The Creepy House on the Hill...
Though it was left as a mystery for Guests that entered the park in 1954, one shadier part of Main Street U.S.A. radiated a whole different energy compared to the rest. The smells of bakeries, popcorn and candy shops, the sounds of honking motorcars and horse-drawn trolley bells and the sights of a perfectly detailed town buildings slowly fade away at the edge of town. What ended up to become the New Orleans Square expansion, connected to a side street of Main Street U.S.A. stood empty for a long time. A Church and a graveyard lead to an ominous crooked street. The façade of a well-kept mysterious mansion can be seen on a hill, watching over the town. Closed gothic gates forbid Guests from even wondering what could be inside. A sign on the gates warned Guests of what was yet to come,
‘’
Notice! All Ghosts and Restless Spirits, post-lifetime leases are now available in this Haunted Mansion. Don’t be left out in the sunshine! Enjoy active retirement in this country club atmosphere – the fashionable address for famous ghosts, ghosts trying to make a name for themselves… and ghosts afraid to live by themselves! Leases include license to scare the daylights out of Guests visiting the Portrait Gallery, Museum of the Supernatural, Graveyard and other happy haunting grounds. For reservations send resume of past experience to: Ghost Relations Dept. Disneyland. Please! Do not apply in person.’’
Originally, the mansion would have been a run-down building, high on a hill that towered over Main Street. It would have been overgrown with weeds, dead trees, swarms of bats and boarded doors and windows topped by a screeching cat as a weather vane. However, when Walt found out about this concept, he rejected it. He visited the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California and was captivated by the massive mansion and the state it was in. Disneyland, the culmination of all Walt’s ideas for the future of entertainment, would have a decrepit building right by the entrance to the park. It was the ultimate non-starter of an idea as far as he was concerned. As much as his facilities are renowned for their personal touches and attention to detail, he wasn’t about to spend a small fortune building a mansion in disrepair to stand out like a sore thumb at his otherwise beautiful masterpiece of an amusement park. So he asked his team of Imagineers to instead make it look clean and well-kept, a retirement home for ghosts.
‘’
We’ll take care of the outside and let the ghosts take care of the inside.’’
Years later, when the project settled, a story was given to the mansion, the story of Captain Gore and his wife Priscilla. Around the 1850s, a young maiden named Priscilla fell in love with Captain Gideon Gorelieu in New Orleans. Gorelieu, dunked in mystery, was a wealthy man, though no one knew the origin of his fortune, nor his family. To celebrate their love, they build a house, known as the Gorelieu Mansion. Though Priscilla was convinced that Gideon was her true love, even she could not deny that she grew suspicious of him at times, especially with the many rumors spreading across New Orleans. She would sometimes hear him anxiously speak to himself, as if he felt guilty for acts he had never told Priscilla of. And then of course, there was the attic, which Gideon had warned his young betrothed to stay out of the attic. On her wedding day however, the bliss ended the moment that she unearthed the truth about her future husband. She had not been able to resist to enter the top floor of their decadent mansion, where the vestiges of Gideon’s days as a the cruelest pirate to ever sail the Spanish Main fittingly named Captain Bartholomew Gore, after the bloodthirsty murders he committed, were hidden away from sight. Since the man’s final journey had planted him in New Orleans, he had taken on a new identity as a nobleman in the polite elite of New Orleans to hide his treacherous past and couldn’t risk the locals discovering that he was a murderous letch. He had grown shame and guilt, even contacted the mysterious Madame Leota, a famous fortune teller and gypsy, known for her mystique and without anyone knowing her age or origin. Gideon grew fear of her as she predicted that spirits, demons and other inhabitants of the afterlife would come to take revenge on the murderous captain. Gideon refused to believe her prophecies and called her a witch, even falling out in rage and beheading her, leaving her eccentric gypsy cart out on the cul-de-sac in front of the mansion’s gates. When the sea captain realized his soon-to-be wife had found out about his past life, he killed her and no one would ever know where Priscilla ended up, yet people would sometimes share the sight of a mysterious spectral being, wandering around the mansion in a wedding dress, which left many to believe it was Priscilla’s ghost haunting her husband. And so she did, turning Captain Gore to madness and eventually causing him to commit suicide by hanging himself in the rafters. Ever since their deaths, infortune fell over the house and many have tried to move in the well-kept mansion, but weirdly enough they’ve all died in peculiar ways on the property, causing the house to be surrounded by the Memento Mori Graveyard. Loyal servants and groundkeepers still maintain the house, although no one dares to stay here at night. Many who have visited the house have said that they have witnessed curious presences of former residents, in particular the wicked sea captain and the murdered bride.
