Surviving Halloween Horror Nights… While Pregnant

Who in their right (or maybe wrong) mind decides to go to the opening weekend of Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios while 6 months pregnant?

This girl. *cue the TikTok audio*…. Yep, that’s me. You’re probably wondering how I ended up in this situation….

The HHN Experience

Let me preface by saying that Halloween Horror Nights is a tradition and an experience. The more you stick around in this blog, the more you’ll realize Halloween is actually a lifestyle choice for me, but I digress. My best friends and I go every year, and have been going rain or shine for damn near a decade. Some of these same best friends have helped design beautiful houses and Tribute Stores, others have led private R.I.P Tours into the bowels of horror-filled IP dream scenes, and even rose above the crowds haunting your scare zone selfies on stilts. Regardless of involvement, we all make the time to pilgrimage to the Halloween Holy Land that is HHN.

Do we normally choose the opening weekend? No. This year was an anomaly, as opening weekend coincided with one of my best friends’ birthdays, so we made it an excuse to party. However, we do secure tickets to attend early in the season, which is crucial if you want to avoid crowds and keep your ticket costs low, especially if you are a Florida Resident or a UO Annual Passholder (UOAP).

Was being 6 months pregnant going to stop me from going to my beloved HHN? It sure wasn’t. But let me tell you, I learned some lessons, and I’m going to share them with you should you find yourself growing a human waiting in lines at a theme park during peak spooky season.

If you just want to read the real HHN review for 2025: skip HERE

Lesson #1: Express Pass or Bust

Universal Studios decided to launch a new pass option this year that my friends and I thought would help us knock out some of the houses before HHN officially opened without the cost of getting an express pass. While some of us with UOAP perks could come into the park early for “stay and scream”, other friends who didn’t have APs anymore had to purchase an extra ticket to allow them to come into the park early and roam or get in line for the houses. Despite our best efforts, we did not utilize our time in park pre-HHN very well, and this is no fault but our own. We also made a rookie mistake and started at the most popular house first, which posted a wait time of almost 3 hours before the event even started.

After about 4 hours post the official event start time, and damn close to 11 PM we had only conquered 2 houses, and pregnant me was already in a wheelchair to brave the lines. If you’re wondering if I make it to any more houses at HHN? No. No, I did not. I opted to tap out, but the friends who stayed got to purchase a post-11 PM express pass ticket at a discounted price, and they CRUSHED HHN. They did the remaining 8 houses with a little time to spare.

So the lesson here is, if you want to maximize your time at HHN, spring for an express pass. You can pre-purchase and have that the whole time, or you can wait until 11 PM and purchase it in the park, but prepare to hustle to knock out whatever houses you have left, and get your post 11 PM pass early or they might sell out.

Lesson #2: Consider Staying on Property

If you can justify an additional cost, I highly recommend getting a few friends together, splitting the cost of a room and staying on property for HHN. Universal has some beautiful hotels that give you a ton of perks. Pro Tip: find a hotel with access to a water taxi that lets you skip the longest trek through CityWalk at the end of the night and drops you off relatively close to your hotel. Going through security at the hotel is also much less of an ordeal. You can also come into the park early with your keycard if you aren’t an AP, and take advantage of the “stay and scream” option just because you are staying at a Universal hotel.

This was an absolute boss move for me, because after tapping out of HHN, I took a short walk to a water taxi, made it back to the hotel, got some exclusive HHN munchies in the lobby, enjoyed the most relaxing hot shower to alleviate back pain, and was basically snoozing before midnight. While I hated missing out, I was so grateful I had a place I could go lie down and plug my heating pad into for immediate relief.

The other hidden perk of stayin on property – you get to experience really good photo ops in the lobby of your hotel. The Aventura where we stayed had a UFO themed photo spot, but the Loews Sapphire Falls Resort next door had a stunning lobby set up like a gothic haunted mansion with spooky candelabras, candles, and ghostly spirits.

Lesson #3: Hydrate or Die-drate Among Other Things

Universal’s Freestyle machines generously located around the park let you fill a cup or a reuseable water bottle with free water. Finding ice during HHN is a little trickier as the machines tend to run dry of that commodity rather quickly. When you’re pregnant, and in the Florida heat with the evening humidity you need to be able stay hydrated. To ensure I did, I packed electrolyte packets in my purse and a corkcicle water bottle that kept my ice (once it was sourced by my dearest friend) from melting even with the temps registering around infernal.

Some other things I brought with me so I wouldn’t die…. a rechargeable neck fan, a handheld rechargeable fan, my insulin pen, tums, hand sanitizer wipes, and the holy grail – a portable cell phone charging bank that charged every single electronic thing I had in my bag.

What didn’t I bring that I should have brought? A belly band. Although I am carrying “little” for 6 months, the pressure on my lower back and pelvis when standing and walking around for long periods of time was not pleasant. This is what ultimately took me out, even with the assistance of being wheeled around like a spooky goddess through the fog, I was so uncomfortable most of the night I wasn’t able to enjoy myself. As much as I wanted to tough it out, because HHN tickets aren’t cheap these days, I decided to throw in the towel and not push myself to stay for the sake of justifying the cost.

