Disney's Catacombs

So a couple years back my buddies and I tried to stay in the park after closing time. Our plan was to just take pictures nothing sinister or anything like that we just wanted to be able to say we did it you know?

Basically we snuck from bathroom to bathroom corner to corner and managed to stay there until they closed the gates and the maintenance team got to work. We were really surprised we hadn't gotten caught; it was almost strange considering how much talking up Disney security gets.

Our hearts were beating like crazy and we sat there for a while hiding behind a tombstone by the haunted mansion. We noticed that it’s true, the Disney staff have signed their names on every single one.

So finally we got the courage to roam about, still being careful as to not be seen. It was really eerie. The occasional guard or maintenance worker would walk by we would just duck or hide behind a corner and this worked. For about a half hour...

Of course we couldn’t keep this up for long and yea they caught us. I mean give us props for even attempting and succeeding but that’s not where the story ends.

So the first thing we said when they caught us was "Are you going to take us down to the dungeon?" and we laughed. The security guard chuckled too so the mood wasn't too dreary.

He told us we weren't the first people to try to sneak in after hours but he wanted to know how we did it. So we explained the situation and he actually laughed and said that wasn't a bad plan.

He told us he had to take us to the Disney jail to be further interrogated, which, we thought was odd but figured from the beginning if we had gotten caught they’d take us down there. It might've been our plan all along, maybe we wanted to see the Disney "catacombs" more than we wanted to be in the park after hours.

So he called for more workers to come and help him escort us and we went on our way. Towards Toon Town. Then they took us down in this elevator thing. Right into hell...

The first thing we noticed was how expensive looking the elevator was, like, I don’t know if that makes sense but it’s hard to explain it was like a stainless steel interior with mirrors all around and the floor was this tack red carpeting. But it looked expensive. There were only two buttons in this elevator (not counting the emergency buttons) one said "up" the other said "down".

I had forgotten to mention they never handcuffed us or zip tied our hands they just kind of walked beside us expecting we'd follow. Not that we would have tried to make a run for it, I mean, these people seemed decent. Like how were we supposed to know what was going to happen?

The elevator stopped and we started walking down this perfectly shinning smelling of bleach corridor no doors on either side just a plain empty corridor. We walked for what seemed like an eternity and no one was talking any longer.

It was me my friends, the security guard and two other maintenance workers. Finally we reached a heavy metal door that had a security code and card reader.

One worker put his card in the either typed a code on the keypad. I watched the code he typed in. 121566 I only remember it because I found out later what its significance was and it made me laugh looking back. Strange, it’s strange that I could laugh looking back...

They led me and my friends into another corridor this one had doors down the hallway walls. Each door had a little Plexiglas square maybe 10x10 inch window and the top right corner of the door. Looked sort of like a psyche ward to be honest. Not so much like a jail.

He led us to room 1901 and inside was a single desk, with surprisingly three chairs for each of my friends and I and then they left us in there alone, closing the door on the way out. we sat in the chairs like obedient little children and waited for them to return but they never did. Two hours went by and no one came back for us. My buddy Tim went to the door and it was unlocked surprisingly he didn’t open it though was worried there'd be a guard on the outside and they’d think we were escaping and we weren’t looking for any more trouble.

So about 25 minutes went by when we got restless and decided to leave the room. The hallway was empty as before no signs of people nothing. It was creepy as tits. We started out by calling out.

"Hello?"

"Is anybody here?" No one answered our calls.

Surveillance cameras were placed above every door we noticed and we got to wondering if there was any living soul in this place at all... We should have left right then and there, but then again, whoever does the right thing in these kinds of situations?

Every door looked the same and each one had a specific number above it. They weren't in order like say rooms 1-10 they were scattered numbers for example our room had been 1901 but the door next to it was 1205. We got to thinking and finally assumed they were just randomly chosen. We walked up that hallway and had no idea where we were going, what we were hoping to find or even if it mattered.

My other buddy Guy decided we should just leave. He said that if they really wanted us here they'd have come back and maybe it was just a scare tactic, like maybe they just wanted to trick us into thinking we were being arrested and were waiting for us outside to laugh.

I felt weary of the whole situation and Tim was just quiet the whole time nodding his head here and there. He was more interested in looking into the doors little 10x10 inch windows. That wasn't a good idea I tried to tell him but of course no one listens to reason when their freaked out and we were definitely freaked the fuck out at this point.

The cameras above the doors were capable of motion detection and followed us as we wandered down the desolate corridor. A little red light at the bottom of the lens, blinking each second. No noise filled the air all we heard was each other breathing and then it happened. We had reached the end of the hallway unfortunately the door at the end had another pin code reader. I tried the pin from before I saw them type in but it was invalid. The lights at that moment in the hallway shut off and we heard the doors, god dammit i can still hear them to this day.

The Fucking doors opened, all lining up along the corridor, they made a subtle creak and then a boom as they hit the wall beside them with force...

As I said after I entered the invalid code into the keypad the lights shut off and the doors opened (Not the door with the key pad however) but we noticed as the doors opened each doorway had a little bit of light seeping from its open pathway. We stood there stunned for a good 5 minutes not knowing what to do. We figured we tripped some alarm and this was just a protocol.

