Mythic Manor is a trackless dark ride at Hong Kong Disneyland, opened in May 2013. It is a rare return to form for Imagineering and a trackless ride system similar to Pooh’s Hunny Hunt. The attraction features a musical score by Danny Elfman and a piano and harp placed in the center of the room. The magic dust gives life to each instrument and music plays, following the carriage and the ride.
The original Haunted Mansion in Disneyland was designed as a magic show, showcasing all the illusions the Imagineering team could conjure up in the 50’s. The queue takes you through the entranceway of Mystic Manor and into several display rooms, decorated with a large diorama.
Regarded as one of the foremost museums in the world, Mystic Manor was built to house Lord Henry Mystic’s ever-growing collection of illustrious art and artifacts. Home to Lord Henry Mystic and his monkey Albert, Mystic Manor serves as a Chinese counterpart to the Haunted Mansion, replacing ghosts with an enchanted art.
The first videos prove that the attraction is a spectacular family-friendly dark ride with advanced special effects. To unlock all scenes in the game, players can visit Doggie Style, Magic Lake, or repair their room by inspecting junk and fixing the cam.
In conclusion, Mystic Manor is a unique and exciting attraction at Hong Kong Disneyland, offering a lighthearted, fantasy-based theme with no references to departed spirits or the afterlife. With advanced special effects and a trackless ride system, it is a must-see for fans of Disney’s iconic attractions.
📹 The Not-So-Secret Secret Elevators of the Haunted Mansion
You can support this channel on Patreon! Link below Is this haunted room actually stretching? The answer may surprise you!
📹 The Haunted Mansion – HOW IT WORKS
On the 2020 season finale of How It Works we’ll talk about some of the iconic effects found inside the home of 999 happy haunts, …
For those who have never seen this attraction, there’s an excellent ride-through with a great low-light camera. This is probably the best way to see it aside from experiencing the attraction firsthand: youtube.com/watch?v=RXO8rt92BIA (I replaced this link with an older version–the last version was much brighter than the attraction is in person)
As a kid in a wheelchair I always got to ride the stretching room back up after the ride, as there were steps (escalator) at the exit. I always got excited that I got to see inside the “magician’s trick.” Even today, at 51, when I go to Disneyland with my friends they always love the reveal of the secret. BTW, it goes up much faster than it goes down.
There is a similar, if smaller, effect at the Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI) in Chicago. For many years, they have had a simulated underground coal mine. You ride down the mine elevator “hundreds of feet”, actually two stories, to enter the mine. The effect is achieved by using a VERY slow elevator, with the sides of the mine shaft printed on vertically scrolling endless panels. You go down slowly, the panels scroll up rapidly, leading to the impression of descending to great depths. I’m not sure exactly when it was built, but I am 72 and first saw it when I was 9.
The stretching room, and entire interior waiting portion of the ride, also serves another purpose that isn’t that obvious. It slowly darkens the light levels, letting your eyes adjust to the dark without thinking about it. I found this out bc I am in a wheelchair/on crutches and the Orlando rides accessibility entrance skips the room and most of the dark waiting. When I first went on the ride I was so confused at how different it seemed. I asked when the ride ended and they said it’s cause my eyes weren’t adjusted to the dark. They let me ride again immediately and told me to squeeze my eyes shut for a few minutes, and it was a completely different ride.
I was both a trainer and a lead on the Mansion. We referred to them as “expanding rooms” or ER’s. During slow periods, only one ER was needed, however, when the queue extended to a certain point, the second ER was added. It was critical that only one ER arrived at the top to preserve the illusion, so a system of small, flashing lights near the intercom box were employed to let the ride operator know when it was safe to ascend.
The best time I ever had at Disney World was when I had to go in my wheelchair. They let me in through the employees entrance in the Haunted Mansion and i got to roll behind the walls! I was waiting for the elevator room behind the door when it opened and some guy had been leaning on the door and ended up in my lap! I did a quick fake scream and you never saw so many people panic! It was hilarious! Then I looked at the guy in my lap and said in an eerie voice said “I WALKED in here!!!!!” The employee who was pushing my chair made me promise to come back and do it again before she finished her shift!
Actually, the “body” that hangs during the thunder and lightning scene isn’t the ghost host. It’s actually the woman the ride is base off of. The “story” of the ride is about that woman back during the civil war. Her husband built that mansion for her before they got married. But then when the war happened, he had to leave. Years later, she still lived in the mansion, she receives a letter that her husband/ fiancé died in battle. Heart broken, she ascends the stairs in her wedding dress (I think) and hangs herself. After a couple days to a month, the man comes back (not dead at all) and finds her dead. So in the ride, as it goes up and through the house, it’s like the woman going up to the roof. And when we “fall” down to the cemetery or yard, it’s referring to her fall and being with the dead. That is what I read from a Disney blog that researched the history of the ride. (No hate please!)
