Tips for Visiting Halloweentown in St. Helens Oregon

Last year, in October 2019, we finally made a trip to a place I wanted to visit for years: St. Helens Oregon. We were finally visiting Halloweentown. 

Halloweentown 2020

It looks like Halloweentown will still be happening in 2020. Get the most recent updates on the Spirit of Halloween Facebook page and on the website. You can also check out the Discover Columbia County website.

Maybe the biggest updates/changes are Spirit of Halloweentown will be requiring tickets on the weekends now and masks will be required. Parking near the event (which previously required a fee –  471 Plymouth Street St. Helens, OR 97051) is included in the ticket price.

Why Go to St. Helens Oregon?

So why did I want to go to St. Helens Oregon? St. Helens Oregon is not just a small town in Oregon. It’s the small town in Oregon where the Disney Halloweentown movies were filmed! Well, not all of the films but the first one was filmed here. Halloweentown is actually even not the only movie filmed here. Some scenes from Twilight were also filmed in St. Helens. There are some additional movies there which I’ve never seen but many play into the Halloween theme in some way. Check out the list on IMDB.

Anyway, the main reasons I wanted to go to St. Helens were:

• I really like the Halloweentown movies and the holiday of Halloween in general. St. Helens gives you an opportunity to be somewhere with theming for both. 
• I wanted a chance to explore Portland, Oregon a little more, and Kyle had only driven through there so he also wanted to check it out a little. St. Helen’s isn’t far and I thought Portland could be a great addition to the trip. 

So once we moved to Marysville Washington, we decided we would be doing this trip in October if we were still around. We’d even considered flying out for it in the past so being within a day’s drive meant it was a must. Still, we did not plan it until the last minute (basically less than a week before) because of circumstances at the time (we just couldn’t plan things far in advance).

Tips for Preparing for Visiting Halloweentown

Here are the main steps for preparing for a trip to St. Helens:

1. Decide which weekend you would like to visit St. Helens.

Check the Spirit of Halloween events calendar to see if there are any must-sees for you and plan your trip for the weekend you prefer. We thought about choosing an event but I ended up deciding if we could, we should just go the first weekend in October in case something else got in the way after that time. 

2. Book a place to stay.

If you want to stay in St. Helens, be sure to book in advance. Since we weren’t able to plan more than a week in advance, there were no vacancies in St. Helens. If you stay in Portland or elsewhere, keep in mind how late you plan to stay at Halloweentown (could be influenced by events) and factor in check-in time and drive time to the place you’re staying. We ended up leaving Halloweentown earlier than we wanted to because we were supposed to check into our Airbnb by a certain time. If you’ve never used Airbnb, use this link to get some credit.

3. Decide what to bring/wear.

I wanted to wear a witch costume to Halloweentown because that seems really fitting. I decided all I really needed was a hat as I had black dresses but in the end, I couldn’t bring myself to spend $15-$20+ on a pointy hat! Those were the prices I was seeing at the stores and online in mid to late September. I think they may be cheaper at other times of the year. Maybe I should have just given in but I also didn’t want to collect more things when I knew we’d probably end up moving again.

4. Look up any other events going on when you’ll be going.

Once in town, we saw some signs for a different fall festival in town and if we had known we would have checked it out before visiting Halloweentown. Also, plan the rest of your trip (if you’ll be venturing elsewhere such as to Portland or the surrounding nature).

5. Watch the movies.

This way the movies will be recent in your memory when you visit. You can get them on Amazon if you want a physical copy or watch the first one on Disney Plus.

10 Tips for Visiting Halloweentown

1. More of St. Helens: Ye Ol’ Grog Distillery On Another Day?

One of the top attractions in town in general is a local distillery that offers free tastings. Just keep in mind if you do want to stop at Ye Ol’ Grog Distillery you will need to time things right. It is only open 1-5 pm on Friday and Saturdays and 1-4 pm on Sundays. We didn’t check the hours before stopping by and so we weren’t able to visit due to arriving too early. 

Because it isn’t close to the festivities, you won’t be able to easily walk (you could possibly bike) between it and the festival and parking will cost at the festival so returning and leaving Halloweentown wouldn’t really make sense unless you have some kind of pass for parking. It is also open during hours which are kind of peak festival hours so you could go a different day but if you do go there before going to the Spirit of Halloween don’t drink too much since you’ll have to drive (and there isn’t much near there)! This can also be an option for the non-Halloween person you brought along. 