As Guests pass by the Memento Mori Graveyard and the Requiem Aeternam Cathedral, which acts as the doorman to the rotting confines, they find themselves in a cul-de-sac, still kept fresh in its corruptible mortal state. A peculiar chill fills the air as we meander past a collection of decrepit shops and apartments, most boarded shut or left in a state of despair. Piles of bricks and briar-like weeds litter the streets. The once lavish cul-de-sac has since fallen into a state of neglect. A cat screeches somewhere in the quiet abyss. The wolf howls once more. A haunting organ refrain bellows from within the cathedral. With a sense of morbid curiosity, we enter… Curiously the old cathedral is rather well-kempt, still in operation. It hosts concerts performed by traveling choral groups, local or international. The perfect acoustics act as a complement to the Latin texts and hymns sung on a semi-regular basis, echoing throughout the confines of the cul-de-sac. Gothic statues, storied stained glass and an authentic organ create a true departure from the outside world, unlike anything else at Disneyland. In the cathedral’s narthex, large paintings, portrayed in the Renaissance style, depict the tragic past of this area… A narrow corridor leads to the graveyard, just beyond the cathedral walls. The Memento Mori Graveyard will be an interactive exploration zone for Guests to uncover. It is here that we are able to discover the secrets of The Haunted Mansion and its former residents through the use of interactive games and a scavenger hunt which lets Guests interact with spirits beyond. These interactive games are similar to the ones seen in the interactive queue for the Haunted Mansion at Walt Disney World.
Entering the queuing area for the Haunted Mansion itself, goes through a pair of ornate gates, after which Guests will find themselves in the antebellum-era mansion’s well-tended gardens and courtyards. This neat, trim Victorian manse is intended to reflect a southern plantation-style homestead. Keeping with the New Orleans theme, the white mansion is captured forever in a turn-of-the-century moment, with fancy French Quarter-style wrought iron and fresh paint applied routinely. Though a fanciful color scheme was imagined during the construction process, the building was eventually painted in subdued tones – though even in its monochromatic color scheme, tricks of the trade were employed to make the shadows appear heavier, and the lighting more dramatic.
‘’
We wanted to create an imposing Southern-style house that would look old, but not in ruins. So we painted it an off-white color with dark, cold blue-grey accents in shadowed areas such as the porch ceilings and wrought iron details. To accentuate the eerie, deserted feeling, I had the underside of exterior details painted in the same dark color, creating exaggerated, unnaturally deep cast shadows. Since we associate shadows with things hidden or half-hidden, the shadow treatment enhanced the structure’s otherworldliness’’
The vulture-eyed Guest might notice that the Mansion is topped by a weather vane in the shape of a ship, a hint to the Mansion’s first owner, the cruel sea Captain Gore. The queuing path leads Guests past a pet cemetery, a mausoleum with pun names, a cemetery at the top whose tombstones bear the names of the Imagineers who created this attraction, and a white carriage hearse led by an invisible horse which occasionally nickers. The melody of a music box draws near, as we hear a secret siren’s song, presumably Priscilla’s haunting voice floating with the wind. On the second-floor balcony, Guests find a lone rocking chair gently tilting on its own. An ornate record player on an adjacent table comes to a grinding halt. An invisible someone rises from the chair and loudly walks over to the table. The music box cranks, seemingly on its own, and the music resumes. The invisible force returns to the rocking chair, even humming along from time to time. Hanging plants and 19th-Century furniture fill the length of the wrought-iron balcony. A telescope looks out onto the Rivers of America. Carefully groomed plants and vegetation maintain a proper, well-tended appearance, though still offering a hint of sorrow. A manicured lawn sets in front of the Mansion, adorned with sections of Mondo Grass, offering a loose, overgrown effect around the planters and lawn décor. Urns of Medusa’s Head, Weeping Mulberry, Pumpkin Leaves and Weeping Juniper exemplify a mournful appearance, as if the plant life itself is in mourning. Suddenly, we notice a ghostly appearance of a girl staring out the window on the second floor. She appears to be screaming and is suddenly throttled by a large arm which draws her back into the darkness. Stepping onto the porch, Guests are admitted inside the mansion by a servant of the property through a doorway on the far right of the house and into the Foyer, lit by a large, flickering, cobweb-covered chandelier and surrounding candelabras. An ornate portrait image of Priscilla and Gideon hangs above a fireplace, and a few bookcases line the walls. The deep, resonant voice of an invisible spirit sets the tone of the attraction with a short opening monologue, accompanied by a funeral dirge variation of the Haunted Mansion’s theme song ‘Grim Grinning Ghosts’.
