14. The Haunted Mansions
The Haunted Mansion has one of the most interesting development stories in Disney history, largely thanks to the fact that the Mansion facade itself was built in 1963… but Disney getting involved with the 1964-65 New York World’s Fair meant that when Walt Disney died in December 1966, no one had yet decided what exactly would go in it.
The final attraction famously fuses the styling of two of Walt’s proteges – Marc Davis (reductively, known for highly stylized, comedic characters) and Claude Coats (known for atmospheric backgrounds). Their combined leadership resulted in the first major attraction tackled without Walt – fittingly, a haunting, eerie, characterless first half (Coats) that evolves into a playfully spooky singalong of iconic characters (Davis) by its end. Haunted Mansion’s mix of Omnimover, chilling special effects, and “silly spooks” has made it a landmark known around the globe.
A. Haunted Mansion (Disneyland, 1969)
The original Haunted Mansion finally opened its doors in 1969. A fitting follow-up to Pirates of the Caribbean two years earlier, the New Orleans Square attraction includes a number of innovations, like carved busts whose gaze follows visitors or the “Stretching Room” (which lowers guests to basement level so they can walk under the Disneyland Railroad and into the gargantuan, unseen showbuilding).
But many of the ride’s most iconic vignettes weren’t “innovations” at all, but age-old parlor tricks – some of which, older than electricity! Scrims, two way mirrors, lighting tricks, and the fabled “Pepper’s ghost” mirror illusion combine to create floating candelabras, morphing paintings, hitch-hiking ghosts, and the “how’d-they-do-that” see-through specters that inhabit the Mansion’s ballroom.
Enormously high capacity and generally iconic, the ride is regarded as one of Disney’s finest, and certainly among the best “classic” dark rides on Earth.
B. Haunted Mansion (Magic Kingdom [1971] and Tokyo Disneyland [1983])
Though the park itself didn’t open until 1971, Magic Kingdom’s Haunted Mansion was essentially built in tandem with Disneyland’s, making the ride among the first in Florida to be completed. Though the ride’s facade was swapped from a New Orleans plantation house to a wind-swept New England coastal manor, many of its key scenes remain unchanged.
One well-known difference is that at Magic Kingdom, there’s no need to pass under the Railroad, so there’s no need for a “Stretching Room” to lower guests to a basement level. However, the “Stretching Room” illusion was iconic enough to warrant its inclusion, just with the ceiling rising rather than the floor lowering. The biggest change in Florida, though, is that the showbuilding is essentially rotated 90 degrees relative to the manor facade, which added extra room for show scenes. Guests load in a Hallway rather than the otherworldly void, then travel through the Library, Music Room, and Endless Staircase such that the first scene in Disneyland’s ride (the Endless Hallway) if the fourth in Florida.
Tokyo Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion is a clone of Magic Kingdom’s except for a few slight edits. First, the same red brick manor facade is used in Tokyo, but added ‘fantasy’ elements (like stone griffons, shattered windows, and a gatekeeper’s house) more effectively communicate what’s inside to an audience without the same shared cultural association with ghosts, and help the ride fit in Fantasyland. Second, the “Endless Staircase” scene was never added, leaving the original void of day-glo spiders. Finally, Tokyo retains the original Attic scene, with pop-up ghouls and a silent bride.
C. Phantom Manor (Disneyland Paris, 1992)
Layout-wise, Paris’ Haunted Mansion is a copy of Disneyland’s. Narratively, it’s something entirely unique. Tied into the mythology of the park’s Big Thunder Mountain, the Modern Marvel: Phantom Manor takes the bones of the Haunted Mansion and sculpts a new story around them – the morbid, tragic tale of Melanie Ravenswood, whose love affair with a Big Thunder Mountain miner ends in tragedy, fracturing the cursed town of Thunder Mesa and setting loose a Phantom whose presence slowly drives the grieving bride mad.
Yeah… it’s heavy. Intentionally so, since the ride is meant to draw out the romance and operatic feel of a classic Western film – aspects that appealed to a European audience. Though Paris’ version of the ride includes many of Haunted Mansion’s iconic vignettes, each is recontextualized in a vast, depressing melodrama suited for a classic Western film with the weight and gloom of Gaston Leroux’s French novel “The Phantom of the Opera.” Once exiting Melanie’s Boudoir (a recast Attic), riders are literally lowered into a freshly-dug grave, where the cursed Thunder Mesa earthquake has unsettled steaming, rotting corpses. It all ends in Phantom Canyon, a Western town of ghosts and ghouls reigned over by the victorious Phantom himself… no happy endings in sight.
