Seemingly year after year, progress dictates that theme park attractions – even fan favorites – give way to what’s new and next. That’s why we’ve built an in-depth library of Lost Legends entries – features that tell the full stories forgotten fan favorites from beginning to end to paint unabridged, unedited pictures of how those closed classics came to be, what they were like to experience firsthand, and why they’re gone today.
In our Lost Legends series, We’ve survived Disney’s scariest attraction ever, Alien Encounter; we met Dreamfinder and Figment on Epcot’s lost Journey into Imagination; we’ve been blasted to the moon and back on Disneyland Paris’ one-of-a-kind Space Mountain – De la Terre à la Lune; we saw why Disney designed, dropped-in, then disassembled The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror at Disney California Adventure, and so many more.
But by looking back, sometimes we admittedly fail to look up – to see that, right now, living legends abound, and some of the greatest attractions that will ever exist are available to guests at theme parks around the world. And that’s why our new series, Modern Marvels, is here to dissect the in-depth, complete stories of current classics… We want to take a look behind the making-of these E-Ticket wonders and what a sought-after ride-through is like. Already, we’ve gathered the scoop aboard The Amazing Adventures of Spider-Man and unraveled the ancient curse behind Revenge of the Mummy.
Image: Disney
And what better Modern Marvel to celebrate than a ride often listed among Disney’s best? In fact, some park fans proudly declare Mystic Manor at Hong Kong Disneyland the best 21st century attraction in Disney’s catalogue… even though few of Disney’s most die-hard fans have actually ridden it! So today, we’ll help out by touring you through the “haunted” history of the concept, exploring Hong Kong Disneyland, then going for a sought-after spin on what may indeed be Disney’s best ride in decades.
As with all of our in-depth ride entries, we’ll dissect the hidden history of the concept, trace its creation, and then take a ride ourselves… so strap in, because this mysterious story begins on the other side of the planet and decades before Mystic Manor was even a sketch on a notepad.
A Haunted Mansion
There would be no Mystic Manor if there hadn’t been a Haunted Mansion first. The stories of these two rides couldn’t be more different, but they’re intrinsically tied to one another –not in style; not in substance; but in spirit. That’s why the unusual siblingship between these two dissimilar-yet-so-familiar attractions made it into our thought-provoking list of Disney attractions with “spiritual sequels.”
So to fully understand the making of Mystic Manor, we first have to recap of the frantic creation of one of Disney’s most well loved classics.
Image: Disney, via Insights and Sounds
You may already know that plans for a Haunted Mansion predated the opening of Disneyland. In the earliest initial sketches of the would-be park by Disney Legends Harper Goff and Ken Anderson, a walk-through haunted house was present. At first, it was in a ramshackle Midwestern home on a hillside meant to accessed via a graveyard off Main Street, U.S.A. Then, the plan moved to the new pocket being designed to expand Frontierland – a New Orleans Square that would see the manor recast as a stately, white, Antebellum plantation house as part of the story of the Rivers of America.
Image: Disney
Though the manor itself materialized along Disneyland’s waterway 1963, its gates didn’t open that year. That’s because Walt and his team had been called away to the 1964 – 65 New York World’s Fair to build headlining attractions for the State of Illinois, General Electric, Pepsi-Cola, and Ford Motors. (Their resulting attractions, by the way, would be transplanted to Disneyland at the Fair’s close as Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln, the Carousel of Progress, “it’s a small world,” and a Lost Legend: The Peoplemover, respectively.)
So 1963 came and went without the mansion’s doors opening. Then 1964. ’65. ’66.
And in December of that year, Walt died unexpectedly of lung cancer.
Image: Disney
Across the company, projects stalled. The team Walt had left behind didn’t know how (or even if) they should proceed on Walt’s pet projects without him.
So as 1967 dawned, the beautiful white plantation house still sat empty. And worse, Walt had never said aloud what exactly he expected to go inside of it…
Museum, Mausoleum, or Musical?
Image: Disney
Before Walt’s death, he’d seen a few plans cooked up for the haunted house designed by Disney Legend Rolly Crump. His “Museum of the Weird” concept would’ve seen guests walk through unusual galleries of illusions, inexplicable wonders, and theatrical tricks. Some of Rolly’s concepts did stick and eventually make it into the final Mansion, like a séance chamber, coffin clocks, a disappearing organist brought to life through the 19th century Pepper’s Ghost illusion, and gypsy wagons.
