My Favorite Things at Disney World #1

The Haunted Mansion

I know what you’re thinking, all that build up for the freaking Haunted Mansion? All I have to say is I FRIGGIN’ LOVE THE HAUNTED MANSION!

My love for the Haunted Mansion goes back WAY before I even remember going on it. (My mother told me yesterday about when we first went on it I just hid the whole time but I don’t remember that.)

I have always liked dark rides. In fact the first amusement park ride I remember going on when I was a kid was the Hanna Barbera Enchanted Voyage in Kings Island. (For those a bit younger than me that is the Smurf Ride, and for those a bit more younger than me, its Phantom Theater.)

I loved watching characters I knew up close in 3-D while I just rode through. I liked the color and really I liked the minimal story that was there.

When we went to Disney World when I was 4, I remember really enjoying the “Journey into Imagination with Figment and the Dreamfinder.” (Now it’s just horrible and annoying.) It was probably the one ride I remember going on when we went there, but even though I met Figment and the Dreamfinder later, they weren’t characters I knew.

Fast forward to when I was about 9 I noticed a record that used to belong to one of my siblings. “Disneyland Presents: Chilling, Thrilling: Sounds of the Haunted House.”

I had always been scared of this LP for some reason. To be honest, I never really liked haunted houses in the traditional carnival at Halloween sense.

Even today I really don’t like those kinds of haunted houses. The idea of someone jumping out and scaring you while you are getting pushed in a tight hallway just makes me want to punch people in the face.

However there was a time I worked up my guts and listened to the story side of the record. It was narrated by Thurl Ravenscroft. Don’t recognize the name? Well what about the voice?

No? not that one? What about this?

Getting closer? Well, what about this….

That’s right, Tony the Tiger

The story was about Karen and Mike (a post Andy Grifftith, Pre Happy Days Ron Howard.) getting lost in the rain and sneaking into a Haunted house. The story was creepy, but not scary. However, I loved it. I loved the imagery, the story, the description. I listened to it, just about everyday.

I would have friends over and we would act out a haunted house in my basement for our parents. (They humored us even though it was horribly lame.)

When I read the back of the album cover I noticed, “based on the Disneyland ride” Wait…there was a ride? There is a ride that is about my favorite record?

A couple of years later my parents told me that we were going back to Disney World. I knew that I wanted to go to the Haunted Mansion and there would be no stopping me.

I loved the fact that the descriptions from my record were exactly how they were in the ride. I loved the creepiness, I loved the humor, I loved everything about it.

We went back several years later and I once again knew I wanted to do this ride because I remembered it so fondly from when I was kid. Now time changes things, especially in your adolescence, where you are a jaded, bitter brat.

I was 12 years old when I last went on the Haunted Mansion, and when we went back I was 19, going on 20. I figured things would change and I would think how lame it was.

I still loved it. That was a truly horrible trip, it was New Year’s Eve, the place was packed, the lines were horrible, but I still loved the Haunted Mansion.

I didn’t go to Disney World for several years after that. My wife mentioned wanting to go on our Honeymoon, but I poo-pooed it based off of that one bad experience.

However, for whatever reason a few years ago I happened to start watching a vlog by a girl who loved Disneyland. That lead to me watching ride videos, and of course the Haunted Mansion hooked me in again. I went down with my wife and in-laws, and went on the ride either first or second (might have been Splash Mountain first because that was the other ride video I really liked, plus I hadn’t been on that one yet)

I loved it even more when I was #! (age edited because I am getting older and it offends me) than I did when I was a kid.

Now, every time we go to Disney World we HAVE to go to Magic Kingdom FIRST and we HAVE to go on Haunted Mansion FIRST. That is my only demand on the whole vacation. Everything else someone else can pick but this is my demand!

So why do I love it so much?

Yes, there is that nostalgia factor and the memories involved in it but memories fade and don’t keep bringing you back time after time.

First of all, the story begins before you even walk up to the place. You can keep your Castles, your Mickey Hats, Trees of Lifes, and Spaceship Earths, THE Disney icon when you walk into Disney World to me is heading into Liberty Square and seeing that house on the hill.

Everything that I’ve mentioned in prior attractions is here. It has AWESOME theming. The cast members are so much fun with the characters they’ve adopted. The script is great, the puns are great “Dead center of the rooms” “How Many Bodies?”

There are things that I discover EVERY time I ride. (Including riding for the first time at night last year, when your eyes are adjusted to the dark, you don’t realize how much stuff you’ve missed.) It also took me several rides to notice the shadow of the ghostly organ player on the ground.

The special effects, while many are very old school, are still amazing.

Plus there is that music. Sung by Thurl Ravenscroft, the narrator of the LP, Grim Grinning Ghosts is a song I find myself singing at the most odd times. It is a song that I have engrained in my head, as well as stuck permanently on my iPod.

Paul Frees (Boris Badenov of Rocky & Bullwinkle fame) does a great job as the “Ghost Host.” Madame Leota is still creepy as ever, and the Ghost bride still makes me scoot a little bit further away from my wife.

When I head back, there is a new queue, with new jokes, new innovation and new references, and I am just….dying to try them….