D. Mystic Manor (Hong Kong Disneyland, 2013)
We toured through the Modern Marvel: Mystic Manor in a standalone feature that’s a must-read for Imagineering fans, but suffice it to say that Hong Kong Disneyland’s one-of-a-kind dark ride has secured a spot in the pantheon of the best Disney Parks attraction.
Though in some ways it’s limiting to call Hong Kong Disneyland’s Mystic Manor a “Haunted Mansion,” there’s no doubt that the ride is a spiritual sequel of sorts, sending guests into a musical, mystical tour of an unusual home that some say is one of the best modern dark rides on Earth, and easily among the pantheon of Imagineering’s best-ever creations.
For supporting Park Lore’s ad-free, quality-over-quantity theme park storytelling for $2 / month or more, Members can view Mystic Manor’s layout above! For everyone else, make the jump to the third and final entry in our layout series – ONE & ONLY – to see Mystic Manor’s layout up close!
15. Peter Pan’s Flight
Every installation of Peter Pan’s Flight – even in the typically divergent Shanghai Disneyland – follows the same beats: departing from the Darlings’ nursery, sailing over a moonlit London, arriving at the fanciful Neverland, then diving in for a closer look at the swordplay between Peter Pan and the nefarious Captain Hook before heading back home. Obviously, the formula works, as Peter Pan’s Flight garners hour-long waits at every park. But that’s not to say there aren’t differences.
A. Peter Pan’s Flight (Disneyland, 1955 / 1983)
Unlike other Fantasyland dark rides, Disneyland’s Peter Pan’s Flight is mostly contained in four large rooms – the Nursery, London, Neverland from the air, and the “zoomed-in” Neverland and Jolly Roger – with transition spaces in between. It’s a joyful, fanciful journey that’s simple, but deeply effective.
Moreover, Disneyland’s version benefits from the same thing we’ve seen over and over again: plussing. As part of an extensive refurbishment in 2015, the ride gained new figures, new special effects, and new projection mapping that subtly but brilliantly brings the ride to life. From the shimmering “Second Star to the Right” to the glistening waterfalls, lapping tides, and steaming volcanoes of Neverland, such little touches are distinctly 21st-century, but without showboating. Instead, they feel as if they’ve always been there – and more to the point, that Walt himself would’ve used them if they had existed in his time.
B. Peter Pan’s Flight (Magic Kingdom, 1971)
Unlike Disneyland’s stop-and-go loading, Magic Kingdom’s version of the ride has guests board from a continuously-moving belt. The Darlings’ nursery is set up differently, and Magic Kingdom’s ride features a cute scene where guests soar over the backyard and Nana the dog before “zooming out” to London. Whereas Disneyland’s ride features a miniature Neverland, then larger-scale vignettes of the Indian Village, Mermaid Lagoon, and Lost Boys’ Woods later on in the ride, Magic Kingdom’s ride does it all in one, with a larger Neverland that contains those vignettes within it.
Peter Pan’s Flight got a “plus” in Florida, too, but it wasn’t to the ride. Instead, the new Tangled-themed restrooms allowed Imagineers to repurpose old restrooms as an indoor queue for the very popular attraction. Part of the “Scene 1” initiative meant to add interactivity to long Standby waits, the line passes through various rooms of the Darling home where guests can interact with shadows and watch mini-shows.
16. Big Thunder Mountain Railroads
By the late 1970s, the modern steel roller coaster had become ubiquitous in the lineup of amusement parks across the globe. Particularly pervasive was the “mine train” – a sub-genre of sprawling family-oriented coasters that proliferated widely. Luckily, the time and conditions were right at both Disneyland and Walt Disney World.
At Disneyland, the Western genre that had been so popular in Walt’s time hadn’t been a blockbuster in decades, leaving Frontierland feeling stale. Worse still, Disneyland’s enormous Mine Train Thru Nature’s Wonderland (a sort of “Jungle Cruise of the American Southwest,” meandering through fantastical landscapes populated by mechanical creatures) had run its course.
