Day 1345: Memento Mori

In the Victorian Era, there was a phrase, "Memento Mori," which reminded people to "live life to the fullest, as everyone is mortal." 

Of course, it's also the name of a little shop just a stone's throw from The Haunted Mansion at Magic Kingdom, and little did I know that there's really more behind the name of this shop than we might initially realize. 

While sitting quietly in my fiction workshop course today (although, we're usually not quiet at all), I was more than a bit surprised when the term "Memento Mori" came up in discussion. The short story we'd been ready had a reference to the idea and the term, which, of course, led to further discussion, since a "Memento Mori" was also known as a photograph...of the dead. 

I won't share any specific pictures here, but if you want to check out some for yourself, you can do so HERE, and really I'm not sure you'll be able to fully grasp the concept until you check out at least a couple of the pictures. Either way, with the art of photography quickly growing, but still too expensive for most to afford, the picture of a deceased family member may be the only opportunity for them to preserve the memory. In the early days of this post-mortem photography, the deceased were often posed to look as though they were still alive, which, honestly, gives the whole idea a pretty creepy feel. 

As for the store at Magic Kingdom, you won't find any post-mortem pictures, but you can get your own photograph taken, which changes from your mortal state to the afterlife faster than you can say "Boo." The shop, according to The Disney Parks Blog, is also known as the former home of Madame Leota, who disappeared, although her belongings still reside in the shop along with a portrait of her...before death. Oh, and in case you were wondering, the shop's name was officially inspired by a gravestone found in the graveyard scene inside The Haunted Mansion...which was probably inspired by the portraits, or at least the saying, from the Victorian Era. 

So that's your weird fact for the day - that there's a shop (and a tombstone) at Magic Kingdom based off an old tradition to take pictures of people after they died. Do what you will with this information - share it with friends, dive deep into Victorian Era history, or, you know, take it to the grave. 

Have a magical day!

Day 1289: Sympathetic Vibrations

I think it's safe to say that with the number of times my family has been on The Haunted Mansion, we've collected quite the number of ghosts over the years. Of course, I'm referring to the line at the end of the attraction, when your ghost host relates the information that a "ghost will follow you home, hahahahahaha," but it turns out that The Haunted Mansion isn't the only "haunted" location I'd be visiting this year. 

Colorado seems to be a jackpot if you're looking for ghosts. It seemed like every town we stopped in, most of which were small and barely inhabited, was known nationally for the ghosts that call it home. One such town is the little community of Victor, Colorado, a still active gold mining town just outside Cripple Creek. Cripple Creek is known for its gambling, but Victor isn't know for much...aside from it's Nationally Registered Historic Hotel, the Victor Hotel. Creative name, right? 

The building, historically, has been everything from a hospital to a bank to storage for dead bodies, and aside from the elevator shaft in the middle of the building, it burned down entirely in a fire years ago. They rebuilt the hotel from there, and continued to use it for various purposes, until it officially became a haunted hotel. 

One of the most apparent and famous ghosts lives in the elevator: a man named Eddie. There's two versions of his story, but they both involve a fall down the elevator shaft from the third floor. In one story, it's said that he was waiting on the third floor for the bird cage elevator, but when the doors opened, the elevator wasn't there. This story seems fishy to me, simply because, well, wouldn't you notice if the elevator wasn't there? The other story seems much more believable, with Eddie being pushed into the elevator shaft. I don't know who pushed him, but either way, poor Eddie. 

Now, if you're like the rest of my family, you probably think this whole thing is ridiculous, but I do in fact believe in ghosts. Say what you will, but regardless of whether they actually exist or not, if I were a ghost, I'd want someone to believe in me too. Plus, this was on the wall by the elevator: 

Overall, the Victor Hotel was certainly the most interesting place we stayed on the trip. The fourth floor, where our room was, is also said to be haunted, as that's where they would store the dead bodies during the winter months when it was too cold to bury the bodies because the ground was frozen. I definitely didn't sleep well that night, and I swear I heard footsteps, but maybe that's just because I was giving sympathetic vibrations? 