Image: Disney via Doom Buggies
But Rolly Crump’s Museum of the Weird was also decidedly more ethereal, with otherworldly candle men made of wax, encounters with tikis and totems, a chair that would spring to life and interact with guests, mirrors with faces, and man-eating plants. The mind-bending tour would’ve seen guests encounter unusual finds from around the globe, made weirder by their disconnectedness.
Ultimately, Walt liked the idea of the “Museum of the Weird” and suggested it might make a wonderful restaurant connected to the mansion, somewhat like the Blue Bayou’s relationship with the nearby Pirates of the Caribbean. But when Walt died, so too did any consideration for the vacant plantation house in New Orleans Square housing a Museum of the Weird.
Image: Disney
A second concept for the haunted house was born thanks to the 1967 debut of New Tomorrowland and its headlining Lost Legend: Adventure Thru Inner Space. That “micro-adventure” dark ride had pioneered use of a brand-new technology Disney had trademarked: the Omnimover, which made our list of the Seven Modern Wonders of the Theme Park World.
Image: Disney
When the team left behind after Walt’s passing determined that the low-capacity walk-through should instead become a high-capacity ride-through using the Omnimover, the Museum of the Weird storyline seemed like a smart fit for the queue leading up to the ride itself… but without knowing what that ultimate ride would be, it remained in limbo.
Ultimately, the infamous story of the Haunted Mansion came down to two opposing viewpoints.
Image: Disney
The legendary Claude Coats (background animator, mentor to Tony Baxter, and designer of Pirates of the Caribbean, Adventure Thru Inner Space, and Lost Legends: Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, World of Motion, and Horizons) believed the Haunted Mansion should be an atmospheric, spooky tour past endless hallways, cryptic vignettes, and frightening, characterless environments – “scary sights and sounds,” like the famous “limbo” boarding area, drawn by Coats above.
Image: Disney
His counterpart, Marc Davis (designer on the Jungle Cruise, The Enchanted Tiki Room, “it’s a small world,” The Carousel of Progress, and Country Bear Jamboree) instead believed that this Haunted Mansion should be a “frightfully funny” tour packed with whimsical ghost characters, zany dark ride gags, and songs
And without Walt to cast the tie-breaking ballot, it came to X Atencio (who wrote the script for Adventure Thru Inner Space, Pirates of the Caribbean, and the Haunted Mansion, as well as the theme songs for the latter two, “Yo-Ho (A Pirate’s Life for Me)” and “Grim Grinning Ghosts”) to settle the score by merging the concepts together to create the perfect mix: an atmospheric, unsettling, prologue of haunting vignettes that gradually grows into a sing-along spook-filled finale.
Image: Disney
The final Haunted Mansion – the one we know and love today – balanced it all, using the cutting edge Omnimover ride system as a character in and of itself – the “Doom Buggy.”
Hauntings Spread
Image: Disney, via Doom Buggies
The Haunted Mansion finally opened in 1969 – six years after the mansion itself had been built. Of course, the ride was instantly recognizable as a shining beacon of Disney’s design and storytelling, and that made its inclusion any future Disney Parks all-but-assured.
So when Magic Kingdom opened in 1971, it, too, featured a Haunted Mansion that had expanded slightly upon Disneyland’s, albeit within a new context…
Image: Disney
Walt Disney World designers had supposed that the real New Orleans was simply too close to Florida to make it “exotic” or “romantic” for locals, so they axed New Orleans Square in favor of a historic 1700s colonial harbor called Liberty Square. Fittingly, the mansion was redesigned as a redbrick Gothic revival manor overlooking the Rivers of America.
When Tokyo Disneyland opened in 1983, its Haunted Mansion was virtually identical to Magic Kingdom’s, except that the cultural shift saw the creaky colonial manor placed in Fantasyland with a few more “fanciful” embellishments to make it feel at home there.
Less than a decade later, a fourth Disneyland-style park opened in France. However, Disneyland Paris represented the most radical departure yet. We explored the incredible lengths designers went to to meld the park’s attractions into a more romantic, literary, European style and saw the process in-depth in the must-read entry on Paris’ iconic Lost Legend: Space Mountain – De la Terre à la Lune.
