SeaWorld Orlando is running two completely different Halloween events this year, and the difference matters if you are buying tickets. Halloween Spooktacular is a daytime, family-first event included with park admission on select dates from August 29 through November 1, 2026. Howl-O-Scream is a separately ticketed after-dark event intended for mature audiences, running select nights from September 11 through October 31. Same park, opposite ends of the day.
Spooktacular: the daytime one, included with admission
Spooktacular is built for children and the adults hauling them around, and this year it picks up a licensed franchise for the first time. Characters from Sony Pictures Animation’s Hotel Transylvania are making their SeaWorld Orlando debut, with Drac and Mavis turning the SeaFire Inn into the “Monster Dread & Breakfast,” a separately ticketed character breakfast with an all-you-care-to-enjoy buffet, meet-and-greets, photos inside Drac’s vacation home and interactive musical numbers. Mavis and Johnny also host a Hotel Transylvania dance party elsewhere in the park.
The rest of Spooktacular is the familiar spread, and it is a lot for something bundled into regular admission:
- Trick-or-Treat Trail: 12 candy stations across the park, open to any guest who buys a Spooktacular reusable trick-or-treat bag.
- Meet a Mermaid in the Key West area, and Spookley the Square Pumpkin across from Rita’s Italian Ice.
- Pumpkin Garden & Storytime, where a storyteller reads Halloween stories through the day, plus the Spooky Bubble Trail.
- Scarecrow Halloween Dance Parade near Rita’s, just outside Dolphin Stadium.
- A Sesame Street Halloween Parade with Elmo, Cookie Monster, Abby Cadabby and Count von Count, and Storytime with Big Bird.
Two practical notes. SeaWorld runs a Teal Pumpkin Program: guests with food allergies can collect teal tokens at each candy station and redeem them at Coconut Bay Traders in Key West for allergy-friendly treats. And costumes are welcome for all ages, but guests 13 and older may not wear masks or hoods, and face painting is only permitted if a SeaWorld artist does it.
New on the food side: a Mummy Dog, an all-beef hot dog wrapped in pretzel dough, and Trick-or-Treat Crunch Popcorn, caramel popcorn under M&M’s, gummy candies and a chocolate drizzle.
The park has had a busy year on the animal side as well, having just opened a jellyfish aquarium in San Diego and taken in the only emperor penguins in the Americas, who now live in Orlando.
Howl-O-Scream: the night one, and it is not for kids
Howl-O-Scream has been named one of the Top Theme Park Halloween Events by USA TODAY’s 10Best Readers’ Choice, and 2026 is the biggest version SeaWorld Orlando has staged: five haunted houses, six scare zones, five new themed bars, two returning live shows and rides running in the dark.
The headline is the park’s first-ever movie-inspired haunted house, “I Know What You Did Last Summer: The Final Catch,” built with Sony Pictures around the 1997 horror film and set at the Southport Massacre. The other four houses are all new originals: “Dark Net,” a cyberpunk city where vampiric cyborgs hunt during an energy crisis; “Everything Must Stay,” an open house nobody escapes; “Raveyard,” an underground rave that outlived its dancers; and “Crawlspace,” a sealed-off sewer system with something growing in it.
The six scare zones spill the same idea into the walkways: “Nekrosis” (a seaside town frozen at midnight on January 1, 2000), “Just One More Chapter” (a dark-romance enchanted garden), “Dooms District” (competing doomsday preppers), “Extermination Order” (an insect infestation gone wrong), plus returning favorites “Woodrot Hollow” and “Trailer Park Tragedy.”
Five new bars anchor the night: The Rewind, Byte Bar, Resurrection Club, The Black Sheep and the Larva Lounge. The returning stunt show “Throttle” adds a new character this year, while “Monster Stomp” comes back as the event’s percussion-and-monsters staple. Guests who want more can add Front Line Fear options for faster access to houses and rides, or a guided VIP Terror Tour, and Food & Beverage Lanyards cover a menu that includes more than 15 new themed mocktails.
What does it cost?
Spooktacular is included with park admission; only the Hotel Transylvania breakfast is a separate charge. Howl-O-Scream tickets, for a limited time, start at $45.99 each when buying two or more, dropping to $40.99 each for SeaWorld Orlando annual pass members on the same two-ticket minimum.
For families weighing a fall trip, the honest read is this: Spooktacular gives you a full day of Halloween on top of the animal habitats and attractions you were already paying for, and Howl-O-Scream is a separate night out for the grown-ups in the group. Doing both in one trip is entirely possible. They just are not the same event, and nobody wants to find that out at the gate.
