Expansion Continues
There’s no denying that the three new lands added to Hong Kong Disneyland were enough to jump-start the young park with the vitality it needed. Mystic Point and Grizzly Gulch, particularly, infused new optimism and vibrancy into a park that otherwise would’ve been doomed to be a third rate Disneyland forever. They also upped the park’s ride count, raising its once-laughable line-up to a pretty respectable standing in our Countdown of Disney and Universal’s Park by Ride Counts.
Here’s the problem: just as Mystic Point opened as the third piece of the puzzle, Disney was hard at work on their next big project: Shanghai Disneyland. A second park in China (granted, Hong Kong and mainland China operate in very different ways), the Shanghai park wasn’t just going to be another Disneyland; it was going to be a better Disneyland.
Shanghai Disneyland reportedly cost nearly $6 billion (about the same as DisneySea, adjusted for inflation) and aggressively reimagined what a Disneyland-style park could be. The mainland park did away with Adventureland and Frontierland entirely, replacing them with original lands Adventure Isle and Treasure Cove. There’s no Space Mountain, Thunder Mountain, or Splash Mountain here, but unlike the budget-crunched Hong Kong, they were replaced with even more ambitious rides like the Modern Marvel: TRON Lightcycle Power Run, Roaring Rapids, and Pirates of the Caribbean: Battle for Sunken Treasure.
In fact, fans marveled at the incredible, original attractions devised for the park and celebrated its opening as an astounding step forward for Disney Imagineering.
Hong Kong Disneyland and its financiers in the Hong Kong government, meanwhile, were not celebrating…
Allegedly, they argued that the opening of Shanghai Disneyland would cannibalize the still-small Hong Kong park, turning it into even more of a flyover. The opening of Mystic Manor and Big Grizzly Mountain alone couldn’t be enough to make the park stand out among Disney’s lineup, especially with the brand-new, triumphant, cutting-edge, custom-built Shanghai Disneyland drawing from the same region.
At their insistence, Disney began to toy with another round of expansions in Hong Kong, ultimately doing what most thought to be only a wild rumor…
In its next growth spurt, Hong Kong Disneyland will build an entire sub-land dedicated to Frozen within Fantasyland (containing the Modern Marvel: Frozen Ever After plus a Frozen-themed version of the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train), construct a Moana theater in Adventureland, fully annex part of the park’s miniscule Tomorrowland to a new Stark Expo-stylized Marvel land, and most astonishingly…
…add onto the park’s castle (an identical clone of Disneyland’s diminutive 77-foot-tall Sleeping Beauty Castle). The new Castle of Magical Dreams will include a dedicated spire for each Disney Princess, soaring into first place as the tallest Disney Parks castle on Earth.
When Hong Kong Disneyland’s second round of expansions finishes (estimated for 2024), it’ll still be among the smallest Disney Parks on Earth… but it’ll also be among the most unique, with no less than four lands that no other castle park contains, and a pretty impressive number of exclusive E-Tickets including Big Grizzly Mountain, Mustic Manor, and the Iron Man Experience.
Which brings us to the question on everyone’s mind: what are your chances of seeing Mystic Manor at your local Disney Park?
Mysteries Expand
At least so far, Mystic Manor is a Hong Kong Disneyland exclusive. Allegedly, part of the agreement Disney signed with the Hong Kong government to get the expansion approved required the ride to remain exclusive to Hong Kong for a certain term: reportedly, five years from its May 17, 2013 opening.
In general, Disney fans tend to like “exclusive” rides (insofar as the rides remain exclusive to their own home resort!), though here at Park Lore we try not to rally for exclusivity just for exclusivity’s sake. “Cloning” isn’t necessarily a dirty work in our circles, given that we appreciate being among the very, very, very few guests who know or care when another Disney resort exists at all, much less if it has a similar or “copied” ride.
That said, if you ask us, Mystic Manor would be perfectly at home in Disney California Adventure’s Grizzly Peak, in Disneyland Paris’ Adventureland, or even in Disney’s Animal Kingdom with just a few small changes of setting. And insiders report that the ride has been explored for Disneyland Resort, and maybe not where you’d expect…
While we might advocate for the ride’s recreation in California or Florida, fans know it’s just not that simple at Disney Parks today. Especially in the U.S. parks, the “Ride the Movies” mantra has evolved into living the movies. In fact, every major Disney Parks project in the works globally today is connected in some facet to Frozen, The Avengers, Pixar, Tangled, Star Wars, or classic Disney films.
And why shouldn’t they be? With nearly $100 billion in brand acquisitions alone in the last two decades, Disney’s not shy about using their intellectual properties wherever they can. It just means that the rare original idea – no matter how beloved by fans – would be an exception on Imagineering’s line-up.
A Modern Marvel
Is Mystic Manor the best ride Disney’s ever designed?
In some ways and by some qualifications, it could be. As inventive as Haunted Mansion, as adventurous as Jungle Cruise, as technologically brilliant as Rise of he Resistance, and as perfectly storyboarded as Indiana Jones Adventure, Mystic Manor is – by all accounts – a new classic; a shining testament to what Imagineering can do when untethered by box office returns, intellectual properties, and budget cuts.
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In the comments below, tell us what you think of Mystic Manor. Does this ride really stand among the best of Disney – classic and modern? Have you had the chance to ride it? If not, is Mystic Manor on your “bucket list?” How, where, and – for that matter – should this exciting S.E.A. adventure find its way to the states?