Halloween in Pensacola Provides Plenty of Alternatives to Trick-or-Treating

If you plan on spending Halloween in Pensacola, Florida this year and you’re looking for some alternatives to traditional trick or treating, you’re in luck. Pensacola is actually a great place to spend Halloween if you believe in ghosts and spirits. You may not be aware of it, but Pensacola was the first European settlement in the United States. It was only a catastrophic hurricane (like you couldn’t have guessed) that either killed or temporarily drove those first settlers away that prevents the city from claiming its rightful status as America’s Oldest City. As such, if there really are such things as ghosts, there must be plenty here.

Taking advantage of that fact, Halloween in Pensacola can be historically enjoyed by taking the Pensacola Historical Society’s annual haunted house and carriage tour. This is a tradition that started out almost two decades ago with very little fanfare or takers and has managed to grow into a significant Halloween event. Pensacola’s historical district is populated by homes with centuries of history and when you take this tour you’ll all about the murder and mayhem that is supposedly responsible for a multitude of ghost sitings throughout the years.

The tours are led by costumed guides, most of whom have been doing this since the tour’s inception and are particularly well acquainted with the ghostly tales you will hear. I have personally taken this tour several times and I can guarantee you will have a good time and learn some interesting information about this old city. You can locate the schedule and other information by visiting Pensacolahistory.org.

What’s Halloween without a visit to some scary houses? The Grimes family is once again promising their Grimes Sanitarium scary house which has been very popular in recent years. Moving up from four frightening rooms to six this year, the Grimes will be following in their tradition of scaring the heck out of visitors for free with decorations based on classic scary movies such as Children of the Corn and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. For more information check out HauntingPensacola.com.

Florida’s oldest community theater The Pensacola Little Theater is serving up a Treehouse Theater musical this year titled Zombie Prom. Parodying classic 50s horror flicks, this play will takes place at a high school in the 50s and details the strange love affair between a young female student and the bike-riding bad boy who comes back from the local nuclear waste dump all aglow.

In addition the Pensacola Little Theater will again conduct its annual Stage Fright, a scary house that goes the whole nine yards by putting all the know-how of the theater’s backstage and makeup experts along with local actors in attempt to scare the daylights out of you. This year there will be three separate themes to choose from: a traveling freak show, a 3-D carnival of fear and a jailhouse revenge show. Stage Fright has proven in the past to be very popular and very frightening!

Big Lagoon State Park is again holding their Haunted House and Hayride along with the Pumpkin Patch trick or treat alternative for the younger ones. This event has traditionally been one of the most popular Halloween alternatives as the haunted house is generally creepy and the hayride is lots of fun for everyone of all ages. After 6:00 PM the park fee is waived and the $10 donation price includes everything except the Pumpkin Patch, which is just $3.00.

The Zoo at Gulf Breeze, which is not far at all from Pensacola, is also an annual tradition. This year’s theme is Going Batty, focusing on vampires as part of the celebration of the zoo’s new state of the art nocturnal bat house, home to 200 tropical fruit bats. In addition to the haunted train ride, there are also costume contests, games, and prizes.

The local amusement park Sam’s Fun City is again turning into a Halloween fun zone at night, decorated for the season and featuring employees in costume. They will also be holding a costume contest, a karaoke contest and “special events” so far unidentified. This has proven in the past to be very popular and a very safe place to take the very young. The train ride gets transformed into a haunted train ride.

Halloween in Pensacola is anything but boring. There are scheduled events to be enjoyed by those of all ages and the events range from the very scary to the kid-friendly.