Sometimes you’re in the parks so much that you look past the things that have been around awhile and forget how awesome they really are. That happened to me recently in Cars Land, which is currently decorated for the Halloween season.
The Disneyland Resort has been decorating Cars Land for the Halloween and Christmas holidays for years now, but sometimes you just need a reminder of how much fun Imagineering and the decorators have in this land. The resulting Haul-O-Ween look is uniquely Cars.
The pumpkins of Main Street, U.S.A. or the bats and purple bunting of Buena Vista Street would be out of place in Radiator Springs.
Instead the land is decorated with car grills, tires, mufflers, traffic cones, oil barrels, chains, gas cans, distributor caps, wrenches, and more. There is so much going on, you’ll never be able catch it all. The entire land (aside from Radiator Springs Racers) gets in on the fun.
Switching gears slightly (pun intended), one of my favorite details is that Ramone’s House of Body Art is appropriately decorated for Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) and inside the shop is a rather large memorial to Doc Hudson. The fact that they set aside prime retail space for this remembrance year after year is amazing.
Now, if that’s not enough, 2 out of the 3 attractions in Cars Land have joined in the spooky celebration, with Mater’s Junkyard Jamboree becoming Mater’s Graveyard JamBOOree and Luigi’s Rollickin’ Roadsters switching to Luigi’s Honkin’ Haul-O-Ween. The changes, however, extend beyond just signage and decor.
During normal operation, both of these attractions feature songs performed by their respective characters. During Halloween, Mater and Luigi sing tunes appropriate for the season. I even noticed that some of the announcements between rides are updated for Halloween. During an especially long delay in loading, I caught Mater telling (very bad) Halloween dad jokes.
“What did the ghost order at the Cozy Cone? An I scream cone!”
“What is a ghost’s favorite part of Radiator Springs? The dead end.”
Finally, it wouldn’t be Halloween at Disneyland without characters in costumes and the residents of Radiator Springs are no exception. Lightning McQueen is dressed as a superhero (of course), and Mater is a vampire (because…why not).
The immersive and completely on-point nature of Cars Land the rest of the year makes it a must-do, but when the residents of Radiator Springs decorate for Halloween, I can’t resist a visit.
Do you enjoy Cars Land when it’s decorated for a holiday or do you prefer it the rest of the year? Would you want to see Walt Disney World bring some of this decor to the upcoming Cars area at the Magic Kingdom? Let us know your thoughts.
Here’s one last detail that might be a little harder to find:
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