‘’
When hinges creak in doorless chambers, and strange and frightening sounds echo through the halls, whenever candle lights flicker where the air is deathly still, that is the time when ghosts are present, practicing their terror with ghoulish delight…’’
The portrait on the wall slowly starts to transition as Gideon in his noble wear changes to a terrifying pirate appearance and Priscilla changing from her serenity to pure anxiety. The fire in the fireplace intensifies and we then witness as the servant that previously welcomed us into the Mansion, is kidnapped by a large shadowy arm, believed to be that of Captain Gore. The lights go off and Guests are plunged into darkness until they again watch the sight of the portrait, but it seems like Captain Gore has escaped the image and can now be found laughing on top of the fireplace in Pepper’s Ghost form. The lights turn back on and one of the bookcases (depends on which pre-room Guests are ushered into) moves away to uncover a secret passageway to the octagonal Portrait Gallery, which is actually a large slow-moving elevator with two sets of walls, the lower of which does not reach the ceiling. Grinning gargoyles wait above each wall panel, holding onto flickering candles, designed to seem as if they are staring at each occupant in this claustrophobic gallery.
The invisible spirit teasingly welcomes us, foolish mortals and introduces himself as their ‘Ghost Host’, who will take them on a tour of the Haunted Mansion. His voice seems to be gliding around the room, as well as the sounds of fluttering bats and whispering gargoyles. The room contains four paintings, one on every other wall, each depicting a former resident of the house as they appeared in their corruptible mortal state. As the Ghost Host delivers his spiel, the room begins to stretch vertically. A low rumbling emanates from the floor, and the walls begin to moan and groan as Guests actually hear and feel the chamber elongating around them. As the floor descends, the visible extent of the upper walls increases and portrait frames appear to elongate, revealing the grim fates of the previous residents. The paintings humorously depict macabre situations: a beautiful young girl known as Sally Slater holding a parasol is shown to be balancing on a fraying tightrope above the jaws of an alligator, a middle-aged bearded man known as Alexander Nitrokoff holding a document is shown to be standing atop a barrel of dynamite in his boxer shorts with a candle lighting the fuse, a smiling elderly woman known as Mary Hightower holding a rose is shown to be sitting on the tombstone of her late husband George, who is depicted as a stone bust with an axe in his head and a confident-looking middle-aged man in a bowler hat known as Daniel Patterson is shown to be sitting on the shoulders of a frightened-looking man who sits on the shoulders of a third man who is waist-deep in quicksand, an expression of terror on his face. In the other of the two Portrait Rooms we’ll find the portraits of Harriet the Opera singer picking flowers above a gravestone where a skeleton emerges from the ground, Captain Salty stepping through a stream in his rubber ducky underwear as a amphibian monster reaches for his feet, Horace Fusslebottom the former gardener of the property working on the garden as ants, a snake, scorpion, spider and beetle approaches him and Ethyl White, first female Captain of the Mark Twain Riverboat, holding a parasol while in a boat above a vertical waterfall. As the Ghost Host challenges Guests to find a way out of this seemingly windowless and doorless chamber, he concludes his speech with…
‘’
Of course, there’s always MY way…’’
With a sudden thunderclap, the lights go out and the ceiling disappears. A ghastly vision manifests above: the skeletal corpse of Bartholomew Gore aka the Ghost Host dangling from a taut rope inside an octagonal cupola with four curtainless windows, illuminated by flashes of lightning. Seconds later, the room plunges into darkness, and a bloodcurdling scream is heard – falling from the ceiling to the floor, ending with the sound of the corpse hitting the floor.
