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Disney Parks Blog Trick or Meet-Up - Thursday, September 29th, 2011

Finally...I introduce to you the long anticipated, highly procrastinated, most requested review of our experiences at the Haunted Mansion Meet-Up in the Magic Kingdom! Excited? I sure was. I picked out one of my favorite Disney costumes at home, Jeri did a FANTASTIC job on my Maleficent make-up and was all cute in her leopard costume, made it to the pre-travel meeting place with no problems and in a few minutes flat. We were told by email to meet in the Blizzard Beach parking lot between 8 and 9pm to get checked in. We arrived at 8pm and there were a few cars in the parking lot already. As we walked up, I started to panic a little inside. At first it looked like we were in the wrong place. I didn't see anyone else dressed up! We walked up to the check-in table and the woman checking us in studied my drivers license and couldn't tell if it was me or not. But she took my word for it and we were all set. Whew! They had some kind of vehicle there all tricked out with neon lights and a loud bumping stereo. You would think they would have had Halloween, scary, or even Disney music playing. Nope, it was all dance along music. Electric Slide, Locomotion, Cupid Shuffle...like a really bad wedding. They had some trivia contests going on, too.

More and more people were showing up. Only a few were dressed up. A line from the web site and email explaining the directions for the evening kept coming to mind. "Costumes are STRONGLY encouraged". I kept reciting that over and over whenever I felt uncomfortable, embarrassed or angry about the lack of costumes I saw. Which was very often. Mind you, only 150 people received tickets for this event and each person was allowed one guest.

How many costumes do you see in this crowd? Ugh... Anyway, there were a few really cute ones. Apparently, there is a new merchandise line with Nerd Disney characters. There was a woman with a cute 'Nerd Mickey' costume. A couple dressed as 2 of the Hitchhiking Ghosts (very well done) and a woman that was dressed up like a Disney parking lot space. But there was a couple that I just had to ask if I could take their picture. I liked them most of all (if you know anything about the Haunted Mansion, you will recognize them)...

9pm came and we were still waiting to board the buses. Five Disney Cruise Line coach buses were waiting to whisk us away. I think we finally left around 9:20pm.

Lou Mongello was on my bus, but do you think I would get to meet him? Nooooo. I didn't bother him :(
Some might find this interesting...the route we took was up World Drive, left on Seven Seas Drive and along Floridian Way. This took us to a guard shack that let us into the backstage area of the Magic Kingdom on the west end. Passing by the open buildings that store the parade floats - including the Main Street Electrical Parade's Elliott float!!! That was by far the coolest float I spied :o) Then we unloaded and walked to the Frontierland parade entrance gates, near Splash Mountain.

As we walked 'on stage', you could hear that they still had the Splash Mountain water on. Glanced over and all of the lights were on as well, just like you would see on any evening in the park. It was pretty eerie walking down the middle of the deserted Frontierland street. They had all the same colored lights and spotlights on that they have for Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party. First stop was in front of the Hall of Presidents so Gene Duncan could photograph everyone that was in costume (all others were ushered past us, straight into the Hall). Gene is an official Disney photographer :o) Inside, we got our first glance of some of our hosts. The blog staff was dressed up as a turkey leg, Indiana Jones, a flapper and Boo from Monsters Inc. The turkey leg blew me away! Very hilarious... Social Media director, Leanne Jakubowski was escorted in by Mickey himself. It was during this short presentation, that we were introduced to Jason Surrell (escorted by Minnie, of course), a Walt Disney Imagineer. He also apprenticed under Imagineer Blaine Gibson. It was in this room that I lost count of how many times I was blown away :o) Jason explained the history of the Haunted Mansion and gave a very comical presentation. Click here for Jason Surrell's complete presentation, if you are interested. Here's the rest of the schedule:

As we exited the Hall of Presidents theater, we were handed treat bags with some candy. Donald and Daisy were standing by Goofy's candy truck for photo opportunities.

Next stop, refreshments! Canned drinks, bottled water, Mickey rice-krispie treats, chocolate spiders and eyeballs. The Cadaver Dans were also out to entertain the guests. By day, they are known as the Dapper Dans, an a-capella singing group.

After listening for a few minutes, I was anxious to get over to the Haunted Mansion queue to get in line for the tour. Tours were leaving in groups of 25 with an Imagineer that would explain the new additions to the queue. I believe these were added in March of 2011. As we approached the queue, Haunted Mansion butlers and maids were welcoming us to the mansion. Madame Renata was on the front lawn talking to guests as they walked up and while we were waiting for our turn in the tour. She explained how she ended up in the mansion and a little bit of her back story. Jeri and I agreed that Renata was the highlight of the whole night! She reminded me of a very animated version of Paula Deen, her southern accent was perfect! "Gail! Gail! I've got a live one here for ya!" Lol! And if you have ever spent any time in this area during a MNSSHP night, you know that lightning and thunder go off every 10 minutes or so. Renata would be telling her story, the lightning would flash and the thunder would sound, and then she would exclaim "Hush Momma, I'm gonna tell the story anyway!" So very funny... This is a better pic of her later in the evening:

 

Halloween party lights lit the outside of the mansion and the cemeteries. Lots of green, purple and orange - very eerie (and pretty). Along with some rolling fog. Pete Carsillo, Walt Disney Imagineer show designer and art director, took us on our tour of the queue. Click here for a video of Pete's complete tour.

I learned some pretty interesting facts, very informative. Then it was on to the Mansion itself. Seeing that the whole stretch-room was filled with HM fanatics, we all recited - word-for-word - the dialog to the preshow :o) And then it was time to step aboard our doom-buggy for our ride where 999 happy haunts await. As we exited, I snapped this pic...

It's the pet cemetery, to the left as you exit the mansion. Note that you can see Mr. Toad in the upper left corner. I guess he died the day he was replaced by Pooh and his friends... Anyway, after the ride I headed over to the Diamond Horseshoe where Jason was doing Q&A with individuals and a graphic designer was signing selected guests prints of the Hitchhiking Ghosts. I headed outside where they had some treat-or-treat stations set up, Mickey and Minnie doing meet and greets and then I found Dr. Facilier from the Princess and the Frog!

After a little while, Disney folks started to rope off the street and I had a hunch about what was about to happen. It seemed like we were standing there for a very long while, then the narrator spoke... Click here to see - the Headless Horseman Rides Tonight!

As he disappeared over the bridge towards the Cinderella Castle, Madame Renata exclaimed: "Come back and see us. Now get OUT!" Lol! As we walked back to our buses, we were all handed our Hitchhiking Ghost posters and a Nightmare Before Christmas Vinylmation.

Then it was back to the Blizzard Beach parking lot and back to reality, yet again  :o(  BUT! In the 35 years that I have been going to Walt Disney World, THIS was by far the coolest opportunity I have ever had!

Some YouTube highlight videos:
InsideTheMagic
OrlandoAttractionsMagazine