Ghostly Manor

With its May 2025 opening, Ghostly Manor moved from promise to reality. Looopings reported that visitors to Paultons Park had been able to hunt ghosts in the crumbling manor since the previous weekend. The park invested £3.5 million, around €4.2 million, in a compact but ambitious conversion of an old 4D cinema.

The attraction uses Mack Rides’ gameplay theatre concept: rotating gondolas move past screens and physical sets. The story follows Benjamin Kinley, whose manor has been overrun by ghosts, and guests help him with the Phantom Phaser. Even before the ride begins, the outdoor queue sets the mood with moving portraits, a well, floating chairs and a swing that moves by itself. Inside, Kinley appears during a preshow to explain the mission.

For fans, the blend of techniques is the standout. Screens are combined with tangible sets, lighting effects, animatronics and other moving features. Leisure Expert Group and Lagotronics Projects handled the design and interactive elements, while Themics Philippines produced and installed the theming. Paultons Park gained a haunted dark ride that is modest in footprint but rich in detail.

In March 2025, Ghostly Manor drew attention even before opening because of one striking piece of scenery. Looopings noticed that the fountain at the entrance to the new attraction would feature gargoyles that Efteling fans might immediately recognise. The heads closely match an ornament found at the Sterrenplein in Kaatsheuvel, near the passage behind food location Kogeloog.

The interesting part was the nuance. The ornament was not designed by or for Efteling, but is available through wholesalers. That allowed the Paultons Park design team to use the same prop for Ghostly Manor. In England it will also have a practical function as a waterspout, while that role is not used at Efteling.

For visitors this is not a major technical reveal, but it is a neat example of how themed details can gain a second life in different parks. For fans, it makes the entrance to Ghostly Manor more memorable: the new dark ride is not deliberately referencing Efteling, yet it shares a visual connection with a well-known European fairytale park through a commercially available prop.

The first announcement for Ghostly Manor made clear that Paultons Park was not simply reopening an existing theatre. Looopings reported on 24 September 2024 that an old 4D cinema would be rebuilt into an interactive dark ride of the gameplay theatre type, presented at the time as a new concept for 2025.

The ride is built around a rotating theatre with spinning gondolas. Guests move through eight scenes and use the Phantom Phaser to shoot at physical scenery and projections in order to score points. Paultons brought together a notable international team: Leisure Expert Group from the Netherlands handled the design, Lagotronics Projects supplied the interactive systems, Mack Rides delivered the ride system and Themics produced the themed sets.

For fans, the announcement mattered because Ghostly Manor radically rethinks the compact 4D theatre format. Instead of passive viewing, Paultons chose a haunted-house story centred on Dr Kinley, a ghost hunter who sends visitors into the action. It set up a small-footprint dark ride where technology, scenery and game mechanics all had to work together.