Have a magical day! 

Day 1023: Bohemian Rhapsody

I happened to be searching YouTube yesterday looking for nothing in particular and then I came across a video I just had to share. I think it's safe to say that I love the Muppets, and this was just too good to pass up:

Alright, so maybe I love everything with Beaker in it, because I just love how he goes "memememe" all day long. And then there's Sam Eagle just muttering "No" over and over again. Best version of Bohemian Rhapsody ever? I think yes. And, just for your viewing pleasure, here's another Muppet video for you!

If that doesn't make your day a bit brighter (or spookier) then I don't know what will! 

Have a magical day! 

(Note: This blog post was written on December 31).

Day 999: Happy Haunts

What do you do when you get to day 999 of your blog about Disney? TALK ABOUT HAUNTED MANSION OF COURSE!

To be honest, it's after one in the morning when I'm writing this (although it won't be posted until later today), and I'm exhausted, so I have no idea where I'm going with this. I do, on the other hand, believe we need some background music...

I used to hate The Haunted Mansion as a kid. I wouldn't go anywhere near it, no matter how much my parents tried to convince me otherwise. And then I saw the movie, you know the one, with Eddie Murphy, and I finally managed to find the courage to go on it. Now The Haunted Mansion is my favorite attraction at Magic Kingdom, and I try to ride it as often as possible when I'm there. Actually, thinking back, I couldn't even listen to the song when I was younger (because of course it's on every Disney Parks CD ever). I was so terrified of it that I would listen to the song and think some ghost was going to come after me. Now, with the number of times I've been on it, I probably have 999 happy haunts floating around my house. We have one for sure. I named him Bojangles. 

Speaking of The Haunted Mansion, can we talk for a second about some of the amazing merchandise that's out there now? I finally settled on getting the bookends, but gosh do I ever want that teacup and that apron. I've also definitely been toying with the idea of getting a new phone case with the Haunted Mansion wallpaper on it...but I already have two phone cases for a phone I haven't even gotten yet, so maybe that one will go on the back burner for a while.

The Haunted Mansion is, I found out, pretty great, and I'm counting down the days until I can go pick up a few more hitchhiking ghosts. For now, I'll just be here, planning the day I'll become the 1000th...although something tells me 1000 isn't that far off...

Have a magical day!

Day 859: Hatbox Ghost! Hatbox Ghost!

Due to finals week and multiple other factors, this blog post is long overdue (both date wise and topic wise), meaning that I'm fairly certain I'm just about the last person to jump on the Hatbox Ghost train. However, that doesn't mean it's not worthy of a special place on Everday Disney.

If you're like my roommates and about 99% of the people I actually talk to on a daily basis, you've probably got no idea what I'm talking about when I mention the Hatbox Ghost, and to be completely honest, a few months ago I would have been right along with you. Once and a while you see one of those Disney Urban Legend videos claiming they have a ghost on record in a Disney park, and yeah, I've watched them too, but if there are two things in the Disney Parks that legitimately make me beleive in something like the residents of Haunted Mansion, it's the Hatbox Ghost and the story of George, the ghost that's said to reside in Pirates of the Caribbean at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom Park.

We'll start with George since he's the actual reason I sort of actually believe in ghosts. The legend tells of a welder named George, who allegidly died when Pirates of the Caribbean was initially under construction in the 1970s. The cause of his death is technically unknown, especially since there's no real record of anyone dying during the construction of the attraction, much less a man named George. Technically he too is an Urban Legend, but those of us who know the story are always sure to say a quick Good Morning or Night George, whether or not in fear of the chance of the attraction unexplainably breaking down at somepoint during the day. Better be safe than sorry, right? You can actually see it in my Disney vlogs, where we often film our Good Morning or Evening to the ghost, just to make it clear that we said it. What really makes me believe in George though? He has a door, situated behind the dog in the jail cell scene, and if it's open you'd better brace yourself. However, this one time we were on the attraction when we suddenly got stopped, us and about three other boats, in that scene, right by the door, despite the fact that there weren't any boats currently unloading just around the corner. We sat there for a minute or two before moving, but since that say, I've been sure to recognize the presense that is our friend George.

