Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Back to the Basics...

Greetings Ghost Fans,

When the Disneyland Mansion was being finalized and they realized that the stretch rooms would be a nessecary part of the house, they installed a front door area into the foyer but it wasn't in the center of the house, but off to the side. This served two purposes: it allowed them not to have to use a small antechamber that ran along side of the stretch room from the center of the house, and it also allowed one front door to be placed in the center of the house for aestetic and design purposes. Instead, they installed the double doors which at one point would allow many more guests into the room in a shorter amount of time.

Over 20 years later at Phantom Manor, Imagineers went back to the original layout of the Disneyland Mansion and thought about why people couldn't enter the front door of the Mansion. Disneyland didn't exactly do it, Disney World and Tokyo Disney had you entering into a lower level side door, so what about Phantom Manor? Imagineers assumed what could be done about the antechamber and installed it anyway. And while the Manor show building matches up fairly close to Disneylands, the Facade layout is nearly identical in measurement and layout.

Below is a photoshopped layout of the blueprints of the Disneyland Facade and also Phantom Manor. Entrance doors, exit areas and even the Cast Member break areas are in the same locations. The Disneyland blueprint is outlined in red, Phantom Manor in black.