As most of us know, Disneyland is a theme park located in the beautiful Anaheim, California. One of the main attractions at Disneyland, is the Haunted Mansion. A must see if you are into scary places, haunted houses and the thought of ghosts among us.
This Examiner, thought I would bring you on a tour of this attraction through this article, so you know what to expect if you are planning on a visit.
Haunted Mansion tour:
Visitors enter the queuing area through a pair of ornate gates, into courtyards and specially tended gardens. Guests then pass by a pet cemetery, a creepy mausoleum, and a white carriage hearse with an invisible horse. Once you reach the Haunted mansion's porch, some somber house servants will let you enter.
Once inside the foyer, a ghost host welcomes the visitors everyone is ushered into the octagonal portrait gallery. The door slides closed and the tour begins.
Then the Ghost Host taunts and tries to scare his guests, the room begins to "stretch." The portraits on the walls elongate, each revealing the supposed morbid fates of some previous visitors. Each depicting the form of their cruel demise. Once inside this room you will find out there is no windows or doors of which to escape.
Visitors then hear a loud clap of thunder, then the room becomes eerily dark and the ceiling disappears above, revealing a cupola. Tied to the rafters, hanging from a rope is the skeletal corpse of the Ghost Host, lightning flashes illuminating his body. After a few heart pounding seconds, a horrifying scream is heard, bones clattering in the darkened room. Then the lights return back on and a door opens to the next scary room.
Visitors are then led down a hall of eeire portraits. Lightning then flashes from the windows, transforming the portraits into frightening corpses and monsters. Further down the hall two statue busts of a woman and man, gaze and follow the guests as they walk on by .
The next part of the tour, visitors are loaded into carriages or "Doom Buggies" in a darkened, misty looking room. The carriage takes the nervous guests upstairs to the second floor and what appears to be an endless, long hallway. A spooky , floating candelabra can be seen in the distant hall. Also, near a entryway is a strange, moving suit of armor.
Next is a trip past the conservatory filled with dead, withered plants and flowers. A coffin in the spooky room has a desperate, restless guest trying to get out, with a glowing eyed black raven peering on. The ride then continues down corridor lined with doors. Pounding, screaming, cries for help, and crazy laughter can be heard. Loud knockings on doors, expanding as if breathing doors and knobs turning by themselves can be heard and seen in this hallway. The wallpaper is creepy with demon-like faces, skeletons/corpse and a huge portrait of the Ghost Host. A demonic looking grandfather clock,with hands that spin backwards, chimes 13 times. A shadow of a what looks like a claw passes over it.
Next visitors enter a dark séance room with floating musical instruments. The disembodied head which appears within a crystal ball levitating over a table, is a medium named, Madame Leota , whom calls upon the spirits in the mansion.
Madame Leota recites a demand:
"Serpents and spiders, tail of a rat, call in the spirits, wherever they're at. Rap on a table, it's time to respond, send us a message from somewhere beyond. Goblins and ghoulies from last Halloween, awaken the spirits with your tambourine. Creepies and crawlies, toads in a pond, let there be music from regions beyond. Wizards and witches wherever you dwell, give us a hint by ringing a bell."
Next is a magnificent ballroom where happy ghosts enjoy a birthday party. Some of the ghosts appear on the chandeliers, gorging themselves on wine and other entities enter the hall in an open coffin. Two portraits of men with guns come to life, engaging in gunfire, while a ghost plays an organ as ghosts appear out of the pipes and an eerie couple waltzes in the room.
The ride continues on into the spooky attic holding mementos of a time past and spooky portraits of a bride with various husbands that have their heads disappear from the portraits after a hatchet sound is heard. As you start to depart the attic, the bride is seen with a hatchet floating in the air.
Next guests will drift out of a window to the ground below, past some distorted trees and spooky scenery. Soon visitors will find themselves in a spooky graveyard with a shaking, frightened looking caretaker, while a ghostly band plays a song called, "Grim Grinning Ghosts". Spirits pop up behind tombstones, a skeleton of a hound howls mournfully and various other ghoulish characters appear.
Talk about a mad tea party, there is a hearse apparently stuck in the mud with the ghosts surrounding it. Creepy spirits ride bikes in the foreground, a coffin spirit arm comes out of a crypt, with a glass of wine and a wise old man uses a hearing horn to listen to a dead body arising out of a grave. Then there is two ghostly entities singing "Phantom of the Opera". They have some strange onlookers of a dead prisoner, headless knight and his executioner. They also start singing the phantom song.
On the last leg or should I say, nerve of the journey, a ghost is viewed sealing himself in a tomb and three hitchhikers appear, hitching a ride aboard the buggy.
As you exit, a Ghost Hostess tells you to come back with your death certificate and stay next time.
If you do plan on visiting this haunted attraction at Disneyland, please have a spooktacular time!
(Please note: There may have been some variations/changes made to the tour that are not noted above. Some may have a different remembrance of the tour.)