But the Hatbox Ghost is another story. It's obvious that I'm not a frequent visitor to Disneyland. In fact, I've only been there once, and while I'm thrilled to be going back this August, trips out to California are few and far between, which is probably why I didn't actually hear the entire legend of the Hatbox Ghost until recently.

Disney Parks Blog

As the tale goes, the Hatbox Ghost appeared originally in The Haunted Mansion at Disneyland but was removed soon after due to a failed effect, which was supposed to be the disappearance of the Ghost's head from his body and reapperance in the hatbox he carries. The strange part? The pieces and most of the concept art disappeared as well, just as the ghost did from the attraction. Now in reality he really was just taken out of the attraction due to the technically difficulties, but his disappearance has caused rumors for years, and he's become one of the Mansion's most famous Haunts, despite the lack of his presence on the attraction itself.

But now? Now the Hatbox Ghost has returned, and if you're really itching to see him, there's plenty of video evidence out there now that he does indeed reside in Disneyland's Haunted Mansion once again. As for me, I've seen the videos, and I'm thrilled that I'll get to see the Hatbox Ghost for myself when I head to Disneyland in August, and I do hope he moves to Walt Disney World soon as well!

Have a magical day!

(Note: This blog post was written on May 23 due to finals).

Day 821: No Fooling Here

It may be April 1, and yes, maybe I did decide a bit too late that I should have come up with a brilliant April Fools joke (which I'll now be saving for next year, thank you very much..because I did eventually come up with one), I've been a bit busy working on other things today...including currently watching Gone with the Wind, but that's a blog post for tomorrow.

Nope, today I decided that we're got to go back and review the second half of the month of the March Disneybound Challenge, which I did for the first time this year...at least in its entirety. After all, I do Disneybound weekly for sure for Once Upon A Time, although I realize that the longer I go on the more difficult it becomes. However, as far as this month long challenge went, things were much easier than I expected. I had no problems coming up with various outfits for each day, and I feel like it's a great accomplishment in my life to know that my closet, which used to be filled with lots of black and blue and brown, is so colorful that I can do any wide range of Disneybounds! So without further ado, here's the second half of the month!

I haven't included the OUAT Disneybounds, just as I did the last time, because those have a blog post of their own coming up at the end of the season. I've definitely had a few favorites in this second half of the month, including Iago, Max Goof, Russel, Han Solo, and The Haunted Mansion, plus the ever classic Mickey Mouse! And while I'm certainly glad to have the ability to wear whatever I want and not have to think too hard when putting together my outfits in the morning (I can wear simple T-Shirts again!), I'm also going to miss the challenge a bit. My roommates had a great time everyday guessing what character (or the occasional attraction!) I was, and my Instagram will be a bit more lonely without TWO daily pictures. Regardless, you can bet that I'll be back for the March Disneybound Challenge 2016, and I hope you'll all join in too! Until then, I've got Disneybounds to plan for two Disney trips and the rest of the season of OUAT, so I've got my hands full there! 

Have a magical day!

Day 610: The Viking Lady

It's not just Disney Deja Vu that brings complete Disney randomness to mind. As you already well know, often times little hints of Disney just sort of pop up in my classes here at SNC, and this semester seems to be no different. As a matter of fact, I believe I've thought of Disney in class more this semester than the previous two, although Fairy Tales definitely puts up a fight. However, that was more of Disney movie thinking process, and this is most certainly stuck in the parks.

