Welcome back, fellas. We've got a real interesting duo of attractions to view today.
12 - The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror
E-Ticket
Must be 40 in
Hold on tight in the elevator. You’re about to enter……….
the Twilight Zone!
BACKSTORY:
The Hollywood Tower Hotel was once an elegant gem of Los Angeles. Opened in 1917, the hotel served the biggest names during the Golden Age of Hollywood. Here, guests were treated like royalty with service beyond any other. However, all of that would change one dark and fateful night.
One stormy Halloween night in 1939, famed director and Grand Adventure Society leader Alfred Nobleman and his wife Maria were staying at the hotel. Also staying at the hotel was Sarah Morgan, a rising child star, and her nanny, Gertrude. All four of these people got into the main service elevator with a hotel bellhop named Timothy, and together, they went to the top floor. However, something strange happened on the way up. Lightning struck the building, causing the five of them to disappear from the elevator while vaporizing the main wing of the tower. The hotel was closed that night and remains so to this day.
With the creation of Adventure World, Jeff Cotton saw the state of disrepair and neglect that the hotel was in. He felt bad for it and sent a group to restore the hotel to its former glory (well, mostly). The hotel was reopened and accepted visitors. However, as visitors come to the hotel, they may discover that things are about to get pretty weird.
QUEUE:
Guests enter the hotel through the overgrown gardens. As they do, they pass several statues and signs that have fallen into disrepair. As they go around, 1930s jazz music plays. Up above is the tower, which takes the Spanish Mission Revival of the older towers while incorporating some new architectural elements, including a baroque approach and a dangling hotel sign.
Soon, guests will go into the lobby, a place seemingly frozen in time. The architecture and baggage are just like it was in the 1930s. Luggage remains unchecked, the service desk is being worked on by a bellhop, and the main service elevator has a sign over it, saying “out of order.” Also scattered around the lobby are several references to The Twilight Zone.
PRE-SHOW:
Guests then enter one of two areas. One area is a library while the other is a maintenance room. Both rooms have more references, an old television, and a window showing a storm outside. When the room is full, a bellhop will welcome them to the Hollywood Tower Hotel and then inform them that their rooms are not ready yet. They close the door and leave the guests alone.
Suddenly, the lights go out following a thunderclap and the televisions turn on. With it, an episode of The Twilight Zone plays, hosted by Rod Serling. The episode is done in the format of the fourth and fifth seasons of the show with objects floating through space. As Serling narrates the episode, he tells the backstory of the ride and then comes in, saying how the guests will be taking part in this episode as they board a service elevator and head into the Twilight Zone themselves.
Afterwards, a secret passage opens up. This takes the guests down into the basement of the hotel, where they enter into a rusty boiler room. From there, they board the service elevator and sit down, strap themselves in, and prepare for the terror awaiting them.
RIDE EXPERIENCE:
Even though the single-lift system used in Anaheim, Tokyo, and Paris is cheaper and takes up less space, the Orlando version has a superior system. This is a modified version of that, except it goes backwards instead of forwards and features three different shafts.
The ride starts with the elevator doors closing. Once they do, the elevators begin to ascend as Rod Serling’s voice comes from overhead:
Serling: “Here you are in a most uncommon elevator about to ascend into your own episode of The Twilight Zone. There is no turning back now.”
On the third floor, the doors open to reveal a dimly-lit corridor with an elevator in the back. Following a flash of lightning, the five ghostly inhabitants from 1939 appear, beckoning for the guests to join them. With another flash, the ghosts disappear and the hallway becomes a dark starfield. The elevator remains in view, but as it moves closer, it becomes the door from The Twilight Zone. It opens and the elevator goes inside, and then the elevator door closes and continues its ascent.
Serling: “You’re no longer in your world. You’ve crossed over into………
The Twilight Zone.”
The elevators then stop on the sixth floor, where the doors open to reveal a shorter hallway with a window at the end. Following a flash of lightning, however, the window becomes the window from the third season of The Twilight Zone and breaks. The elevators then start to move backwards, going past a starfield.
Serling: “You are going into a world of sound and matter, one where nothing is as it seems.”
At the end of the hall, the elevator goes up to the seventh floor. There, they see a mirror eerily floating in the stars. This shows the guests’ reflection, but after a flash of lightning, their reflections electrify and become ghostly, and eventually, they disappear as the elevator moves back into a second shaft, the drop tower.
Serling: “You are about to discover what lies in the darkest corner of your imagination.”
