All things spooky and young kids don’t normally go well together! However, Cedar Point has created a super fun family experience with Cedar Point HalloWeekends! Although there are plenty of very scary adventures to be had by the teens and adults, they are kept separate from the family friendly HalloWeekends events and many are scheduled after dark.
Hands on Review of Cedar Point HalloWeekends for kids
One look at the Cedar Point HalloWeekends website and you’d think that it was all going to be way too scary for kids, especially for preschoolers and grade-schoolers. That could not be further from the truth. Cedar Point does an excellent job at creating an environment that caters to both families and those seeking the thrill of a good scare.
Grab a Map & Plan your Day
Throughout the park, you can find an updated map of the park with HalloWeekends Attractions. You’ll also receive a map at the front gate. The map lists both Family Friendly and Frightfully Scary attractions with description, location, and times on the back. I found it necessary to read through all the attractions and write on the map the times of each event. This helped us organize our day. You will need to do this or you’ll miss a lot of the attractions.
Most of the Family Friendly HalloWeekends attractions start at the beginning of the park and work their way to the back of the park. This keeps the park pretty full toward the front of the park, but it wasn’t overcrowded, even for a Saturday.
Family Friendly HalloWeekend Attractions that We Explored
We were at the park right when the gates opened at noon. We tried to squeeze as many of the HalloWeekend Attractions into our day while still enjoying our favorite rides. This is nearly impossible! Cedar Point has so many fun attractions to visit that there is no way you can go to all 11 Family Friendly attractions AND ride the rides! We tried, and this is what we were able to explore.
Search for the Hidden Dragon
My son loves dragons and castles. My daughter thinks she is the Princess of the World. The Search for the Hidden Dragon was perfect for us!! This live, outdoor show had vibrant costumes, lively music, and a comical skit about Queen Meany who wanted a dragon in her kingdom. She had to learn manners in order for the dragon to make his home in her kingdom. This skit was entertaining for all but geared toward young kids. The cast was fabulous, friendly, and entertaining. Free pictures with your kids afterward too!
The Gypsy Fortune Tellers were located right next door. There were tents set up where you could go in. This was too much for my family and we did not allow our kids to participate. I enjoy letting my kids enjoy the simple pleasures of Halloween fun, however I am careful not to introduce dabbling into the spiritual dark world.
PEANUTS Halloween Show & Kid’s Costume Contest
Kids are allowed to wear their Halloween costumes for HalloWeekends, grownups cannot. My kids wore costumes from last year, just in case they tore or were damaged during the day. Elizabeth was Super Girl and Elijah was a Power Ranger. There are 2 PEANUTS Halloween Shows & Kid’s Costume Contests, one for preschoolers and one for school-age kids. There were only about 15 kids that entered this contest.
First, the kids lined up and walked around the grownups and onto the stage so everyone could see the costumes. The PEANUTS gang joined the kids on stage, this was really cute and excellent for picture taking!
Next, a lady without a mic announced what each child was dressed as. Then, another lady handed out prizes to 3 kids, one for prettiest, one for most creative, and one for scariest -I think. There was no announcements, no mics, no directions. Luckily my kids did not know or notice what was going on either or they would not have understood why some kids got Snoopy toys and they didn’t. In the end, each kid received stamps, a coloring page, and a purple dinosaur toy. My kids thought they won, so we were all happy. Later, we found out that the winners were also in the parade!
The GoodTime Ghouls – A Halloween Hullabaloo
Cedar Point really puts on some great shows throughout the season in their theater. For HalloWeekends the show is The GoodTime Ghouls – A Halloween Hullabaloo. This action packed live dance and singing show last 25 minutes, perfect timing for families with kids. The set is decorated in a haunted kind of way. The cast began the show coming out of graves singing and dancing to Michael Jackson’s song Thriller which was a big hit. Many other hit songs with a scary or Halloween twist were performed. All of the favorite scary movie characters were there including Frankenstein! Below is a picture of the stage, none of the action pictures turned out good because use of flash cameras are prohibited.
Monster Midway Invasion Celebration Parade
No mater where you are in the park, you can catch the Monster Midway Invasion Celebration Parade. This parade is action packed and full of monsters and characters! This fun parade is safe for kids, not too scary!
