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"Mystic Manor" at Hong Kong Disneyland Video


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For those who don't know, Hong Kong Disneyland recently underwent a massive expansion to add three new lands that are original to the park, expanding outside the usual footprint of "Magic Kingdom" style parks to add Toy Story Playland, Grizzly Gulch, and Mystic Point.

Mystic Point is still in soft-opening, but its highly-anticipated new ride Mystic Manor (a sort of spiritual take-off on the Haunted Mansion) opened the other day to cast members and Imagineers. It's absolutely stunning. It uses trackless, GPS-guided vehicles that can spin, back-up, and "dance" with other vehicles, taking different routes through the house all orchestrated via satellite.

It's about Lord Henry Mystic and his mischievous monkey Albert, who opens a magical music box that releases a curse into the house, bringing Lord Mystic's collection of international treasures to life. It's truly one of the most impressive rides I've ever seen - hopefully an impetus to bring Disney back to non-IP property rides.

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I saw that video earlier today, the ride looks absolutely amazing. I've been following the project since first hearing about it a year or so ago. I'm a big fan of the Haunted Mansion rides, and since this was considered to be the "Haunted Mansion" type attraction at Hong Kong Disneyland, I was very intrigued.

After I saw the video I was not disappointed, the effects looked really impressive in the video and I can only imagine what they look like in person. The story is very original and the technology used looks phenomenal. Disney seems to be taking some time to really beef up Hong Kong Disneyland and the additions of the Big Grizzly Mountain roller coaster, Mystic Manor and the areas that surround the rides look great.

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Wizard of Oz+ Aladdin+ Haunted Mansion= This great ride of great proportions. This ride has over exceeded my expectations of Disney, and it really shows how far we have came from the first Haunted Mansion and the first primitive dark rides that Disney has created. I like this expansion to the DisneyLand Hong Kong, it really looks superb, and it is something I would like adapted to Disney World, possibly MGM Studios?

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Disney World? Don't hold your breath.

Meanwhile, the rally has begun to bring the ride to Disney California Adventure where fans are already dreaming that it could easily fit in the Grizzly Peak area, representing an eclectic world-traveler's High Sierra manor. This alongside heavy rumors of a New Tomorrowland in Disneyland and Monstropolis coming to California Adventure...

What a difference between coasts!

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Mystic manor would fit in with Animal Kingdom. Not sure what your trying to say thecrypt Disney World has a lot of the same rides that other parks have.

One could say they could be clones, deja vu possibly?

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Mystic manor would fit in with Animal Kingdom. Not sure what your trying to say thecrypt Disney World has a lot of the same rides that other parks have.

Yes, see what the Interpreter said.

Walt Disney World is infamously more budget conscious with their additions. Moreso than anywhere else, plans for Walt Disney World start out grand, and are often cut to reduce the more extravagant details. "Phase II"s tend to not happen.

For years and years and years, Hollywood Studios has reportedly been toying with the idea of an indoor suspended coaster based on the finale of Monsters Inc. with the warehouse of doors. Nothing's ever come of it, while at Disney California Adventure, recent rumors suggest that the coaster and an entire Monsters Inc. land will be built.

Same with Cars Land, which Disney has allegedly wanted to bring to Hollywood Studios, but one cut after another after another left the project with only the Radiator Springs Racers attraction, and without its impressive outdoor setting.

Disney World has also cancelled Hyperion Wharf, Beastly Kingdom, a much-needed renovation of Epcot's Future World, and more. And like the Interpreter said, when projects from California are cloned in Florida, it's usually with much less fanfare and a severely-cut budget. See also, Indiana Jones -> Dinosaur, the two Space Mountains and their respective 21st century refurbishments, animatronics maintenance at the two Splash Mountains...

In other words, if Mystic Manor came to Disney World (again, don't count on it), it would likely be a version with a much smaller budget than the Hong Kong one.

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While we're on the topic of budgets being cut at WDW, I have a question for those of you who know more about Disney Parks (I haven't been to one since 1999 unfortunately). From what I've seen in pictures and heard about, New Fantasyland seems to have some amazing attention to detail throughout and the Little Mermaid ride, though pretty much identical as far as the ride goes to DCA's version, has a much more detailed queue/exterior to its California counterpart, and the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train ride also looks promising. Was the expansion originally supposed to be even more spectacular and after the budget was cut, it still ended up pretty nice or was this a rare occurrence of WDW following through with their original concept?