Image: Disney
They’d similarly work their magic at Disneyland Paris’ Haunted Mansion. There, the ride was embedded into the extravagant and dramatic romance of Frontierland and given a new backstory tied together with Big Thunder Mountain and all of the land’s rides, restaurants, shops, and attractions to form one overarching continuity. So astoundingly unique is this one-of-a-kind ride, it earned its own in-depth entry, Modern Marvels: Phantom Manor that’s well worth a read for Disney Parks fans the world over.
Put simply, the Haunted Mansion became a staple of a visit to a Disney park. Some parents track their child’s growth with a height-measuring notch carved in a doorframe; others take an annual photo in front of a landmark. But for the Disney crowd, a child’s maturity is most dutifully measured by his or her willingness to confront the “terrors” that await inside the ghostly manors at Disney Parks across the globe.
In 2005, Disney opened its first ever Disneyland-style park to not feature a Haunted mansion. In fact, Hong Kong Disneyland didn’t have a lot of what you’d expect from a Disney Park. At least, not yet…
Read on as we blaze our trail toward the misty jungles of Mystic Point…
Eisner’s Rut
Michael Eisner and Frank Wells. Image: Disney
When Hong Kong Disneyland opened in 2005, it was the culmination of then-CEO Michael Eisner’s ill-fated “Disney Decade.” He barely stuck around long enough to celebrate the park’s “grand” opening… Eisner was ousted the same year by the “Save Disney” campaign.
Rewinding a bit, Eisner’s early years with Disney in the ’80s and early ’90s had seen the prolific fresh CEO rejuvinate the studios’ tired live-action and abandoned animation divisions. But Eisner’s ambitious plans for global expansion and rebirth (what he called the Disney Decade) fumbled beginning in 1992. It was that year that his biggest and most ambitious investment yet – Disneyland Paris – opened to financial disaster that wreaked havoc on the once-visionary Eisner’s outlook. Then, the unexpected and tragic 1994 death of his brother-in-business, Frank Wells – the “Roy” to Eisner’s “Walt” – only made matters worse.
Image: Disney
Paris’ collapse is the starting point for many stories of cancelled and closed attractions, with budgets slashed, Imagineering disinvited from projects, and penny-pinching executives stripping the parks to bare minimums. In a standalone feature, we traced just some of the Cancellations, Closures, and Cop-Outs brought on by Paris’ collapse, but when it comes to the pathetic parks, the newly-budget-conscious Eisner oversaw three.
First, look at the disastrous 2001 opening of Disney’s California Adventure. The park meant to become a counterpart and companion to Disneyland was underbuilt, underfunded, and creatively starved. Ultimately, it was outright boycotted by Disneyland’s loyal and generations-long visitors, necessitating a $1.2 billion rebuild from the ground up. We chronicled that phoenix-from-the-ashes story in its own in-depth entry, Disaster Files: Disney’s California Adventure.
Click and expand for a more detailed view. Image: Disney
The very next year, contractual obligations forced the opening of an even more underbuilt and artistically vacant second park in Paris. 2002’s Walt Disney Studios only doubled down on the resort’s financial collapse. Likewise, it earned its own staggeringly depressing history and opening-year walk-through in Disaster Files: Walt Disney Studios Park. The park had so little to do, any entrance fee at all was tantamount to robbery, nevermind that the park with its three rides cost as much to enter as Disneyland Paris next door.
But the Walt Disney Company had one more underfunded park to rush order.
Hong Kong Disneyland
The frustrating 2005 opening of Hong Kong Disneyland is what rounded out the trio of Eisner’s low-budget parks. The underbuilt Chinese resort may look like a Disneyland clone in photos, but up-close it’s got the same disheartened qualities as California Adventure and Walt Disney Studios – it’s, in a word, flat.
Image: Disney
The tiny park – easily the smallest Disneyland-style park on Earth – featured only Main Street, Adventureland, Fantasyland, and Tomorrowland. And each of those lands was, in turn, much less rich and much more vacant than any counterpart across the globe.