Magical House on Boo Hill
The Magical House on Boo Hill was such a hit with my kids that we had to go twice! No cameras were allowed or I would have taken plenty! It was a wonderfully made haunted house but without the scary monsters jumping out. It really felt like an old, “haunted” house with peeling wallpaper, old framed pictures crooked on the walls, dusty tables with rats on top… The scariest parts were the haunted table that moved around and the bathroom full of alligators crawling out of the toilet, tub, and sink. Other parts of the Magical House included a full size bed of nails (rubber), photos of monsters on the wall, witches kitchen with fake fireplace, and just plain creepy old stuff all around. Kids were given snack size candy bars at the end of the self-guided tour.
Right outside the Magical House at Boo Hill was a maze of hay bails. My kids loved finding their way.
Graveyard Rockers
The Graveyard Rockers was an amazaing time for my kids! We hit this up after dark on our way out. The 10′ tall costumed characters were large but not too scary! A Mummy, Satan, Frankenstein, Dracula, and WereWolf were all dancing in the crowd of families and then on stage with the DJ. It was a great time. My kids loved dancing to the Monster Mash type songs.
Cedar Point HalloWeekend Decorations
Cedar Point always provides a clean, decorated park. Usually this means beautiful flower beds throughout the park but for HalloWeekends it means everything Fall and everything scary! They did a great job creating the Halloween atmosphere.
There were many graveyards and skeletons throughout the park, not my favorite. However, I did enjoy the Cedar Point Ride Graveyard. It was fun to remember the old rides that were pushed out when the bigger and better rides came to Cedar Point over the years.
There were monsters in boxes that tried to escape throughout the park. This intrigued and scared kids and grownups when caught by surprise! There were other monsters and Halloween characters scattered throughout the park.
Elijah used his creativity to stage the below picture of him at the bottom of the space ship crash.
Are Cedar Point HalloWeekends good for kids?
Yes, yes, yes! We experienced Cedar Point like it was the first time we were there! Not only did we have a super time on the rides, which I will highlight in my next post, but we had a great time experiencing all of the HalloWeekend Family Friendly Attractions! There was nothing scary that our kids were afraid of, even at ages 3 & 5! There was plenty there to scare people with their Frightfully Scary attractions but if that is not for you, there is more than plenty to see and do with the Family Friendly Attractions. We were at Cedar Point from Noon until 10pm and still did not see everything we wanted! We could easily spend 2 days at Cedar Point for HalloWeekends.
We saw Monsters at Cedar Point
Without sounding like a horrible mom, I want to tell you that my kids did see a few monsters on the Frightufully Scary track. The Camp Snoopy area rides close at 7pm and reopened at 8pm as a scary outside haunted trail. We were still in the area at 7:40pm and saw the fog machines on. We decided to walk through, with our stroller before the action began. The kids loved jumping in the thick fog and trying to scare us. We saw the below monster, walking to his station. My kids were not scared.
We still had not walked through Frontier Land and decided to head back to the front of the park that way. In the path was The Fright Zone, an outdoor Walk through. We took the chance because the kids really wanted to see more monsters and fog. Let me tell you, the fog was so thick that I held Elizabeth in one arm and my husband’s arm with the other. I did not want to get lost! Elijah rode in the stroller. We navigated through the crowd of people with random monsters speeding by on roller skates of some sort.
The monsters saw us horrible parents walking through with a stroller and were so gracious to us and our kids. The monsters simply waved and said hi to my kids as they chased and yelled at other people.
One monster came right us to us, I told her that there was a monster beside her. She snickered and said, “That is not a monster, it’s just pretend, he has a mask on!” Just so you know, we were not the only stroller-pushing parents there either! I think that since it was just 8pm, the start of it all, they may have been a bit easier on us with strollers. It really was not scary at all, my kids loved it.
So far, my kids have had no nightmares as a result of Cedar Point HalloWeekends! I highly recommend the Family Friendly Track for families!
Visit Cedar Point for HalloWeekends
HalloWeekends is open Friday, Saturday, and Sundays through October 31st. See website for exact times. Some rides are not open certain days, check website for details. Regular tickets start at $45.99, see website for details.
This was not a paid post. My own opinions were used based on my perceptions and experience. Thank you to Cedar Point who provided tickets for the review.
