I Have a Controversial Haunted Mansion Take and I’m Not Sorry

I’ll keep complaining about this Disneyland “problem” until change finally happens…

Towards the second half of each year, the Disneyland Resort transforms the parks, hotels, and Downtown Disney District with special Halloween and holiday themes. This transformation often includes temporary ride overlays. No overlay (maybe at any Disney Park around the world) is more popular than Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion Holiday — the Haunted Mansion’s The Nightmare Before Christmas seasonal retheme. However, I’m worried that this great overlay’s timing is doing a great disservice to the original attraction.

Haunted Mansion Holiday, as a seasonal overlay, goes above and beyond.  The ride’s theme completely changes from its normal version, featuring different characters, audio-animatronics, music, plot, and vibes. Each room — from the second you enter the elevator/stretching room — is different. Literally, the attention to detail and total shift from the regular ride is awesome… but Disneyland is overdoing it with Haunted Mansion Holiday’s timeline.

Halloween Time at Disneyland starts in August and wraps up after October — giving the resort TWO AND A HALF MONTHS of Halloween vibes. But that’s not my complaint. We can debate the merits of starting Halloween festivities that early — but that’s really neither here nor there.

It’s in August when the ride annually shuts down for a couple of weeks to make the overlay changes before it reopens with the rest of the Halloween theming around the resort.

But here’s the kicker — the holiday season picks up shortly after in November. Because The Nightmare Before Christmas features both Halloween and Christmas themes, Haunted Mansion Holiday stays in its overlay form into January of THE NEXT YEAR!

DISNEY — WHAT ARE YOU DOING? It’s not exactly a 50/50 split, but I’m arguing that the regular version of the Haunted Mansion doesn’t get an appropriate amount of time to shine.

While The Nightmare Before Christmas is largely considered both a Halloween and Christmas movie, I’m here to argue that it’s mostly a Christmas movie. Make it a movie about a universe of monsters (not from Halloweentown) that discover the Christmas season, and the movie still works. Take out Christmas altogether, and it doesn’t. And the overlay is PACKED with Christmas decorations, theming, and music. That’s kinda weird in August…

Meanwhile, the regular, spooky version of the ride is PERFECT for the Halloween season. Yet, we DON’T GET IT AT ALL during the fall. Again, I have to ask: DISNEY — WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!

The Haunted Mansion is one of my favorite rides at Disneyland — if not my all-time favorite. Constantly garnering respectable wait times, this iconic attraction has no issues with popularity. The overlay DOES have longer waits, and the demand is there, but let’s not pretend the Haunted Mansion is vacant during the spring and summer months. People love this ride.

However, once mid-August hits, you have to wait all the way until January before you can see it in its intended glory. That just ain’t right.

Playing devil’s advocate, I get it. The holiday overlay is a huge draw, and people will visit Disneyland just to ride it. But we’re bordering on the reality that the overlay is beginning to overshadow the regular version.

What does Disney want the Haunted Mansion to be? Is it an iconic, unmovable ride like Big Thunder Mountain Railroad or Matterhorn Bobsleds, or is it something they don’t mind moving on from? Similarly, doesn’t a popular IP like The Nightmare Before Christmas deserve a year-round attraction or land?

While not ideal, Disney could also rotate between Haunted Mansion Holiday and Haunted Mansion on a yearly basis. It could give a full year to each version of the attraction so that fans aren’t so limited when choosing when to visit. Disney could even bring the overlay to Magic Kingdom, and each coast could have the inverse of the other. That doesn’t fix my problem of “not enough Haunted Mansion at Disneyland”, but it does take the ride out of limbo.

Ultimately, I’d like to see a stricter limitation on Haunted Mansion Holiday. Heck, by limiting it to the holiday season, it makes the overlay much more unique and special. 

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Which side are you taking in this debate? Do you agree and think the overlay should debut in November, or is Haunted Mansion Holiday the superior version that deserves the time it gets? Let us know in the comments, and continue to follow us here at AllEars for all things Disneyland!

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