Best Halloween House Displays in Orange County
Aloha Maids has combed the internet to find 3 of the best decorated and most famous houses in Orange County around Halloween time. If you are interested in seeing these displays, you may need some help. Free up that time by hiring a maid from the only maid agency in Orange County with “Aloha Spirit.” Get in the Halloween spirit early by visiting these spooktacular homes, or you can put them on your trick-or-treat route for Halloween.
Nightmare Before Christmas House
23912 Bough
Mission Viejo, CA 92691
This story is a review from Yelp.
“Jack Skellington came here from Halloween Town,
You’ll notice his handiwork scattered around.
This year he’s decided to play ‘Sandy Claws,’
But when Halloween creates Christmas you might see some flaws.”
Haunted Mansion Holiday
When Bill Ford became disenchanted with his “standard” Christmas display, his wife suggested that if he was going to change things up, he should do something unique.
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And that is how the Nightmare Before Christmas House was born…
The theme is a Nightmare Before Christmas toy shop, complete with characters working hard to make toys for kids around the world.
“Making Christmas, making Christmas
Snakes and spiders get wrapped up
So nice with spider legs and pretty bows
It’s ours this time”
When the toys are ready, they are hauled to “Sandy Claws,” who takes them to sleeping children around the world. Of course, the real Santa Claus was given the year off courtesy of Lock, Shock, and Barrel.
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“Kidnap the Sandy Claws
Tie him in a bag
Throw him in the ocean
Then, see if he is sad”
Kidnap the Sandy Claws
The display also reminds you that Christmas is almost here!
The entire display (sans the lights) is all handmade. It takes over 48 hours of total time to set up. Every year he adds more pieces from the Tim Burton cult classic The Nightmare Before Christmas, and the attention to detail would make Disney Imagineers proud. He also sets up an equally engaging Halloween display with a “restaurant” theme.
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We were lucky enough to talk to Bill this year, and he was more than happy to give his permission to allow us to post his address and review his display. He also talked about how he comes up with the pieces and how each piece is made. The display has won the Holiday Home Lighting Contest by Holly Jolly Lights Tours two of the last three years (he did not enter his home last year).
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Rohlinism: The only thing better than a healthy dose of holiday cheer is a huge helping of holiday fear!
If you are in the area and looking for some “holiday fear,” stop by this house and check it out. The display is kid friendly (nothing nightmarish despite the name), but be prepared to search for parking, as there is usually a crowd around the house. And if you bring Bill some goodies, you might just find your name on his list the following year!
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Castle House
9001 Bermuda Dr
Huntington Beach, CA 92646
This story is a review from Yelp.
Who Lives in the Fortress?
Countless times I have driven down Magnolia to Huntington Beach and wondered who lived at the real-life castle on the corner of Bermuda St. This year I found out that they open up their house one day each year… on Halloween!
A Ghoulish Dungeon
Impressive and scary is an understatement. On Halloween, the Castle Manor is turned into a ghoulish dungeon! There are about 20 monsters, zombies, and ghosts inside the house, scaring you at every corner, and another 10 people directing your path with flashlights. The whole house is dark and lit with strobes, fog machines, and strategic gel spotlights. They must’ve allowed us to walk through 80% of the house!
The gargoyle outside is tame compared to what’s inside. Start up the stairs, wind through decrepit bodies in the shower, and pass risen zombies in bedrooms and sword-wielding monsters in nooks. Creepy clowns and grotesquely large gremlins wait around numerous steps and side rooms. Continue down through the family room and the haunted kitchen, and into the backyard. There, you’ll find a lifelike stone tiger and a zombie handing out candy to the kids in front of a raised devil and his friends. The red-lit backyard makes the pool look like a lava pit.
Plan Your Visit
If you are waiting in line outside, the line never seems to move fast enough, but once you get in the house, you understand why. It takes at least five minutes to walk through the whole haunted castle. They have to let in groups at a time, because walking through the house requires you to use the same set of stairs multiple times. They do a great job of directing the foot traffic.
I got in line at 6:15 pm with about 150 people in front of me and finally entered the house at 7:40 pm. Get there early! If you get there after 6:30 pm, you will probably have to wait at least 2 hours. The house is open from 6 pm to 11 pm.
Admission Cost: $0
Suggested Donation: $1 per adult
VIP Cut-the-Line Donation: $10 per adult
If you are in the area, this is definitely worth doing at least once. How often do you get to see a huge house like this in a normal neighborhood, decked out in full Halloween mode with live ghouls and zombies?
If you are in a time crunch and really, really want to see this, pay the $10 for the front-of-the-line pass. Do I think this maze is worth $10? Ehhhh… But is it worth $5? Definitely. Is paying $10 worth saving you a 90-minute wait? Probably. And it’s definitely worth paying the $10 if it’s a couple of adults and a bunch of kids, because the kids all get to cut with you for free.
More work goes into this than I can even imagine. Thanks to the awesome owners for opening up their castle for a day for the whole community to enjoy!
Yo, Ho, Ho
This story is from the OC Register.
Todd and Martha Thompson on 19th Street in Costa Mesa built an elaborate pirate ship in their front yard.
“My husband has an affinity for ships,” Martha said. “He lived on a fishing boat in Newport Beach during his high school years.”
The Thompsons always have gone all out for the holidays. Five years ago, their son dressed up as Pirates of the Caribbean‘s Jack Sparrow and surrounded himself with tiki torches to give away candy. That inspired them to take their pirate ideas over the top.
The whole family pitched in to help build the ship that they store on the side of the house in the off-season. Every year they add more to the scene.
“We met a little girl and her mother,” Martha said. “The mother told us that they drove by our house every day after school because her daughter wanted to see the ship.
“Then one day she asked her mother for a pirate costume for Halloween. Her mother asked why, and the girl said it was because the sign out front said ‘Pirates Only’ and she wanted to trick-or-treat at their house.”
They stopped counting trick-or-treaters last year when they hit 2,000, Martha said.
Having the popular house in the neighborhood can get expensive. Martha said friends and neighbors donate candy to offset the expense.