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Universal's free CityWalk Halloween bar reopens as an alien abduction, and for the first time it is serving food
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Universal's free CityWalk Halloween bar reopens as an alien abduction, and for the first time it is serving food

Michael Travels
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Published

There is a corn maze on the ground floor of a CityWalk nightclub, and the inside of a flying saucer on the floor above it.

Red Coconut Club has been re-skinned for Halloween Horror Nights again, this time as Dead Coconut Club - Harvest, and Orlando Informer published the first look inside on Monday along with a full transcription of the food and drink prices. The headline change is not the aliens. It is that the Halloween overlay is serving food for the first time.

The Red Coconut Club at Universal CityWalk photographed from below at dusk, showing its curved second floor balcony with guests leaning on the railing, a large neon sign reading RED COCONUT CLUB in red and orange script, warmly lit stairs and columns, and a purple and pink sky behind
Red Coconut Club at CityWalk in its normal form, the two level venue that becomes Dead Coconut Club - Harvest for the Halloween season. Photo: Universal Orlando Resort

Downstairs is a harvest festival, upstairs is the ship

The ground floor becomes Midweston, a small town hosting its 35th Annual Harvest Festival, which is a fairly neat way of nodding at Halloween Horror Nights turning 35 without saying so. Orlando Informer describes a "Welcome to Midweston, est. 1906" sign anchoring the outdoor bar, a full cornfield maze with a scarecrow and a spinning windmill, and a pumpkin carving contest display running three rows deep.

Orlando Informer's photographs show that upstairs is the inside of the spacecraft that has been hovering over all of it: blue paneling, tangled cables, a foil lined ceiling, command screens showing UFO schematics behind the bar, and a shelf of specimen jars holding glowing samples collected from the town below. The stairwell between the two floors is lit green, and Orlando Informer's photos show candy, farm debris and ghostly figures suspended in mid air along the walls.

Universal's own description of the club opens with "Strange lights, unidentified flying objects, and folks acting abnormally…what on earth is happening at Midweston's 35th Annual Harvest Festival?" and promises "spooky specialty beverages, light bites, interactives and incredible music." It closes with "Just don't get abducted by aliens!"

The food is new, and there are only three items

UOFan noted when the theme was announced that "This is also the first time the Dead Coconut Club will serve 'light bites' in addition to its usual themed cocktails and seasonal beverages." The menu Orlando Informer published bears that out, and it is a short list served from the outside bar:

  • The Party Crasher, $13.49. A Nathan's all beef hot dog with chili, white queso, mustard, crumbled Doritos Nacho Cheese chips and "blood & guts" pickled relish on a brioche bun.
  • Hawaiian Toast, $12.99. Grilled SPAM, pineapple serrano chutney, scallion and mozzarella on a French baguette.
  • Cosmic Crunch PB&J, $7.99. Waffle battered, with hot honey and strawberry popping candy. It contains peanuts.

That last one is the cheapest item on the whole menu, a full five dollars under the next cheapest piece of food.

Four guests laughing together around a bar height table inside the Red Coconut Club, two tall tropical cocktails in the foreground, one pale orange and one red, with teal and magenta lighting and a glowing blue pendant lamp behind them
Inside the club in its normal Red Coconut form. The Harvest overlay pours from three bars, outside, downstairs and upstairs. Photo: Universal Orlando Resort

Drink prices follow the usual Universal ladder

In Orlando Informer's transcription, cocktails across all three bars run $19.00 in a 20 ounce souvenir cup, $15.00 to refill that cup, or $15.00 for a 12 ounce single serve. One drink, the downstairs Scarecrow, is also offered as a $10.00 mocktail.

The cocktail list splits by floor, which is a nice touch. The outdoor and downstairs bars pour harvest themed drinks including Ghoul Juice, Electric Death, Shirley Black, Werewolf, Jack-o-lantern, Zombie and a Mexican Candy Margarita built on reposado tequila, mango rum and Cholula hot sauce. Upstairs goes science fiction: Void Resin, Liquid Xenon, Proton Plasma and Essence of Promethium.

Draft beer pours downstairs only, from six taps. Most are ordinary off the shelf brands, and two of them have names that happen to fit the alien theme exactly. UFO Brewing Blueberry Wheat Ale and Elysian Space Dust IPA both run $16.75 for the souvenir cup, $12.75 to refill and $13.75 single serve. The house Halloween Horror Nights cans sold inside the event, Maniac Mix, Oddfellow's Elixir and Canned Carnival Sour Ale, are here too at $15.00, $15.00 and $14.25.

You do not need an event ticket

The exterior of the Red Coconut Club by day with a large painted Mardi Gras overlay banner hung beside the permanent neon sign, the banner reading SALON DU SAMEDI above a top hatted skull in purple sunglasses and CRYPTIDS SPIRITS DIVE BAR and ONLY AT CURSED COCONUT CLUB below it, with a weathered wooden fence painted with skulls in front
The same venue during Mardi Gras as the Cursed Coconut Club. Universal re-skins this club several times a year. Photo: Universal Orlando Resort

This is the part worth knowing. Haunted Attraction Network describes admission as "Free, all ages, no HHN ticket or reservation required. Guests must be 21+ with photo ID to purchase or consume alcohol." Orlando Informer puts the opening time at 5 p.m. Haunted Attraction Network is clear the club runs on select Halloween Horror Nights event nights rather than every night of the season.

That is a genuinely different proposition from the Keyholder Bar, which WDW News Today describes as a limited entry spot beside the Music Plaza Stage inside Universal Studios Florida on event nights, open to guests who show a valid Universal Orlando annual or seasonal pass. Inside Universal notes that many of Universal Orlando's hotels will carry their own Halloween Horror Nights offerings this season, from themed bars to seasonal menu items and photo spots.

When it opens

The dates are slightly muddled across sources. When the theme was revealed in July, WDW News Today reported that Universal "announced early Passholder access to the club from 7 to 10 p.m. on August 26 and 4 to 5 p.m. on August 29," and that "An opening date for all guests hasn't been announced." Haunted Attraction Network lists those same two Passholder windows and adds a public opening of Friday, August 28, running through November 1. Inside Universal's weekly preview, meanwhile, said the club opens on Tuesday with Passholders getting the first look, which is a day earlier than Universal's announced Passholder window.

Halloween Horror Nights 35 itself runs 48 select nights from August 28 through November 1, per Universal's press release.

Dead Coconut Club has run every Halloween season since 2022, and the venue also becomes the Green & Red Coconut Club at the holidays and the Cursed Coconut Club for Mardi Gras. Last year it was a witchy sorority house. This year it is an abduction.

Sources

Image credits

All photographs by Universal Orlando Resort. Orlando Informer's first look photographs of the finished Harvest overlay are at the link above.

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