5 Tips for Visiting The Queen Mary’s Dark Harbor 2025

I used to love going to Halloween events like Knott’s Scary Farm and Dark Harbor, but unfortunately, I haven’t been able to go for years, possibly over a decade (geeze, I’m getting old). But that all changed this past weekend. I finally was able to break my scare dry spell and visit The Queen Mary’s Dark Harbor event…and I had a blast!

We went on a Thursday, which likely helped with the crowds and gave us a better opportunity to do every maze, explore all the different theme areas, and even ride all the rides. The longest we waited for any one activity was about 40 minutes for one of the ship mazes, but besides that, everything else either had no wait at all or the wait under 20 minutes.

The monsters wandering the property were both scary and playful. I really enjoyed the way they interacted with guests.

And the mazes were so fun. Like I said, it’s been over a decade since I’ve gone anything like this, so this may be common practice now, but I was surprised by some of the more interactive elements of some of the mazes. At one point, we had to get down on our hands and knees to crawl through a small space, another maze had moving floor tiles that slid back and forth, and another had a full mirror maze within the maze.

If you live in SoCal I highly recommend you check out Dark Harbor, and here are my five personal tips if you do decide to attend.

1. Pay for Early Entry

If you can, I highly recommend you pay for early entry. It’s only $10 more, but it can really give you an advantage in getting everything done in one visit.

Early entry starts at 7 pm, but they started letting us in at about 6:30. We didn’t have access to the entire property, just the shipyard (see map here), but there were places to buy drinks, food, and merch. We also had time to explore the map and some displays.

At 7 pm the event officially started and we got access to the rest of the areas and all the mazes. Before the event opened up to the rest of the guests, at 8 pm, we were able to knock out two of the six mazes with absolutely no wait.

2. Do the Ship Mazes First

Along with paying for early entry, if you want a chance to see and do everything, I highly recommend you do the ship mazes first. Things may be different on a Friday or Saturday night, but I feel like I can confidently assume that no matter when you visit, these mazes will be the most popular, meaning the lines will probably slowly (or not so slowly) grow throughout the night.

We did two of the three ship mazes before the event officially started and got in line to do the third ship maze at about 8:20. We ended up having about a 40-minute wait, but the line did seem to get longer as the night progressed.

3. Alcohol Tip – Skip the Fishbowls and go for the Spiked Agua Frescas

They are available in The Shipyard area and one of the first things you’re going to see. They are tempting and make an aesthetic picture, but trust me, skip the fishbowls.

If you get early entry, you’ll have to wait until you have access to the rest of the event, but the spiked agua frescas taste better, are nearly half the price, and have about the same amount of alcohol.

4. Buy a Ride Wristband

If you have any interest in riding any of the carnival rides, just go for the wristband. It’s about $10 to ride one ride or $20 for an unlimited ride wristband. And honestly, the merry-go-round and the swings were pretty fun.

5. Trick to Accessing your Event Waiver

This is less of a tip and more of a hack if you run into what seems to be a common problem. Along with your ticket confirmation email, you will get a waiver that you must sign before attending the event. This link seems to not work for a lot of people – mine did not work, and the couple in front of me had the same problem. I also found people talking about it on Reddit.

I luckily stumbled across a “trick” to get to a functioning link.

At the bottom of your email, you’ll see a link to view your tickets online. Once you click that, you will be taken to an online version of your ticket confirmation email, and there, the waiver link should work.