A Haunted Tale

In advance we had decided to attend one of the occurrences of the 'Mickey's Very Merry Christmas Party' that would be held at the Magic Kingdom. Gaining access was simple; you just bought a ticket. The only catch was that the number of available tickets were limited. This turned out to be a non-factor as we all got in.

At about 8pm, anyone not wearing a wristband indicating they'd paid for the party was asked to leave. The party ran until midnight. During this time lines were almost non-existent. It was about as close as you could get to having a park to yourself. For example, earlier in the week the line for 'Peter Pan's Flight' had been 40-50 minutes. During the party, I rode 'Flight' three times in about 15 minutes. It was great. For rides that tended to not have much of a line anyway during this relatively quiet time, it meant you could pretty much just walk on and ride.

Some of the gang was going back on Peter Pan. Some were going on 'its a small world'. I'd had my fill of both and declared my intention to go to the Haunted Mansion. By myself. But it's haunted! Spooky!

The Haunted Mansion is a fun ride, a little creepy, a little spooky, but mostly fun. Still, I don't think I'd ever ridden anything completely by myself and this dark ride would be an odd choice to start with if it wasn't so fun. My imagination is just too good sometimes in the dark. I scare myself.

The queue area was silent for the ride as I approached it, meaning that the creepy started immediately. I zipped through the lack of line and headed for the entrance to the Mansion. There's a sudden right turn just before the door. As I rounded the corner, the door slammed shut. Until the room cycled and the Castmembers opened the door, I'd be outside. I was alone.

A small cemetery rests just outside the Mansion, sitting in tribute to the major Imagineers that worked on its design. Thankfully, I knew what the trick was and waited.

Madame Leota is the spirit trapped in the crystal ball, the room that signals the switch between the 'creepy' rooms and the more fun rooms. While I sat alone for a couple minutes, I watched her memorial stone.

And it moved! Having read up on many things Disney since my last trip, I knew this would happen and waited on the picture (which kinda turned out). The carved head opens its eyes and moves around a bit before resetting to 'stone'. I was glad I knew about this because, otherwise, it would have freaked me out a bit.

Soon enough, other people arrived and lined up. Some of them didn't know and soon there was a nervous 'did it move?' comment. Then there was excited giggling as everyone sought to watch. Disney is full of little things like this, attentions to detail that add so much to the experience.

I survived the Haunted Mansion riding in a Doombuggy all by myself. I had fun, even when the ride paused twice. After the moment of 'oh man it's stopping' came the 'I got to hear the breakdown spiel!' which then turned into 'why couldn't I have stopped in front of something I could take a picture of?'

There are more general Park stories to tell. I just finished going through all my pictures tonight and am still uploading them to Facebook. I took almost 600 in one day, about a third of those being Muppet related. It's a work in progress.