Editor’s Note: As Halloween approaches, I am re-running one of my favorite posts about a few “not so scary” Walt Disney World tales. Enjoy!
With Halloween almost here and all your bags of Halloween candy ready for trick or treaters, why not get in the mood with a few haunting tales from Walt Disney World? Of course Disney never wants to make things too scary because they’re all about guests of all ages enjoying their stay and having a not so scary Halloween along side the characters. So whether you’ll be with Mickey and his friends in your favorite costume, or staying home in your Halloween best, here’s a few tales from the magical world of Disney to get you in the mood.
Everyone has their own set of rituals and Cast Members at the Disney parks are no different. Passed down from Cast Member to Cast Member are different stories and rituals that you feel that you have to abide by or something may go wrong.
There is something that is a common occurrence at the Pirates of the Caribbean at Walt Disney World. Word has it that Cast Members must say, “Good Morning George” each morning when opening up the ride and getting it ready for a day full of guests. They do this to appease the ghost of a construction worker who is said to have fallen during construction on the ride, particularly in the burning village portion of the ride. When George isn’t greeted in the morning he seems to have a little fun and the ride just doesn’t seem to work right during that day, with backed up boats and animatronics that suddenly don’t work. Whether you believe it or not, Cast Members say good morning to George each and every morning so that everything will run in tiptop shape.
It seems that it is not just Magic Kingdom that has its fair share of spooky things happening. Over at Hollywood Studios it’s rumored that there’s a little strange occurrence that happens at their very own Hollywood Tower Hotel. It seems that late at night those standing at the bellhop podium in the lobby looking towards the fireplace may catch a rather unexplained experience. Apparently at certain times in the night an unknown and unexpected something, guest maybe, runs past the fireplace. No one quite knows the story behind it, it is just something that has been observed by some Cast Members and guests visiting the Tower of Terror. Talk about adding a little extra spookiness to the already haunting ride!
And no Disney haunting tale would be complete without a visit to everyone’s favorite haunted mansion. Legend of the Haunted Mansion tells us that the mansion was on property when Disney bought the property. Imagineers were going to tear it down to make room for some other attraction when they learned about its creepy tale.
As the story goes, the mansion belonged to an old butler. He had been a butler to a kind gentleman and his family for generations. It seems that the gentleman had chosen to marry a young woman that the butler was not very fond of although he was not quite sure why. Everything was going well until the happy couple’s wedding night when the butler heard the new wife scream! He ran to the master bedroom and found the young woman covered in blood and the master of the house, her new husband, a head shorter. Of course the butler could not find the weapon or proper evidence to blame the young woman and so she remained the new mistress of the house. It seemed that the butler’s suspicions were correct though. The mistress married quite a number of times and each wedding night an unthinkable event occurred and her new husband left her newly widowed. This went on until the mistress’ passing.
After hearing this story the Imagineers decided to leave the building standing and create a ride to bring guests through it. Some guests started to say they could see the deceased mistress up in her attic, decked out in her wedding dress waiting for her next husband. Now of course there are Cast Members directing guests through this very Haunted Mansion and they have to appease the mistress too. The Cast Members have a ritual of petting the raven that can be found in the conservatory. This way the tour of the mansion runs smoothly for guests and Cast Members alike. You wouldn’t want to be like me and get caught backwards on your way to the cemetery and have to wait for your ghost host to start the ride back up again.
Now one more thing about this Haunted Mansion that we all love so much…. at the end of the tour our ghost host reminds us that they have 999 happy haunts currently at the Haunted Mansion, but there is always room for one more. Here is where I tell you my faithful readers, do not listen to him. It seems that the Haunted Mansion is in very high demand among those recently deceased. Guests seem to bring their loved ones’ remains along and set them free among the other ghosts at the mansion: after all they feel that their loved one should be that one more. I’m sorry to say that Disney does catch these guests leaving their loved ones behind and it is taken care of immediately. The Mansion will close down while the 999 other happy haunts clean up the loved ones and phone a friend at hazmat. The ghost host is teasing you so please, put your loved ones remains elsewhere because they will not remain at the Haunted Mansion for very long.
Well I think that’s enough haunting at the parks for one day. Hopefully I’ve share some Halloween spirit with a little skin crawling details from our favorite place on earth. Happy Halloween!
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Jess was born and raised on Long Island, New York but once college began so did her adventures. She’s lived in Florida, Wisconsin, and now South Carolina. Her family is part of the Disney Vacation Club and has been visiting since she was a little girl, and continuously goes every year. Besides being a big Disney fan she has also been a Disney Cast Member working in Magic Kingdom, and she counts it as one of the most magical experiences. She worked with everyone’s favorite elephant Dumbo, Cinderella’s Carousel, and Mickey’s Philharmagic. Jess has also visited Disneyland, Disney’s Vero Beach Resort, and gone on two Disney Cruises. She has so many great memories from Disney besides running half marathons and 5ks, birthday parties, and family reunions. If asked where she would want to go it is almost always Disney, and when asked why, it is almost always because she can eat awesome gluten free food! And it doesn’t hurt that there is always faith, trust, and pixie dust with magic in the air!
