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Adventures in Family Travel

Phantom Manor at Disneyland Paris

Disney Travel, France / by / 16 Comments

Phantom Manor at Disneyland Paris is similar to Haunted Mansion at Disney World but there are enough differences to make an interesting contrast.


While visiting Paris for spring break we took the train to Disneyland and had a great day checking out the unique attractions and comparing the parks to Disney World in Florida and Disneyland in California. 

One of the attractions that Katie and I enjoyed the most was Phantom Manor. It’s similar to Haunted Mansion at Disney World but there are enough differences to make it interesting to contrast the two.

Read 10 Reasons to Visit Disneyland Paris on a Trip to Europe

One thing that I would say is that it may be just a bit spookier than the North American version.  European kids seem generally to be more used to dark stories given our previous experience visiting Junibacken (the Pippy Longstocking museum), in Stockholm where Emma was terrified by a train ride through some Astrid Lindgren stories that we weren’t familiar with.  Emma was also frightened by Haunted Mansion in Orlando and in Anaheim so I did not take her on this ride in Paris. 

Phantom Manor Story – Disneyland Paris

The back story for Phantom Manor involves a doomed bride and groom living in the fictional mining town of Thunder Mesa (where Thunder Mountain is located).  On their wedding day, the groom is lured to the attic by a phantom and hangs himself while his bride waits downstairs for the ceremony to begin.  The heartbroken bride refuses to give up hope that her lover will one day appear and remains in the manor even as it becomes haunted by phantoms.

It’s a story similar to the Phantom of the Opera but with a western theme tied to Thunder Mountain in Frontierland. The ride is longer (6 minutes for Phantom Manor as compared to 4:30 for Haunted Mansion) and there is definitely more time spent in the eerie cemetery.

There’s a great view of the gothic looking Phantom Manor walking toward the attraction from Frontierland.  Guests walk up a pathway toward the manor and form a queue along the porch prior to entering through the front door of the house.  Guests are then ushered into the Stretching Room before being escorted to the Doom Buggies for the ride through the manor.

Disneyland Paris-heading to Phantom Manor
Heading to Phantom Manor

Disneyland Paris-at Phantom Manor
Katie at Phantom Manor

Phantom Manor - Disneyland Paris
Phantom Manor

The graveyard outside Phantom Manor.

Disneyland Paris-Phantom Manor-graveyard
In the graveyard at Phantom Manor

Disneyland Paris-Phantom Manor - Graveyard
Phantom Manor graveyard

Disneyland Paris-Phantom Manor - Tombstone of Leadfoot Fred
Tombstone of Leadfoot Fred

Disneyland Paris-Phantom Manor - Tombstone
Jacques’ tombstone at Phantom Manor

Disneyland Paris-Phantom Manor - Tombstone
Tombstones

 

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Comments

  1. Mary {The World Is A Book}

    This is such a great and fitting post for Halloween. I love the Haunted Mansion ride but my kids got too freaked out the first and last time we took them on it. This manor looks more scary and reminds me a bit of the Munsters house. Those graveyard scenes look far more whimsical than scary. I guess they want you to smile before scaring you inside. I like the background story too.

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  2. Lisa Wood

    Gosh that looks so very spooky and yet sounds like a lot of fun! Not sure if I could spend so much time around graves (espeically if thery were truly haunted!) but love the idea of the story behind the scenes.

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  3. Amy

    Lisa, you brought up a good point. I’ve often wondered about kids from other countries and their nonchalance about really scary things. Every year during the Day of the Dead celebration in Mexico, I think about how kids seem so unfazed by it all. It very interesting.

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  4. Lisa Goodmurphy

    Emma was completely freaked out by the Haunted Mansion too – didn’t matter that I kept repeating “it’s fun scary” through the entire ride – she hated it! Fortunately Katie rode Phantom Manor first and was able to give me a heads up that it was too creepy for Emma. The graveyard scenes are post-ride and the headstones are definitely whimsical and fun to read.

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  6. Lisa Goodmurphy

    I do find it very interesting, Amy, – it has to be a cultural difference or I must have very sensitive kids.

    Emma was completely freaked out at the Junibacken Museum in Stockholm – it’s a tribute to Astrid Lindgren that wrote Pippy Longstocking. There’s a play area at the entrance to the museum and then visitors ride a story book train to get to Pippy’s house which is another play area. The train ride is narrated as it passes through scenes from other stories that the author wrote – many of which are quite dark. Emma was 6 at the time and there were lots of Swedish kids her age and younger who were familiar with the stories and not the least bit disturbed.

    It’s odd because I would say that North American kids are exposed to a fair bit of violence on television, video games, and in the media yet at the same time we seem to have sheltered them.

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  11. Debs at Focused on the Magic

    It does look a bit darker than the WDW version but a lot of fun. I would love to visit DLP one day and experience this first hand. Unfortunately our December trip is off, so it may be awhile. Thanks so much for sharing and for joining in on the DWW Blog Hop today.

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