Haunted Mansion - Differences Between Attractions

Differences Between Attractions

The following are elements that are unique to each particular attraction.

Entrance

• Disneyland:
  • Guests enter from New Orleans Square.
  • Years ago, the cemetery paid tribute to the Imagineers, much like the one at Florida and Tokyo, but was changed when the queue was expanded some time after the mid-80s, to make room for the handicapped entrance.
  • When plans were being made for a Young Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular, Disney bought a hearse for the show. When plans for the show were scrapped, the hearse was given an invisible phantom horse and placed outside the Disneyland mansion.
• Walt Disney World:
  • Guests enter from Liberty Square.
  • An invisible phantom horse and hearse, this one black, also waits here.
  • One feature unique to the Florida mansion is a tombstone for Madame Leota. On it is a bronze casting of her face that, by way of animatronics, occasionally opens its eyes and looks around. In March 2011 an interactive queue was added, featuring such elements as a murder mystery, a sea captain's grave that spits water, a musical crypt, a pipe organ, a library with moving books, and a book that writes itself. Many of the original graves were moved.
  • In the back of the pet cemetery (top left), there is a headstone of Mr. Toad in tribute to Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, which closed in 1998.
• Tokyo Disneyland:
  • Guests enter from Fantasyland.
  • In comparison to the other mansions, the Tokyo mansion is more ramshackled and overgrown. A window hangs on its hinges, two ominous griffin statues rest at the entryway, and the gardens are overgrown and messy. Several crypts and fountains appear to broken, the crypts emptied.
• Disneyland Paris
  • Guests enter through Frontierland.

Foyer

• Walt Disney World and Tokyo Disneyland:
  • A portrait of the master of the house rests above the fireplace and slowly transforms into a portrait of a rotting corpse.
• Disneyland:
  • Guests enter a small rectangular room containing a dusty chandelier and a wooden floor (in the design of a spider's web).
• Disneyland Paris
  • A portrait of Melanie Ravenswood fades in and out through a mirror.

Octagonal Room

• Disneyland and Disneyland Paris
  • In the Disneyland version and Phantom Manor, the room is, in fact, a cleverly concealed OTIS elevator. The room is lowered slowly as the ceiling remains in place to give the illusion that the room is stretching. This brings the guests down to where the ride begins, below ground level. This elevator effect was necessary to lower the guests below the level of the railroad which circles Disneyland. The actual ride building of this attraction is located outside the berm surrounding the park, and the Disney Imagineers developed this mechanism to lower the guests to the gallery leading to the ride building.
• Walt Disney World and Tokyo Disneyland:
  • Guests enter a chamber in which the floor is stationary while the ceiling itself rises, as do the portraits. As both rides (Florida and Tokyo) were built on stable ground, there was no need to lower guests down and out of the park. For the 2007 refurbishment, Walt Disney World's stretch room was given new wallpaper and stretching sounds. After the stretching sequence, as guests exit, they can hear the gargoyles whisper.
• Disneyland Paris
  • Instead of the regular portraits, guests see four portraits of Melanie. In the first one, Melanie steps through a stream. In the second, she holds a parasol, in the third, she picks flowers, and in the fourth, she is having a picnic with her fiance. As the room stretches:
    • Melanie steps through a stream, and reaching for her foot is a hand, connected to a water monster.
    • Melanie clutches a parasol, while in a boat, above a vertical waterfall.
    • Melanie picks flowers, above a gravestone, while a skeleton emerges from the ground.
    • Melanie is having a picnic with her fiance, as ants raid their food, and a snake, scorpion, spider and water beetle approach.
  • The body of the groom, hanged from the rafters in the ceiling over the stretching room, replaces the hanged version of the "Ghost Host."

