The Haunted Mansion is the second of two premiere attractions in Disneyland's New Orleans Square, with the first premiere attraction being Pirates of the Caribbean which predates the Mansion by about 3 years. Now there are Disneyland fans who will fight me out in the street that the Haunted Mansion is by far the better of the two quintessential Disneyland rides but I'll stick to my guns. Pirates is the best ride in the park with the Mansion a few notches down.
To further irk Haunted Mansion fans my opinion of the attraction goes something like this: Pirates is the better of the two because of the color of the scenes and the intimacy it draws you into the Pirate world. Haunted Mansion, by design, is rather colorless, dark, and dreary, (I can hear it now "it's suppose to be you idiot") and just has me moving along in a world that I just can't get very excited about. Sometimes the ride feels rather...well.... boring (which is never the case for Pirates). And to further travel down the path of sacrilege, I much prefer the Haunted Mansions holiday overlay which injections the place with... yes... much appreciated color.
Despite my prejudices, the Haunted Mansion is a great attraction, the last attraction Walt Disney personally had a hand in bringing to life (but opened several years after his death). The omnimover ride system sucks in people by the score which also leads to rather short wait times (usually) on a lavish and lengthy ride.
There are 999 ghosts in the Mansion as Disney tells it but about a thousand ghost stories and urban legends about the place, like the legend of the Hatbox Ghost. The video below tells the story of the Mystery of the Hatbox Ghost from the Disneyland History Institute
At least one visit to the Haunted Mansion is on the must do list for all of our trips to Disneyland no matter what time of year it is or if the holiday overlay is installed or not (typically the HM holiday overlay is place from mid-September until early January). Usually Mrs. DisneylandTraveler and I make to two or three visits to the Mansion on our journeys to Disneyland. Sometimes we get bored with the place, sometimes we don't, but we always make it a point to stop by.
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