The Best Breathing Areas at Halloween Horror Nights

HHN Breathing areas

HHN is a high-energy event, with lots of scares, characters, crowds, music, heat, and drunk people. For a person who has anxiety from time to time, sometimes you just need to hit pause on the event for a time. A way to take a break during this event is extremely valuable, especially for me, so here are the places I usually do it. With most of the park busy, breathing areas can be difficult to find, but I will find you the best ones. 

My first HHN was in 2018, and the breathing area that I ran away to was the walkway between Men in Black lockers and its gift shop. I just sat down right on the concrete, still in the heat. Not great. 

The first area is behind Richters Burger Company. This is a great area to calm down, it’s right by the water and hopefully, you can enjoy a breeze while sitting. There is also an indoor section of Richters beside the Freestyle machines that you can enter through the back door and sit in air conditioning. It has been dead most times I have gone to HHN. You can get to this area very easily as soon as you enter the park you can avoid most scare zones to get to it. You have to go through the section of chainsaws first, but you turn right before the Minion cupcake and immediately after Minion Blast. You can also turn right at the Minion popcorn, but that street has food stalls and bars which makes it harder to walk through. The walkway between Transformers and Minions is much less crazy. You continue to walk and turn left at the HHN bar and hit a right by Optimus Prime. You keep walking until you see Richters and turn to the right of Richters, and there are a bunch of tables and chairs. Typically this seating area is very empty, and if you walk to the back you can enter there for the air-conditioned seating area, fill up water bottles, or you can just take a minute outside. It is right by the water, and it is a little breath of fresh air outside of the event. 

Central Park is a great area if you aren’t scared of the dark and has some themed noises from the zombie scare zone, but it is a great place to take a minute to breathe. There are park benches, and you can get right up close to the water again. It is also a very big area so you can walk around if you need to right by the water and relax. To get there, we hit a right at the HHN bar instead of a left at Richters. We hit a left at the crepe spot right before the scare zone. If you continue through the show viewing area, you can hit the Simpsons. 

Which is next on the list. You keep walking through Central Park and you pop out by the Back to the Future props and food stalls by the Simpsons completely skipping the scare zone. The Simpsons can be pretty busy, it’s a thin walkway so fewer people can jam it up. Also, a line to a house is there. A scare zone used to call Simpsons home but not anymore. You can get close to the water with some tables and chairs behind the police car, it is still a busy area and not as much out of the way. 

Diagon Alley used to be a huge breathing area that was much cooler than the rest of the park. With the addition of death eaters in the land, this portion of the park does get more popular but it’s a good place to take in some theming in a cooler area and not nearly as much crazy. Gringotts is a ride out of the crazy in the air conditioner. I have never eaten in the Harry Potter restaurant there at the Leaky Cauldron before HHN, but I ate here once during the event, it is a great place to sit, eat, and get back to it. Every time I walk in, it is a ghost town. To get to Harry Potter you can take the quiet path I have been describing and hit a left after the Simpsons ride and it’s a bridge. Don’t go through the cluster, there is a house entrance, bathrooms, food areas, freestyle machines, and merch carts so there is often a lot of standing around here. Avoid it by crossing the bridge. 

I guess to finalize this list I have to add Men in Black. It has always been one of my favorite rides and it is a great place to take a breath. Walk through the queue slowly, take in the air conditioning, ride the ride and walk through the gift shop, I don’t recommend sitting on the concrete to cool down, but it is an option that I did in 2018. 

Halloween Horror Nights can be overstimulating to some like myself. Loud music, crowds, I’m tired, I’m hungry, I’m hot. If you are feeling that way, take the path less traveled and then get back into the action! It is okay to take a break to increase enjoyment. You don’t have to be so stressed to get everything done.