How Disney's Mystic Manor inspired Efteling's Symbolica

Inspiration is one of those magical words that makes everything sound like lightning in a bottle and yes, sometimes it does strike out of nowhere: a single image, a melody, a conversation… or that moment when you’re walking through a park at dusk, the lights flick on, and the world suddenly feels… possible.

But most of the time, inspiration is something else entirely.

It’s connecting dots.
It’s mixing experiences.
It’s minds collaborating building on each other’s thoughts until something new exists that couldn’t have existed before.

If there’s one industry that proves this again and again, it’s theme parks.

Theme Parks Don’t Exist in Isolation: They Inspire Each Other

Theme parks have always borrowed, learned, responded, and reinvented. Disney’s early thinking was shaped by European pleasure gardens, including Copenhagen’s Tivoli Gardens, often mentioned as a key spark for what Disneyland could become: clean, atmospheric, beautifully lit, and made for lingering, not just “riding.”

Then the ripple effect continued.

Europa-Park was born after the Mack family travelled to the USA for inspiration and over time, the influence between major parks became a two-way street. Ideas didn’t just travel… they evolved. They were adapted. Improved. Remixed.

And here in the Netherlands, Efteling is one of the most beautiful examples of inspiration turning into identity.

Efteling’s Roots Are Still Visible Today

Efteling didn’t just start with attractions. It started with art.

Anton Pieck created an entire visual language for the Fairytale Forest: warm, detailed, nostalgic, slightly crooked in the best possible way. And he didn’t just make a few drawings, he created a whole world through sketches, paintings, and designs that helped define what “Efteling” feels like.

That’s the thing about true inspiration: it doesn’t expire.

Even now, decades later, you still recognise Pieck’s fingerprints in the atmosphere, the materials, the shapes, the romance not as copying, but as a foundation.

But Efteling doesn’t only look back. They look outward too.

From Hong Kong to Kaatsheuvel: Mystic Manor and Symbolica

One of the most fascinating modern examples of theme park inspiration is Symbolica. On the surface, Symbolica is pure Efteling: a dreamy palace tour, full of elegance, humour, and wonder. But behind the scenes, the development team also looked closely at Mystic Manor in Hong Kong Disneyland a ride with a similar “magical tour through a stately building” setup, trackless vehicles, and room-to-room surprises.

According to Efteling, Mystic Manor was an important inspiration source for Symbolica. Not in story or theme, but in approach and execution. Efteling’s technical team even travelled to Hong Kong for several days to study Mystic Manor in detail, essentially “taking it apart” from a design and show-technology perspective to learn from Disney’s choices.

Then there’s the part we personally love most: how Symbolica uses that trackless freedom not just for effects, but for choice. Because trackless doesn’t only mean “no rails.” It means the ride can behave differently  and Efteling used that freedom to create multiple routes through the palace: different tours, different scenes, different surprises. That idea was inspired by real-life palaces and castle tours where visitors can choose different guided routes (and yes, sometimes even different ticket types.

In early concepts, the tours had different names, and in the final attraction you can still spot references to additional “fictional” tours like a Kitchen Tour or Flora/Fauna tours little details that make the palace feel like a living place with endless wings you haven’t seen yet.

Symbolica isn’t one designer’s signature. All designers worked together on this one, and not only the designers also engineers, show-tech, lighting, music, set-building all building on each other’s strengths until it becomes something bigger than any one person.

If you zoom out, it’s honestly hard not to feel a little spoiled right now. We’ve entered an a golden age of theme parks where the inspiration keeps moving forward. This is what makes us genuinely excited for the future:

The Imagineers, designers, engineers, writers, sculptors, composers, and builders of today are creating experiences that a generation ago would have sounded impossible and soon, their work will become someone else’s spark.

A kid walks through Symbolica and goes home wanting to draw palaces.
Someone rides Mystic Manor and dreams up a new kind of storytelling.
A new designer experiences Danse Macabre and thinks: Wait… what if we combine that with this?

And the cycle continues.

That’s how theme parks grow. We can’t wait to see what’s next… and how it will inspire a completely new generation of theme park lovers (and creators).