Halloween is a Saturday this year, with All Saints' Day on Sunday and a region-wide school holiday on Monday, Nov 2. Theme parks, the zoo and cultural centers all join in. Madrid's own traditions are quieter: marzipan huesos de santo in the bakeries and chestnut sellers on street corners. Casa de México adds a Day of the Dead altar. Here's what we checked, from pumpkin patches to Parque Warner.
For Halloween, Parque de Atracciones de Madrid runs a gentle program for younger kids and a scary one for teens and adults. Kids walk through three haunted passages with laughs and small scares, including the new Un Laboratorio Muy Loco, and catch Nickelodeon shows and parades. The four terror passages and the Área 51 scare zone are built to frighten. Families with small kids can stick to the first half.
Parque Warner's Halloween season has a family side and a scary side. Younger kids get the new ACME Factory, a hands-on mission to help Wile E. Coyote find a lost candy recipe, plus Looney Tunes parades and a Día de los Muertos show. The four terror passages, based on films like IT and The Nun, are for older kids. Halloween Scary Nights are separate late-night events.
Faunia's Halloween puts the park's venomous and nocturnal animals up front: snakes, tarantulas, Komodo dragons, lemurs and bats. Educators give short themed talks in five zones about the threats facing the planet and how families can help. Superthings is this year's partner, so kids can meet the character Enigma for a free photo. The Superthings toys once given as a prize have run out.
Every fall, Zoo Aquarium de Madrid in Casa de Campo runs a Halloween season. Some animals get their food inside pumpkins, an enrichment trick that makes them work for the treat, and educators give themed talks on the creatures behind spooky legends and the threats they face in the wild. It is about animals, not frights, so it suits animal lovers more than kids chasing scares.
A pick-your-own pumpkin patch on a farm in the Aranjuez market gardens. Kids pull their pumpkin from the field and paint it, ride a tractor trailer and look for the way out of a big corn maze, while the smallest ones get a hay maze and a corn pit. Sack races run for kids and grown-ups.
A certified organic family farm in the Jarama valley where kids push a wheelbarrow into the field and pick their own pumpkin. Between rounds there's a hay maze, a slide and hay-bale photo spots, plus a shop terrace where parents can sit. On workshop days a booked session adds a tractor ride, farm animals and hollowing out and decorating a pumpkin. Works well for toddlers and younger school kids.
The yearly pumpkin party at El Huerto del Retiro, the city's environmental education center and garden inside Retiro Park. Local growers sell food from their stalls, a singer plays a short set, and the municipal nursery hands out free plants. Older kids can join a booked workshop making decorative pumpkins from old fabric, and a contest crowns the biggest and rarest pumpkins of the year.
Halloween is a Saturday this year, with All Saints' Day on Sunday and a region-wide school holiday on Monday, Nov 2. Theme parks, the zoo and cultural centers all join in. Madrid's own traditions are quieter: marzipan huesos de santo in the bakeries and chestnut sellers on street corners. Casa de México adds a Day of the Dead altar. Here's what we checked, from pumpkin patches to Parque Warner.
For Halloween, Parque de Atracciones de Madrid runs a gentle program for younger kids and a scary one for teens and adults. Kids walk through three haunted passages with laughs and small scares, including the new Un Laboratorio Muy Loco, and catch Nickelodeon shows and parades. The four terror passages and the Área 51 scare zone are built to frighten. Families with small kids can stick to the first half.
Parque Warner's Halloween season has a family side and a scary side. Younger kids get the new ACME Factory, a hands-on mission to help Wile E. Coyote find a lost candy recipe, plus Looney Tunes parades and a Día de los Muertos show. The four terror passages, based on films like IT and The Nun, are for older kids. Halloween Scary Nights are separate late-night events.
Faunia's Halloween puts the park's venomous and nocturnal animals up front: snakes, tarantulas, Komodo dragons, lemurs and bats. Educators give short themed talks in five zones about the threats facing the planet and how families can help. Superthings is this year's partner, so kids can meet the character Enigma for a free photo. The Superthings toys once given as a prize have run out.
Every fall, Zoo Aquarium de Madrid in Casa de Campo runs a Halloween season. Some animals get their food inside pumpkins, an enrichment trick that makes them work for the treat, and educators give themed talks on the creatures behind spooky legends and the threats they face in the wild. It is about animals, not frights, so it suits animal lovers more than kids chasing scares.
A pick-your-own pumpkin patch on a farm in the Aranjuez market gardens. Kids pull their pumpkin from the field and paint it, ride a tractor trailer and look for the way out of a big corn maze, while the smallest ones get a hay maze and a corn pit. Sack races run for kids and grown-ups.
A certified organic family farm in the Jarama valley where kids push a wheelbarrow into the field and pick their own pumpkin. Between rounds there's a hay maze, a slide and hay-bale photo spots, plus a shop terrace where parents can sit. On workshop days a booked session adds a tractor ride, farm animals and hollowing out and decorating a pumpkin. Works well for toddlers and younger school kids.
The yearly pumpkin party at El Huerto del Retiro, the city's environmental education center and garden inside Retiro Park. Local growers sell food from their stalls, a singer plays a short set, and the municipal nursery hands out free plants. Older kids can join a booked workshop making decorative pumpkins from old fabric, and a contest crowns the biggest and rarest pumpkins of the year.
