Haunted Mansion to Return with New Enhancements and Magic :(

[Brer Oswald]

Aright, enough of that discussion. When are they going to retheme it to a Disney Villains ride? Something where Thanus, Dark Vader, and Mother Hothel can team up and do some relevant things that end in a trip to the gift shop.

 

[Professortango1]

Disneyland's doesn't meet this criteria either. You walk right by what would be the front door of an actual house and enter through a side door instead.

Yes, but we walk into the actual facade of the house, not into a passageway to the side of it. And Disneyland used to close the door between groups, which was great!

 

[180º]

Yes, but we walk into the actual facade of the house, not into a passageway to the side of it. And Disneyland used to close the door between groups, which was great!

I’ve never consciously considered it before, but that’s actually a good argument for WDW. Their double doors are right in front of you in the queue and are consistently closed between groups. When they’re ready for the next group, the maid or butler swings the doors open dramatically and you follow them into a dark and ominous foyer, a fitting payoff to the general tone set by the approach to the Florida mansion.

For the record, I agree with your original point: The entrance doesn’t feel so much like a real house. The Florida façade is much more aloof and diorama-like, but I like its unique flavor compared to ours.

 

[George Lucas on a Bench]

I don't mind the Florida version. It has its charm. It looks like Wayne Manor from the old Batman TV show and the Forced Perspective as the people on the Disney forums say never worked for me so it just looks like a tiny house whereas Disneyland's really does look like a mansion. I was a fan of the old waiting line setup where they had the tombstones along the path to the entrance into the hillside. It felt perfectly macabre. At least DL's sort of has it again now even though many are behind big railings. The WDW setup is terrible now.

 

[TP2000]

You are committed to bunk.

Well.... I don't even know how to respond to such a comment.

But I'm chuckling so much over it that I just wanted to memorialize it.

 

[chadwpalm]

Well.... I don't even know how to respond to such a comment.

But I'm chuckling so much over it that I just wanted to memorialize it.

I thought it meant you were a fan of Disney's Bunk'd.

 

[TP2000]

An entrance designed for guests to enter your home would be a main entrance. Its not like guests are being escorted in via patio door or servant's door or a vault.

And the architecture does make it feel like foundation. There's no other portion of the house at this level. Its not like we see this is simply another level of the house with windows and architectural features that expand to this wing. Its a small flat wall which gives no indication of other chambers at this level. Its like heading to the parking garage built into the foundation of an LA building.

Agreed. I still liken it to going into a side of the lawn, as all you can really see from under the queue canopy to your right is a small hill covered in lawn.

The trees have grown and obscured much of the layout from afar, but there are still photos showing this ride in late 1971 into 1972 before the first short canopy was installed, once the Imagineers figured out that Orlando had a horrible climate.

Red Arrow points to the Queue entrance, and Blue Arrow points to the actual front door of the house.

What's even more telling is the sightline the audience originally got in 1971-1972. Again, the visuals worked better before massive canopies were installed later in '72 (not to mention whack-a-mole games in the exterior queue 40 years later).

But even without the visual cap and obstacle the canopies created, the queue clearly led you off into the hill on the side of the house. I always just assumed the queue was leading us into a "crypt" built into the hill, or some sort of spooky outbuilding. But then, I've never been a huge fan of this ride, only a modest fan, and certainly not invested enough to try and learn who "Master Gracey" is and all the stuff Florida ride operators made up in the break room in the 1990's.

I never miss riding it at WDW, but that's because Magic Kingdom Park doesn't have very many E Tickets to start with even 50 years later, so it's something you just generally do during a daylong visit to that park.

 

[George Lucas on a Bench]

The entrance gate was originally way over there where the waiting line more or less ends. It's like they forgot to build the rest of the waiting line over on that side and just extended it out to the exit area. Decades later when they added the Interactive Queue, they didn't really add capacity as it's just a strange spaced out area that really doesn't hold many people or move efficiently because they're playing with stupid junk, and the line frequently extends out across the whole area. They really never figured out the waiting line in WDW.

Seems they really like macabre attractions at these Disney parks. How about some more?

 

[ᗩLᘿᑕ ✨ ᗩζᗩᗰ]

Aright, enough of that discussion. When are they going to retheme it to a Disney Villains ride? Something where Thanus, Dark Vader, and Mother Hothel can team up and do some relevant things that end in a trip to the gift shop.

Villains? I expect a 100% Princess Constance Mansion by 2025.

 

[180º]

The whole WDW Mansion setup reminds me a lot of the Hogwarts/FJ setup. Enter and exit below the forced-perspective subject. Lofty building is visible from distance.

 

[celluloid]

Between the balance of theme park design working well for the scale, suspension of disbelief and it being a colonial inspired building, it is not that bizarre to go into where you go into.

I am far more bothered by the lack of scale or any thought of such in Toy Story Land. It is so inconsistent and that is really the only main idea to focus on when designing a land full of static toys in a backyard.