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It's not a matter of budgets being cut, just shifting. Significantly. When New Fantasyland was announced in 2009, fans pretty quickly realized that it was one ride (The Little Mermaid), one restaurant (Be Our Guest) and a half-dozen meet-and-greets - a separate one for Belle, Ariel, Cinderella, Aurora, and Tinkerbell. That, of course, doesn't amount to a whole lot in what was supposed to be the park's biggest expansion ever.

2009newfantasyland.jpg

The plan was re-evaluated and in 2011, re-announced with much less focus on the princess franchise - the woods that would've contained Cinderella's Chateau and Aurora's Cottage became the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train. Mickey's Toontown Fair (which had originally been a separate land) was meant to become an entire "Fairies" sub-area of Fantasyland with oversized blades of grass, giant mushrooms, etc. along with fairy meet-and-greets. Instead, the area kept it's "circus tent" style and became Storybook Circus, which re-uses the infrastructure of Toontown Fair but with a WHOLE lot of detail added - like the best additions, its style harkens to a particular time and place, and details are everywhere.

2011newfantasyland.jpg

To my knowledge, Disney really followed through with New Fantasyland and there aren't many corners that were cut. That said, I can't help but notice that it's the only thing currently being done at Walt Disney World... A shame since, inarguably, all three of the other parks are in desperate need of something, and there's not even any ground broken at any of the other parks. Looks like the resort will be coasting on New Fantasyland for a few years, at least... Sigh.

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Interesting, hadn't heard about the original plans, but sounds like they made the right decision in changing things up from one giant expansion of meet and greets. One thing I have noticed about New Fantasyland that you mentioned is that it really is only two new rides (unless you count the second Dumbo ride), but the area seems very well done, regardless.

It's a shame that the WDW doesn't seem to have much planned after the Seven Dwarfs ride opens considering all that is going on just a few miles away at Universal Orlando, hopefully they aren't getting complacent...

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Just curious, if this was designed and built specifically for Hong Kong Disneyland, then why is all the dialogue in English? It seems as maybe it could be because they're planning to eventually build this ride at one of the US parks?

Anyway, this ride looks amazing! This is probably one of the most interesting dark rides I've seen. I'd give anything to ride this one day!

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Honestly, Disney World isn't all that great - in my opinion. New Fantasyland, as GYK noted, has only one E-ticket ride, a restaurant, then some meet and greets. I compare Universal to Disney now; look at Universal. Transformers, Harry Potter Phase II, Springfield Expansion, new hotel, etc., etc., while Magic Kingdom has added one ride and a meet and greet, EPCOT has gotten nothing new in years, Hollywood Studios' most recent new ride is Toy Story Mania which came out several years ago, and Animal Kingdom is pretty much at a sit still right now too.

Then, while Disney builds new rides, the others deteriorate. Splash Mountain has had broken AA's for a while. EPCOT is getting outdated every second. Hollywood Studios is getting outdated, too. And Animal Kingdom's yeti on Expedition Everest never worked the way it was supposed to.

Sorry for the negativity against Disney World; I still love visiting, but I like Universal Studios a lot better.

Carry on with the Mystic Manor conversation ...

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I don't get the hole one park is better argument. Been to both Disney parks on both coast and it's about the same. One park is just bigger than the other. A lot of the projects people are listing as buget cuts are wild net rumors. As for Hyperion Wharf it got replaced with something much bigger.

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I don't get the hole one park is better argument. Been to both Disney parks on both coast and it's about the same. One park is just bigger than the other. A lot of the projects people are listing as buget cuts are wild net rumors. As for Hyperion Wharf it got replaced with something much bigger.

Watching a YouTube video of TDL's Pooh ride is far more exciting than riding the real one at MK...

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Honestly, Disney World isn't all that great - in my opinion. New Fantasyland, as GYK noted, has only one E-ticket ride, a restaurant, then some meet and greets. I compare Universal to Disney now; look at Universal. Transformers, Harry Potter Phase II, Springfield Expansion, new hotel, etc., etc., while Magic Kingdom has added one ride and a meet and greet, EPCOT has gotten nothing new in years, Hollywood Studios' most recent new ride is Toy Story Mania which came out several years ago, and Animal Kingdom is pretty much at a sit still right now too.

