ASIA'S FAVORITE RIDE: Twilight Zone Tower of Terror

I am a girl who longs for the polished glamour of Marilyn Monroe and Dorothy Dandridge. Who reads true crime novels. Who wears cherry red lipstick and evening gloves. Who hosts murder mystery parties. Who listens to Ella Fitzgerald while cooking. 

And I am a girl who, on a dark, stormy night alone in the house, curls up with a bowl of Top Ramen and a few of my favorite scary movies.

So for a girl like me, Disney has never done it better than with the glamorous mystery of the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror.

If you’ve been to Disney’s California Adventure and/or Disney’s Hollywood Studios in Orlando, you’ve seen the tall, gorgeous building looming in the distance, beckoning you to summon up the courage to step inside. This ride possesses a slightly different character than other Disney attractions, abandoning the bright, cheery whimsy of fantasy, and taking you to depths a bit darker.

You feel it the moment you step inside the Hollywood Tower Hotel – that unsettling feeling that something is very off. And it is. On every piece of furniture is the dusty abandonment of a far more glamorous time, and brushing by your ear is the soft, solemn whisper of one starry night cut short.

 



Your challenge is to take the pieces of the puzzle left scattered in those whispers and make it complete.

If you haven’t experienced this MUST-DO attraction, here’s a short summary (SPOILERS AHEAD):

The premise of the ride is that you are the guests in an old hotel that was abandoned after the mysterious disappearance of five members of Hollywood glitterati. The line queue weaves you through what was once the gorgeous lobby of the hotel for the who's who. And in the library, the one-and-only Rod Serling introduces you to the fateful night in 1939 when everything changed…

Shortly thereafter, you are led to the Boiler Room, where you board the hotel's maintenance elevator (the main one is still "out-of-order"), hang on tight, and hope for a better fate than that of those before you. ;-)

Needless to say, this ride is not for the faint of heart.  It’s got thrills, chills, and an end drop sequence that can bring out a high-pitched scream in the toughest of men. But there’s nothing like the rush you feel when you arrive back on the ground floor to that familiar four-note hook, and you inevitably smile and say, “I want to do it again!”

I rode Tower of Terror for the first time when I was fourteen, and my best friend and I repeated it twelve times in a row, in hopes of breaking a record FAR larger than we realized at the time. But hey, it was a valiant effort. ;-)

So for all the girls who ever watched Twilight Zone episodes on their daddy’s laps…

Or ever read more Agatha Christie books than they can count...



Or ever threw a 1920s speakeasy-style Murder Mystery Party for their birthday…

This one's for you. ;-)

-Asia

***If you too adore all things vintage and mystery, check out the horror anthology that I write for: The Palmer Hotel, with my very own mini-mystery in Room 1210***