Welcome, foolish mortals. Since our announcement about the Haunted Mansion grounds expansion, we know our fans have been waiting with ghoulish delight to learn more about what’s to come to this area of New Orleans Square in Disneyland park. Today, we are excited to unveil new details and first-look photos. Take a peek – if you dare!
Enhancements in New Orleans Square
The new Magnolia Park recently opened, situated in front of the train station between Tiana’s Palace restaurant and the Haunted Mansion. This beautiful, elegant park-like setting is shaded with some oak and Ficus trees and is a great spot for you to take a break with a Mickey-shaped beignet from Mint Julep Bar, or enjoy some live entertainment.
New, Expanded Grounds of Haunted Mansion
Just beyond the gates to the Haunted Mansion attraction are the new, cultivated grounds. This expanded area has an enchanting aura that calls you to explore further!
When entering this new part of the queue, before discovering the expanded grounds, you may notice a familiar Spanish fountain that once sat in the middle of Magnolia Park.
You’ll find that the new gardens are being closely guarded by a pair of stately ravens. Ravens often represent a connection between the world of the living and the spirit world.
You will also encounter the crouching figure of a cat. The statue sits tucked away among the wispy grasses, as he appears ready to pounce.
Around the bend, you’ll discover a personal garden retreat designed by one of the mansion’s inhabitants, Master Gracey. A fountain against the garden’s wall features the face of a sea maiden with unruly hair and startled eyes, as if she’s caught in a storm. Inside an old, wrought iron gazebo sits a bench, a well-read book, and astrological armillary sphere and a smoking pipe that has been left behind. It’s the perfect place for Gracey to rest and ponder his past.
Further along the path, you’ll find the eccentric garden of Madame Leota, the resident Seer. It seems as if the entire garden is dipped in a mystical energy; as if every plant, statue, and trinket is under Leota’s spell. There is a small statuary of oddities – frogs, lizards, rats and a cymbal-playing monkey – all frozen in time like they are under an incantation. The garden has a repeating motif of fortune-telling orbs. The large oak tree that graces the center of the courtyard has been decorated by Leota with colorful ornaments, chimes and bells that ring out in the breeze.
And in the rear of the garden, you’ll find the Mansion Greenhouse, belonging to all the mansion’s ghosts. An ornate structure of iron and glass, it gives residents with a “green thumb” a chance to cultivate the most unusual of plant species.
Haunted Mansion Operational Details
The beautifully expanded, stately grounds of the Haunted Mansion officially open today.
Guests using a mobility device are now able to use the main queue and entrance to the Haunted Mansion. After riding, they will leave the attraction using a new, accessible elevator exit that extends the story of the attraction with a gallery of original Imagineering artwork and more.
The virtual queue will no longer be utilized, and the attraction is once again available for guests on Lightning Lane Multi Pass, as well as on Lightning Lane Premier Pass.
The Haunted Mansion is currently decked out for the hallow-days in its Haunted Mansion Holiday overlay, running through the holiday season in early 2025.
New Shop – Madame Leota’s Somewhere Beyond – to Open This Winter
As previously announced, we will also be opening an all-new retail shop next to the Haunted Mansion, adjacent to the exit of the attraction. Madame Leota’s Somewhere Beyond is expected to open this winter.
Somewhere Beyond is a carriage house that used to store the same ornate carriage that now remains on the mansion’s front yard. It also contains a boudoir on the mezzanine level. At one point, it was home to the mansion’s head caretaker, but later Madame Leota took up residence. It is filled with her eclectic furniture including a crystal ball, feinting couch and the original parlor chandelier that Leota used in séances at the mansion.
When the first floor of the carriage house became a shop, Leota kindly lent her desks, cabinets and chests as antique artifacts to be showcased along with the merchandise. As a powerful medium moving between worlds, Madame Leota comes and goes a lot and is excited to welcome guests to her home, soon.
Here, you’ll be able to find gifts themed to Haunted Mansion and “Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas,” including apparel and accessories, collectibles, home decor and more. You’ll surely want to “hurry back” – eerie and ghostly treasures will materialize throughout the year.
We can’t wait for you to experience these new stately grounds for yourself!