 

[TP2000]

Between the balance of theme park design working well for the scale, suspension of disbelief and it being a colonial inspired building, it is not that bizarre to go into where you go into.

It works, but let's not pretend we are entering through the front door. Or even the first floor of the house. We're entering in through some basement level built into the side of a hill.

Here's a good late 1960's Imagineering sketch on the elevation used for WDW, and that weird little crypt structure we enter into off of the house's left flanks.

I keep thinking how much better it works in Tokyo, because the queue turns left in front of the house and has a spooky garden it goes through that gives you plenty of time to take in the house visuals. But then I was reminded that they really built out this left side of the house compared to WDW. In Tokyo they built the house on a rocky bluff, and expanded the house into the bluff itself as though there is a wing of the house built above the rocks that you queue underneath. Here's a pretty good photo of Tokyo's expanded wing built above the queue...

 

[celluloid]

It works, but let's not pretend we are entering through the front door. Or even the first floor of the house. We're entering in through some basement level built into the side of a hill.

It is almost as if we are entering a house shrouded in mystery as much, if not more than dramaturgy. Where a boundless realm exists.

 

[owlsandcoffee]

It works, but let's not pretend we are entering through the front door. Or even the first floor of the house. We're entering in through some basement level built into the side of a hill.

Here's a good late 1960's Imagineering sketch on the elevation used for WDW, and that weird little crypt structure we enter into off of the house's left flanks.

View attachment 552247

I keep thinking how much better it works in Tokyo, because the queue turns left right in front of the house and has a spooky garden it goes through that gives you plenty of time to take in the house visuals. But then I was reminded that they really built out this left side of the house compared to WDW. In Tokyo they built the house on a rocky bluff, and expanded the house into the bluff itself as though there is a wing of the house built above the rocks that you queue underneath. Here's a pretty good photo of Tokyo's expanded wing built above the queue...

You can't just expect us to be as good as Tokyo You're right though, that looks great.

 

[TP2000]

It is almost as if we are entering a house shrouded in mystery as much, if not more than dramaturgy. Where a boundless realm exists.

Yeah, we're doing that too. But also entering in through a side door built into the side of a hill.

 

[1HAPPYGHOSTHOST]

Yeah, we're doing that too. But also entering in through a side door built into the side of a hill.

like the power rangers command center..no wait..they still went in the front door.

 

[George Lucas on a Bench]

Welcome...to The Haunted Mansion. A Boundless Realm of the supahnatural.

 

[PiratesMansion]

It works, but let's not pretend we are entering through the front door. Or even the first floor of the house. We're entering in through some basement level built into the side of a hill.

Here's a good late 1960's Imagineering sketch on the elevation used for WDW, and that weird little crypt structure we enter into off of the house's left flanks.

View attachment 552247

I keep thinking how much better it works in Tokyo, because the queue turns left in front of the house and has a spooky garden it goes through that gives you plenty of time to take in the house visuals. But then I was reminded that they really built out this left side of the house compared to WDW. In Tokyo they built the house on a rocky bluff, and expanded the house into the bluff itself as though there is a wing of the house built above the rocks that you queue underneath. Here's a pretty good photo of Tokyo's expanded wing built above the queue...

That window is actually from Grandma Sara's, the "Splash Mountain" restaurant. It's definitely cool, and the design helps conceal the closeness of the restaurant while simultaneously selling the Mansion area a bit better than at Magic Kingdom. A solid plussing.

That said, before Critter Country was built out there I'm sure the Haunted Mansion queue and the visuals of the building looked just like Florida's. Don't they even have the tent queue in Tokyo too (albeit not as enormous and all-consuming as it is at MK)?

 

[owlsandcoffee]

That window is actually from Grandma Sara's, the "Splash Mountain" restaurant. It's definitely cool, and helps conceal the closeness of the restaurant while simultaneously selling the Mansion area a bit better than at Magic Kingdom. A solid plussing.

That said, before Critter Country was built out there I'm sure the Haunted Mansion queue and the visuals of the building looked just like Florida's. Don't they even have the tent queue in Tokyo too (albeit not as enormous and all-consuming as it is at MK)?

Well color me impressed, that's some solid theming.

I think Tokyo's was identical to MK's when it opened, although the queue layout was different. You approach the house head on, at first, instead of from the side and all around it.

 

[Little Green Men]

It works, but let's not pretend we are entering through the front door. Or even the first floor of the house. We're entering in through some basement level built into the side of a hill.

Here's a good late 1960's Imagineering sketch on the elevation used for WDW, and that weird little crypt structure we enter into off of the house's left flanks.

View attachment 552247

I keep thinking how much better it works in Tokyo, because the queue turns left in front of the house and has a spooky garden it goes through that gives you plenty of time to take in the house visuals. But then I was reminded that they really built out this left side of the house compared to WDW. In Tokyo they built the house on a rocky bluff, and expanded the house into the bluff itself as though there is a wing of the house built above the rocks that you queue underneath. Here's a pretty good photo of Tokyo's expanded wing built above the queue...

It’s also in Fantasyland next to Dumbo