We're asking you to pick your favorite between the two versions. Consider whatever details you'd like - setting, decor, ride, narrative, or whatever petty individual bias you'd like to throw into the mix. We've tried to select match-ups where there are enough significant differences between the two versions that you can make something other than a purely random choice. Each vote will be open for 24 hours. If you feel strongly, campaign all you want. You know what to do.
First up is a match-up of classic attractions from Disneyland and Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom. It's Haunted Mansion versus Haunted Mansion.
Disneyland's Haunted Mansion: New Orleans Square
Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom Haunted Mansion: Liberty Square
The differences? Disneyland's Haunted Mansion opened in 1969 in the New Orleans Square section of the park, an antebellum mansion on the outside, with 999 happy haunts within. In order to transport guests from the entry foyer into the larger show building, which was located behind the Mansion and outside the park's berm, Disney built two "stretch" rooms - elevators in which guests would descend below the level of the train tracks behind the Mansion facade. Walt Disney World's Mansion opened with the park in 1971. Located in Liberty Square, the Magic Kingdom's Mansion is a Gothic Revival style. Guests enter not through the front door, but through a side entrance in the basement. That's because the stretch rooms at Disney World aren't elevators. The floor doesn't move - it's the ceiling that's stretching up above you. Disney World's larger show building also accommodates an additional library scene at the beginning of the ride.
Oh, and there's Haunted Mansion Holiday at Disneyland, too. But Disney World has the nifty new additions to the queue.
Feel free to further break down the match-up in the comments.
Other Showdown winners:
Disneyland's lead up from the stretch room to the loading platform add a lot of suspense to a rather tame ride. I have to give the nod to Disneyland's version.
(Although I go to Disneyland frequently, my one visit to the Magic Kingdom in 1997 was only a half-day, and we only had time to rush around the park and go on about five rides.)
WDW's version just comes off as a better paced, more thought out version.
The WDW version lost a few points this past year though. The new additions (the interactive queue and the CGI hitchhiking ghosts) SUCK, in my opinion. They're too kiddie-oriented and don't match the style of the rest of the attraction.
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