In the matter of about one sentence, my music theory class connected Haunted Mansion, Vikings and a discussion we had had in my British Literature Course about Pirates, because yes, all these things are related. And as a bonus, Epcot. 

For starters: Music Theory. We have a history class once a week where we learn about the history of music and how it came from the simple chants of the earliest days to the music we hear today, whether that be Jazz, Orchestras or on the radio. Today we happened to be discussing Opera, and the age-old question, of course, came up: "What's up with the Viking Hats?"

As far as Opera itself goes, there's actually a very easy explanation for this. The Fat Lady with a Viking Hat is NOT what opera actually is, as it actually only has to do with one composer: Wagner. As far as the rest of the operas in the world go, the Viking Lady isn't exactly the most common character. 

But of course, my mind went on a bit of a run once the Opera singer idea came up, because as far as Disney is concerned, there IS a viking singer somewhere on property...multiple properties actually. Know where?

Here's a hint: 

Know it now? Of course the Haunted Mansion has an Opera singer, although her Viking Helmet seems to be a bit different from those we generally think of, no horns involved. But wait! There's a reason for this too, and for the answer to that we're going to have to take a detour to my English class.

My British Literature course features some of the oldest English Literature that has been found, and it's translated so that we can make some kind of sense of it. I honestly don't even remember how we got on the topic, but sometime last week we were discussing Vikings, and how for the most part, Vikings were basically Pirates, or at least were the equivalent to the groups we were talking about. 

And with all this talk about Vikings (and Pirates), I decided to do some research. 

Turns out, Vikings never actually had horns on their helmets. That's purely a misconception. So that Fat Viking Lady that sings Opera isn't even really a Viking Lady, hence the reason her helmet looks different in the Haunted Mansion (or maybe it's just because she's a ghost and the wings are a humorous addition). Either way, I read up on Vikings, not a lot, but enough to get a sense of what we were talking about and couldn't help but think of Norway and Malestrom. I'm one of those people that generally sits and watches the film unless it isn't running, and I'll be super sad to see the entire attraction go if Frozen does indeed take over (and now's when the next blog post will get really confusing because all I'll do is talk about how much I love Frozen). 

But either way, I guess you could say that within that one question about Viking Hats in Opera, I associated Music to the Haunted Mansion to Pirates to Malestrom to Frozen. Now that certainly doesn't happen every day. 

Have a magical day! 

Day 304: Happy Halloween!

Honestly, I've never really been a fan of Halloween. I'm more of a Christmas person, and I never saw the appeal is dressing up to go out and get a bunch of candy. I never ate the candy anyway, so what was the point, right? It just didn't make any sense to me. I mean, I generally had a costume (and I really love funny ones honestly, like one year I dressed up as a Christmas disaster. I have pictures somewhere), and I went trick or treating when I was a kid, but I generally didn't dress up for school or anything. It just wasn't my thing. In fact, for a long time I hated it. Yes, I hated Halloween.

But I guess getting older has mellowed me out a bit. I don't really hate Halloween anymore, and I generally do participate in festivities now, only I'm just not crazy about it like some people. I have very few decorations, but my house does look pretty awesome at Halloween. Of course, I did have to steal something to put in my dorm room for the holiday, and nothing says Halloween like my family's set of Hitchhiking Ghosts. Not that my family was very happy about that, but I think they fit in quite nicely here in my dorm room. =)

And of course I had to have a costume. Last year, as you saw in yesterday's post, I was Han Solo, and I worked pretty hard on that costume. I loved being Han Solo. But you can't be Han Solo forever, you just can't, as awesome as it is. So this year, of course, I went with Hook, because, well, I already had the entire thing done because of OUAT this last week, so it worked out great. No clue what I'll be next year but we'll cross that path when we come to it. 

Actually I was almost Indiana Jones, and a little bit of me is sad that I wasn't because I did Hook this week already and Indy would have been something different. That's ok though, I'll just have to do that some other time. I mean, I guess I technically can Disneybound as Indy whenever I want to. 

