Halloween in the White Mountains usually means hayrides, corn mazes and a jacket zipped to the chin. At Kahuna Laguna in North Conway, it means a costume contest, candy handed out in a humid 80-something degrees, and a run down a water slide in a cape or a princess dress. The indoor water park at the Birchmont Resort & Spa holds its third annual Trunk or Treat on Wednesday, Oct. 28, 2026, with park passes at $20 from 3 p.m. to close and the trunk-or-treat itself running 5 to 7 p.m.
The premise is simple and slightly absurd, which is much of its charm. Families decorate vehicles in the parking area, kids work the row for candy, and then everyone goes inside to ride. The event's own description invites guests to "scare your way to the top of one of our water slides and scream your way down" -- a line that captures the odd pleasure of the thing better than any marketing copy could. The best costume for ages 12 and under wins four free park passes.
Twenty dollars for an evening at a 40,000-square-foot indoor water park is well below what a full-day ticket typically runs at comparable New England parks, and there is no reserved seating or tiered admission to navigate. It is general admission in the plainest sense: pay, come in, find a table, get wet.
The venue has a story of its own, and it explains why a water park in the mountains of New Hampshire can host a Halloween party at all. Kahuna Laguna bills itself as northern New England's first indoor water park, and it has been operating for well over a decade inside what was long known as the Red Jacket Mountain View Resort. Its attractions include a wave pool, water slides, a set of smaller slides called Kiddy Racers, a 25-person hot tub, and a multi-level play structure called Bamboo Bay with water cannons, a rope bridge and a 175-gallon tipping bucket that dumps on whoever is standing below.
On April 30, 2022, a massive fire tore through the Red Jacket's south wing. Guests fled into the afternoon, some jumping from upper balconies to escape the smoke and flames; two firefighters and one other person suffered minor injuries, and all guests were ultimately accounted for. Fire officials later noted there were no sprinklers in the wing where the blaze began. The water park closed for a time afterward.
The property's recovery has been deliberate. In November 2023, the Conway Planning Board voted unanimously to give conditional approval to owner Ashok Patel of JHM Conway, LLC to rebuild the fire-damaged south wing to its original footprint, along with other improvements. Patel told a reporter afterward that if everything went to plan, the renamed resort could reopen in summer 2025. The Red Jacket name gave way to the Birchmont Resort & Spa, and the park came back with it; visitors have since described returning to a reopened Kahuna Laguna with friendly staff. The resort now markets itself around the water park, with lodging packages that bundle rooms and park admission.
That history gives the trunk-or-treat a particular flavor. A park that spent a season dark, in a building that made national news for the wrong reasons, now runs a costume night for local kids. The "third annual" label in the event listing implies the tradition began around 2024 -- which lines up with the resort's post-rebuild reopening timeline rather than predating the fire.
For families in the Mount Washington Valley, the appeal is partly practical. North Conway's other big trunk-or-treat, at Cranmore Mountain Resort, happens outdoors at the base of the ski area, with decorated vehicles including snowmaking equipment parked alongside community cars. Late October weather in the valley is a coin flip. Kahuna Laguna's version removes the variable entirely: the candy may be handed out in a parking lot, but the party afterward is indoors, in warm water, under a roof.
There is also something to be said for the sheer novelty of the thing. Trunk-or-treats have proliferated over the past decade as churches, schools and rec departments looked for a controlled alternative to door-to-door trick-or-treating, and most of them look more or less alike: a parking lot, some streamers, a few dozen hatchbacks with their trunks open. Very few of them end with a kid in a superhero costume climbing a staircase to a water slide and disappearing down it. The combination of candy and chlorine is unusual enough that it has become the park's signature autumn event rather than a one-off.
Details for anyone planning to go: Kahuna Laguna is at 2251 White Mountain Highway, North Conway, NH 03860 -- Route 16, the strip, a few minutes from the outlets and the rest of the valley's shopping. Park passes are $20 and valid from 3 p.m. until close on Oct. 28. Trunk or Treat runs 5 to 7 p.m. The costume contest is for ages 12 and under, with four free park passes as the prize. Because the event is indoors and water-based, the usual water park rules apply -- swimwear for the slides, and a plan for what to do with a costume once it is time to get in the pool.
One caveat worth stating plainly: the event is listed on the White Mountains region's official tourism calendar, but as of this writing it has not been independently confirmed by the park itself, and Kahuna Laguna's website has been intermittently unreachable. Anyone making a trip should check the park's own channels before loading the car. The date, a Wednesday, is the Wednesday before Halloween, which is when many communities schedule their trunk-or-treats -- plausible, but worth verifying.
What is not in doubt is the setting. A fire took the hotel above it, the owners rebuilt, and the water park came back. Three Octobers later, the slides are open after dark and the line at the top is full of goblins.