Lights-on peek in the Haunted Mansion during evacuation

Most theme park guests are upset when a ride breaks down. They’re really upset when they have to walk off a ride and not get to finish it. But many hard-core theme park fans hope that will happen to them, just so they can see behind the scenes – especially on The Haunted Mansion. We were “lucky” enough to have this happen to us last night at the Magic Kingdom.

We were excited to see the new interactive hitchhiking ghosts we had reported on earlier this week. So we headed to the Magic Kingdom and headed straight to The Haunted Mansion.

Just as we were about to round the corner and the Ghost Host was about to tell us to “beware of hitchhiking ghosts”, the ride stopped. We waited there quite a while with the music and effects still going until the cast members must have realized the problem wasn’t something they could fix right away. So the lights came on.

After a short while, a cast member came by, unlocked our Doom Buggy and told us to head on through the ride on foot to the exit. Right near the unloading zone, we passed some maintenance workers trying to fix the ride. We noticed a piece of metal sticking up near the track. We’re not sure if the ride reopened last night, but it’s back running today.

So although we didn’t get to see the new hitchhiking ghosts in our Doom Buggy with us, we did get to see something unique. Here’s a video followed by photos.

Spoiler Alert: If you’re the type who thinks seeing behind the scenes will ruin the fun of the ride, go no further. But if you like to peek behind the magic, please proceed.