Welcome back, my friends!  Have the “hitchhiking ghosts” haunted you back to All in WDW for some post “game” analysis?

Oh, let’s face it.  They’re pretty harmless.  All 999 of them just want you to know how badly they trounced their competition!

Well, we just “awarded” those ghouls the lofty position of 2015 All in WDW Readers’ Favorite Disney’s Magic Kingdom Attraction.  What is the story behind the numbers?

As voted by you this past Friday, the FINAL Top 4 were:

1. Haunted Mansion (39 votes)
2. Splash Mountain (22)
3. Big Thunder Mountain Railroad (15)
4. Pirates of the Caribbean (14)

The votes tell the story.  It wasn’t even close.  In fact, it was over so soon that I started drafting yesterday’s victory post at lunch(!) on Friday!

Was it any closer if we look at the results by overall vote totals received for the entire competition?  Let’s see:

1. Haunted Mansion (216)
2. Pirates of the Caribbean (150)
3. Splash Mountain (142)
4. Big Thunder Mountain Railroad (136)

Not really.  Except that Jack Sparrow’s gang of rascals and scoundrels slip into 2nd, that is.  The ghosts still demolish the field.

Get this, though … if we stick with overall vote totals received for the entire competition – and ignore the Thursday semi-final cut-down round that determined our “Final Four” – here’s the finish:

1. Haunted Mansion
2. Pirates of the Caribbean
3. Splash Mountain
4. Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover

Huh?  What happened to Big Thunder?  The PeopleMover beats it 138 to 136, that’s what!

Anyone have a guess as to how many votes in total you cast during this week-long crusade?  Don’t peek to see the answer (at the bottom of this post) and guess …

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Whichever it was, it was phenomenal work, my friends!  Thank you for all your support!  Thank you!

Continuing on, I mentioned that Haunted Mansion’s 2015 victory was a “repeat”.  In addition, during the competition, I also referenced the battles that the ghouls waged in 2013 and 2014.

What did those years look like?  Here’s 2014 …

1. Haunted Mansion
2. Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
3. Wishes nighttime spectacular
4. Splash Mountain

Which leads me to, what I think is, one of the biggest surprises of the week.  What happened to Wishes in 2015?  Well, it fell far and finished in 7th!  Yikes!

Conversely, the Mansion’s “archrival” – Splash Mountain – bounced back a bit this year.  It rose from 4th to 2nd.  Do you remember 2013?

1. Splash Mountain
2. Haunted Mansion
3. Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
4. Pirates of the Caribbean

Same “Final Four” as this year.  Much different result!  At the time, it was a huge upset, in fact.

You see, Mansion entered that final day of voting with a commanding lead over Splash and had actually defeated Br’er Rabbit’s mountain in that week’s head-to-head semi-final match-up!

It didn’t matter.  Splash Mountain won the “title” by 10 votes!

Let me end with this … a lot of us (myself included) yearn for new and refurbished WDW attractions.  Yet, when it comes to Disney’s Magic Kingdom, our results over the last three years clearly show that the “old” classics keep rising to the top!

In fact, how did this park’s newest and shiniest rides fare this week?  Seven Dwarfs Mine Train finished in 8th.  Under the Sea ~ Journey of The Little Mermaid ended in 18th.  Wow.

Finally, here’s your 2015 All in WDW Readers’ Top 15 Favorite Disney’s Magic Kingdom Attractions!

1. Haunted Mansion
2. Splash Mountain
3. Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
4. Pirates of the Caribbean
5. Tomorrowland Transit Authority PeopleMover
6. Space Mountain
7. Wishes nighttime spectacular
8. Seven Dwarfs Mine Train
9. Peter Pan’s Flight
10. Mickey’s PhilharMagic
11. Jungle Cruise
12. Main Street Electrical Parade
13. Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin
14. Walt Disney’s Carousel of Progress
15. Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room

THANKS, one last time, for your support, my friends!  You rock!

Oh, did you guess as to how many votes in total you cast this week?  1,627!  Did I mention that “you rock”!