Current Dreamworld dramas aside, they have a ride called the Bermuda Triangle that I just had to know how a section of it worked. I wrote to them and got an invite. The setup – you see a large UFO in a side room during a boat ride. Its lights start whizzing around and it vanishes right before your eyes. I got to go into that room and the UFO was actually there, so wasn’t just a projection. The trick – the front of the room has a large glass panel set at 45degs (like a heads-up display). Above the glass panel is a copy of the room, sans UFO, facing down and not visible from the boat ride. During the trick the lighting for both rooms crossfades so the glass becomes a mirror making the UFO appear to disappear.
This is one of the cases where knowing how it really works adds to the experience in my opinion. The technical achievements and brilliance that went into creating this ride are just staggering, even all these years later. The most amazing part to me is how they manage to completely hide all of the ride buildings and structures by designing the landscaping in a way that blocks your perspective of any of the areas where the ride actually happens. Waiting in line and riding the haunted mansion, followed by looking at helicopter shots of the actual structure and backlot is one of the trippiest things ever. There is literally a whole world just right outside your view that you are never aware of unless you have to evacuate a ride for whatever reason…
When the Stretching Room is going up it travels at a faster rate than going down, and the lights are on so you can really see the difference in the effects. That may be why they have the capacity/weight difference between the two so they can have a quicker return to get more guests. Thanks for the great history on this! I won’t complain if you have more Disneyland articles. The Imagineering behind the attractions fascinates me, and my boyfiend is always complimenting the engineering and workmanship he sees when we are at the parks.
Great article. You could make some more. You could go into the different propulsion system technologies like asynchronous linear induction motors used for launching, trackless systems, turbulence generators on water rides etc… Even some of how the illusions work using classic magic tricks like mirrors. The portable hole effect on Roger Rabbit’s Cartoon Spin is a classic use of mirrors for illusion.
This was fascinating! I’ve grown up with Phantom Manor in Disneyland Paris (FYI – the stretching room is a lot spookier in French when you have no idea what’s going on) and I always wanted to know how it worked. It must have been modelled on the California version, as there will have been space constraints at Paris too! Thanks for the info!
The slight sensation of movement when you believe you’re standing still almost certainly adds a feeling of unease, a very nice effect for a haunted house attraction. I went on the ride as a teenager but I had no idea I was moving down… but I also didn’t notice the ride was bigger than the facade, or at least I don’t remember it now. If I was a little more observant the ride would have been more interesting and mysterious.
Are we sure that the portraits are being rolled out with each trip? It seems more likely they are mounted firmly to the wall, and only the lower border of the picture frame moves to reveal more of it as you descend. I would suspect constant rolling and unrolling would add up to a fair amount of wear and tear.
I’ve got a question on a small piece of Disneyland tech that I’ve always wondered about. On the outside face of It’s a Small World there’s a dial with a stylized face that rocks back and forth like a pendulum, and on the inside of the ride there’s an elephant rocking its head back and forth the same way. Are these two front and back of the same piece of mechanism, or connected in any way?
I think another major reason why orlando disney doesn’t have an underground section is the same reason why most Florida homes do not have a basement. The water table sits too high, you reach moisture to quickly, and the whole state is basically sitting on top of a big sheet of limestone. It would be too impractical, especially when, as you said, the park has enough room to accommodate the ride to be within the boundaries of the park. I found it very interesting that other parks actually use an elevator!
I would LOVE to see how they have this set up. The lower raising capacity means that the cylinders are way undersized for the capacity. The real question is how hefty those valves must be to sustain the probably 10 ton weight capacity of the thing and still open smoothly. I also wonder where the valves are located, because they would be supremely noisy. I suppose they could have a layer of dense material between the bottom of the lift floor and the pit that the cylinders sit in, but that much fluid running through the valves would still be really loud.
I knew about the elevator trick in Disneyland and always assumed it was designed the same way at Disney World. That is until the ride shutdown while in line to board after you get out of the first room. To my surprise we get led down an exit hallway and pop out at ground level. This was a few years ago. On my last trip I knew to look for it and the timing was off on the ride because they doors had not shut all the way when everything started and the room started “stretching” and I could see through the crack for a few seconds that we weren’t moving.
Ha! Yes, I watched the article on roller coaster safety blocks! Cool. I’m a big Haunted Mansion fan. As a theatre tech student I always hopped off the omnimover inside both park mansions at some point in decades past. I used to exit one of the Graveyard fire exits or slip into the exit queue. I was never able to explore the facade buildings, always a disappointment, but I can confirm that when you leave the Anaheim graveyard and walk around the side of the building, the road ramps up about 10′ after passing under the railroad bridge. Naturally they have tight security nowadays. Guests are fingerprinted upon entry, so they can actually expel you from all Disney parks for life if they catch you doing this sort of self guided tour. I was hoping for a job but went into film, where I eventually built scenery in the film ‘Bicentennial Man’ for Disney.
As someone with a disability I get to continue in the Doom Buggy past the offramp to the Little Leota exit. It’s usually dark and boring with most of it being a long black curtain. If the light is on you can see an inch or two of the big maintenance/workroom under the curtain. Lots of tools and equipment that I think is so cool. We continue back to the boarding area and I get back in my chair, we get to walk back through the portrait hall…and…my favorite part…we get to go UP in the UN-stretching room. I feel like such a VIP when I do it, but I’m sure it’s pretty common. 😂 The elevator machinery is definitely louder when there’s no voice or music.
