Halloween In The Swamp Got A Second Weekend. Here's How Foxbank's Fall Calendar Fills In Around It.

How many Saturdays this fall have just one thing worth doing within a short drive of Foxbank Plantation? Very few. Between Cypress Gardens, Old Santee Canal Park and Main Street, Moncks Corner's best fall events keep landing on the same dates. Several days carry a morning event at one place and an evening event at another. One Saturday in November has a free county perk and the town's biggest fall market at the same time.

On a calendar like this, the hard part is deciding which event gets the day.

The swamp now has four nights

On September 21, 2026, Berkeley County announced that Cypress Gardens is expanding its annual Halloween in the Swamp across two weekends. The nights are Thursday, October 15; Friday, October 16; Friday, October 23; and Saturday, October 24. Each runs 7:30 to 11:30 p.m. For the second weekend, the Cypress Gardens events page lists gates opening at 7 p.m.

The ticket rules matter more than the dates. All tickets are sold online in advance, with none at the gate, and sales opened Thursday, October 1, at 9 a.m. As of today, October 4, sales have been open for three days.

There are two ways to attend, and the age limit decides which one fits:

• General admission, $5 per person ages 6 and up. This covers the marshmallow roast, storytelling, food trucks and kids' games. Children 5 and under get in free.
• The Haunted Swamp Experience, $30. A haunted boat ride through the swamp drops riders off on a haunted walking trail through the woods. It's limited to ages 12 and over, and children 12 to 16 must be with an adult. It includes all general admission activities.

A household with a 9-year-old and a 14-year-old needs both ticket types. They'll need to plan who goes on the boat and who stays by the fire.

Daytime visits are affected this month as well. The Cypress Gardens site says there are no guided boat tours from September 26 through October 31, and the Splash Pad closed for the season on September 30. The county hasn't given a reason for the guided-tour pause. Self-guided swamp boats normally come at no added fee, while guided tours cost an extra $5 per person. The site doesn't say whether the self-guided boats run during the pause, so call ahead before planning a daytime visit around them.

October 24 is a morning at one park and a night at the other

Old Santee Canal Park and Cypress Gardens are both run by the county, but they don't plan their calendars around each other. On Saturday, October 24, Old Santee Canal Park holds Swamp Things from 10 to 11 a.m. An educator talks about the swamp ecosystem, and then the group heads out on the boardwalk with nets. That night is the last of the four Halloween in the Swamp nights at Cypress Gardens.

October has two other dates at Old Santee Canal Park, with no overlaps:

• Saturday, October 10: the Wassamasaw Tribe of Varnertown Indians holds its Annual Powwow at the park, with an Education Day the day before, Friday, October 9. The park's listing gives hours of 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and promises more than 40 vendors offering educational demonstrations. We couldn't find an admission price specific to the powwow, so check with the park before you go.
• Sunday, October 18: the Red Ribbon Festival runs 1:30 to 4:30 p.m., a family picnic supporting a drug-free Berkeley County, with game booths, food vendors and live entertainment. The park's listing starts to say that wearing red gets you in, but the sentence is cut off. A Berkeley Independent account of the same festival says anyone wearing red gets in free. Confirm with the park before counting on it this year.

On a regular day, Old Santee Canal Park is open 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Admission is $5 per person, $3 for seniors, AAA members and military, and free for children 6 and younger. An annual pass costs $100. The pass covers 20 regular visits, so a family that comes back every few weekends will get its money's worth.

Wednesday, October 28 has a Halloween event in the morning and another at dusk

On Wednesday, October 28, there are two Halloween events in town on the same day. From 10 to 11:30 a.m., Old Santee Canal Park runs Time for Tots, Halloween edition, for children ages 2 to 5, with a book, a movie and Halloween crafts. That evening from 5:30 to 8, the Town of Moncks Corner holds its 15th annual Halloween Trunk or Treat Festival on Main Street and at Unity Park. It's free and open to all ages.

A parent with a preschooler could do the morning program, go home for a nap, and come back downtown in costume after work. Because it falls on a Wednesday, families won't spend a weekend day on it, but they will be on Main Street on a school night.

The day after brings another Main Street event. The Moncks Corner Farmers Market runs Thursdays from 3 to 7 p.m. at the Market Pavilion, 418 E. Main St. The town's listings disagree on the last market of the season. The series description says it runs through November 20, but the last Thursday on the calendar is November 19. Check the town's page before planning a final market run.

November 14 is the busiest Saturday of the season

Every Foxbank household lives in Berkeley County, and that matters for this date. Cypress Gardens offers Berkeley County residents and their dependents a few free Saturdays each year. The ticket page lists June 13, September 26 and November 14, and November 14 is the only one still ahead on the calendar. The November date doubles as the Berkeley County Residence Free Day and Fall Plant Sale. The county calendar lists it from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. and accepts a photo ID, utility bill or tax bill as proof of residency. The Cypress Gardens ticket page mentions only photo IDs, so a driver's license is the safest thing to bring.

The savings are real. Regular admission is $10 for adults, $6.50 for seniors 65 and over, 911 personnel and military, and $5 for ages 6 to 17. Two adults and two school-age kids would normally pay $30 at the gate. On November 14 they pay nothing, and that buys a day with the Butterfly House, a greenhouse of flowering plants and live butterflies with fish, turtles and a pond. There's also the Swamparium, an aquarium and reptile center with a South American anaconda and African crocodiles. The grounds have 3.5 miles of walking trails, and more than 16 major movies have been filmed there, including The Patriot, Cold Mountain and The Notebook.

The town picked the same Saturday for Fall Pickin' in the Corner, which runs along Main Street from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. with vintage antiques, upcycled finds, live music and food trucks. Those hours sit entirely inside the Cypress Gardens free window. You can do both, but the order matters:

1. Start at Cypress Gardens when the gates open at 9. That gives you the trails and the plant sale before midday.
2. Head to Main Street by early afternoon. That leaves time to walk the antique and upcycled booths before the 3 p.m. close.
3. Check the weather the night before. If rain pushes Pickin' to its rain date, Saturday, November 21, it lands on the same day as the 14th annual Tinsel Trot at Old Santee Canal Park.

The Tinsel Trot runs 5:30 to 8 p.m. on a two-mile course and doubles as a preview of the park's holiday lights. Entry is $20, children under 6 are free without a shirt, and registering before October 23 gets you a free shirt. Online registration is open through November 19, and you can also register at the park on race day from 3 to 5:30 p.m. The shirt cutoff comes right before the second Halloween in the Swamp weekend, so it's easy to miss in the middle of the Halloween rush.

The fall calendar at a glance

Two newer places to eat before or after Main Street

Three of these events put you downtown: Trunk or Treat, Pickin' in the Corner and the Thursday market. Two downtown restaurants that opened this year sit close to all of them. Rollin Local soft-opened in May at 108 E. Railroad Ave. with sushi, hibachi, seafood and Asian-fusion dishes. In early June, Benny Ernesto's opened at 337 E. Main St., Unit A, with 28-inch New York-style pizzas. A 28-inch pie can feed a whole family before trick-or-treating on October 28 without anyone cooking on a school night.

Roslyn Kay Parker follows what's happening around Foxbank closely, from new restaurants on Main Street to the county's free resident days. If a fall Saturday in Moncks Corner gets you wondering what your own Foxbank home is worth, request a free home valuation and Roslyn will walk you through what nearby homes are selling for right now.