The first-ever Haunted Mansion-themed bar, the Haunted Mansion Parlor, has debuted on the new Disney Treasure. The cruise ship set sail on its maiden voyage over the weekend, 21 December. The parlor is a themed experience inspired by the original Haunted Mansion attraction at Disney parks, as well as a first-class drawing room on a classic cruise liner from the golden age.
“It’s the first-ever Haunted Mansion-themed parlor or bar outside of anything Haunted Mansion that we’ve ever done. Not to mention it’s the first Haunted Mansion attraction that we’ve done on any of our cruise ships. There’s a lot of firsts here,” Daniel Joseph, executive illusions and effects development at Walt Disney Imagineering, tells blooloop.
Joseph was inducted into the Florida Inventors Hall of Fame in 2023. At Imagineering, he is responsible for conceiving, designing and installing a range of special effects and illusions for Disney’s theme parks and experiences across the world. One of his projects was to bring to life the original Hatbox Ghost character in the Haunted Mansion for Disneyland’s 60th anniversary in 2015.
Joseph, a lifelong inventor, started creating haunted houses with special effects in his basement as a young boy. His groundbreaking patents in interactive special effects include infrared projection for camera blocking, a volumetric projection device, and a 2D media combiner for creating 3D displays.
Welcome, foolish mortals
The Haunted Mansion Parlor is both an attraction and a working bar. One highlight is the Ghost Fish Aquarium, based on an original concept by legendary Disney Imagineer Rolly Crump and finally made possible thanks to advances in practical effects and illusion technology.
Disney Imagineers revisited Crump’s idea when brainstorming the cruise line attraction around five years ago. “We said, We have to do this. It’s a nautical theme to the Haunted Mansion. We’re all Rolly Crump fans. We wanted to make this happen for real,” Joseph says.
The parlor features “a whole bunch of other gags and illusions”.
The Imagineering team “worked on the Haunted Mansion for more than 10 years before it became a real attraction in 1969”, he says, but for the parlor, they explored “things that made it to the cutting room floor that we wanted to expand upon”.
The venue also houses a next-generation Eerie Portrait Gallery. This uses new materials and technology to put a twist on the iconic portrait galleries in the Haunted Mansion attractions at Disney parks.
Disney parks IP at sea
Joseph says: “The original notion for doing haunted portraits all together was debuted at the Haunted Mansion again in 1969. They had limited technology, but created an amazing new illusion. We wanted to take it to the next step and make something that I like to call close-up magic.
“But the really cool part, besides the technology and the technique that we created to make it happen, was being able to create new artwork for it.”
Artworks are nautical-themed and inspired by the Haunted Mansion, “like everything else in the parlor”, he says. They “borrow the style and the feel of the original Marc Davis paintings”.
Characters featured in the Haunted Mansion Parlor include an expanded version of the Haunted Mansion attraction’s sea captain (a Davis concept), a mermaid (the captain’s bride, and a nod to the Davis ‘Cat Lady’ artwork in the original ride), and Master Gracey with “a different feel and look”, Joseph adds.
“They all have that Marc Davis feel, but it’s like he came back and did them a bit differently, which is cool. I think he would have loved how they came out; that’s all we could wish for.”
The immersive attraction features “eight different segments”, Joseph reveals. “Just like the land-based attractions, the parlor has tons of hidden things in it,” he says. “Other things actually activate. There’s a magical music box that comes to life, there are props and elements all around that reveal hidden tributes and messages.”
“The Haunted Mansion Parlor has eight different segments. It’s a parlor and a bar, but it’s really an attraction,” he adds.
In the various segments, Imagineers have paid tribute to the Haunted Mansion attraction’s opening dates at Disneyland and Disney World, 1969 and 1971 respectively.
Joseph says, “Behind [them] in the mirror, guests see ghosts appear that reflect the different segments. There’s a bride segment where the bride appears, a graveyard segment [with] the whole jamboree and everything is going crazy. It’s a whole party.
“Guests will see scenes or characters from the graveyard appear in the mirror, and they are not CGI or computer generated. They are actually the animatronic figures that are used in our Haunted Mansion, filmed in a certain way and created with an interesting technique in the mirror, to really make it feel like they are there with us. It feels very true to the original mansion.”
Original techniques and illusions
The Haunted Mansion Parlor includes “a lot of tributes to some of the original techniques that people like Yale Gracey, who is one of my idols, did for our mansions”, he adds. “All of us who worked on this show are Haunted Mansion fans, but we’re also Imagineering history fans and [are] giving our forefathers and mothers the respect and moment that they deserve. We’re not doing this from scratch; we’re extending the design and the mansion culture and lore that they started.”
On that subject, a new sculpture in the parlor pays tribute to Rolly Crump, the prior mentioned Imagineer who played a key role in designing the original attraction. Crump’s vision for the Haunted Mansion was a companion venue in New Orleans Square called the ‘Museum of the Weird’. This included a character that appeared to be melting like a candle, which is why his memorial bust on the Disney treasure features sculptured drips on the side of the face.
As for the storyline, the drinking establishment will immerse visitors in “the next chapter of the Haunted Mansion saga, bringing this fan-favorite lore to life in a whole new way”, Disney previously revealed in a blog post.
“Next chapter of the Haunted Mansion saga”
Billed as “a swinging wake unlike any other”, the plot focuses on a “jovial captain who entered the ghostly realm after a disastrous dinner with his beloved fiancé”.
Joseph says: “There is a story in the Haunted Mansion theme park attractions of the sea captain. There’s a painting where he’s wearing a big coat, there’s rain, and he’s really scary. Also, the wind vane at the top of both of the mansions feature a bat as well as a ship. There are a few things around the Haunted Mansion that allude to the fact that the lord of the manor was a seafaring person. We took that and ran with it.”
Drinks in the lounge are themed and inventive. The parlor is serving up creepy cocktails such as Sympathetic Libations, which contains sour cherry and blood orange flavours; Ghoulish Delight, a combination of ube fudge, oat milk and tapioca pearls; and a signature tequila-based drink with a secret message.
He adds: “One drink comes in a box, and when you open the box, smoke comes out. Then the bartender takes a special light and reveals that the top of the drink is actually printed with invisible, ultraviolet, edible ink, which says, Haunted Mansion Parlor. There are also some really cool sodas that have a misty, ghostly pearlescence to them when you shake them up.”
Exclusive merchandise includes Haunted Mansion-themed tiki mugs and a mysterious music box rumoured to belong to the captain’s fiancée. Guests can also buy a parlor clock inspired by the old grandfather clock from the Disney parks attraction, and a haunted mirror seemingly housing the Hitchhiking Ghosts.
“A few of the products are even designed by the same people who designed the versions of them in the attraction,” Joseph says. “You can get your own version of the music box, which is a prominent element in the attraction. It’s exactly the same, just scaled down a little bit.”
Disney has debuted the Haunted Mansion Parlor at a time when cruises, scare attractions, emerging technologies and immersive experiences are trending in the global location-based entertainment (LBE) industry. It also comes amid a major expansion of Disney Cruise Line’s fleet.
“It literally was a dream for us who worked on it. It was a passion project, and we really did put our heart and soul into this, and are really excited to see how fans enjoy it,” he says.
Images courtesy of Disney
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