Leaving Octagonal Room

• Disneyland:
  • The wall opens into a portrait corridor. When the walls finally do open, guests are ushered into a portrait corridor with paintings that depict seemingly innocent scenes. Windows on the left give guests a peek at the thunderstorm raging outside. With every flash of lightning, the paintings flicker with ghastly images, including a demure young woman sprouting snakes from her scalp (Medusa), a magnificent sailing ship at sea that becomes a tattered and ghostly version thereof in a storm, a man who changes into a decrepit corpse, a knight and horse who both turn into terrifying skeletons, and a woman sitting upon a sofa who is revealed as a were-tiger. The grim busts of a man and woman placed at the end of the hall seem to turn their heads, glaring at the guests as they walk past.
  • After escaping the portrait corridor, the guests walk through an ethereal void, a boundless realm of limbo, where an eerie green, glowing fog floats between spider webbed-adorned walls, and cobweb-wrapped candelabras dimly illuminate the area. The Ghost Host points out that the house has 999 spirits with room for a thousand ("any volunteers?").
• Walt Disney World:
  • The wall opens directly to the Doom Buggy load area, and will always open underneath the pink lady's portrait, no matter how the room is situated. Seven of the sinister 11 portraits are located in the load area.
• Tokyo Disneyland:
  • The wall opens directly to the Doom Buggy load area. Instead of the sinister 11 portraits (the paintings with eyes that follow) the walls are adorned with urns.
• Disneyland Paris:
  • The wall opens into a hall similar to that of the Disneyland version. At the end is a picture of Melanie Ravenwood dressed in her wedding dress. Guests pass a green bust whose eyes seem to follow them. Then guests enter the loading area with a grand staircase, where a raging storm keeps turning off the lights.

After load area and before Conservatory

• Disneyland:
  • Guests are seated and ascend a pitch-black staircase. A chair whose embroidering resembles a hidden face and a moving suit of armor stand in front of the Endless Hall, where a candelabrum floats down the corridor.
• Walt Disney World:
  • After boarding the Doom Buggies, guests are taken through a room containing a stairwell leading up to a landing, where a candelabrum floats above. Two of the sinister 11 portraits are located here. The Doom Buggies then take guests down a long portrait corridor, past flashing lightning windows and ghostly portraits similar to those in Disneyland’s changing portraits corridor (minus the "aging man" portrait).
  • Passing under an archway, guests enter a library with staring busts, moving ladders, flying books, and an unseen ghost rocking in a chair reading a book by candlelight. After this is a music room where a shadow plays a mellow version of Grim Grinning Ghosts on a rundown piano. A stormy forest is shown in the window behind the piano.
  • The Doom Buggies then ascend a room full of staircases that defy the laws of physics (like the art of M.C. Escher). Green footsteps appear on the steps of the upside down and sideways staircases. At the top of the stairs, moving and blinking eyes fade into demon-faced wallpaper (there used to be neon-colored spiders and webs, but in the 2007 renovations of the ride, they were retracted).
• Tokyo Disneyland:
  • Doom Buggies take guests down a long portrait corridor, past ghostly portraits whose eyes seem to follow guests as they pass. This scene was once at Walt Disney World until the 2007 refurbishment.
  • The guests ride through a dark room filled with giant spiders in webs.
• Disneyland Paris:
  • This section of Phantom Manor is identical to the Disneyland version, but an audio-animatronic of Melanie bows at passing guests.

Endless Hallway

• All parks (except Disneyland Paris)
  • As guests ascend a narrow staircase, whether from the load hall at Disneyland and Disneyland Paris or in the grand staircase scene in Walt Disney World and Tokyo Disneyland, guests come across a living suit of armor, a chair which is embroidered with a hidden abstract face, and a long, narrow corridor down the center of a parlor. Partway down the corridor is a candelabra, floating eerily down the hallway.
• Disneyland Paris
  • In Paris, the scene is identical to the other versions, but guests see Melanie come into view and out of view, while the candelabra she holds remains in view.

Conservatory

• All parks (except Disneyland Paris)
  • As guests pass through the conservatory, the Doom Buggy is suddenly spun to face backward. On the side of the room is a glass room. Dead flowers adorn the whole room with a coffin in the center. A raven sits perched atop a wreath with a banner that reads "Farewell." The coffin's lid is being raised by a pair of skeletal claws while a green glow radiates from the inside.
• Disneyland Paris:
  • In the conservatory, there is a piano on which sits a red-eyed raven. The keys on the piano seem to play by themselves, an effect obtained by the use of mechanically moving keys. The guests can see the shadow of a phantom pianist projected on the floor. This scene is very much like the Music Room at Tokyo and Florida.