2. Arrive Early for Photo Ops When Visiting Halloweentown

If you would like to avoid crowds and wander around more peacefully, get there early. But not too early – the parking lot doesn’t open until 9:45am in 2020. You’ll also be able to take advantage of the photo opportunities without waiting in a line. While we thought we arrived to Halloweentown at a reasonable hour (early-mid day), it turned out that we were kind of early. I say that because there weren’t many people around at this time but there definitely were later.

That being said, we did go the first weekend in October and I don’t know if that weekend is more or less crowded than other weekends and I would guess that when the big stars make it, it gets more crowded.

3. Keep Expectations in Line (One Day is Probably Enough)

Realize if you get there early and still want to do an evening event, there is only so much to occupy your time. Keep your expecations in line. You can definitely spend a few hours and if you watch something at the theater you could extend it, but you would probably exhaust everything you want to do in one day. The only exceptions are if you want to see events on multiple days or you take it really chill/just want to be in the atmosphere. (See my later point about visiting other parts of the area, though). 

Here is a Halloweentown map from our visit:

Of course, this depends on your interests and budget. For example, there is a haunted house, but because Kyle isn’t into haunted houses (I like them, though) we didn’t spend money on it. If we had, that could have taken up a little time.

There are also shows at times and you can walk by the water. There are supposed to be little tours you can do but we could never find the papers for it when we were there.

4. Dress How You Want!

When visiting Halloweentown, if you want to wear a costume, do it! Plenty of people will be dressed up but it also won’t be weird if you don’t. Even though I planned to wear a costume, I wasn’t sure how many people would be dressed up. Many were!

On that note, feel free to bring your dog (dressed up as well if you’d like) if you think it will be okay there. There were many dogs when we visited. Do check to make sure they haven’t made any new restrictions on bringing pets before you do, though. It looks like you’re good to go for 2020 as far as I can tell. 

I recommend layering because the weather could be cool or warm (or rainy).

5. Remember that parades are always late.

We went the day the Halloweentown parade was happening. If you don’t go on this day, this is less relevant but I thought I should mention it. We hadn’t been to a parade in a while so we forgot that parades are always late when waiting for the Halloweentown parade to start and wish we had factored that in at the time (particularly for timing with food). 

6. Bring a Snack

On that note, if you come at a busy time, be prepared to wait for food. In the evening the restaurants will likely have a long wait and you likely will need to wait in line for the food stands as well. If you get there earlier there will probably be no wait but just know you will want to bring a snack or wait in line later.

I packed us each a sandwich, some chips, and water and we ate all of it pretty quickly after arriving. Retrospectively, this would have been the time to get a snack there and we should have saved what we brought for when the crowds arrived. In the evening we debated some of the stands and did try a Thai restaurant but had to wait in line ten minutes to be told the wait was an hour and a half (and the parade was supposed to be starting) so we didn’t end up getting anything.

7. Partake in Personal Interests

Indulge in other things you like, but in Halloweentown! This could be shopping (we looked around a little), watching a movie (they’ll usually play Halloween movies), having a beer, or going to a haunted house. Our choice was a wine tasting room called Tap into Wine. We like wine but we maybe go to a winery/wine-tasting room about once a year, this was the one we went to this year. We each got a sampler of local Oregon wine and it was good! Oregon is known for its Pinot Noir.

In terms of shopping, we enjoyed some of it like a local antique shop. You can get shirts a couple of different places so feel free to buy them there (I got one) but if you want to get some for the crew in advance, there are also some cute shirts on Amazon.

8. Go to ROOF for the views.

We were thinking about going to ROOF to get a snack but the line was really long. It does give you a nice overview of the area through which can be nice to check out. And if you do eat there and are able to get seating, it’s food/drink with a view!

9. Wander St. Helens, Oregon (a little).

At one point while visiting Halloweentown we decided we were done until the parade and wanted to see a little more of St. Helens so we just wandered on out. Many of the houses are older and do have Halloween decorations which seemed fitting.

To be honest there wasn’t much to see beyond that (though we did catch a band practicing for the parade) but it is still something to do if you get bored.

10. Plan Nearby Activities

Plan other things to do in the area if you’ll be there for more than a day. This area has a lot to offer and if you drove or flew all the way here you might as well check out more of the areas — it has a lot to offer! On our second day, we checked out a little bit of Portland and then stopped at some waterfalls along the Columbia River Gorge on our way back up to Marysville.

Comment if you have any questions. There are bathrooms there as well! 

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