Consider Fantasyland, for example. While Disneyland Park’s features six dark rides and Magic Kingdom’s houses four, Hong Kong’s Fantasyland had one. The park had no “it’s a small world.” No Big Thunder Mountain. No Splash Mountain. No Star Tours. No Peter Pan’s Flight. No Pirates of the Caribbean. And certainly no Haunted Mansion. With little to do (and practically nothing exclusive or one-of-a-kind to entice international visitors), Hong Kong Disneyland needed a boost.
Click and expand for a more detailed view. Image: Disney
That’s when rumors began to circulate that it would soon gain its own Haunted Mansion. And given the unusual precedent set by the prior four parks in which the ride has never been spotted in the same land twice, fans eagerly imagined that Hong Kong’s inevitable Haunted Mansion would rise on Main Street or – even more thrilling – Adventureland! Imagine the possibilities!
Yet, Disney’s plans were even grander than that.
A New Precedent
In 2007, Disney announced an unprecedented and ambitious plan for the faltering California Adventure, dedicating more than a billion dollars into a five-year plan that would systematically rebuild the park one land at a time.
Image: Disney
In 2009, executives followed with a similar announcement for Hong Kong Disneyland. After difficult negotiations (given that Disney owned only 43% of the Hong Kong resort, with the government of Hong Kong owning the other 57%), on April 2 of that year the South China Morning Post reported:
“The government and The Walt Disney Company appear to have agreed to include new “lands” and rides based on wilderness, arctic and adventure themes as part of a planned expansion of Hong Kong Disneyland, informed sources have said.”
Designers’ plans would see an unprecedented outer ring built around the edge of the theme park, stuffing three mini-lands into a wandering pathway that would follow the park’s railroad. The write-up continued:
“The expansion plan would see the largest area in the site become a nature wonderland. Passengers on a roller-coaster ride would pass through mine shafts, tunnels and a wilderness area complete with audio effects and animatronic (robotic) animals, the sources said.”
This land – Grizzly Gulch – would indeed be a wonder. A new, custom-built take on the Frontierland concept, the land features as its signature ride the Big Grizzly Mountain Runaway Mine Cars. A sort of fusion between Big Thunder Mountain and Expedition Everest, the forward-backward coaster does indeed encounter mischievous bears that cause a few mishaps along the way.
“The arctic environment would allow visitors to enjoy real snow slopes in enclosed, temperature-controlled areas. A train ride was also planned.”
Image: Disney
The land described here – Glacier Bay – was once envisioned as a frosted port for Tokyo DisneySea (which is how it made our list of 8 Spectacular Never-Built Lands). While details of the would-be land were never set in stone, it’s believed that it would’ve included a dark ride through the arctic and a half-pipe roller coaster style ride. We don’t exactly know what it would’ve contained, and we’re pretty confident that we’ll never know. Any “arctic” land built today is likely to be themed to Disney’s Frozen.
The Hong Kong government allegedly insisted that the arctic theme would be lost on their citizens and required that Disney change course, so this plot of land eventually developed into a copy of the Toy Story Land that had been dropped into the similarly small Walt Disney Studios in Paris.
Image: Disney / Pixar
The South China Morning Post continued:
“A third land was based on the “unexpected” theme. Inspired by the adventures of early explorers, the area will see visitors transported on computer-controlled rides. The different environments would incorporate supernatural elements and animatronic figures, but the sequence of the rides would vary to let passengers enjoy a different experience each time, the sources said.”
Hmm… The “unexpected” theme? While in retrospect the connection is clear, when this announcement was made, Disney fans the world over had no idea at all what to expect from the promise of the unexpected. Was it an intentionally opaque hint? A bad translation?
Click and expand for a more detailed view. Image: Disney
Early speculation was that this land based on “adventures” and “supernatural elements” might be the long-awaited Isla Tortuga land based on the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise once earmarked for the Pirates-free park.
But the truth was much more wondrous.
After continuous construction that saw three brand new lands being built simultaneously, Toy Story Land and Grizzly Gulch opened in 2011 and 2012, respectively.
Click and expand for a more detailed view. Image: Disney
When the third and final land opened in 2013, it completed and connected an unprecedented outer “ring” of lands contained outside of the park’s Railroad. And it wasn’t pirate-themed at all…
The unexpected
Hong Kong Disneyland’s completely original land themed to “adventures,” “supernatural elements,” and “the unexpected” would turn out to be among the most unusual and enigmatic modern Imagineering concepts yet. As the park’s transformation progressed, designers announced that Toy Story Land and Grizzly Gulch would be leading up to the opening of Mystic Point.