‘’
Oh, I didn’t mean to frighten you prematurely. The real chills come later. Now, as they say, ‘look alive’, and we’ll continue our little tour. And let’s all stay together, please
There are several prominent ghosts who have retired here from creepy old crypts. Actually, we have 999 happy haunts here – but there’s room for a thousand. Any volunteers? If you insist on lagging behind, you may not need to volunteer.
And now, a carriage approaches to take you into the boundless realm of the supernatural. Take your loved ones the hand, please and kindly watch your step. Oh yes, and no flash pictures, please. We spirits are frightfully sensitive to bright lights.’’
The Portrait Chamber exits into a long, dimly lit hallway filled with portraits of prominent denizens of the Haunted Mansion… The left side of the corridor is lined with windows that overlook a moonlit landscape in a rainstorm, intermittently illuminated by violent flashes of lightning. Portraits hang on the wall to the right, the subject of each transforming into a nightmarish image with each flash of lightning – the beautiful Medusa turns into a hideous Gorgon, a gallant knight and his steed both become skeletons, a vampire Count Dracula transforms into a grinning bat-creature and a beautiful young woman reclining on a couch is transformed into a white tiger. Dusty mirrors, framed certificates, macabre silhouettes and even tribal masks with horrific expressions fill the gaps between the portraits. At the far end of the hallway, an ominous-looking taxidermy mount of a grizzly bear stands against the wall. Is this haunted bear actually growling and following you with his eyes, or is it your imagination? Hmm…? The portrait of an elegant ship turns into a fiery ghost ship, believed to be the ship of Bartholomew Gore. An enormous picture window at the top of a Grand Staircase looks onto a sinister, moonlit landscape illuminated by flashes of lightning. As the lightning flashes, the scene is drained of all color, becoming a melancholy, monochromatic grey landscape. A supernatural wind blows to the tune of Grim Grinning Ghosts. The sculpted bats that top the stanchions throughout the Portrait Corridor and Grand Staircase are original designs. We board a Doom Buggy of our own at the foot of the Grand Staircase. The ethereal outline of a phantom hearse and its ethereal driver ride alongside our carriage in the picture window.
‘’
Do not pull down on the safety bar, please. I will lower it for you. And heed this warning: the spirits will materialize only if you remain safely seated with your hands, arms, feet and legs inside. And watch your children, please.’’
Once Guests ascend the pitch-black staircase to the second floor, they come across a moving suit of armor, and a chair which appears to be embroidered with a hidden abstract face. The Doom Buggies also pass by the end of a seemingly Endless Hallway. Halfway down the hallway is a candelabra, floating eerily. From time to time, the spirit of Priscilla in her wedding dress appears, holding the candelabra and singing her siren song. Moving down the passage and around the corner, we encounter the evil Captain Gore at his table, plotting his next cruel scheme. A sickening laugh and a grin, as he turns around at Guests with a ghostly look in his face. It looks like Gore has a document in his hands. A treasure map, perhaps? We then open into the Library, which is filled from floor to ceiling by shelves lined with hundreds of books. Invisible hands pull books from shelves, and a ladder slides to and fro as an unseen force climbs for some late night reading. One book ‘’crawls’’ along the floor unassisted, while another open book at a table flips pages on its own. And among the shelves, ubiquitous marble busts turn to glare at us and follow our every move.