At Magic Kingdom, meanwhile, the park had opened with a large expansion pad in its Frontierland, set aside for the Possibilityland: Western River Expedition – a multi-ride complex containing a flume ride, a mine train coaster, and an extensive Western-stylized dark ride designed by one of the creatives behind Pirates of the Caribbean. But when guests to the new Walt Disney World communicated loud and clear that they wanted a copy of Disneyland’s Pirate ride stat, the Western River Expedition was axed, leaving Frontierland with an empty, E-Ticket sized plot… and young Imagineer Tony Baxter knew exactly how to fill it…
A. Big Thunder Mountain Railroad (Disneyland, 1979)
Even though it had evolved from the Western River Expedition envisioned for Florida, it was California that got the first version of the ride. Big Thunder Mountain’s layout isn’t particularly noteworthy, but the ride becomes something more than any other mine train because of its setting. The coaster leaps, dips, spirals, and climbs around and into a spectacular and naturalistic mountain range, chugging through blasted-out caverns, mining shacks, and even past fossilized dinosaurs. It’s a great example of the “Disney difference” that elevates a “simple” and old school mine train into a genuine E-Ticket experience.
Even though there are three other Big Thunder Mountain Railroad on Earth, Disneyland’s is one-of-a-kind! It’s the only Big Thunder Mountain modeled on Utah’s Bryce Canyon, recreating the geology of its deep red, bulbous “hoodoos” – sort of otherworldly, rounded, deep red rock spires juxtaposed against a dense evergreen forest setting. That look works well at Disneyland, which is a small, “storybook” park, and where the ride’s location requires it to serve as a transition between Frontierland and Fantasyland. (And if Baxter had had his way, as a portal to the science-fantasy Possibilityland: Discovery Bay, as well.)
In 2013, Disneyland’s version of the ride underwent an eighteen month reimagining that completely replaced the track, trains, and ride control system while also adding new effects – most notably, a new climax that uses projection mapping and fog effects to create an explosive finale.
B. Big Thunder Mountain Railroad (Magic Kingdom, 1980)
Although Disneyland’s Big Thunder Mountain opened first, Magic Kingdom’s wasn’t far behind. It opened in late 1980 – just over a year later. Magic Kingdom’s version had several notable changes. The biggest is that the ride in Florida is a mirror image of California’s. That makes sense since Magic Kingdom’s Frontierland is in a different location in the park than Disneyland’s, requiring the ride to be “flipped” to interact with the Rivers of America. It also has a large station building containing an enclosed queue and loading area – necessities given Florida’s weather.
The other change is that Magic Kingdom’s version of the ride – just like the ones in Tokyo and Paris – is geologically inspired by Arizona’s Monument Valley. Unlike the “storybook” hoodoos found on California’s ride, Orlando’s has gigantic, angular rock towers – fitting for a park that’s bigger in (almost) every way, and associated with global crowds and monumental scale. Magic Kingdom’s mountain is about 25% larger in its acreage, owing to wide desert vistas versus the tight, forested footprint of the original.
Magic Kingdom’s ride also never got the projection-mapped “explosive” finale that its sister debuted in 2014. But in 2025, the ride finally went down for its eighteen month rebuild. When it returned in May 2026, it was with its own reimagining. Though remnants of the ride’s original “flash flood” story remain, the ride re-opened with two new scenes: in its first lift, the Rainbow Caverns now turn sinister red as the train passes (perhaps suggesting the mountain itself is hostile to our presence), and the final lift hill features not an explosion, but shimmering gold deposits and a giant gold nugget.
If you’re wondering about Tokyo Disneyland’s Big Thunder Mountain, it’s a clone of Magic Kingdom’s ride (including its position relative to the Rivers of America, since Imagineers were able to save that spot when they initially built the park). However, it’s “un-flipped,” returning to the original Disneyland orientation. That also means there are a few contextual changes, like replacing the “Flooded Town” scene with a geyser field that flows into the park’s Rivers of America.
17. Tiana’s Bayou Splash
It’s never easy to say goodbye to a treasured E-Ticket ride – especially one that’s still immensely popular. But there’s no question that as the years went on, the decision Imagineers had made in the 1980s to design a headlining flume dark ride around (the non-controversial, animated folk tale segments of) a highly controversial film from the 1940s that maybe kinda sorta made the Reconstruction era American South seem like a perfectly nice place for formerly-enslaved people felt like a poor choice.
In 2020 – deep in the midst of a national cultural reckoning around race by way of the Black Lives Matter protests – Disney announced that (surprise!) they’d totally been working on a fix all along and were finally ready to announce it. Eventually, they promised, the Splash Mountains at Disneyland (1989) and Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom (1992) would close and be “reimagined” with a new story centered on The Princess and the Frog – a 2009 animated film that, notably, introduced the first Black heroine into the lucrative Disney Princess franchise. “Feed two birds with one scone,” they say!