And spectacularly, Mystic Point would come equipped with the kind of unique, cutting-edge, spectacular E-Ticket anchor that Hong Kong Disneyland needed; a sensational evolution of the “Haunted Mansion” itself.
There was just one problem. The “silly spooks” and “grim, grinning ghosts” who inhabited the Haunted Mansions around the globe didn’t quite jive with traditional Chinese culture. For one, ghosts in Chinese legend and culture are traditionally malevolent and harmful. “Friendly” ghosts would only be understood through the cultural lens of the reverence and respect traditionally bestowed upon ancestors… a very personal belief in China.
That’s why, as designers looked for fresh ways to reimagine the spirit of the Haunted Mansion, they stumbled upon three unexpected elements: a monkey, a music box, and the Museum of the Weird.
Adapting some of the supernatural artifacts and outright oddities imagined in Rolly Crump’s “Museum of the Weird,” designers developed a storyline whereby guests would tour through a mounting museum collection only to have a mischievious monkey pull an “Abu,” opening an ancient music box and releasing its long-sealed magic.
As the ride’s development progressed, so did its core characters. Perhaps spurred by the stylized design of other original characters created just for theme parks, Albert the monkey and his enigmatic master became caricatured hosts inviting guests into the magic of Mystic Manor.
Ready to take a ride through the attraction some call Disney’s best? It all begins in a remote rainforest in Oceania…
Mystic Point
Image: Disney
Dateline: 1909.
Deep within the dense, uncharted rainforests of Papua New Guinea, you’ve stumbled across a most peculiar site: soaring, wrought iron gates marking off an elaborate, misty, eclectic Victorian estate seemingly plopped down in the jungle!
Lucky for you, the gates are swung open wide, ushering you into an oasis of wonder.
Image: Disney
The concept is simple: this exotic estate belongs to one Lord Henry Mystic, a well-meaning member of the secret club whose story connects Disney rides, lands, and even entire parks across the globe – S.E.A. – The Society of Explorers and Adventurers. Lord Mystic, we quickly gather, is a well-to-do British gentleman who’s made his way across the Earth collecting unique artifacts, antiquities, and wonders from the vast reaches of the ancient world, making friends along the way.
Image: Disney
Mystic Point features the unusual Garden of Wonders – a collection of oversized antiquities too large to fit inside Mystic’s private estate – that bamboozle, astound, and amaze with living illusions set among the steppes of the riverbank.
Of course, the icon of this mysterious land is the towering Mystic Manor estate, plopped on a hillside overhead. Imagineer Mark Schrimer explained the home’s eclectic architecture, noting that Lord Mystic “wanted a little bit of home in this tropical wilderness. He started with the essence of a Victorian manor but of course wanted to embellish it with all the different places that he’s been. So it’s this eclectic Victorian manor sitting in this cleared out jungle along the river.”
Image: Disney
And indeed, Mystic Manor is one of the most beautiful “mansions” in Disney’s entire playbook with ornately carved Victorian porches and spiral staircases, Norse steeples, arabesque domes, pagoda turrets, artisan colors, and iron gas lamps. Equal parts hypnotic and welcoming, the structure reads intentionally warm: Mystic is a philanthropic type, all too happy to welcome weary travelers into his home!
If the gigantic carvings and statues in the Garden of Wonders are any indication, Mystic’s collection must be a true marvel. And he’s absolutely thrilled at the opportunity to share what he’s collected.
Ready to step inside?
Read on…
Ah, so now that we’ve toured the Garden of Wonders and looked on in awe at the architectural wonder of Lord Mystic’s international manor, it’s time to get a clearer idea of what exactly Mystic has collected over the course of his lifetime. And lucky for us, the kindly gentleman is pleased as punch to have us, with elegant gold-leafed signage pointing the way toward the start of the tour.
En route to the manor’s back entrance, we pass right by the Loading Dock, where a wooden cart with priceless stone treasures is waiting to be unloaded at the stone entry covered in crawling vines. Once inside, our tour begins in a twisting hallway, its clapboard green walls hung with photographs, portraits, and paintings representing Mystic Manor’s ribbon-cutting, Lord Mystic himself, and his beloved friend and sidekick, Albert the monkey.
