Phantom Manor (Haunted Mansion)

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This is a picture of Phantom Manor, the Disneyland Paris version of the Haunted Mansion attraction, one of the worldwide Magic Kingdoms' most popular attractions since its opening in the original Disneyland nearly four decades ago. I don't know why it was renamed for Disneyland Paris. Many guests just call it the Haunted House, or, in French, la maison hantée.

The interior of this attraction very closely matches the Anaheim original in terms of individual sets. The voice-over in the Omnimovers (the spooky little cars that take you through the attraction) is absent in Paris, since the multilingual clientele of the park would make that awkward; there is a standard patter in the entry hall of the mansion and in the corridor that leads to the “doom buggies,” and the little speech in the crystal ball (I can't say too much, in case you haven't seen this attraction) is the same, but in both French and English.

A major difference is the exterior. Walt Disney wanted the original Haunted Mansion to look clean and new on the outside, but spooky and neglected inside. “We'll take care of the outside; the ghosts will take care of the inside,” he supposedly said. In the Paris version, however, the outside has been made to look just as spooky and neglected as the inside (must be cheaper for maintenance, at least). At night the exterior is lit in blue to make it look even scarier.

This continues to be one of my favorite attractions, even though I've been through it about a zillion times and I know the voice-overs by heart (in French and English!). It's popular with everyone, in fact, but since it is a high-capacity ride, lines usually move quickly. This picture was taken from the river and you can't see the (short) line in front of the mansion from here (except for a few faces, if you look closely).

Adults sometimes say that this attraction isn't really scary, but I've never heard their children say that! Disneyphiles will recall that Walt & Co. debated on whether or not to make the attraction truly scary even for adults, and it was decided that medium-fun-scary was best, so it scares the young ones, and amuses the older ones (and the ones in between just pretend not to like it).

There is an entire fan site dedicated to just the Haunted Mansion attractions at the various Disneylands at DoomBuggies.com, if you'd like to learn more about this attraction and its cousins.

Phantom Manor was custom built by Intamin Ride Trade, a division of attraction specialist Intamin AG, based in Switzerland, to specifications developed by Disney Imagineering. I know that some of the attractions at Disneyland Paris are leased to the park by Disney in the U.S., and this is probably one of them, but I'm not sure.

Photographed in April, 2002.