Out of the entire Haunted Mansion experience, the one thing my mom remembers most from her visit was the scene you described with the ghost sitting next to you in the cart.

Space Mountain sounds incredible! I’ve never really seen much footage from that particular ride. Thanks for the link. I’m definitely going to check out the entire Haunted Mansion experience, as well as the YT user’s other Disney ride experience vids.

I’m setting a goal for myself to absolutely visit before the Haunted Mansion turns 50!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7JX5_hmWq4

Space mountain was the same way. Given how you know how I am about anything Cosmos/Universe related, it should be of no surprise that I could have rode on that ride all day long. Moreover, it was from the smell of humidity from being under the ground, the darkness that surrounded me, the unique and unusual sounds that also lured me in. Then to have the pleasure of being in your cart on these tracks, quickly flying through this blackness, swooshing past the stars that you actually feel like you have left this life, left this level of dimension and got transformed into a totally new reality…..WoW!

Point being, lol, many of their rides create that effect though: “It’s a Small World” “Indiana Jones” ride and so forth. Disneyland has never failed in entertaining me the 3 times I’ve gone. I hope to, dear friend, that you have a change to sample it first hand yourself before they see the 50 year mark. I could see it happening

Oh man, I know I’d probably feel the same way about joining in when seeing the ghostly illusions. I love the whole Pepper’s Ghost effect! Though I’ve never been, I’d have to agree with you about it being a good thing Disney’s allowed the mansion to stay true to itself over the years.

Goldie,

The first room you mentioned, is that the one they call the “Stretching Room?” And, after exiting that, you are then led to the carts, right? Even though I’ve seen videos of most parts of the haunt, I’ve never actually seen a clear layout of the mansions design/course.

What I found really interesting about this vid was the fact the mansion was built initially as a walk-through. So, after later determining it would work better as a “ride,” they basically had to keep the original dimensions of the mansion, yet build the transports into the haunt. I bet that caused them to become creative in their means for working with the already existing structure, considering it was never designed to be a ride in the first place.

I’ll have to set a goal for getting to visit it before it reaches its 50th year!

The haunted mansion would throw you into the dark world rather soon upon coming through the doors. We are all huddled together as a group and the tour guide would begin to say a few things all the while the floor we stood on felt like it was dropping down into “hell.” Actually the floor never moved but the “wood” walls were moving either up or down giving the illusion that we were sinking. Another cool experience is when your cart turns toward a mirror so you can see yourself AND the ghost sitting right next to you in the cart. All I had to do, this was back in 1980, was keeping telling myself, “this is made for children, this is made for children” so nothing horrid was going to eat off my head and spit out my feet. 40 years…..my oh my, where did the time go by. I’m glad you found this and posted it John. I wish you could experience it first hand though.