Slowing down, it’s easy to see from these portraits that Mystic and Albert have had their share of globe-trotting adventures, collecting interntional musical instruments, Egyptian treasures, Nordic relics, and Chinese statues throughout their travels. You’ll also pass by one of the most famous in-universe paintings in Disney Parks lore: the 1899 line-up of S.E.A.
Eventually, this museum-within-a-mansion gives way to a dark wood reading room draped with elegant velvet curtains where electric lamps provide warmth and comfort.
As the lights dim, a slide projector clicks to life, illuminating a projection screen. “Eh, hello! Can you hear me out there from back in the projection room?” Mystic’s singsong British accent wonders. “Ah, welcome to Mystic Manor, home to a world-class collection of art, antiquities, and my personal residence!” The slide on the screen wipes to reveal a black and white portrait of the mansion.
Image: Disney
It slides again to a portrait of Henry and Albert. “I am Lord Henry Mystic. This is Albert, my traveling companion, confidante, and…” Albert, live and in the fresh, pops out of an ornate wooden box before the screen, chittering and snickering. “…Ooh, eh… Rather mischievious.” Albert turns to look at the black and white picture on the screen and giggles. “Yes, Albert! That’s you! Now run along! Shoo!” The monkey climbs back into the box and closes it.
From the projection booth, Mystic uses his monocle to magnify a few photographs and paintings of the home’s priceless collection we’re about to see, but he makes sure to show us a schematic of his newest acquisition: “An ancient music box. Legend has it this charming music box has the power to bring inanimate objects to life with a touch of its enchanting music.” The glowing, golden music box is topped with a glittering red gem and covered in carved golden monkeys. “Superstition and nonsense! Oh, my!” He laughs, as Albert reappears. “Well, I guess we shall see when we open it!” Albert, seemingly mesmerized by the very photo of the monkey-encrusted music box, swats at the projection screen.
“Ooh, look! The little fellow can’t keep his hands off of it! You love that music box, don’t you? We’ll examine it later. Now, shoo!”
After just a little healthy mischief, Albert races off further into the home as we follow.
Our carriage today will be a wonder in and of itself: the Mystic Magneto-Electric Carriages, created by Lord Mystic himself. These elaborate, gold-leaf lined vehicles appear to glide and hover effortlessly as they move throughout the manor.
Click and expand for a more detailed view. Image: Martin Lewison, Flickr (license)
(And, behind-the-scenes, we can marvel at the truth: these LPS or Local Positioning Satellite carts are really and truly trackless, able to dart, weave, and dance around one another, diverge and take different paths, and spin and twist at whim. The technology – first pioneered on Tokyo Disney Resort’s Aquatopia and Pooh’s Hunny Hunt – is used to its most astounding effects yet here, truly becoming a character in and of itself…)
Image: Disney
Once seated in one of four Carriages, a sizzle of electricity sees all four jump to life at once, rolling effortlessly out of the loading area and into the Acquisitions and Cataloguing Room, where the newest additions to the collection are brought to await placement. Four vehicles enter through two doors, turning to view a most hypnotic feature: the music box, positioned perfectly in the center of the room atop an old Chinese cart with a stone dragon at the helm. The music box literally glows with an ethereal magic, as if lit by the sunset even indoors.
Image: Disney
A sliding door behind it pulls back as Lord Mystic leans in. “Oh, hello there! I was just looking for… Ah! There’s the music box I told you about! Now, I must find my little friend…” The very instant the door closes, Albert pops up from behind the music box as the tinkling score by Danny Elfman kicks in. The monkey gazes over the music box to ensure Lord Mystic’s no where to be found… then, leaps up to it. As the gem glows, the antsy ape taps it. With a resounding ding, the lights in the room extinguish and the golden lid of the music box parts…
From within, glistening sparkles of purple and green emerge, slowly emanating from inside. “Ooooh,” Albert coos. In one of Disney’s simplest and yet most successful special effects ever, the glowing “music” rises from the box, hovering directly in front of Albert as if by magic.
