I am an avid fan of the forums but this is my first post. I know I will probably get slammed for it...
Don't get me wrong, I love the Haunted Mansion and fully respect the imagineering, creativity, and history. I ride it every time I am at the park. On my last visit early June, the state of the attraction was very bad. We had fastpasses and when we arrived, the ride was shutdown. Once it opened, the fastpass line was about 3 times as long as the standby line. The line moved ahead quickly and we were soon through to the stretching room.
I've seen other posts recently about the lighting/darkness. The ride was extremely dark and in some places the details of the attraction were not even visible. The "eyes" in the hallway wallpaper were not visible. Was the lighting dimmed to hide ride defects? I felt like we were just riding through without any theming or entertainment. Perhaps it is just me, but I do not find anything comical or scary about the never-ending hallway with the floating candle.
The seance room had the stationary Leota and I think the effect works well. The overall ride music was much lower which made this room a little more eerie and enjoyable.The banquet hall seemed to be as usual.
The most disappointing part of the ride was the graveyard scene. The opera singer was moving but had no sound. There were no popping-up ghost heads. The lighting in this room was terrible. You could see all of the armature under the ghosts as well as the cellophane-like material used for their effect. They were not lit properly which destroyed the original intention.
The hitch-hiking ghosts were okay, but the feature where your head switches or one of the ghosts joins your doom-buggy was a little off. They were not positioned correctly when viewing them.
Has there been any discussion around giving this attraction some love? I know that originally the attraction was a combination of both the humor and spooky effects of two imagineers but it needs a more cohesive story. Some of the effects are timeless and should remain but with today's technology, I have to believe that better effects could be designed for some of the areas throughout the mansion. At a minimum...the effects that are present today should be functioning properly.
Don't get me wrong, I love the Haunted Mansion and fully respect the imagineering, creativity, and history. I ride it every time I am at the park. On my last visit early June, the state of the attraction was very bad. We had fastpasses and when we arrived, the ride was shutdown. Once it opened, the fastpass line was about 3 times as long as the standby line. The line moved ahead quickly and we were soon through to the stretching room.
I've seen other posts recently about the lighting/darkness. The ride was extremely dark and in some places the details of the attraction were not even visible. The "eyes" in the hallway wallpaper were not visible. Was the lighting dimmed to hide ride defects? I felt like we were just riding through without any theming or entertainment. Perhaps it is just me, but I do not find anything comical or scary about the never-ending hallway with the floating candle.
The seance room had the stationary Leota and I think the effect works well. The overall ride music was much lower which made this room a little more eerie and enjoyable.The banquet hall seemed to be as usual.
The most disappointing part of the ride was the graveyard scene. The opera singer was moving but had no sound. There were no popping-up ghost heads. The lighting in this room was terrible. You could see all of the armature under the ghosts as well as the cellophane-like material used for their effect. They were not lit properly which destroyed the original intention.
The hitch-hiking ghosts were okay, but the feature where your head switches or one of the ghosts joins your doom-buggy was a little off. They were not positioned correctly when viewing them.
Has there been any discussion around giving this attraction some love? I know that originally the attraction was a combination of both the humor and spooky effects of two imagineers but it needs a more cohesive story. Some of the effects are timeless and should remain but with today's technology, I have to believe that better effects could be designed for some of the areas throughout the mansion. At a minimum...the effects that are present today should be functioning properly.