A Rachmaninoff-style arrangement of ‘Grim Grinning Ghosts’ fills the air. A dusty square piano sits in the center of the vacant Music Room. The piano plays itself or so it seems… The shadow of the pianist is cast onto the floor through the pale moonlight of a picture window, a desolate forest in the eerie landscape beyond. Other instruments in the room gather dust, perhaps a hint at the musical forces that will later band together in a ‘swinging wake’. A ghastly gargoyle crouched on the banister of a rickety staircase leers down at our Doom Buggy as we begin to ascend. The window stretches along and we pass by a cyclorama featuring a bayou and a ghost ship, from which ghostly orbs emerge. And on the side of the bayou, we peek into the swamps where a mysterious voodoo ritual is taking place with scary creatures from somewhere beyond. We climb the creaking staircase in near-complete darkness, a short, gloomy ascension in which the glowing eyes of unnatural creatures peer out from the overwhelming shadow that surrounds us. The melancholy cords of the phantom pianist echo through the empty chamber. We end up in the bedroom of Captain Gore. In the bed we can see a terrified sea captain moaning in fear as several spirits torment him, including the spirit of his bride Priscilla. He screams to be left alone. Moving forward, we glide into the Conservatory, where a somewhat premature funeral is taking place among the rare specimens of dead flowers and plants. A large coffin sits at the side, surrounded by decayed floral arrangements. Two gnarled hands protrude from within the coffin, desperately trying to pry open the lid and escape with a muffled, ‘’Let me outta here!’’
A cawing raven, who will become a sort of mascot for the ride, makes its perch near the coffin, seemingly warning us to not disturb the living corpse inside. The ornately carved coffin contains many creatures and animal-like details, as if it too were a living thing. The greenhouse-like windows of the conservatory look to a moonlit, fog-enshrouded forest, an appropriately sinister backdrop for such a macabre scene. An unsettling red light is cast from the chandeliers above, as if to almost blur the lines between reality and imagination… The funeral dirge has since silenced, replaced now by the omnipresent ambiance of a supernatural rumbling – a low ‘whoosh’ sound, if you will. The spirits have grown restless and make their presence known as we turn down into the long Corridor of Doors. Doorknobs and handles twist and turn every which way, and knockers in the shape of spiked maces bang against the doors – by themselves. Eerie sounds of moaning creatures pounding, knocking and begging for escape fill the air as we continue onward, and green light pours from behind a door that seems to bend and shake violently at its edges. One door appears to breathe, bulging from the middle as a powerful force acts upon it from within. A painted portrait of a sad gentleman suddenly comes to life – the face of a tortured soul presses against the canvas from behind, horrifically bulging the face outward. Some of the entities aren’t confined to their rooms: countless eyes glare at us from the corridor’s iconic sinister wallpaper and Guests will even notice the sound of loud knocking on the Doom Buggie from behind. Disturbing, post-mortem family photos line the walls in fancy wooden frames, grotesque foreshadowing of the creatures that might lie ahead. A knitter sampler reads ‘TOMB SWEET TOMB’. But most frightening of all, we glimpse the sight of a sorrowful spirit, presumably Priscilla, frantically pounding from behind the glass of an ornate mirror, begging for escape.
Having escaped one final door that seems to be snarling like a rabid animal, we creep past an ornate grandfather clock that is perpetually struck on thirteen. The hour and minute hands spin madly around the face as the shadow of a vampiric claw scrapes over the clock. If one peers closely into the darkness, one might discover the top half of the cabinet to be the head of a demon; the clock’s face sitting inside its gaping maw and the swinging pendulum, the demon’s forked tongue. With the thirteen chimes of the grandfather clock still ringing in the air, we enter the dark séance circle, an eerie sanctum in which an age-old ritual is taking place. A mist-filled crystal ball floats high above a table littered with candles and tarot cards. The red-eyed raven sits perched atop a chair directly behind the table. An ancient tome, Necronomicon: The Book of the Dead, rests on a nearby bookstand, opened to pages 1312 and 1313, and a spell that summons those unfortunate spirits trapped in limbo. A phosphorescent orb floats mysteriously along the wall, located directly behind the Doom Buggies as they first enter the room. The orb illuminates a number of horrific faces. As we continue our slow circle around the table, we finally meet our medium, the disembodied head and spirit of Madame Leota, trapped in the levitating crystal ball. She summons the Mansion’s restless spirits and encourage their arrival by reciting an ancient incantation.