Image: Disney
As he looks on, the music glides off, flying around the room. As it touches two sets of Chinese armor, they come alive, chanting and wiggling. The music races down the reins of the cart to the stone dragon, which glows green and rears back, neighing.
The Carriages back away, gliding through to the next room, packed with musical instruments from around the globe. As the music races forward, it brings life to an ancient bellows, powering a pipe organ. Albert pops out of a pipe, looking on in awe as the music swirls, awakening a piano, a harp, dozens more.
Image: Disney
Then, we’re whisked into the Mediterrannean Antiquities collection, where Roman paintings line stucco walls. In one fresco, ancient Italians toast in the foreground as a mountain looms beyond. As the music glides past, it touches the portraits, making it come alive. The volcano erupts, covering the diners in lava! Like good Italians, they toast anyway, as the lava rushes out of the painting and down the wall.
The painting on a Greecian urn comes alive, as Hercules leaps away from a lion, literally popping out of the urn’s lid mid-jump. The vehicle then pulls up to a beautiful ceramic tile mural that covers an entire wall… Strangely, a rattle and hiss sound in the distance and – at once – the painting changes to reveal a medusa with her snake-like hair literally lifting off of the mural!
Image: Disney
Our Carriage rotates to reveal the next room: the Solarium. This greenhouse seems to have come to life as never before: as Albert grips onto a marble column, he sticks his finger out to entice two baby man-eating plants, which nip at him as he pulls away. Albert doesn’t seem to notice the plants’ mother looming behind him, bursting out of its clay pot. As he near, it turns to us and rears back, roaring as the lights go out.
When they return, we’re moving toward the Slavic-Nordic Chamber, where a beautiful dutch painting shows a young woman picking flowers from a spring tree. But as the music races alongside us, a bustery cloud appears, inhales, and blows frigid snowflakes across the scene. The tree withers, but even more astoundingly, the snowflakes blow right off the painting and across the wall, frosting it and the pillars around us. The Carriage is blown all the way around to a mirror behind, which freezes, then shatters, with ice crackling down.
Next, the Carriage rides into the open Arms and Armor Collection, which has become a little more sinister since its musical awakening. Albert, for example, is tucked away inside of a cannon, looking on in horror as a Shogun suit of armor slices with a katana. A cannon rotates to us and fires a ring of red smoke, ricocheting. We spin along to view a wall of suits of armor, singing along to the enchanting theme and narrowly avoid a massive crossbow that pulls back and aims directly at us! At the last second, the vehicle spins as we hear and feel the arrow embed itself in the vehicle’s back.
Image: Disney
Our brief foray into the Egyptian Artifacts collection sees us view a priceless golden sarcophagus and stone tableaus with ancient hieroglyphics and Egyptian artwork. But as the music reaches us, a sarcophagus bursts open with scarabs that crawl out, covering the walls!
The Tribal Arts collection may be the manor’s most vivid, with a giant totem gushing lava from its mouth while living totem poles and wooden Polynesian drummers (all borrowed, very sweetly, from the Enchanted Tiki Room) sing along. But as the Carriages continue, four wooden totems turn to face us, each armed with poison blow darts! As air whizzes past, we hear the darts land in the wall opposite, and turning to face it, we see poor Albert, who’s narrowly avoided each!
But now, it’s time for the big finale. The manor in ruins, the collection on the loose, we enter into the final room: the Chinese Salon. It’s a beautiful, towering salon with walls covered in tapestries, but the key feature is a tall, thin monkey statue atop a pedestal in the center of the room. As the Music enters, the monkey flashes brilliantly with purple and green, coming to life. With its staff, it gestures ahead, creating a gust of wind that makes the tapestries around the room flap, the music bringing to life the koi and pandas in each and sending them flying around the room with us.
Image: Parcorama, Twitter
Again and again, it uses its staff to whip up the wind, sending the music swirling – and us along with it. Now, all four vehicles dance together around the monkey as the tapestries begin to tear, more and more energy added to the room. Albert appears, clinging onto a tapestry when another flash of the monkey’s staff causes a bolt of electricity to strike the wall. The wall in front of us literally cracks and falls away, pulling a real vase into a gaping hole in the manor’s side as it shatters and is carried away. Albert, outside of the house now, grabs onto a hard for dear life as the gale force wind pulls us all.
But then… the Music Box floats past.
