Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion gets holiday makeover in nearly half the time: ‘It’s been crazy’ - OCR/SCNG

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drizgirl

Well-Known Member
DrAlice said:
I don't hate the overlay, but it is definitely a CHRISTMAS overlay and should be applied after Halloween. I've never understood why it goes up now. It makes no sense.

If Disney wants to make more money from those characters, I would prefer that they give them their own ride somewhere and leave the mansion alone. They could get the same AP increase in interest in the ride by just doing something special with the ballroom scene occasionally (something equally dramatic to the gingerbread house, - but not a gingerbread house).
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Nightmare Before Christmas is where Halloween and Christmas collide!
 
MickeySoCal

MickeySoCal

Member
TP2000 said:
It's 7:40pm Pacific time with only the lowest SoCal Select AP blocked out today, and after a slow afternoon Disneyland and DCA is getting a big surge of locals showing up after work for the first night of HalloweenTime. The Halloween themed E Tickets are pulling in big crowds with long lines. Star Wars Land? Not so much.

From the Disneyland App:

Luigi's Honkin' Haul-O-Ween - 30 Minutes
Guardians of the Galaxy: Monsters After Dark! - 75 Minutes
Haunted Mansion Holiday - 60 Minutes
Radiator Springs Racers - 90 Minutes
Millennium Falcon: Target Run - 25 Minutes

I know it's controversial to say this, but Haunted Mansion hasn't seen a 60 minute wait time all summer long. But turn it into Nightmare Before Christmas and put a 50th anniversary gingerbread house in the ballroom, and the AP's go nuts.

And this is a new version of the Halloween calendar for Disneyland Resort, with a record short turnaround for the Halloween overlays and decor. Normally the Halloween stuff wouldn't arrive in New Orleans Square and Cars Land and Guardians/HollywoodLand until next Friday. They obviously scheduled it this new way six months ago thinking the parks would be packed due to Star Wars Land with 3 hour long lines for the Millennium Falcon. That didn't happen, and the 18 year old Halloween overlay on the 50 year old Haunted Mansion that gets 2,100 riders per hour is pulling a bigger crowd than the new Millennium Falcon ride that gets 1,700 riders per hour.

That's probably not what Burbank and TDA had planned and budgeted for fiscal year 2019 going into fiscal year 2020.

Oops! :oops:
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I think this is true, last night had a huge crush of people for the evening. It appears that the local lower tier APs really came out for this. It appears that the quick turnaround on overlay is paying off for them.

Love it or hate it, the mansion gets LOTS of attention once HMH goes "live".
 
DoleWhipDrea

DoleWhipDrea

Well-Known Member
No, Haunted Mansion Holiday shouldn’t debut until after Halloween. It should close for the overlay on November 1st and re-open in time for the other Christmas offerings. The Haunted Mansion is designed as the perfect Halloween attraction.

But that’s not going to happen. I know purists loathe the overlay, but it is legitimately very popular with the majority of guests year after year, from the time it opens to the time it goes down in January. As long as that NBC merch sells in NOS, you can count on Jack Skellington taking up residence year after year.

I get HMH fatigue by the end of its run every year, I do. The overlay sticks around for too many months out of the year and I miss the original. But I really love seeing Leota floating inside an ornament, Jack and Zero greeting guests passing by (I’ll never forget being a kid and seeing that for the first time - my jaw was literally on the floor, as was my BFF’s), seeing the design for the gingerbread house every year, and the goofy and weird Christmas decorations. I hope that WDI continues making small pluses to the overlay when they can. The attic would be a good spot for updates.
 

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