One of my favorite parts of the costumes on our floor in our dorm though was the fact that our RA Allyson was dressed as the Evil Queen. Worked perfect, so here's a picture of Hook & The Evil Queen, just because that's seriously awesome. I sent it to both Colin and Lana...no response as of yet. 

And then here's a picture of pretty much my entire floor dressed up. Just felt right to include. We took like 20 pictures because everyone wanted on their phone and honestly that just a long time to hold the eyebrow. 

So that was my Halloween. My best friend has a midterm tomorrow, so she didn't dress up at all, but we decided that if she had she should have been Charming because that would have just been hilarious. We would have been mates! 

Here's today's Disney History: 2005: Gary Estrada rides Walt Disney World's Haunted Mansion ride for the 999th time. He's the first person (to Disney's knowledge) to hit that goal in just 10 months. Estrada began his marathon riding in January. 

Have a magical day!

Day 292: Hallowishes

I'll be honest, I've never been a huge fan of Halloween. It just never settled right with me, but you'll get to hear ALL about that in a few days when it actually IS Halloween and I talk about it. For now though, there are a few things that, despite my previous distaste of the holiday, I feel I've been missing out on.

Disney World, and Disneyland, are great places. We all know that, obviously, or else I wouldn't be here, and you probably wouldn't be here reading this either. But you see, they get even more magical at certain times of the year...or in this case Spooky.

You see, I've been to Disney World numerous times during the Christmas Season, and just as you'll hear about Halloween in general, you'll hear in a couple of months about everything Christmas and Disney. But Disney gets dressed up for more than just the Holiday season. That's right, Disney also gets all dressed up for Halloween, and that's something that even I have never seen.

Now, I doubt that I'll actually get to see the Halloween stuff at Disney for many years, as I hope to work the Fall Semester of the College Program (And if I'm really lucky I'll get to spend a whole year there and I can experience everything, but that's beside the point), but that doesn't mean that I can't wish that I could see all the Halloween awesomeness.

As the title of today's blog post suggests, one of these pieces of Halloween awesomeness is Hallowishes, which is the Halloween edition of Wishes at the Magic Kingdom. From what I hear it's a spectacular show, and, really, truly I'd like to see it sometime (since I refuse to watch it online because I feel like that might spoil it. I did the same thing with World of Color...I didn't watch it until I was there in person, and that was SOOO worth it...haha, this coming from the person who gets almost daily Once Upon a Time spoilers).

And if we hop over to Disneyland, we have another Halloween and Christmas tradition that I'd love to see. Ok, actually I'd love to go to Disneyland for the holidays in general, since that too is something I have never done, but I've always known about one tradition there...The Haunted Mansion Holiday. Only it's not just the Haunted Mansion. No, it's actually the Haunted Mansion paired with one of my favorite Halloween Movies, The Nightmare Before Christmas.

When I was younger my dad and I would always turn on ParkHopper Radio in his office in the Family Business and I'd either help him with some of his work (I loved to count money as a kid), or I'd work on some sort of work that I had, and we'd just listen to the Disney Parks Audio. Aside from Illuminations and Spaceship Earth, I have to say that one of my favorites that I remember was the Haunted Mansion Holiday from Disneyland. It's always been one of those things that's been in like the back of my mind of "I want to do that! I want to see that someday!" although it seems like that probably won't be happening anytime soon. I can wish, right?

In general, I think Halloween at Disney would be a lot of fun...and you'd better believe that I'd have a great costume. I've seen some awesome ones though, and here are a few of my favorites:

That last one though...

Here's today's Disney History: 2011: Disney Theatrical Productions announces it has commissioned its first original Broadway show, a prequel to Peter Pan called Peter and the Starcatcher. Based on the Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson novel of the same name, it is expected to open in spring 2012 at a Broadway theater. 

Have a magical day!