos well suited for the holiday. Raging Rapids, for example, is drained to become Voodoo Bayou, a devastatingly dangerous attraction for those brave enough to enter. Also on tap: BioFear, Mortem Manor, Villa of the Vampires and more. Don’t come alone.
Photo courtesy of Kennywood

A host of haunts are on tap at this Virginia favorite, where dangers lurk in the eerie woods just off the Blue Ridge Parkway and the ghosts of criminally insane inmates are looking to satisfy their eternal bloodlust. Live shows, mazes and more are in store and each year the mayhem spreads like a Halloween virus. Kings Dominion’s fierce fans are most definitely infected.
Photo courtesy of Kings Dominion

Darkened thrill rides and even darker story lines are at the heart of Tampa’s Howl-O-Scream, an event that draws in Halloween enthusiasts far and wide with its nightmarish content. Celebrating 20 years of fear in 2019, the event will include zombies, demons, ghosts and serial killers among other ghouls.
Photo courtesy of Busch Gardens Tampa Bay

Born in 1973 as a one-weekend offering, the Halloween Haunt has since evolved into Knott’s Scary Farm, which opens in late September. This year’s event will feature nine mazes and four scare zones with both new features and returning favorites. 
Photo courtesy of Knott's Berry Farm

Carowinds Theme Park turns into a scream park with 16 haunted attractions and shows and 500 monsters waiting to thrill and chill. Visitors to this year's event can walk the haunted Fleet Street, attend Zombie High School, revisit the horror classics of the '50s and '60s at Silver Scream Studios or swing by Carnevil.
Photo courtesy of Carowinds

Fear awaits in the Virginia theme park’s collection of elaborate haunted houses, immersive themed scare zones, challenging escape rooms and darkly entertaining live shows. Themes in 2019 include Axe Alley, Fool's Court, Garden of the Souls, Ripper Row, Sideshow Square and Vampire Point.
Photo courtesy of Busch Gardens Williamsburg

Thrills by day, frights by night is the theme in New Jersey, where the scariest great adventures come after dark. While the sun’s up, family-friendly fun abounds with spooky magic shows, eerie animal antics, a trick-or-treat trail and more. But the fun turns dark when the clock strikes six and this thrill park becomes a chill park for those brave enough to stay. 
Photo courtesy of Six Flags Great Adventure