It was August 12, 1969 when California’s Disneyland opened The Haunted Mansion, the closest thing to a horror-based ride the theme park had to offer. Over 50 years later, The Haunted Mansion’s presence can be felt at nearly every Disney theme park around the world. Even those without proper Haunted Mansion attractions–Paris and Shanghai–feature rides inspired by the iconic manor. And now, the ride’s “happy haunts” are no longer content just staying on land, scaring guests in the parks. Now the spirits have set sail on the Disney Cruise Line’s newest ship.
Grim grinning ghosts come out to socialize
The Haunted Mansion Parlor is the centerpiece of the Disney Treasure, the latest ship launched by Disney Cruise Line. The parlor itself is a gathering space on the ship, allowing guests to share spirits–alcoholic and otherwise–and conversation in a space that looks as though it could be a room hiding anywhere in the halls of the iconic mansion. What might appear to be a simple themed bar on a cruise, though, is actually nearly an hour-long story experience that unfolds around you. And luckily, we got the chance to experience it aboard one of the Disney Treasure’s inaugural sailings.
If you’ve ridden aboard Disney Cruise Lines, the closest possible comparison is the Wish’s Hyperspace Lounge, its Star Wars-themed location. However, where you can loosely define many things as a potential setting for a Star Wars attraction, the same can’t be said for adapting a beloved ride, especially when the thing you’re adapting it into is basically a room on a boat. It was a tall task for Disney’s team of Imagineers. Thankfully, they knocked it out of the park, creating one of Disney’s most immersive experiences yet.
“[The Haunted Mansion Parlor] was kind of a match made in heaven,” Daniel Joseph, Disney Imagineering Executive Illusions and Effects, told Fandom. “And when we got the assignment–and most of us had been pitching it as an assignment for a long time, as well as a passion project–but when we finally got it all greenlit, we knew we had to do it justice. You know, the Mansion is the cream of the crop. I think it’s one of the things that most Disney fans and most of us at Imagineering kind of hold on a very specific and important pedestal.”
The original ride was something Walt Disney had in mind before Disneyland opened in 1955. However, the ride wouldn’t actually open until 1969, over a decade after Disneyland’s grand opening and three years after the death of Disney.
With so much history baked into the Haunted Mansion, the Imagineering team set out to emphasize authenticity in the attraction. The end result is one of the most-exciting spaces we’ve gotten to visit aboard a Disney Cruise and a true extension of the iconic ride.
Ultimately, the parlor itself is designed to take visitors on an adventure similar to the Haunted Mansion, though one that’s far more stationary. If you’ve ridden the attraction at one of Disney’s parks, you know it begins in a space known as the “Stretching Room,” which introduces the location and packs in the first few scares. The parlor may not have a proper stretching room, but guests do enter through a space meant to have a similar effect, introducing the story that’s about to unfold. It’s basically a small space that looks like it would be a miniature study somewhere in the mansion, with decor dotting the walls to catch your eye and set the stage.
After that room, you set foot in the parlor, a small room filled with an array of dramatically designed tables and chairs, a bar, and plenty of props and decoration to set the mood. In the middle of everything is a massive aquarium, topped with a sculpture of a seriously creepy looking monster. If you take a look inside the aquarium, you won’t find any living fish. Given this is the Haunted Mansion Parlor, the aquarium is filled with dead sea creatures.
While the effect of the ghost fish aquarium is accomplished through sophisticated video projection technology, this particular piece of the parlor has a long history within Disney Imagineering.
Ghost fish aquarium
As it turns out, the idea of the ghost fish aquarium is older than the Haunted Mansion itself. As Joseph explained to Fandom, legendary Imagineer Rolly Crump drafted the first design of the ghost fish aquarium for a project he was working on called the Museum of the Weird. Originally conceived as a companion attraction to the Haunted Mansion, some of its designs ended up being rolled into the original ride. The ghost fish aquarium, though, simply didn’t have the technology to support what Crump had in mind.
But all these years later, the Imagineers still loved the idea and wanted to bring it to life.
“About five years ago, when the first whisperings of [the Haunted Mansion Parlor] started, we were brainstorming and coming up with ideas,” Joseph remembered. “We knew we wanted to do a nautical bent on the Haunted Mansion story and the lore. And most of us being Haunted Mansion scholars, immediately are like, ‘Oh my gosh, this is the ghost fish aquarium, guys. This is our chance.'”
And while the team has succeeded in bringing the ghost fish aquarium to life, it’s only one of the many touches Imagineering added to the parlor to make it a true extension of the Haunted Mansion.
Recreating the ride
The first and most obvious is the story itself. The parlor has a “story” that’s told over “chapters” that lasts nearly an hour. Each chapter of the story adapts one of the rooms of the Haunted Mansion ride. So instead of moving through the ballroom or visiting Madame Leota’s seance, those sequences are presented in the parlor through sound, light effects, projections, and plenty of Haunted Mansion’s signature visual trickery–including paintings coming to life, objects in the room moving, and lots of lightning strike effects.
If you stick around in the bar, you will be able to experience every chapter of the story on a loop. If you’re sensitive to flashing lights and loud sounds, this might not be the best time for you to visit. However, in between each chapter is a short cooldown time where the sound quiets. The lights come up, and you can hang out in the parlor without all the bells and whistles. Before long, though, you’ll be heading into the next portion of the bar’s story.
Each section of the story will include some special visitors appearing in the mirror above the bar, whether it’s the infamous hitchhiking ghouls or even famed fortune teller Madame Leota herself. And their appearances mark another interesting aspect of the Haunted Mansion Parlor.
The ghosts that appear in the bar mirror are actually footage of the original animatronics at Disneyland. Instead of using “a game engine [to] create these really crazy high-resolution images of ghosts that look like animatronics,” Joseph’s team opted to instead capture their own high-resolution footage of the animatronics in the ride.
“We very early on wanted to lean into the analog 1969 feel of the Mansion,” he explained. “That’s what we all love about it. And I think that’s what fans love about the Haunted Mansion, is that warmth that it has.”
Ultimately, the aspects of the attraction brought together by the team to create the parlor makes for an experience that feels like you’ve wandered into one of the many hidden rooms inside the mansion–this one just so happens to have a bit of a nautical theme. It’s unlike any other space on the ship, and it’s the closest you’ll come to truly recreating a theme park experience at sea.
And as an added bonus, for fans of the parks, the moment you step foot outside of the parlor, you’ll find yourself in the Skipper’s Society, another bar, this one themed around the Jungle Cruise attraction.
The spirits
One important factor of any bar that we haven’t touched on yet is the specialty cocktail selection and non-alcoholic drinks you can get there. Mostly, that’s because there’s nothing all that special about them. The ones that are served in specialty glasses (which, of course, can be purchased) are pre-mixed and cloyingly sweet. If you like a sugary cocktail, you’re in luck. However, they also mix more standard drinks behind the bar as well.
For those not imbibing spirits, including kids on the ship, there is a good selection of non-alcoholic drinks and even exclusive bottled sodas you can buy in the bar. If you’re in the mood for a good cocktail, though, you might be better served at the Skipper’s Society of the Periscope Pub, which is themed to Disney World’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea attraction.The Disney Treasure is open for bookings now through the Disney Cruise Line website. Voyages aboard the Treasure leave from Florida’s Port Canaveral regularly for seven-night Caribbean cruises.
