Hotel Embrujado


Hotel Embrujado, also known as The Haunted Hotel, is a disorienting madhouse dark ride in Madrid, Spain. It is part of Parque Warner Madrid. The attraction is inspired by the Chateau Marmont and takes place at the fictional Hotel Embrujado in Hollywood, California. The attraction takes riders into a seemingly ordinary banquet hall, and presents the riders with a fictional backstory of a bride left at the altar many years before, who then went towards the supernatural.

Preshow

Guests enter the abandoned hotel ride building through the derelict lobby. The lobby is covered in dust and draped with cobwebs. Walking past old paintings and statues, guests are ushered into the library, which houses the hotel's collection of books, and antiques. When they arrive the lights dim and two busts on either side of a massive mirror, above a fire, come to life and start discussing the disappearance of Eduardo the groom who vanished on his wedding night from the hotel.
As the statues tell the story of Eduardo and his fiancé Isabel, the mirror begins to reflect the past and show the guests what happened. While Eduardo is going on about his reservations about marrying Isabel, guests see the fire from the mirror leap forwards and absorb Eduardo.
The guests are then led into the banquet hall where Eduardo and Isabel were meant to wed. Decaying food, and rats liter the table. At the end, the corpse of Isabel still sits in her wedding dress waiting for Eduardo.
The corpse of Isabel pulls herself off the table, and recounts her time waiting for Eduardo. While she does, the room starts spinning, guests are turned upside-down. In the end the ghost of Eduardo shows up, but quickly vanishes again. Angry Isabel curses everyone and banishes them from her wedding.

Technical details

The ride system for the Hotel Embrujado employs the haunter swing illusion, which uses optical and physical illusions to give riders a sense that they are repeatedly being turned upside down.

Incidents

On 13 August 2005, 23-year old Francisco Javier Infante, a Spanish man was hit in the head by a ride vehicle after allegedly forcing his way off the attraction. Park emergency personnel applied first aid procedures; the man was in critical condition. He was helicoptered to the hospital, where he later died due to his injuries. Infante's family went on to sue the park claiming they were negligent and that the lap bar was loose allowing him to slip out of the ride. When the case went to trial, to was ruled that the death was the park's fault, and charged the maintenance manager a fine of €12,000, along with the supervisor of the security cameras a fine of €3,600. When the case was attempted to be appealed, it was denied. For the sister of the deceased who was with him on the ride, "it has been a great satisfaction" for the family "because it has been proved that the park was responsible" and the accident was not the fault of his brother, "as they claimed."