I never thought that the room is supposed to create the illusion of not going down and the mansion growing, and then the ride is supposed to be happening in the tiny mansion- I thought that we’re supposed to be kidnapped by the ghosts and taken to some kind of “mirror copy” of the mansion in the afterlife that exists deep underground (and was somehow increased in size by the ghosts as they were bored by staying there for a very, very long time), because underground is where dead people go and in many cultures aferlife was underground so it makes a lot of sense. Kind of like the house in “Beetlejuice” (not Disney, I know) for the newly married and deceased couple had its doors opening to the Saturn rather than the merry countryside it was in. I also thought that the actual ride is underground because it’ s not that unusual to have underground trains and the trees do a very good job of hiding the actual building so it just always seemed to work like this.
I like your inquisitive nature, and I am not surprised that you are as intrigued by Disney’s imagineering as I am. Many people never understood my fascination with Disney World as a I grew up. They never understood that it was the amazing detail and technological wizardry that attracted me, not the characters or similar things. Disney really married technology and imagination in a way that no one else did so successfully.
I’ve never been to Disneyland, but I was in the Haunted Mansion in Orlando in 1976. When the room started stretching, that really freaked me out. To my 10-year-old brain that seemed impossible, and I never knew how they did it … until now. I’m still impressed with it, and there are a lot of illusions in the mansion that I still can’t explain; so my enjoyment of the ride has not been diminished.
I know I’m late to the party, (by five years!), but I think the elevator rides inside of a tall, silo-like tube, that has looong portraits painted on its walls. Holes in the walls of the smaller, topless elevator, (more like long slots, the width of the portraits), initially only allow you to view the topmost part of the pictures. The bottom of each portrait’s “frame” is part of the elevator “cup” itself, and travels down with you, revealing ever more of the paintings as you descend, while still appearing to be the bottom of the picture’s frame. I’d bet some clever use of “trompe-l’œil” artistry is also involved! “Those early Disney Imagineers were pretty clever folks!” – A. Lincoln
Very interesting, thanks for the article! My son has a service dog, so instead of unloading where everyone else does to ride the ramp up, they make us stay on the Doom Buggies and unload back at the load station, where we are then escorted back to the elevator to go back up. It’s pretty creepy without the sound and moving backwards, lol!
Disney Sea in Tokyo, has an excellent ride: Journey To the Centre of The Earth. After the queuing area several guests, are directed into elevators that go “down” to the depths of the earth. In the elevator, lights go past slatted windows, dials turn down and down….even sulfurous smells eminate from the gaps. It really is very convincing. When the lift doors open you can board the actual ride cars, and most if the ride goes down further, without the long lift that you get in a traditional rollercoaster. Of course when you think about it, the elevator is actually taking you up to the top of the volcano (oh yes, there is a volcano in the center of Disney Sea) and the ride is (mostly) depending from there, but the illusion is pretty good. Hey Alec, I know the budget would be pretty big, but Tokyo Disney Sea is a wonderful place to visit, better (IMO) than Disneyland, just down the road.
The dancing scene/birthday scene where all the ghosts are around a table is all done by mirrors and lights. There are real plastic figures sitting below the tracks and there are several mirrors that show the ghosts sitting at the now ghost table. That’s how the lights can go on and off and the ghosts can appear and reappear. Or this is how it is in Disneyworld at least.
When I was little, this was the only part that scared me. Same with when the lightning would go off and the hanging body on the ceiling. (Look up during the part where the lights turn off). But what I like to do in the haunted mansion is this. 1. Buy a few packs of cheap glo sticks 2. Hand them out to terrified kids in the line. I feel these kids pain, and giving them these glo sticks makes them feel better, and helps these parents calm down their kids. So invest 2 bucks in glo sticks, and help these kids!! (Same with pirates of the Caribbean) 💕💕
Fun fact: while the elevator in Osaka is quoted being the largest passenger elevator in the world, there’s actually a larger one in Pilsen, Czech Republic, in the Pilsner Urquell Brewery. Its floor area is 20 m² (215 sq.ft). It’s rated for 70 people, but its lifting capacity (5300 kg) is actually 50 kg more than the one in Osaka. Best of all, you can ride it as part of the guided tour 🙂
This article really interested me because I got kicked out of Disneyland in Anaheim for spraying silly string into the air when the lights went out at the end of the stretching room. We thought it was funny because it really scared the people in the room with us, but security was waiting for us near the end of the ride and said they had seen us on camera (in the dark, so maybe they have night vision) and escorted us out of the park.
I was there when I was 5 years old. The only thing I remember about that ride was entering this room and the floor dropping. I was not aware that I was not supposed to know that. I thought the floor dropping was suppose to scare you. That was in 1973. And to this day, it is the only thing I remember about that ride.
