Two of my roommates are going to be doing attractions in the park, so part of their training is to learn all of the stories behind the rides (Jealous? Yeah so am I...).
So last night while we were waiting for thunder mountain at 11:45pm Kelli told me the story of the bride of the Haunted Mansion and it was so good that we immediately had to run over at midnight to make the last ride and find all the hidden backstory clues.
Once upon a time...
A long time ago in New Orleans, there was a beautiful, young woman who was extremely greedy and snobby. Her name was Constance Hatchaway and her goal was to marry into wealthy families to make a name for herself... and eventually she did. Things turned terribly wrong however when she realized that her husband was not the wealthiest man she could have married...
Not wanting to break her vows, she decided to make "till death do us part" happen a little sooner than planned, and so she beheaded him and set off to marry her next husband.
This pattern continued for quite a long time, as you can see on the ride in the attic. If you look around there are frames of married couples scattered around the room. The woman is always the same woman, and the man's head slowly disappears as your doom buggy floats by.... at the end of the attic the ghost bride stands giggling to herself and reciting a twisted version of marriage vows. When she gets to "till death do us part" an axe materializes in her hands and she starts laughing hysterically to herself. (Remember her name is Hatchaway...Hatch-a-way).
Now about the time she was on her sixth or seventh husband, a pirate from the Caribbean was sailing on the Rivers of America when he decided to retire in New Orleans square. If you've ever been on the ride "Pirates of the Caribbean" you'll remember the creepy old man in tattered overalls sitting on his rocking chair playing a banjo right before you dip into the ride. This is that retired pirate (fun fact: the ride was originally built to be his memories from his days of pirating, pre Jack Sparrow installments).
Well (as we know from the Pirates ride) this retired Pirate had quite a bit of riches with him. While in town he met a woman who captured his heart, and so he bought her a huge, beautiful, southern mansion and married her. (Bad move pal.)
The woman had saved all of her old marriage photos (for some twisted reason) and stashed them all in the attic of the mansion. One day the retired Pirate went up into the attic and found all the photos and became extremely angry (or he caught her with a younger man in the town, either way he's angry). He then either killed his wife and hung himself after, or she hung him and then jumped off the roof of the mansion. The first part makes more sense to me though, she already killed so many husbands before him, why would she jump now? Anyways...
...as you may have guessed the retired pirate is the man hanging in the elevator when the "Ghost Host" says "there's always MY way out". Also, one of the stretching pictures shows a woman sitting on top of a grave of a man named George with his decapitated head sitting next to the head stone and a bloody axe laying next to him. We can assume George came before the pirate.
And that is the story linking the two rides! If you have good eye sight, or glasses, you can see that the wind vane on top of the mansion has a ship on it, adding to the pirate backstory. Little things like that are scattered around, try to find them next time you're here with us!
The ride will be closed soon to get it ready for the Holidays but will be reopened mid September decked out in "Nightmare Before Christmas" decor. I highly recommend seeing it, as does this couple....
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