 (The picture is small but the brand of Organ is "Ravenscroft")

Before I started writing this I was in a bit of a funk, I knew that we were closer to our trip, and I knew that the closer that we were, sooner it would be over. However just thinking about everything about the Haunted Mansion, just got me jacked again. I am happy; I am excited…I’M GOING TO DISNEY WORLD!

My Favorite Things at Disney World #5

We are now in my top 5 favorite attractions at Disney World. When I thought of this list, the attractions that I thought of were ones that were “must-do’s” (Shout out to Stacey Aswad). They were things I would like to experience at least once while down there.

My top 5 are things that are my all time favorites that if the conditions are right, and the timing is right, I would like to, and probably will do multiple times while down there, maybe every time I go into a certain park, and probably a couple times a day. (The one I have for tomorrow we rode 4 times within 2 visits to that particular park.)

I am fudging a bit that this is restricted to the top 5 though. Last year we went on Tower of Terror 3 times within 2 days.  However, these are attractions I’ll do multiple times, and not just because “the line is short.”

Disney World has a lot of rides that other Amusement parks have. Dumbo can be found in variations through out the country, and probably the world. The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party is just a variation on other spinning rides in other parks. The difference is that Disney’s variations are more…Disneyfied. There is that special ingredient, whether it is a story, or a design element that makes it more appealing to the audience than the exact same ride at home.

Thus is the case with Splash Mountain.

Most every park that I’ve been to has some sort of variation on the Log Flume ride. The problem with those rides is you get on, you go around a bend, up a hill, and come down the hill. Somewhere in there you get wet to varying degrees. Usually you wait an hour for a 30 second to 2 minute experience. Really not worth it when you think about it.

However with Splash Mountain you are taken on a 10-minute adventure that climaxes with a thrilling escape and are rewarded with a spectacular conclusion.

Plus I am a sucker for a good “dark ride.”

The ride follows the continuing adventures of Bre’r Rabbit from the controversial Song of the South, in his avoidance from Bre’r Fox and Bre’r Bear. Bre’r Frog keeps warning him that he’s going to get caught one of these days, and when he does, he tricks the two bandits into throwing him into the Brier Patch, where as you are wiping water from your hair, you are witness to a spectacular celebration involving one of the largest animated props in the resort.

With more than 110 animatronic animals, it crushes anything in “the World” except it’s a small world as far as volume.

The music is catchy, and I honestly find myself singing “How Do You Do?” on a daily basis.

 (If SOPA passes, please don't kill me Disney.)

I’ve only been on Splash Mountain a few times, and was actually VERY disappointed when the ride was closed last year. But the ride is open this year, and temperatures are predicted to be in the low to mid 70’s, which is good enough for me. I know that its going to be a Zip-a-dee-do-dah day.

My Favorite Things at Disney World #11

Yesterday I talked about the great customer service that got us to see the Main Street Electrical Parade. So of course today we get to my 11^th favorite thing at Disney World…. the Main Street Electrical Parade.

What did you think I was going to say, The Swiss Family Treehouse? (Although that is tremendously underrated and actually kind of cool to see.)

No, of course the Main Street Electrical Parade is what I wanted to talk about today. Now I know Parades are boring and long-winded pains of just waiting and waving, and normally I would agree with you. Heck, I really don’t have much patience for a Disney Parade during the day.

However there is something about the Main Street Electrical Parade. It has that magic and artistry that I love about a Disney attraction. The parade has been running on and off since 1977, and just started back in 2010 after a 9 year absence. 

When my wife and I saw it last year, of course we had prime seats, which added to the experience but to be honest I could have been crammed in a crowd stomping on my feet and I still would have seen the magic that delighted me this time around.

What was it that captured my imagination so much? I really can’t figure out. I think I would liken the parade to being in your car on Christmas Eve and driving down that neighborhood where EVERY house is the Christmas house, and just radiates joy and Christmas spirit.

You think you have that child like gaze when green Christmas lights illuminate the back seat of your dad’s Volvo? Imagine if those decorated houses were driving past you, and they had people dancing around them in lighted costumes, dressed as Disney characters?

As I watched I just sat with my mouth agape in amazement, it was like I was 5 years old again, seeing my favorite characters go by. Alice, Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs, Pete and Elliot the Dragon…that’s right, there is a Pete’s Dragon Float, in Disney World, in 2012. And really it fits in so well with the Main Street Electrical Parades theme. The lights of the float go out and Elliot disappears, just like in the movie.

Really all the characters they picked to appear in this particular parade are pure genius. You’ve got the Psychedelic vibe of Alice in Wonderland, the sparkle of the Dwarves diamond filled Mine cart, as well as Cinderella’s ball coach, and of course Patriotic Mickey with glowing “rockets” and “fireworks.”

Then there is the music.

That pseudo-techno music is not quite to Small World Levels of repetitive annoyance but it is so catchy that it will be in your head all night, and maybe well into the next day.

One could say that it’s a purely 70’s vibe, that the digitized voices are creepy and that the music and really the whole parade is outdated and cheesy, but damn it, I am a sucker for a good nostalgia pop.

Unfortunately, as I write this, the Parade is a week away from a weeks long rehab, which unfortunately starts 5 days before we get there and ends a week and a half after we leave.

However, we all know this is not going to be my last trip to Disney World, and I really hope I see it before they decided to put it “back in the Disney Vault” as the saying goes.