Corridor of doors

• Disneyland:
  • After leaving the conservatory, guests travel through a dimly lit corridor. Daguerreotypes of family members, all of which resemble zombies and skeletons, hang upon these walls while monstrous voices echo through the halls. Many doors are seen here; their handles are jiggling and door-knockers are knocking with no one in sight. A cross-stitched sign reading "Tomb Sweet Tomb" hangs crookedly on the wall. A portrait of the Ghost Host wearing a hangman's noose and holding a hatchet is seen to the left of the corridor. Next to that, a door seems to be breathing as if it were human. Two reliefs resembling a smiling and a snarling demon are found here as well. At the end of the corridor is a door with a pair of skeletal hands trying to open the door with an eerie green glow from inside.
• Walt Disney World:
  • Similar to the Disneyland mansion, but with newly drawn portraits and a different version of the Ghost Host's portrait (this time depicting the same decrepit man, but with his shadow raising the hatchet menacingly). Also, along the purple walls where pictures hang are eyes that seem to glare at the guests riding through.
• Tokyo Disneyland:
  • Related to both American parks, but instead of family portraits and the hanging man, a portrait of a top-hatted man hangs on the corridor's wall. But, with a slight twist, this portrait seems to grow a three-dimensional face, facing the guests.
• Disneyland Paris
  • The Doom Buggies pass a series of ten doors. Knocking sounds can be heard behind the doors and the knockers seem to be moving by themselves. At the tenth door, two skeletal hands can be seen trying to force their way through above the door.

The Clock Hall

• All parks:
  • Each hall contains a single grandfather clock with demonic features. As the shadow of a claw reaches over the face of the clock, the hands spin wildly counter-clockwise, striking the number 13 every other second. The clock's swinging pendulum resembles a demon's pointed tail.
• Disneyland
  • The clock's pendulum resembles a demon's tongue. Unlike the other parks' clocks, this clock has only 12 hours, with the twelfth hour marked as "13".
• Walt Disney World
  • The hands look like a pair of skeletal fingers.
• Tokyo Disneyland
  • The hands have a Japanese design.
• Disneyland Paris
  • The clock's minute hand resembles a snake's tail, while the hour hand features a crescent moon shape. The demon wallpaper has faded into the darkness and its eyes glow a greenish color, blinking at guests.

The Séance Room

• Walt Disney World:
  • The crystal ball containing Madame Leota’s head floats mysteriously above the table. Floating objects and instruments respond to Leota's incantations while a wispy green specter roams in a corner of the room.

• Disneyland
  • For many years, the crystal ball remained stationary on the table. In 2006, it gained the ability to float. Madame Leota was grounded again in 2009, but recently the floating effect has been reactivated. The wispy spirit that floats reveals a skull-like face in the background.

• Tokyo Disneyland
  • Madame Leota's crystal ball remains stationary while a specter floats about the room.

• Disneyland Paris
  • Madame Leota's crystal ball sits on a floating table.

The Ballroom

• All parks (except Disneyland Paris)
  • After leaving the Seance circle, guests arrive at a balcony overlooking festivities below in a ballroom, with a number of ghosts dancing and making merry. Ghosts are seen entering the room through a broken door, where a hearse is crashed with its coffin sliding out. Eerie wraiths are seen flying in and out of the windows above. A merry ghost is seen sitting atop the mantle of a fireplace (spitting out green flames) with his arm wrapped around a familiar bust. An elderly ghost is seen rocking back and forth in a chair while knitting a sweater. Many ghosts have gathered around a dinner table, where a birthday ghost is blowing out 13 candles on a cake. A ghost can be seen at the far end of the table. A massive chandelier hangs above the table where a couple of drunks are swinging about, hanging on with their canes. Another balcony is seen across the room, where a curtained doorway is situated between two portraits of duelists. From time to time, the ghosts of the two duelists appear and shoot each other with their firearms. A number of elegantly dressed couples are seen below, waltzing to a haunting version of the song "Grim Grinning Ghosts", played on a large organ. The organ is played by a ghostly gentleman while skull-like banshees fly out of the organ pipes. At Walt Disney World, shortly after the 2007 refurbishment, one of the sinister 11 portraits was relocated here. At Disneyland, the organ is the actual prop of Captain Nemo's organ that was used in the film 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. While the organ console remains the same, a bat-shaped note stand at the console has replaced the oval mirror and a new taller set of pipes replaced the original pipe arrangement in the film to better compliment the dimensions of the room and to fit with the ghostly effect of skulls pouring out of them. At the other parks, the organ is a replica of the original.