I took the main Magic Kingdom tour once, when we got to Haunted Mansion the guide told us a story about how she once led a group in to find the cast members in a panic. The sound system had malfunctioned and instead of Grim Grinning Ghosts… “it’s a small world” was playing on the ride’s audio system. I don’t know if it’s true, but the mental image has always seemed hilarious.
I’ve only been to Disney World, and had always assumed this room was meant to make us think it was an elevator. There was a downpour on our second time through this ride, and they were pressed to try getting as many in out of the rain as possible. On that occasion, the room was already stretched when we stepped in, and if memory serves, both sets of doors were open for us to keep going on through, skipping the normal intro to the ride. IIRC, this was in 1973.
Went to Disney World as a kid early 1970s about the 2nd or 3rd year that park had opened (The Pirates of the Caribbean ride was still under construction) I was about 7 and we did the Haunted Mansion. I remember when we were in the ride cars I was with my dad and my older brother who would have been 10 or 11 was by himself. The part where you pick up the hitchhiking ghosts my brother was a bit freaked since he was by himself, I think I was more freaked more since I”m younger and was at one of those young ages that gets freaked by the ride. Then around 1988 we went to Disneyland. I don’t recall if we did that haunted mansion or not, but we did do the Pirates of the Caribbean.
It’s so weird to see this because like… When I went on this ride when I was younger, I automatically assumed it was an elevator. I didn’t even register the room as stretching, I just immediately was like “oh, we’re being lowered, okay.” And I didn’t even realize until years later that it was SUPPOSED to be the room stretching. I just immediately knew that we were being lowered into the ground, because why would they move the entire ceiling just for us? They wouldn’t, so OBVIOUSLY, it had to be an elevator. The ironic part? I was at the version in Orlando. You know, the one that ISN’T ACTUALLY AN ELEVATOR.
I am quite certain that the elevators at the „St.Pauli Elbtunnel” in Hamburg (Germany) are larger. I did not find a definitive source regarding their size, and originally they were not for people but for horse carriages, and were user for cars as well, but nowadays only bicycles and people are allowed to go down there.
I am a Disneyland Annual Passholder (20+ years) and a handicapped person so I have taken the elevator back up hundreds of times. It goes much faster and you can hear the elevator noise you can’t hear on the way down, my guess is because there is no music or soundtrack playing. it is also a little jerky when it stops back up at the top. Interesting fact, there are two elevators and I have taken both many times. A cast member told me that the portraits are hand painted and replaced after so many years. She stated that there are inconsistencies between the portraits in each room and I started paying attention. One distinct thing she pointed out was that Constance has a wedding ring on in one elevator, but not in the other. Has anyone else noticed this?
I’ve only been in the stretching room in Orlando, and I always wondered why it was necessary. Guess it wasn’t. I suppose it’d also be inadvisable to make an elevator going underground in Florida anyway. While I appreciate the cool tone of the elevator overall, I feel that the paintings could use some updating. I was always able to see those paintings unravel, it wasn’t “immersion breaking,” but it’d much more immersive if they hid it better.
Interesting; I think it is known by all that the stretching room is an elevator. It seems that this article is suggesting the elevator is unknown and a secret. 25 years ago when I was a young child, I understood the elevator/stretching room. I cannot believe people do not understand the elevator/stretching room.
First time (and only time since I haven’t been to the park in over a decade) I rode this, I was 15. I’d never been in a haunted house attraction before, so I was already on edge as it was. My family and I get in the stretching room, the Ghost Host does his spiel, the portraits stretch. I was so distracted by the paintings that I didn’t hear: “of course, there’s always my way…”, and so was dreadfully scared by the lightning flash and brief glimpse of the hanging corpse that I clung to my mom and cried out. I don’t think the scripted scream helped much. While the mansion does interest me with the lore of the ride and effects, it’s not one of my favorite rides because of that moment in the Stretching Room. That was embarrassing for my younger self, and though I understand now that scaring me means it did it’s job, I’m still hesitant to ever go on the ride again should I ever get to go back to Disneyland.
I knew the WDW one didn’t move, Florida is a very large sand bar, although if anyone could do underground in Fl it’d be Disney. The Haunted Mansion is my fav dark ride though, been on it many times. I have also been in the tunnels below which are really the park’s first floor above the water table, the guest area is kind of the 2nd floor, the tunnels are nice, wide, clean, air conditioned and well lit. Among many things done under the park in the tunnels is money collection from around Magic Kingdom, several times a day a reg sized armored truck shows up at the tunnel entrance at the back of the park and the heavy duty golf carts w security ppl bring the $$$$$ to the truck, WDW generates $$$ per min from food and etc and they can’t keep all that in the stores, there’s many doors connecting 2 levels. The tunnels are also the cooler (as in air conditioned) escape for the ppl in character costumes, it gets hot in those and in Florida heat it can get bad enough to make a cast member pass out, it happens occasionally. WDW is supposedly working on a low weight ‘cool suit’ which will keep the cast members cooler, it’s prob be a daypack sized thing fittable within certain costumes. Disney is a master of hiding things, even the DoD consults them.
Ok I know the ride is actually in a sound stage, but one I trip to Disney Orlando, for what ever reason the stretching room wasn’t “being used” and both doors on each side were open and we just passed through, so if we are to believe the floor goes down to another level vs the walls going up, how did we just walk through?