Thinking quickly, Albert grabs it and is carried away in the wind. We follow, racing into the darkness.
As the score crescendos, we find ourselves in infinite darkness with the music swirling around, unstoppable. It pours down the walls, across the Carriages, and from every corner. However, it begins to focus itself into a funnel, tighting down into a singularity as it races toward a center point. More and more music coalesces as we see where it’s headed: the Music Box.
Albert appears and taps the red gem. It dings again and electricity courses out of the box, sucking the rest of the music inside. Hilariously, a few last glitters rise back out, until an electrical bolt grabs them and pulls them in just in time for the Music Box to close.
The lights return and we’re back in the Cataloguing Room where our adventure began. Albert catches his breath. “Phew!”
Lord Mystic slides open the door as before. “Albert!”
The monkey chirps, turning to face him.
“There you are! You didn’t touch that Music Box, did you?”
“Oh, no. Uh uh!” The monkey giggles coyly.
“Hmm… Well, you never know… The legend just might be true!” He rolls his eyes and laughs. “Well, I do hope you’ve enjoyed your visit to Mystic Manor! Cheerio!”
With a wink, Albert chirps a “Bye bye!” and the vehicles return to the Loading Dock.
As always, we like to end our in-depth ride-throughs with the best point-of-view video we can find. That’s below, and you can follow along with a unique behind-the-scenes look at the ride’s layout.
So what’s left to say? On the last page, we’ll examine the chances of Mystic Manor coming to a Disney Park near you and see what else Hong Kong Disneyland has in store in order to make it an international destination. Read on…
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.
Image: Disney
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, in our In-Depth: Shanghai Disneyland walkthrough, we marveled at the incredible, original attractions devised for the park and celebrated its opening as an astounding step forward for Disney Imagineering.
Click and expand for a more detailed view. Image: Disney
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…
Image: Disney
In its next growth spurt, Hong Kong Disneyland will build an entire sub-land dedicated to Frozen within Fantasyland, construct a Moana theater in Adventureland, 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, it’ll still be the smallest Disneyland-style park on Earth… but it’ll also be among the most unique, with no less than four lands that no other castle park contains, and one-of-a-kind rides scattered among them.
Click and expand for a more detailed view. Image: Disney
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 2013 opening.
Image: Disney
In general, Disney fans tend to like “exclusive” rides (insofar as the rides remain exclusive to their own home resort!), though here at Theme Park Tourist we try not to rally for exclusivity just for exclusivity’s sake.
But Mystic Manor is a little different. A glowing masterpiece of a ride, it’s located at – arguably – the most remote Disney Park out there, inaccessible to many if only because it has so little else at the park is worth making a special trip.
Think of it this way: if you’ve grown up at Disneyland or at Walt Disney World, you owe it to yourself to visit the other American resort given how very different they are from one another; you should go to Tokyo Disney Resort because, even though Tokyo Disneyland itself may feel very familiar with lots of rides you’ve “already seen” in the US, Tokyo DisneySea is worth the trip alone; you should go to Disneyland Paris – even if you’ve been to the original Disneyland a million times – because it’s so different in so many ways, offering rides and stories you won’t find in the US.
Image: Disney
But for many Disney fans, the incentive to get to Hong Kong Disneyland is… well… Mystic Manor. While that may change given the park’s second round of expansion, the fact remains that the single park echoes heavily of stuff you’ve “already seen,” and sure, context is everything and we can’t write Hong Kong off at all, but making a purpose-built trip difficult to defend given how small the park still is. Even if Mystic Manor is an absolute must-see, it’s hard to justify a trip to Hong Kong Disneyland as a destination in and of itself.
That’s why there’s a particular push among fans to get Disney to replicate the ride elsewhere. Before the announcement of a Star Wars land and Toy Story Land, we “armchair Imagineered” our own complete rebuild of Disney’s Hollywood Studios that we called Ideal Build-Out: “Disney Hollywoodland Park.” We imagined a version of Mystic Manor in its own mini-land, theming it to an old reclusive Hollywood starlet who’d built herself a remote estate where she’d saved the props from her global adventure films.
Image: Disney
But it wouldn’t even take all that fuss… 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.
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
Image: Disney
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 Pooh’s Hunny Hunt, 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.
Now, we want to hear from you. 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?
