Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Hong Kong Disneyland Main Street Haunted Hotel - Photos and Videos



I would like to take a minute or two - well, a whole post, actually! - to come back to one of the most interesting elements of Hong Kong Disneyland Halloween season last year. I did a long post about it last september with pictures and videos, but all the videos shown only the new - and great - Halloween parade.

The other new element for Hong Kong Disneyland Halloween was in fact totally unique to the park. I mean, it was something that had never been built before by WDI Imagineers in any Disney theme park: the Main Street Haunted Hotel. Although you can see on the publicity shot above Jack Skellington, no characters of Nightmare before Christmas were involved in the Haunted hotel.



The Main Street Haunted Hotel was the first ever walk-through haunted house in a Disney theme park. You probably know that the first concept of the Haunted mansion was supposed to be a walk-through. Finally, it ended to be the ride we know, but Hong Kong Disneyland guests could really walk-through in a Haunted house - probably because the Haunted mansion didn't exist yet in the park - it will in the future.

Also, and quite surprising for a Magic Kingdom attraction was the "macabre" theming of this Haunted Hotel - look at the pictures below to see what i mean!





The synopsis in the press release was pretty clear about the mood: "As the edgiest walk-through Haunted Hotel experience ever presented by a Disney theme park, living haunts and specters will appear around ever corner of this hotel. A Hollywood class production team created this thrilling attraction filled with eye-opening scene settings, audio and theatrical effects and spooky show direction. With multiple heart pounding scenarios, Guests will creep fearfully through this once graceful and elegant hotel that has not seen the light of day for a century!"

The park did two short promotional videos , here is the first one



And here is the other one, with no young actors and a different editing



But the one which is really interesting is this one below who goes from present to past, tell the "legend" behind this haunted hotel, and show what kind of dreadful events happened there a long time ago. It's exactly the kind of video that we've seen at the opening of the Tower of Terror different versions, but here, it is about the story "behind" the Hong Kong Disneyland Main Street Haunted Hotel. Have a look!



It will be interesting to see if in two months on the next HKD Halloween season, this Main Street Haunted Hotel will "re-open" again...I'll let you know!

Photos and videos: copyright Hong Kong Disneyland

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