‘’Serpents and spiders, tail of a rat, call in the spirits, wherever they’re at.
Rap on a table, it’s time to respond, send us a message, from somewhere beyond.
Goblins and Ghoulies, from last Halloween, awaken the spirits, with your tambourine.
Creepies and crawlies, toads in a pond, let there be music, from regions beyond.
Wizards and witches, wherever you dwell, give us a hint, by ringing a bell.’’
Music instruments and other objects spin lazily through the air, as the aforementioned spirits begin to materialize in the far corner of the room. We leave the Séance circle and travel onto an elegant balcony overlooking a spectacular, panoramic view of the aptly named Grand Hall. A green fire ignites itself in a lavish fireplace and a not-so-empty rocking chair beside it begins to rock. A group of otherworldly revelers have gathered at a long banquet table to celebrate a mysterious wedding party. Other swinging specters enjoy spirits of a different kind while sitting atop an ornate chandelier high above the room. Hooded wraiths fly in and out of the room through the upper windows as lightning flashes behind them. And a steady stream of specters pours in from a hearse crashed just outside the ballroom, eager to join in the jamboree. At the opposite end of the hall, ghostly couples waltz the night away as an evil organist plays a madcap, frantic version of ‘Grim Grinning Ghosts’ on an enormous pipe organ. With each note, transparent skulls, not musical notes, fly out of the pipes and vanish like wisps of smoke. The intimidating image of Captain Gore stands halfway up the staircase, greeting Guests disembarking from the hearse crashed outside, with every lightning flash revealing his true evil appearance. On a wall above the dance floor hang the large portraits of two duelists wielding pistols. Their spirits emerge from the canvas, turning and shooting at each other in an eternal attempt to settle their score long after death. It is truly a party to die for.
The music and murmur of the Grand Hall behind us, we enter the Mansion’s dusty attic, which is filled with cobwebbed bric-a-brac and long-stored furniture and artifacts from a former lifetime. Cool blue light and the sound of a beating heart permeate the space, and the ominous atmosphere is underscored by various shrieks and moans. The pulsating heartbeat grows louder as our Doom Buggy moves further into the dark collection of plundered treasure and other items that relate to Captain Gore’s past, secreted away in the old house. Suddenly from within an opened trunk, a freakish phantom pops upward with a shriek, similar to the phantoms that tormented Gore in his bedroom, presumably the spirits of people betrayed by Gore in his past life. Then without warning, another from the other side of the attic. A fluttery motion catches our attention – bats flit about, flying ‘round and ‘round the dark shadows above. One pop-up ghost after the next transitions into our mysterious encounter with the luminous, floating owner of the heartbeat – the forlorn bride, Priscilla, carrying a decayed bouquet in one hand and a flickering candle in the other. Her once beautiful face, a beacon in the dark, is punctuated with eyes that glow as embers – and with each heartbeat, her heart glows the color of blood. She shimmers in the light, levitating as her wispy bridal gown and veil flutter in the ethereal breeze. Another ghostly manifestation appears just outside the Attic on a balcony overlooking the Memento Mori Graveyard. This figure would be of the Captain once again, as he emerges in a watery and dripping state, and then suddenly disappears, leaving a puddle of sea water where he stood.
After passing the lovelorn bride and her ill-fated suitor, our Doom Buggy falls out an attic window, all under the watchful, glowing red eyes of the cawing raven perched in a nearby tree. Grim Grinning Ghosts, this time arranged as jazzy, 60s-era jamboree, fills the air once again as we swivel past a terrified caretaker with quivering knees, obviously too frightened to speak, and his whimpering, near-skeletal hound dog. We will soon encounter what appears to be hundreds of ghosts rising from their graves. The spirits cross all boundaries of time and space, from a band of medieval minstrels to a properly paranormal English tea party and an Egyptian mummy. All are singing and playing along with their hosts for the evening’s festivities, a group of warbling marble busts. Madame Leota’s incantations have worked like a charm, and all of the Mansion’s 999 happy haunts have come out to socialize at last. First we encounter a band of medieval minstrels, a drummer with bone-sticks, a flutist upright in his coffin, a bagpipe player in a kilt, a harpist with a hook-nose and a horn player in his long pajamas. This band was actually a group of musicians that played at houses dressed up as minstrels for Halloween. However, once they ended up at the Manor, they met their gruesome deaths when a floating piano fell on their heads. A gathering of scrawny cats and plump owls join the revelry and add their own harmonies. A skeletal hellhound bays at the moon.
