Disneyland's Haunted Mansion, one of the park's oldest and most-loved rides, closed for a planned renovation in 2020 just prior to the park shuttering for more than a year due to the coronavirus pandemic.
On Friday, with the park open for the first time in 400+ days (more on that in our live blog of reopening day here), guests had their first look at Haunted Mansion's upgrades — but only if they were following proper mask-wearing protocol.
Cast members could be heard loudly announcing over the loudspeaker during the ride on Friday about keeping masks on because yes, they were watching riders, even in the dark.
If you kept your mask on though, the ride was a delight — just one you had to wait a bit for to experience.
While the ride doesn't normally have a long wait time, it had among the highest wait times consistently all day on Friday. When riders do finally get inside, they're instructed to stand on one of four designated spots, and then a cast member places riders in individual groups on spots one through six inside the elevator.
When the cast member finished placing the six groups inside the elevator I was in, he said: “Now you know why the wait is so long.”
You do still go down in the elevator because there’s no way to get around that, and then once you're through it the much-buzzed-about new portrait and sculpture are not in the hallway with all of the portraits, but instead in the following hallway to the right.
Overall, colors have been punched up on the ride, volume has been upped on many elements you may have never noticed before (which was confirmed by a cast member who assured they weren't new, just louder), like a grumbling monster at the very exit of the ride.
Several ghostly elements also saw upgrades: In the graveyard scene a couple at a dining table now drinks neon ghost champagne in a way that’s much more noticeable, and the beloved hitchhiking ghosts definitely received a very cool, translucent makeover.
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