In all honesty if they just had staircases that went down to the ride, i have confidence that this ride wait time would be cut if half because this ride doesn’t stop. and if you decorate the room with the staircase well it wouldn’t break the immersion. This kind of thing is cool but in all honesty makes the wait time for rides go up.
My nephew was 4 years old his first time at Disneyland. When the lights went out and the flash and skeleton hanging happened, he freaked out and had to leave the rest of it. When he was a little older, he said he would go there but somehow had excuses for not going again. He is not a fearful person, as he is a Warrant Officer flying helicopters and is serving overseas!
I know this is a year too late but you should look at German blinds or Rolladens. They’re blinds built into the walls. They act similarly but in reverse. German blinds roll down, but the haunted mansion is rolling in reverse meaning the roller is on the bottom and unrolling. It’s a feed tape. The top of the portrait is fixed and the bottom of the portrait frame is an overlap.
Very interesting but just one question. If you descend so much from ground level at the start of the ride, and you have to get to the show building on the other side of the tracks (also at ground level) when and how do you ascend again to get there, since the entire attraction clearly is not underground? Then, don’t you have to go down and come back up again to pass back under the tracks? The elevator part is cool and all but as the title clearly implies, everybody knows about that now anyway.
Went on the haunted mansion when I was 7 & again when I was 19 and ALWAYS wondered how the elevator (and I did ‘know’ it was one, I could feel it) trick was done. At 19 I was scrutinizing it closely but could not come up with any way the room seemed to be stretching but not really changing size (that’s how I interpreted it) . What a trick of the mind! Amazing engineering!
In 2000, I rode the largest passenger lift at the World exhibition in Hanover, Germany. It lifted up to 200 People on a platform of 117 square meters (~1126 sq ft). They probably have disassembled it after the Expo because nobody needs that kind of contraption there today. It was called ‘Bertelsmann planet m space lift’
Being as that is one of my top 3 fav rides at Disneyland. I was always under the impression that u go down the elevator but at the same time the ceiling rises to make it feel as if u’ve gone down much farther than actual. . As many times as I’ve been on it I think you should re check the ceiling moving up while u go down
I have never been to the DisneyLAND version, but I have been on the Disney WORLD version, and the feeling of the stretching room there is every bit as fun, campy, and sinisterly weird. This ride was seriously one of my main draws to visiting WDW to the point I even have a cast member only pin of one of the hitch-hiking ghosts from pin-trading.
I hate to spoil the magic and the fantasy for you, but I heard that a special access route will be available to people who have disabilities may feel free to use at the mausoleum which will be rumored to appear at the queue for The Haunted Mansion at Disneyland. It’s so nice that the portraits from the Stretching Room will reappear in that area that Fresh Baked talked about on his YouTube website in November 2023 which was last year if my memory serves me correctly.
When i was as kid my dad took me to Disneyland almost every year. This and Pirates are easily my favorite rides. I didn’t find out that the mansion stretching room was a elevator till i was probably 12 or 13. I think i ‘might’ have felt the start and stop once. Or could have been a earth quake. All the other times i didnt feel anything. Its that smooth. Living in CA, i tended to just assume any ground movement was earthquake anyway.
As a kid i was terrified of this ride as i was expedition everest as well. I had been that annoying kid that cried way too much when i got to this section cause i couldn’t understand it and it was terrifying. This caused the staff to ask my mom or dad (they still had my brother) to wait in the room and then we got to basically ride this back up and that was pretty neat looking back. I feel terrible for crying and making my mom miss out but yeah it happened
There is a ride at Alton Towers, Staffordshire, England called thirteen. It is a family dark thrill ride that has a one of a kind drop. I used to think that it was wires but I can’t see any on the ride. I don’t even know what it could be but I would like to know so if anyone does know can they please tell me?