• Disneyland Paris
  • At Paris, the table is set for a wedding party. Melanie (the bride) is seen standing on the staircase, upset, while the Phantom looks on from a window, laughing. Most of the rest of the ballroom is identical to the other versions.

The Attic

• Disneyland and Walt Disney World:
  • The Doom Buggies pass portraits of wealthy men, each standing next to the same bride. A ghostly pianist (which, like the music room in Walt Disney World, is in fact the Ghost Host, but never mentioned) is seen banging the keys on an old run-down piano, playing a grim version of Richard Wagner's Bridal March.
  • The grooms' heads disappear from their shoulders in rhythm with the bride's loud heartbeat. For each husband the bride marries, she gains a strand of pearls.
  • Eventually, the Doom Buggies come across the bride herself, uttering her wedding vows in a slow, ominous voice. Halfway through each of her vows, an axe appears in her hands, disappearing before she starts her next vow.
• Tokyo Disneyland :
  • Upon entering the attic, a loud heartbeat resonates throughout the room, followed by the screams of skeletal ghosts which pop up from among various bric-a-brac. At the end of the attic stands a blue, pale-faced bride whose heart glows red; she holds a candle stick.

The Boudoir (Disneyland Paris)

• The Doom Buggies enter the Bride's Boudoir. Melanie is now an old woman and sits in front of a skull-shaped mirror, crying. Following the Bride's Boudoir, Phantom Manor follows a different series of scenes from the standard scenes of the regular Haunted Mansions.

The Graveyard and Ending

• All parks (except Disneyland Paris):
  • The left hand of the ghost’s cloak near the opera singers forms a Hidden Mickey in the Florida version.
• Walt Disney World:
  • To the right of the opera singing lady (her left) is a ghost resembling the grim reaper. He is holding up his left arm. Hanging from his left hand is a cloth with markings at the top that form a classic Hidden Mickey. The Grim Reaper is standing between the two white stone walls.
• Disneyland Paris
  • There is no graveyard scene at Paris. Instead, guests leave the Bride's Boudoir into the Manor's backyard where the Phantom stands before an open grave and laughs menacingly. Then the Doom Buggies pass an undead dog.
  • The Doom Buggies then travel underground, into some catacombs, and pass a series of coffins being opened by their skeletal residents. Four white marble busts come into view, bearing the expressive faces of four phantoms singing "Grim Grinning Ghosts".
  • As guests pass through a hole exiting the catacombs and enter Phantom Canyon, the supernatural version of Thunder Mesa, great rifts in the earth surrounding the buggies suggest that there is an earthquake happening. An eerie-looking figure is then seen standing before a ramshackle train station, offering guests train tickets to the underworld. This character is nicknamed Ezra (because he resembles one of the Hitchhiking Ghosts from the original mansion that was nicknamed Ezra by fans). Guests then pass a ruined town hall where a mayor stands, inviting guests to become the manor's 1000th ghost. (The Mayor's dialogue is made up of clips from the Paul Frees Ghost Host narration of the American versions of the Haunted Mansion). As he tips his hat, his head comes with it. A shootout follows between a bank robber fleeing a bank on a mule and a cowardly sheriff, with Big Thunder Mountain in the background. Guests see a pharmacy where a green-faced pharmacist drinks a deadly-looking medicine, followed by a saloon with a caved-in front wall. Inside it there is a dancing showgirl, a bartender, and a man playing a honky-tonk piano. Four invisible gambler figures play poker nearby.
  • Another figure of the Phantom leads guests into an open grave. As guests see the silhouette of the Manor ahead, they enter a dark passage and see Melanie's corpse pointing to the way out. The vehicles enter a subterranean chamber lined with large, gilt-framed mirrors in which a ghostly image of the Phantom can be seen above the guests' own Doom Buggies. This replaces the Hitchhiking Ghosts scene from the other versions. Then guests enter a wine cellar and disembark.
    • Much of Phantom Canyon was derived from a planned scene of a mining town called Dry Gulch in the never built Western River Expedition at the Magic Kingdom. Phantom Canyon is also based on a supernatural version of Thunder Mesa, per the backstory of both Phantom Manor and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad in Disneyland Paris.