999 Happy Haunts Ball

Many many months ago we bought tickets for the Magic Kingdom's "999 Happy Haunts Ball," a Haunted Mansion special event to take place on October 30th. After the painfully slow wait, the night finally arrived and it was everything we expected and more. The park was closed at 6pm and we, along with 997 other special guests were allowed to stay until midnight. Disney went all out and loaded Frontierland and Liberty Square with creepy light, fog machines, entertainment and characters. We enjoyed a buffet dinner (that was actually quite good), got lots of cool goodies and had a splendid time enjoying the park with almost no one else there. The highlight for us was an hour long talk by an Imagineer entitled "The Haunted Mansion: From Magic Kingdoms to the Movies" which was an incredibly detailed history of the Mansions in all the Disney parks. I knew a lot of the information, but there was plenty of inside dish I didn't know as well as the great pictures he shared with us. The presentation culminated with the first public showing of the Haunted Mansion teaser trailer, very cool stuff. The Mansion looked incredible all dressed in light and fog and they went all out refurbishing much of the interior. We got to walk right on as many times as we liked and it was very fun to have to place to ourselves. We also caught a great show that featured an amazing piano player named Jingles, a magician and the Cadaver Dans. We got some great souvenirs including an amazing miniature replica of the gate plaque that lights up, very cool stuff. All in all the night was a great success and was the perfect way to get in the mood for Halloween. If you like the Mansion, be sure to check out Doombuggies.com.

Aren't we cute? This was sorta strange, it was a complimentary photo but it wasn't really in front of anything special, just the Ticket and Transportation Center.
The castle looked great, it was all lit up creepy for Halloween and even had ghosts projected on it from time to time.
Here it is with another lighting scheme.
The Mansion looked more amazing than I have ever seen it. The lighting was incredible and the fog was super creepy hanging in the air. Check out how the atrium is glowing.
Isn't that beautiful?
There it is again, a little further back.
They recently added lights to the pet cemetery and it looked really neat bathed in light and fog.
Pretty creepy stuff.
Close-up of the dog.
These guys are the Cadaver Dan's, they are a very cool quartet that are normally known as the Dapper Dans.
Each of them had been killed in a different fashion. The first fellow had arrows in his back, the second was crushed by a horse, the third was a sheriff that had been shot and the last guy... um, I think he was hung.