There are several potential contenders for the largest passenger elevators in service. The first elevator is at IKEA in Palo Alto. These elevator rooms are massive. I can’t say exactly how many people they can carry, but the weight load it can carry is probably more than Disney’s load and it can carry it both ways. If you have an IKEA close, you might check those elevators out. IKEA may not use the same size elevator at every location. I’d say these might have the haunted mansion beat for size, weight loads and number of passengers. youtube.com/watch?v=UJzHUPI-xeA The second elevator contender for handling a large number of passengers and physical size is the observation tower rides in many amusement parks. Again, I don’t know maximum passenger loads on these rides. These observation towers are also considered a form of elevator even though you can only board and exit at ground level. The ride’s cabin rotates at the top. Similar to: youtube.com/watch?v=U5vmAcNR0I0 and youtube.com/watch?v=v5PY4bCAJjs The third elevator type is an aircraft carrier elevator. I’d say this one probably wins for total payload tonnage carried. But, it’s not intended to be a passenger elevator. See: youtube.com/watch?v=qREhXTubSYU
It’s actually pronounced “foy-yay”, not “foy-er”. The word is a French word, so it should be pronounced as such. Please correct yourself next time. I’m French-Canadian, so it bugs the hell out of me when people don’t pronounce French words right. So please pronounce it right the next time. Then I won’t be annoyed. Thanks 🙂
There’s another gigantic elevator in SpyScape, which is a spy museum. It takes the form of a “briefing room” in which you are given instructions and backstory, but it is in fact an absurdly gigantic 350 square foot elevator, driven by a very unique mechanism. Attached to the elevator are what are essentially huge bolts, with motorized nuts that slowly thread the elevator upwards. I assume this is because of the sheer weight of everything in the elevator (complex electronics, screens, etc)
For those interested 2 other ways they get you under the berm at Disneyland Anaheim is: Pirates Of The Caribbean uses 2 water fall drops (exit is going up a waterfall) and Indiana Jones And The Temple of Doom uses the winding queue… This image from my website shows the position of the show buildings: mickeymousepark.com/disneyland/dlads/print/tms-820k.jpg My website: mickeymousepark.com/
Again..the Disneyland original (est.and giving visitors permanent humorous nightmares ever since August 1969) mainly stretches down, which it at first does, then up a little, the direction that Disney World’s 1971 one EXCLUSIVELY stretches (the first out oif neccesity, due to the location under railroad tracks, THE reason, then it became a big hit,k so it was retained for not-underneath WDW version, which stretcheds up-=no berm.)
Hmm…My parents took me to Magic Kingdom & Epcot for my 16th bday in 1992. Yet I don’t remember ever seeing the Haunted Mansion. Just from perusal this article it looks amazing! What is somewhat amusing is that I still remember the Michael Jackson Captain EO attraction at Epcot. I was then and still am an MJ fan. However I remember myself thinking at the time it was kinda a dumb movie…my opinion only!! I would have much rather experienced the Haunted Mansion in retrospect.
The elevators for the Disneyland Haunted Mansion were discovered by Disney Imagineer Rolly Crump at the 1962 Seattle World’s Fair, in an exhibit called “The Bubbleator”. He saw that this giant elevator would solve the problem of moving guest through the then “in production” Haunted Mansion, and I believe the same manufacturer of the one in Seattle, Synergetics Inc, built the elevators for Disney… the monorail was also discovered at the 62 Seattle fair as well, here’s some more background on the Bubbleator youtube.com/watch?v=vLWC95Ts9dU
As someone who studied the Stretching Room effect… The effect is so well done that its hard to even figure out what part of the wall is where. I’ve noticed the little giveaways of the effect but still blown away when the elevator is on the bottom. However, the persaud was built 1963, production stopped for the 64′ 65′ worlds fair in New York, but after, they started again. The Walkthrough Idea was scrapped to the already known Omnimover ride idea that was done for Adventures thru inner space. The Doom Buggies were a great design… Hong Kong just made their mansion to a whole new scale of OMG wow. Disneyland Mansion opened August 9th 1969.. soft opening. Mansion Built, 1963. Also walt never could get the name of the attraction right… Museum of the Weird, or even just the haunted house. 🙂 Love the attraction and the illusions. I will always try and debunk the effects but some are still crazy enough to be mysteries. 🙂
Two minutes in, I’ll guess it’s done with a scroll. The wallpaper simply extends down to where it needs to be, it being striped makes this effect seem “natural” as your eyes have nothing to really reference the movement. The pictures then are scrolls, the frame on the right and left hand side are also not actually 3D but on the scrolls. Did I guess right? Edit: Yes I kinda did. In Europapark in Rust, Germany (Europes biggest joy park by the way) they have the same elevator system. Except the pictures are way grimmer. Like… Everything about the ride is so much more grim than in Disneyland.
7:30 You can barely see the elevator hoistway door interlocks, as the hoistway door is shorter than the car door (unusual, but not unique to the stretching rooms) As an elevator enthusiast, this is an interesting article that showed me some things I didn’t know. I didn’t think the walls went above the ceiling, or that there were 2 moving pieces moving at different speeds (besides the portraits). I am curious how the upper wall exactly works (as in, what causes it to move), if you find out, I would love to know.
Yesssss. I’m so happy you’re going at this full time, especially if it leads to more articles like this while not taking away your more everyday technology articles. Although honestly, anything you’re interested in is probably going to be great. Your articles on color with television were what drew me in, but seeing you use Kingdom Hearts to showcase the different image output of CRTs made me a forever fan. That article also had a framed picture of Figment in a chef outfit. The Venn Diagram of your interests is too amazing for words. (I just noticed this is from June. Whatever. My glee at an old but relatively recent announcement of yours is current and that’s ultimately what matters. Me!)
Sorry to disappoint you, but there’s at least one larger passenger elevator, at ~4400 square feet. At Yerkes Observatory in Wisconsin, the floor of one of the telescope domes is an elevator to allow access to the telescope in any orientation. The floor is ~75′ in diameter, and can list 20-25 people up to the world’s largest refracting telescope. Sidenote: if you’re interested in doing a article about it, I can put you in touch with the right person.