Overall HHN 2025 Experience – The Real Review

Pregnant or not, I would want to impart this little bit of advice: Prepare yourself for crowds and prepare yourself for unsupervised kids. In the last couple of years there has been an uptick of unaccompanied adolescents at HHN, and this year was particularly crazy given the popularity of three houses that have a younger following (Five Nights at Freddy’s, Terrifier, and Fallout).

We all hear about the smells in the houses, but the smell of marijuana across the park was particularly impressive this year, adding clouds of ambiance to the familiar fog we know and love. If you are sensitive to that scent, just know that you may encounter it frequently during your visit to HHN.

I would recommend skipping the food hype, because once you see the lines people wait in for a footlong mozzarella log, you’ll lose your appetite. I personally was not impressed with any of the food options available this year. Usually there are one or two niche and house specific treats I want to try, but this year the one dessert I got (The Camp Bloody S’mores – a toasted chocolate almond bread, ganache, marshmallows, and cinnamon cereal, finished with a raspberry-like “blood splatter”) wasn’t worth the price tag; and it certainly wasn’t worth the diabetic shock I put my body in for two bites, because it was unpalatable.

HHN does have its food staples, the one thing you look forward to every year, but a fan favorite has been killed off… the twisted tater. Universal decided to get rid of the tastiest spud on a stick precisely because people used the stick as a weapon post snack consumption. This year, you can look forward to a disappointing artificially flavored bag of overcooked chips. Major and EPIC fail.

If you want to bring a little trinket home with you, prepare for popular merch to sell out quickly. I had one mission on this trip to HHN other than survive, and that was to bring back some Sugar Bombs from the Fallout game/series for my husband. I waited entirely too long to visit the Tribute Store, and was told they sold out almost immediately upon opening the gates of HHN, and had sold out the night before as well during Team Preview. What was left of the Fallout merch wasn’t anything my husband wanted, so I came back home empty-handed and defeated.

I can’t give you a full review of the HHN houses this year, I only made it to two, but the two I did get to see were SPECTACULAR. Kudos to the teams who put together Five Nights at Freddy’s and the Fallout houses. While the scares weren’t great, the houses were artistically immaculate. My friends said the remaining 8 houses were all amazing too, with Terrifier getting high praise as well as El Artista.

I can tell you about scare zones; my personal favorite was Club Horror, followed by the Zombies at Mel’s. I spent a stupid amount of time dancing at Club Horror and taking some maternity pics in the fog, because DUH – why wouldn’t I? The scare zones are always fun, and although I didn’t run into Art the Clown roaming the streets of HHN, I did get to see some tiny fans accompanied by their parents wearing Art inspired outfits. Truly top-notch parenting right there.

Another issue was navigating tight lines waiting for houses with a wheelchair… pretty sure some people got clipped in the sweet spot by their Achilles tendon. Not my fault, we learned some of the lines are not entirely ADA compliant, but the good news is – the houses themselves are. Further exacerbating ADA issues, the portable potties on the backlot between houses; also not ADA compliant as they have several steps you need to go up in order to get to the restroom.

The final nail in the coffin of this year’s HHN is a concern that has plagued this event since Universal turned over it’s decision-making on disabilities to a third-party vendor. The lack of consistency for guest assistance passes is OUT OF CONTROL. Two members of our 6 person party are pregnant, and while pregnancy is not a disability, I am considered high risk; a diagnosis I was given AFTER purchasing my tickets to HHN, coupled with a need to administer insulin. I had every intention of making this event easy on myself by coming in early to knock out houses, packing my insulin in a way that I wouldn’t have to leave a line to administer it, and basically following all the rules, but when I realized my child in utero was going to make it impossible to stand in a line without needing to pee every 30 minutes, and my glucose was suddenly out of control despite the insulin, things got a little less easy. So we went to guest services to see if we could request an attraction assistance pass (AAP). Instead we were given a speech about how Universal has a “new” ticket system (spoilers – it’s not new, they have been using this system since the post Covid HHN days, and it sucks) which lets you get out of line while someone in your party waits, and then you can just join them when you are ready to come back based on the number on your ticket. This is dumb. There has to be a better way. We believe we were denied an AAP because of our party size, given we overheard another guest state they got one because they have anxiety, and waiting in lines is not possible for them, and they had a small party of 3….. MAKE IT MAKE SENSE….

No ticketed event is ever perfect, but when this is a staple at Universal every year for over 30 years, it begs the question – Why are these issues consistent?

Regardless of my experience and review for the 2025 HHN season, I’m still a diehard fan, and I will continue to support this event. I truly think a big part of why HHN feels like a good time even when it misses the mark across the board is the people you choose to go with, because when Halloween is a lifestyle choice this is where you go with your besties to dance in the fog and kick off the start of spooky season!