Then, while Disney builds new rides, the others deteriorate. Splash Mountain has had broken AA's for a while. EPCOT is getting outdated every second. Hollywood Studios is getting outdated, too. And Animal Kingdom's yeti on Expedition Everest never worked the way it was supposed to.

Sorry for the negativity against Disney World; I still love visiting, but I like Universal Studios a lot better.

Carry on with the Mystic Manor conversation ...

Universal suffers the same problems that Disney does when it comes to deteriorating attractions. Prior to Harry Potter's debut, many of the "islands" at IOA had faded paint schemes, malfunctioning and/or non-working effects, etc. Also, the last rides that were added to the park prior to Harry Potter were Flying Unicorn (now Hippogriff) and Storm Force Accelatron in 2000.

As for the debate on budget cuts between D-Land and D-World, remember that D-World only put budget cuts on single attractions or themed lands...they never had budget cuts on an entire PARK. California Adventure is the grandaddy of all Disney budget cuts - the massive refurbishment (Cars Land, Buena Vista Street, Paradise Pier remodel, etc.) was something that should have been done from the get-go - but during the 90s, three entire theme parks were sketched up and almost made a reality. The first was to be an almost entire cloned version of EPCOT for the West Coast:

Westcotpainting.jpg

WestCOT would have been the first Disney park to feature a hotel within the theme park itself.

The second was PortDisney, a multifaceted project containing a theme park, DisneySeas, a hotel, and a marina, and would have been built in Long Beach, California. Both projects were shelved after financial problems arose with Disneyland Paris; the former, WestCOT, was reported to be close to $3 billion to create (by comparison, California Adventure was built for only $650 million). However, the concept of DisneySeas was later given to the Oriental Land Company who owns Tokyo Disneyland and reworked as Tokyo DisneySea, arguably the most heavily-themed park ever created, and the hotel-within-a-park concept from WestCOT was later implemented as the Hotel MiraCosta at TDS (Disneyland Hotel in Paris would be the first to feature the concept, however).

The third park was Disney's America, set to be in Haymarket, Virginia:

parkrendering.jpg

Themed as a mixture of American history and culture, the park was drawn up in 1993, but Haymarket's citizens weren't swayed by the prospect of the Disney Corporation building a park in their town, so the project was scrapped around the same time as WestCOT and Port Disney. Several rides and areas of the park were later added to California Adventure, such as the California Screamin' coaster, Grizzly River Run, Condor Flats, and Bountiful Family Farm.

Fun fact: DA was at one point reworked to be a conversion of Knott's Berry Farm when it went up for bid. The Knott family, however, didn't like the idea of the Disney Corporation coming in and changing almost everything up, so they politely declined and instead went with Cedar Fair...who went ahead and changed almost everything up.

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I don't get the hole one park is better argument. Been to both Disney parks on both coast and it's about the same. One park is just bigger than the other. A lot of the projects people are listing as buget cuts are wild net rumors. As for Hyperion Wharf it got replaced with something much bigger.

I can't even touch that first thing you said. About the same? How old were you when you visited? How much time did you spend? Disneyland Park and Magic Kingdom are lightyears apart (and that's without calling one better or worse). And beyond those two parks, the rest of the resorts are incomparable with each other, so there's hardly any sense to calling them "about the same."

To name one thing:

7809701816_6417f5c684_b.jpg

VERSUS

tomorrowland-entrance-big.jpg

Besides the fact that both are called "Tomorrowland," they have little in common. Different stories, different styles, different attractions, different layouts, different moods, different music, different atmospheres...

And, "wild net rumors?" Ask the Imagineers laid off when Beastly Kingdom was set aside as "phase 2" for Animal Kingdom. They happily took their services next door to Universal's Islands of Adventure. Look up the blueprints for Epcot - Project Gemini. Look at the official press releases about new countries coming to World Showcase. Look at the state of Disney's Hollywood Studios - whether or not you can find registered blueprints, you'd be kidding yourself to make the case that nothing's been considered for that park. Some may be rumors, but they're hardly wild or inconceivable!

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