During my first visit to the Orlando park, I found myself in the very same Stretching Room that you are describing here. I was around the age of 12 and had already noticed the push button on a wall section behind me. The black, plastic push button was all alone in that section and I thought it odd being there, all by itself. Upon hearing the challenge to find our way out, quickly followed by the lights going dark. Moving by pure instinct, I reached over and pushed the button! A lady that I seen behind me tried to do the same. When she found my hand there, she quickly batted it away so she could push it again. I laughed, of course, but the lights turning back on revealed that she a bit perturbed with me! Lol So fun!!
Disney saw the elevators concept in 1965. They are shown to Walt by Marc Davis in the “Disneyland Tencennial” program with both pull-down artwork and a scale model of the elevators. BTW – Phantom Manor’s Stretch Room goes both up AND down – just not down as far as DL’s Mansion, so the ceiling had to move upward as well.
Interesting. I’ve never been to Disneyland. I’ve been to Walt Disney World several times (and am going back this summer). I know that they didn’t have this problem in Orlando since they could make the building as big as it needed to be. So, WDW’s stretching room just has the ceiling go up since they wanted to still have the stretching room.
@Technology Connections Hi, IDK why I found your “turn signals” thing, but the debates seem to have occupied many hours of my life over the past few days. Anyway; Having checked out your stuff… and I hope getting a general idea of your content… could you possibly do something on “Why did we go to the Moon”, ie the many and varied direct tech benefits of the Apollo programme? To me, it could be an entire series, but I’m not that optimistic. The reason for asking is, a) space is ace (science, etc) but b) a lot of ppl don’t realise how DIRECTLY their lives benefit from such things. For example – it’s a bit hard to justify claiming that the internet wouldn’t exist without Apollo (although personally I think that’s true), but it’s pretty easy to show how the spacesuits led to better firemen’s protection.
The room actually gives the illusion of you going into an elevator. The room actually stretched up and the elevator is just a holding cell before you go to the line. As you exit the “elevator” to get into another line to get onto your buggy there is an exit door to your left. When you exit this door this brings you back to the lines that are outside which means you are on the same level. It’s all an illusion and part of the experience.
Nope – elevator implies rising so it can’t have the record since it only de-elevates (some fools might call it decending) with 90. Hey, Bob. How much can this lifter take? I can get 2000 units down from that shelf. Riiiiiight. How much can it lift? 1. OK, Bob. Let’s stop calling it a lifter before we get sued.
Thank you for this article, the Haunted Mansion is my favourite ride at Disneyland! The first time I experienced the “stretching room” was at Phantom Manor in Disneyland Paris, which operates exactly like the one in California. I was five years old when I first went on it and always knew it was an elevator because I recognized the feeling of descending as the room begins to stretch. It wasn’t until I was a teenager that I learned about the practical purpose of the stretching rooms and have since been amazed by the ingenuity of these rides.
This is the first of your articles that I’ve ever watched and I’ve really enjoyed it’s content and your presentation. Thankyou. I’ve had a look at your page and there’s a lot of very interesting stuff happening there so I’ve just subscribed. God bless you in all that you do and glad that I’ve just discovered you as you start out full time – I’ve joined at a special moment. 😀
Many of the attractions at Disneyland and Walt Disney World, including Tokyo Disneyland, Hong Kong Disneyland, Disneyland Paris, Shanghai Disneyland. Such as the Haunted Mansion, It’s A Small World, and Pirates of the Caribbean are built inside sound stages like an actual movie set. For those of you that have toured Paramount Pictures, Warner Bros. Pictures or Walt Disney Studios (D23 membership required). Guests are given a tour of the sound stages when not in use for film production.
Mansion is my favorite ride at the parks, I absolutely love it in all of its forms. If you really want to amp up the disorientation factor, there is a cool thing you can do. On less busy days, if you manage to get an elevator that’s mostly empty (your small party or less than 10 people, less the better), and you have the right Cast Member, you can ask to sit or lay down on the ride down. Laying down with your head as close to the center of the room as possible is really an experience. perusal it streach away from you, with all the atmosphere, it’s… to die for….
Strictly, elevators (and, indeed, lifts) go up, not down – the clue’s in the name. (Obviously, they do go down as well, but this is a sort of added bonus…) So the Stretching Room isn’t the worlds biggest elevator/lift in terms of passenger numbers as it can only elevate/lift 12 people. I’m quite proud of being able to out-pedant Technology Connections!
Growing up going to Disney World instead of Disneyland, this room was way more of a mystery. You couldn’t tell if the roof was going up or floor was going down, and since the floor wasn’t actually going down, it didn’t feel like we were going down because the floor just didn’t feel like it was moving(and the painting isn’t obviously unrolling) – yet, I always wondered why the room would exist if it wasn’t lowering you. My theory was to make waiting more entertaining. Going back as an adult, my wife and I both could tell the ceiling was rising, so when you said the floor (at Disneyland – we missed that part in the intro) was lowering we were very confused. To finally know that it was just recreating what needed to be done at Disneyland blew both of our minds. I mean, it all makes sense now!