For better or worse, a whole lot was riding on the transformation – not just the need to right the subliminal wrongs of Splash Mountain and highlight a Black character, but also to right the perceived wrongs of the Princess and the Frog movie itself! After all, the film had been criticized for its Black heroine spending a majority of her screen time transformed into a frog, and of course, a Disney focused on inclusivity and removing harmful stereotypes certainly couldn’t feature the film’s villainous Dr. Facilier – a practitioner of a stereotypical and stylized form of the very real belief system of voodoo.
So it’s fair to say that the very push for inclusion that created a Princess and the Frog ride also sort of hamstrung it, necessitating that it take the form of “Tiana’s Bayou Adventure.” A sequel to the film (and actually, meant to tie into the later-canceled Tiana series for Disney+), the ride sees us set off into the bayou to find and recruit animal instrumentalists to play at a party at Tiana’s home that evening. A portion of the ride even sees Mama Odie shrink us to the size of a frog to ensure we don’t miss any potential players, restoring us to size for a shortcut to the party (recontextualizing the formerly-frightening drop into a joyful one, therefore reducing the ride’s psychological intimidation factor).
To make it happen, Imagineers were tasked with redeveloping a ride that’s got quite a complex and compact layout. (You can explore how that change took place in our THEN & NOW series.) Despite appearances, both versions of Tiana’s Bayou Adventure are housed in and around two main showbuildings – one in the “mountain,” and the other a hidden box behind it – with a flume that dips, rises, hops, and meanders through three distinct levels, often stacking scenes on top of each other. Try following the path of a log from load to unload below…
A. Tiana’s Bayou Adventure (Disneyland, 2024
Fans have surmised that more than likely, Tiana’s Bayou Adventure was designed for Disneyland’s Splash Mountain, then “reverse engineered” to fit Magic Kingdom’s slightly different layout. What they’re saying is that they generally think Disneyland got the “better” version of the ride, even if they’re more or less the same. That wouldn’t be a surprise since Imagineering is located in Southern California, and because Disneyland is generally considered hallowed ground, typically having the “plussed” version of most rides that the two resorts share.
In this case, the slight (but for super-fans, evident) differences between the two rides are that Disneyland’s version has better sequencing and staging of the “Back Bayou” scenes; that its shrunken “Underground” scene is better paced (accounting for Disneyland’s extended connection between the two showbuildings), and – frankly – that Disneyland’s flume ride moves at a much quicker pace. That was a bad thing with the frenetic and multi-layered Splash Mountain, but it works in the benefit of Tiana’s Bayou Adventure since the ride contains a whole lot more “atmosphere” (i.e. spaces without animatronics or action) than Splash Mountain did.
The unusual shape of the rear showbuilding for Disneyland’s flume ride really isn’t a surprise given the tight quarters of the infamously-landlocked park. Actually, this hidden showbuilding is wedged up against he Haunted Mansion, requiring its unusual angles. Most of Disneyland’s rides need to find a way to transport guests under the Railroad. Instead, the Railroad travels directly through Tiana’s Bayou Adventure, even providing train riders with views into the ride’s “Special Spice” finale.
B. Tiana’s Bayou Adventure (Magic Kingdom, 2024)
The biggest differences between the two Splash Mountains remain the biggest differences between the two Bayou Adventures – basically, that Magic Kingdom enjoys “the blessing of size” and thus, gets a standard-shaped showbuilding and doesn’t require a very long connecting corridor between it and the “mountain” showbuilding. (The shortened “connecting corridor” actually hurt Magic Kingdom’s Splash Mountain by omitting the “Warning” scene, but the switch to Tiana’s smoothed over that.) Magic Kingdom’s flume ride also has an additional indoor drop in its “Level 1,” whereas Disneyland’s there has just a little “dip” to level out the track.
Again, fans would point out that the differences revolve around spreading the same number of characters among a larger space, a more meandering course, and at a slower speed. The result is that there are substantial sections of the ride that feel “lifeless,” especially when compared to Splash Mountain. In other words, yeah, it’s probably true that the ride was designed for California leaving Imagineers to try to reverse engineer duplicated figures into a ride layout and building shape that’s very different in Florida.
The other substantial difference between the two is in their contexts. Unfortunately, Magic Kingdom doesn’t have a Critter Country land. That means Splash Mountain was set down in the park’s Frontierland, right between the 1860s mining town and Big Thunder Mountain. That makes Tiana’s Bayou Adventure a tougher sell in Magic Kingdom than in Disneyland (where the ride nicely bridges the space between New Orleans Square and a renamed “Bayou Country”)… But again, it’s not like the Antebellum Georgia plantation parables of Uncle Remus were a great fit for the Wild West, either.