EPCOT-World Showcase - The Great British Ghost Tour

[Spike-in-Berlin]

Most people here in the Imagineering Forum go right to the top and start with entire new Disney-Resorts with several parks etc. Some plan at least one park. But I think that's a little big for a start. To make this clear, of course I, like every wanna-be-imagineer, want to plan an entire park too. But as an architect I know it's better to start with a smaller project and then grow bigger. So I design at first a single new attraction for a park area that begs for additions. World Showcase. As there are only a few attractions in WS and only two of them are actually rides and not severely outdated movies I think that WS desperately needs better and bigger rides. I plan to design three of them. My first ride for the WS is the *taadaaaaaah*
GREAT BRITISH GHOST TOUR (Working title)

Located in the U.K.-Pavilion it's a kind of a more adult and much more scary attraction, a serious Haunted Mansion and more, a mixture of walk-thru-elements and a dark ride.
A description of the ride will follow ASAP, also some first design sketches.

 

[DisneyDellsDude]

I LOVE the Haunted Mansion and real paranormal stuff, so this will intrest me. As long as you make it so there is little to no gore at all, I'd be fine with it! (It still is Disney after all!)

 

[Spike-in-Berlin]

I LOVE the Haunted Mansion and real paranormal stuff, so this will intrest me. As long as you make it so there is little to no gore at all, I'd be fine with it! (It still is Disney after all!)

Oh please! Gore is not scary, it only creates revulsion. I plan the tour in the tradition of the british ghost tales, of creepy and gothic horror. Classic ghost stories are the background not Freddy Krueger or splatters.

 

[Spike-in-Berlin]

The Great British Ghost Tour is located at the backside of the U.K-Pavilion in World Showcase. If you walk down the dead-end street to the west at the moment you get to a town square that is open to the north-west and south-west where trees seal of any optical intrusions.

This square is now changed to open on two sides to the park of an English manorstyle-house in a little distance, a mixture of tudor and elizabethan style-elements dating back to the 16th century and even further. This manor is the entrance-building to the GBGT. The guests enter the park through a sinister looking gate and walk up to the entrance. The once representative park is now run-down and delapitated, the manors facade is decaying, everything has a aura of negligence and sometimes you even see (or believe to see?) some disturbing things in the park (queing line).

Storyline: The manor is the century-old residence of the Lords of (I haven't found a good name so far so I called them Needanamings as a working title)
However, in the last decades the old family had suffered from some financial problems (and some private turbulences) and the last Lord of Needanamings, the last of his family, lacks the fundings to keep the manor maintained.
To save himself from losing his ancestors home, he finally decided to do use parts of the manor, the more maintained at least, as a hotel. But just after he spent his last savings for the modernization of the guest wing as a hotel (Elevators, reception in the hall) the first guests didn't stay for very long. Actually they didn't even stay short, most left before the end of the first night. They all left because of strange sightings and weird incidents. Before facing bankruptcy the Lord finally decided as a last resort to turn a misadvantage into an advantage and organized guided tours through his haunted manor. Quite appropriate to make theses tours interesting for tourists his family is infamou..I mean known for…lets call it odd behaviour, strange and mysterious incidents and…some disappearances. And the manor and surrounding countryside is called the most haunted house and region in England.

Lord Needanaming has called for the tourists to visit his haunted manor and arranged a ghost tour through the manor and even further. And the tourists are coming.

 

[Vernonpush]

That sounds fun.

Since you are German, what would you do as a ride for the German Pavilion? There were plans for a boat ride that got cut, would you do that or something different?

 

[Ilovewishes]

If you want to see a real British haunted place, chrck out this link

http://www.ghost-story.co.uk/stories/chinglehall.html

Chingle Hall is just a few miles from where I grew up, and although I've never been there personally, I know people who have and who have told me what they saw/felt. Things like cold areas in certain parts of room, a room that still smells of a woman's perfume even thought she's been dead hundreds of years, and - my favourite - the tale og one of the guests that was climbing the stairs leaning on the banister. The tour guide asked her what she was holding onto and she replied the banister and he told her that the banister hadn't been there for over a hundred years. Sure enough, there was no banister and the lady fell (don't worry, she was ok!)

Britains full of these stories, especially up around Lancashire. There were three or four haunted places within a 20 mile radius of my home!

And don't forget Pendle Hill where (supposedly) they killed the witches and where the locals like to gather on Halloween to try and frighten the lives out of each other!!

Or is that not very Disney???

 

[Spike-in-Berlin]

If you want to see a real British haunted place, chrck out this link

http://www.ghost-story.co.uk/stories/chinglehall.html

Chingle Hall is just a few miles from where I grew up, and although I've never been there personally, I know people who have and who have told me what they saw/felt. Things like cold areas in certain parts of room, a room that still smells of a woman's perfume even thought she's been dead hundreds of years, and - my favourite - the tale og one of the guests that was climbing the stairs leaning on the banister. The tour guide asked her what she was holding onto and she replied the banister and he told her that the banister hadn't been there for over a hundred years. Sure enough, there was no banister and the lady fell (don't worry, she was ok!)

Britains full of these stories, especially up around Lancashire. There were three or four haunted places within a 20 mile radius of my home!

And don't forget Pendle Hill where (supposedly) they killed the witches and where the locals like to gather on Halloween to try and frighten the lives out of each other!!

Or is that not very Disney???

Be sure, I am deep into english ghost tales, especially those which are truly frightening and scary like everything by M.R. James or the "haunters and the haunted" as a source for my ride. I even have a guide to haunted Britain and I will try to include a lot of those tales into the tour. And although it's planned as a disney-attraction its supposed to be scary (but not gory).

 

[Spike-in-Berlin]

That sounds fun.

Since you are German, what would you do as a ride for the German Pavilion? There were plans for a boat ride that got cut, would you do that or something different?

I know, the Rhine River Cruise. However I consider the original plans far to tame (and outdated because they were made before Germany's reunification and, for example, excluded Berlin as Berlin wasn't the capital during the planning phase of WS. It was more or less a German version of El Rio del Tiempo (and some elements from Storybook Land from DL) and I think a ride today must be much more thrilling and include German tales and legends. I actually plan to design an entire "Disneyland Berlin" but that is still in the future and at the moment I want to concentrate on my first attraction for WDW. However there are more things to come.

 

[piano_rose]

Ha,you want something scary and British, you should have seen last year's summer!The wettest, coldest, WORST summer on record, and I live on the coast in what's meant to be the sunniest part of the UK!Ha.But your idea sounds great though!

 

[Spike-in-Berlin]

Ha,you want something scary and British, you should have seen last year's summer!The wettest, coldest, WORST summer on record, and I live on the coast in what's meant to be the sunniest part of the UK!Ha.But your idea sounds great though!

Oh I know England quite well, Scotland at least a bit. I have been about 10 times in England and 3 years on an English school were also quite informative
Perhaps the global warming is the cause for the cold weather last summer? As nearly every weather condition, too hot, too cold, too rainy, too dry, too windy etc. is now blamed on global warming this would figure.
And thanks, more about the ride is to come. Perhaps already tomorrow.