Nearby, a trio of Lonesome Ghost relatives await a mug of fresh brew – two transparent witches, ghost witches, respectively, are stirring a black cauldron of glowing, green soup. The witches cackle and hum. In the distance, added in 2015, a digital quartet of skeletons reanimate and dance to a Skeleton Dance of their own. Of course, the minstrels would be most unimpressive without the frightful vocals of the Phantom Five, a quintet of Singing Busts led by Uncle Theodore. The rest of the Phantom Five is composed of Rollo Rumkin, Cousin Algernon, Ned Nub and Phineas P. Pock. The harmonic busts sing Grim Grinning Ghosts in a macabre barbershop arrangement. Victorian spooks enjoy a chorus with a game of chess and a spot of tea alongside a cozy, crashed hearse – its occupant now upright and la-la-ing along. On the near horizon, a number of cloaked wraiths ride bicycles around a gnarled tree. A former French aristocrat tips his hat – and his head – to welcome our arrival. An Egyptian Mummy sits upright in his golden sarcophagi, desperately trying to entertain a befuddled old man with an ear-horn. A flapper of the Roaring 20s enjoys a spot of tea with a ghost laden in chains. In the open coffin below, a boney arm pours tea into the flapper’s removed shoe. A former pirate captain raises a pint o’ grog in toast of the swinging wake, joined by an incredibly short Viking perched atop a small tombstone. A presumably drowned flight attendant sings near the sight of a big game hunter and a spectral tiger – the hunter’s pants grasped in the tiger’s jaws. A headless knight and his executioner show there are no hard feelings as thy sing backup for a pair of opera singers dressed as Vikings, the duo madly warbling in time with the music. It truly isn’t over until the fat lady, Harriet sings. A short and bearded convict, who will soon attempt to hitch a ride with us, stands nearby. Also nearby, the occupant of a brick tomb attempts to seal himself within via concrete perhaps too afraid of his paranormal activity.
‘’
Ah there you are! And just in time – there’s a little matter I forgot to mention – you must beware of hitchhiking haunts! These grim grinning ghosts are tagging along, determined to establish a permanent alliance with a favored mortal: you. You have been selected to fill our quota, and we will haunt you until you return. Now I will raise the safety bar, and a ghost will follow you home!’’
The raven puts in one last appearance, glaring at us with its glowing red eyes as we enter a giant stone crypt. We then come face-to-face with the Mansion’s most popular characters: The Hitchhiking Ghosts. From left to right, Phineas is the large ghost in a top carrying a carpetbag: Ezra is the tall, bony ghost tipping his hat and Gus is the short convict with a bushy beard and the ball and chain. Our Doom Buggy continues deeper into the Crypt, passing in front of a series of large mirrors. We soon learn that one of the three ghosts has hitched ride and is seated right next to us. The digital effect from Walt Disney World’s version has been implemented here as the hitchhiking ghosts pull all sorts of tricks on the Guests in their Doom Buggies.
‘’
Hurry ba-ack…Hurry ba-ack. Be sure to bring your death certificate if you decide to join us. Make final arrangements now. We’ve been dying to meet you.’’
A lit sign urges our return to the World of the Living. Since departed from our Doom Buggy and onto a moving walkway, we embark on an uphill climb through an old crypt, but not before we catch a glimpse of a little ghostess, Priscilla, leading us outside. Walking through the courtyard as we leave Gore’s property, we pass an old well that seems to be gurgling. A massive clue to the events scratched in the walls appear ‘’Ding dong dell, Priscilla’s in the well. Who threw her in? The wicked cap-a-tain!’’. A ghostly voice finishes by saying ‘’and about the color of the water, maybe it’s the reflection of the sun, but by an odd coincidence, it’s blood red.’’