Holy shit this was absolutely mind blowing!!! I’ve been riding Haunted Mansion a minimum of 3 times a year (maximum maybe 25 a year) since I was born (I’m 21) and I never even considered that the showroom wasn’t actually in the mansion or that we were going underground!!! 😱 I’m sure if I ever actually thought about it I could’ve figured something out but here we are 😅 My mind is absolutely blown and I’m definitely sharing this article with all my Disney nerd friends 😂 Thank you for sharing this with us, I really enjoyed it!!
Mystic Manor in Hong Kong does have a small pre-show, and it does take place in a room that very much pays homage to the haunted manison stretch rooms. The Mystic Manor rooms are octagonal in shape and look alot like the haunted mansion stretch rooms, though without the creepy gargoyles and functions as a small film projector room where Lord Henry Mystic tells you about his collection and introduces you to the super cute mascot of Mystic Manor, Albert the monkey.
@Technology Connections – I think that there is an even bigger elevator. It is on the cruise ship called Celebrity Edge ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Celebrity_Edge ) – it has something that they call the “Magic Carpet” – it is a “platform” that houses a whole restaurant with multiple tables etc. It is 100 feet long and 20 feet wide. The platform can move up and down while people are inside. I think this qualifies as a passenger elevator – right? Anyways: Fascinating article – as always. Thanks for everything. <3
This is one of my favorites of your articles. That room always perplexed me when I was young. I thought it was an elevator going down, but I could not be sure. It fascinated me. It is so well done. I visited WDW Florida, so I guess it wasn’t going down after all. I was still fooled. To this day (decades later) I still had no clue about it, or much of the rest inside. Fascinating.
In Alton Towers, England there is an attraction that has a similar movement illusion but kind of back to front. This one makes you think you are move more than you are. *SPOILER ALLERT * In Hex the final room gives the illusion of flipping you upside down but you don’t actually move more than about 30 degrees from horizontal. The floor of the room tilts back and forth . Meanwhile the roof moves in an opposing direction making seem like you are moving higher and higher with each swing. Eventually the swing seems to take you to upside down. In reality it is only about 30 degrees, look at long hair or hold a bag just off the ground a plumb bob. This ride also replicates the effect of not being I the building you think it’s in.
For those who dont know, the reason why there are two elevators is because when the mansion itself was built it was going to be a walk-through and it was designed to have two duplicate houses for capacity. After the World’s Fair, the experience was redesigned as a ride through but since the elevators and mansion were already there they just became part of the storyline.
That was amazing!!!! This is the kind of thing that I like learning about how things like that work…movie magic also works for rides and attractions! It would have been pretty cool if Tower of Terror had a stretching room. I know there’s a pre-show for that and some people say that it’s an elevator and other say it’s just a room. I’ve never been on it, but some friends have and said that it is an elevator because they felt like the room was moving while they were perusal the TV in there and the lightning effects at the start and end of the pre-show is distraction from the fact that it’s moving. I rode the Haunted Mansion when I was 5 at Disney World and as soon as the pre-show started, I started freaking out and crying. I was so scared and then was scared out of my mind throughout the rest of the ride.
This isn’t the only elevator used in a Disney attraction. The Tower of Terror’s exposition room is actually an elevator up. They use a slow moving elevator and TVs to distract you so you don’t realize you are moving up, and then they lead you into a secondary queuing area with a basement aesthetic to make still feel like you are on the lower levels. This is used to make the sudden drop you experience to be more of a surprise since you feel like you haven’t moved up as far as you needed to. My family likes to go to Disney World and we ended up figuring this out on our own because of our somewhat frequent trips there.
Former WDW cast member here, and Haunted Mansion enthusiast (I did a history report on how the effects work for one of my college classes). I’m a little disappointed that you didn’t mention the use of the hollow mask illusion (the busts that always seem to be looking at you). Similarly, the Stretching Room effect was so popular that, even though the WDW version didn’t need an elevator, they reversed the effect so it could be included (i.e. the ceiling moves up instead of the floor moving down). Also, the Madame Leota effect is created with a unique back projection: the projector is inside the head. This is how they are able to make her crystal ball float without needing to worry about the projection becoming unaligned.
Hi I was just curious if you could do a future article on how they change the haunted mansion to the night mare before Christmas overlay and back again since it’s interesting how they change the show scenes by replacing animatronics or adding new ones and the clever new different each year the gingerbread house in the ballroom scene then how they manage to change it all back to normal
What a lot of people don’t realize is that in the Ballroom Scene, the ghosts are dancing backwards because of the mirror effect. The result is that the ladies are leading the men, uncharacteristically ahead of their time. There was also an incident where some moron hid a BB pistol on his person, and shot at the ghosts, leaving a crack in the glass. Disney would have to take the building apart to replace the glass, so they just disguised the crack as a spiderweb.
I used to work at the mansion in the CA park. Been through that thing inside and out. Even crawled up into the crow’s nest at the top of the building. Had to access it by crawling on a wooden structure directly over one of the elevators above the hanging skeleton. Those were fun times. Got to see things most people will never see. I only wish digital cameras were more available back then. There would be picture all over the internet if I had the access to that technology in those days.