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WALT DISNEY WORLD RESORT Florida
Disney-MGM Studios
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The
Twilight Zone Tower of Terror |
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Guests
had checked in, but they did not necessarily
check out from the derelict Hollywood
Tower Hotel looming ominously at the
end of Sunset Boulevard. For all anyone
knows, the rundown hotel is also known
as the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror.
Towering at 199 feet, the hotel hosts
the most thrilling, nerve-wracking freefall
yet in all the land. With credit to
new enhancements, the Tower of Terror
now sends guests plummeting not once,
but over and over. The ride debuted
in July 1994 with only one big drop.
Now the exhilarating ride lives up to
a harrowing namesake of a slogan: Fear
every drop!
The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror is
derived from one of the plots conceived
in the timelessly disturbing series
The Twilight Zone. Themed after the
fictional Hollywood Tower Hotel, the
premise of the storyline of the ride
is that the hotel, on October 31, 1939,
was struck by lightning. It was enough
to send a lift inside full of passengers
to the Twilight Zone.
The hotels faade is reminiscent of an
old hotel circa 1930s. Across the front
of the facade is a charred, blackened
mark supposedly where the lightning
destroyed part of the building.
So far it is the third tallest attraction
at Walt Disney World Resort. However,
the edifice is one foot short of 200
feet. It turned out that exceeding the
latter merits the affixation of a fixed
red light beacon on top of the building,
per FAA regulations. Disney Imagineers
shunned such idea, thinking the beacon
would spoil the hotel's 1939 fashion.
In any case, the items in the queue
and other areas of the attraction are
authentic. They were utilized in production
for the original television series.
Among others, they include the poster
for the Anthony Freemont Orchestra in
the queue, and the small metal robot
on a ledge in the library.
After a foreboding spiel from Zone host
Rod Serling, passengers are dared to
be seated onboard a rickety old freight
elevator In moments, the lift escalates,
through mysterious hotel levels and
specters of demised guests. Eventually
the lift enters a pitch-black shaft.
There the elevator jolts guests skyward
unexpectedly. Just as suddenly, the
cables are heard to give up. With barely
more warning, the vessel plummets 13
levels. The drop does not cease then
and there; it rises once more, and drops
in an unnerving series of repetitions.
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