Walt Disney World‘s maintenance teams are continually making adjustments to rides to keep guests safe and to uphold Disney’s high standards of quality. For older attractions especially, Disney walks a fine line between keeping things looking fresh while retaining the spirit of the original design and what makes it a classic. Walt Disney Imagineers also recently shared with us how they decide when to reinvest in an old attraction vs. when to close it. Permanently closing the Haunted Mansion, one of Disney’s most revered attractions, would be out of the question, but Disney tends to update the ride from time to time, both at Disneyland in California and Magic Kingdom in Florida.
Haunted Mansion, a classic that’s been around since Magic Kingdom’s opening day in 1971, just changed for the better. We have before-and-after photos of what Disney updated, which it managed to do without ever closing the attraction to guests. Mickey Visit brings you the latest Disney news and planning resources, including Disney’s hospitality problem that needs solving and changes hitting Disney World.
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Haunted Mansion Changes at Magic Kingdom
Some Disney theme park rides are sacred, and the Haunted Mansion is one of them. Fans often cite it as their favorite attraction of all time. The slow-moving ride through a stately mansion overrun by Audio-Animatronics ghosts strikes just the right balance between spooky and silly that’s made it an enduring classic for over 50 years.
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It’s also one of the most frequently updated Disney rides, as Imagineers add new special effects that show off modern technology or simply spruce up the aging favorite. In recent years, Disney revived a vintage character, the Hatbox Ghost, who now appears in the attraction.
Disney World just updated the Haunted Mansion again, this time refurbishing what guests see before they ever set foot in the building. Maintenance teams refurbished the exterior of the Haunted Mansion at Magic Kingdom, repainting the entire façade.
Here’s what the Haunted Mansion looked like before it was repainted. This photo was captured in 2025:
Here’s what the Haunted Mansion looks like now, following its August 2026 repainting:
I captured the “before” photo from Tom Sawyer Island, which is now completely demolished as Disney builds Piston Peak National Park, a new area with two new rides themed to Pixar’s Cars. You can see a large wall erected as part of this construction in the foreground of the “after” photo above, which I captured from dry land at the intersection of Frontierland and Liberty Square.
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Here’s a different angle, looking at the Mansion straight-on from its queue entrance area. Many brown hues have been replaced with grays and blues.
The façade had been covered in scaffolding for a few weeks, blocking the view, but the ride remained open while maintenance teams applied the paint.
The day I visited was overcast, so in sunlight the building may look a bit warmer, but overall the new color palette definitely seems colder than the previous look, which fits the chilling aesthetic of the ride.
The new paint is actually a return to an older design. The paint job restores the original color scheme from when the ride opened in 1971.
I love all the close-up details that Imagineers put into architecture like this. With the Haunted Mansion positioned at a slight elevation, artists used forced perspective to build the front porch slightly smaller than full scale in an attempt to make it seem further away, and to make the Mansion overall seem larger than it is.
Work continues immediately beyond the Mansion’s grounds on what was formerly the Rivers of America and Tom Sawyer Island. It’s all mostly still dirt now, but in the coming years this area will transform into Piston Peak National Park and Villains Land.
We look forward to hearing news about both of these projects during D23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event on August 15, 2026.
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