A standard drill in case of an attempted escape (what were we supposed to think?) So we turned the other direction away from the locked door and just started running. A sense of panic hit all three of us for some reason and we got the urge to run neither one agreed to running it was like we all knew we had to at the same time. Some sort of instinct. Like a baby gazelle knowing to run from a lion. We were in a lion’s den alright.

It wasn’t till about the 10th door we passed we began to look into the doorways as we passed them. Standing at the door way were people in costume. We were running passed Donald’s and Mickeys and Goofy’s and Pluto’s and all different kinds of Disney characters.

It was insane and we screamed at the top of our lungs. I know they say never look behind you as you run but I did and they were following us out of their rooms, not running, just casually walking towards us. I think that is what made it that much more terrifying almost like they knew we had nowhere to go........

Now I don’t know if this is all in my head, just from shear panic and fear of the moment but I swear I could swear on my mother’s life I heard "It’s a Small World" playing over an intercom. I have a fear of dolls and the ride always gave me the creeps my whole life and now I could see them, the little robotic dolls standing in the door ways as we passed still following were the costumed characters.

The dolls weren’t chasing us, thank god. I would have died from a heart attack if I had seen the dolls following suit but they didn’t. It doesn’t make the situation all that better I mean how many times have you been followed by a group of costumed individuals seemingly out to fucking eat you alive (at least that’s what I told myself to keep myself moving, stopping meant being devoured by fucking Donald Duck. I don’t want to go out like that I don’t know about you).

Tim was crying Guy was sweating and breathing heavy and I just kept turning my head to see if we were being followed and of course we were. I’m not sure how many doors we had passed at this point or if there were really a different character at each door but I knew that this hallway had to end at some point and we were getting the fuck out of this place pronto.

Easier said than done...

I looked back after another min or two of running and noticed there was nothing behind us anymore that we could see. I heard footsteps but figured we had gotten so far ahead and they were just still walking casually like before. The hallway was still going on for what seemed like forever and Guy needed to stop or he was going to faint from exhaustion the door beside us was open, the light was on but nothing inside.

I decided we could hide in there till we caught our breath and could continue onward. As we closed the door behind us I noticed the room was 1966. Again, that meant nothing at the time.

Tim was pacing the room, Guy was laying on the floor still breathing pretty hard and I was at the window looking out, I saw nothing, no more music no nothing it was dark out and hard to tell for sure but I would’ve seen figures, shadows or something I figured but I kept watch.

15 minutes or so and Guy said he was good to go. Tim was the only one smart enough to pull out his phone (a brand new razor cell phone) no signal of course. He opened the door subtly, quietly and heard no footsteps nothing was following us anymore but we weren’t taking chances and we got back to running...

It only took us another 7 minutes to reach the door give or take. It had no key pad and it was open. We entered the corridor from before and thank god, no doors. We ran for the elevator and got in. Pushed the button up and stood there looking at each other dumbfounded as to what had just happened. Neither of us spoke. We just waited till the elevator opened, back into Toon Town and started making our way for the front gate.

We kept a low profile and again used the duck and hide technique that had gotten us this far from the get go. Maintenance workers and security guards were still about and we couldn’t take any more chances. Finally, Tim lost it and took off in a sprint couldn’t imagine what had set him off till I looked and everyone in the park all the workers just stood there staring at us with blank faces.

We heard a voice over the intercom explaining that 3 fugitives had escaped from captivity and needed to be escorted back into the jails below. We booked it catching up to Tim. Costumed characters appeared from the shadows workers and guards chasing after us everyone sprinting for us I couldn’t see well but I imagined drool dripping from their jowls. They wanted us back down there. We had escaped and they were pissed...

The gate was just up ahead...

The creepiest thing about it all was besides from that voice over the intercom the park was dead silent. No chat from the workers could be heard and even now as we were running for what we assumed was our lives. From the characters, the workers, the guards, no one bothered to shout after us, no one yelled, no one said "Stop" nothing just footsteps and the occasional cough from Guy.

As we made it past the parks front gate we didn’t stop until we got to the parking lot. Our car was gone and we were left scratching our heads.

We continued running down the road that went on for miles stopping occasionally for us to catch our breath. We made it to a little corner store where tim used his cell to call a taxi cab.

It came It picked us up we took the cab back to the hotel we were staying at. Paid the fare and went up to our rooms.

In the end, the next day we got a call from the hotel desk downstairs. We went down and there were officers waiting for us. Said our car had been impounded and we needed to pay the fine. They didn’t ask us any other questions and we didn’t bother telling the police anything that happened. I mean even now on this random board people who don’t have a reason to disbelieve me, don’t believe me, so how could an officer of the law be expected to? We didn’t bother. We simply paid the fine and drove home.

We didn’t talk about what happened, the whole drive back. It wasn't until a couple weeks later i got myself to search up the numbers for some reason out of curiosity i guess. as you all know Walt Disney was born December 5, 1901 the room we were in was 1901 and the door next to it was 1205. Also he died December 15, 1966 which was the key code the worker had put in to lead us into the main corridor.

What a strange coincidence I decided.

If any of that was real at all I couldn't tell you. Maybe our imaginations ran wild. We were tired. It was around 1 am when we made our escape. So its plausible that’s the answer I’ll never forget it though.

I haven’t been back since.