Suddenly, the elevator drops. With this, the elevator randomly rises and drops with supernatural noises and snapping cables heard from above. There is even a fake drop to startle the riders. Guests can get a view of most of Adventure World from up there, but they have to look quick. While behind the Hollywood Tower Hotel Sign, a photo is taken disguised as a flash of lightning.
After this sequence ends, the elevator drops and falls to the basement. There, it moves towards a lit door at the end of a hallway.
Serling: “It appears that you’ve made it back safely. Remember, if you ever check into an old hotel on the dark side of Hollywood, watch your step, or you might become a permanent resident of…….The Twilight Zone.”
Once it reaches the door, the guests get up and gather their belongings, and then they exit the ride.
POST-RIDE:
Guests walk through a hallway and to a lost and found, where their photos are displayed. They can then walk to the Tower Hotel Gifts, which is a repurposed luggage room turned gift shop. When guests leave the attraction, they go right in front of the building, making it add to the terror and look like nothing ever happened.
13 - MuppetVision 3-D: Muppets on Broadway
C-Ticket
Any Height
By popular demand, this attraction has been updated, now with a new storyline with more modern characters and humor, as well as enhanced 3-D effects.
QUEUE:
Guests walk into a 1970s-style theater with a water tower with Kermit the Frog on it. Once they go in, guests walk past a bunch of props and advertisements for fake Muppet movies, such as “Pigs in Space,” “Gonz with the Wind,” and a concert with “Fozzie Osbourne.” Guests also walk past actual props and set pieces from existing Muppet movies, starting with 1979’s The Muppet Movie and going on with other movies, including A Muppet Christmas Carol (1994), Muppet Treasure Island (1996), The Muppets (2011), and Muppets: Most Wanted (2014). As guests wait for the theater to let them in, they wait in a room full of televisions, which plays Muppet parodies of TV shows, including Muppet News, the Muppet Zone (The Twilight Zone), I Love Piggy (I Love Lucy), Bunsen the Science Guy (Bill Nye the Science Guy), The Great Swedish Bake-Off (The Great British Bake-Off), Animalf (ALF), and Muppet Family (Modern Family). Soon, these shows are interrupted by Scooter, who appears in a window above and mutes the televisions. He announces that the show is ready and leaves, rushing to finish preparations.
Guests then enter a big theater resembling the one from The Muppet Show. They sit down and put on their 3-D glasses, which were given to them in the queue. Then, they sit down and wait for the lights to dim.
SHOW EXPERIENCE:
Kermit announces that the show is about to begin, and on the balcony, Waldorf and Statler mutter about how this is going to be another disappointment, also referencing how poorly-attended the original attraction was and laughing about it. A penguin orchestra comes up and begins to make music. The stage then comes up and the MuppetVision logo is presented, as well as a 3-D sign that comes out. Kermit moves Walter away from it, and then introduces the show to the guests. Kermit then takes them around the Muppet Studios, interacting with Fozzie (who sprays the audience as a joke), the Swedish Chef (who is baking some questionable recipe) and Gonzo (who announces his plan to launch fireworks inside.) When talking to Miss Piggy, Kermit accidentally reveals their new project, where they will be recreating Broadway Musicals with a Muppet twist. Meanwhile, Beaker is overhearing this conversation and runs over to Honeydew’s lab, where they are keeping the CGI Muppet, Waldo C. Graphic, in a glass container, making sure he doesn’t cause any more trouble (like he did in the original MuppetVision 3-D attraction.) The two of them then hear banging in the closet and Pepe the King Prawn is revealed to be stuck in there, saying how he was put in there by someone. Honeydew suspects the old men, but they deny it. Waldo uses this as a chance to escape and breaks the jar open, running out into the studio.
The first broadway production is Newsies. Walter leads a bunch of Newsboys as they go on strike in Gilded Age America. However, Waldo comes in and messes things up, turning into a taxi and running over Walter. Waldo says to the audience how he’s not talking to all of them, but just the one who is watching, who he points at with his nose. Kermit comes in and asks what happened, just as Miss Piggy comes in for an opera solo. During her performance, she is backed by Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem, who play a rock version of the song. She gets annoyed by their loudness and tells them to keep it down, which they do. Then, she notes how it is too quiet and tells them to speak up. Waldo appears and turns into a loudspeaker, causing rock music to blast Miss Piggy off of the screen, but then she is thrust back into it and towards a wall. Following this disaster, Beaker and Honeydew arrive and inform the other Muppets of Waldo’s escape.
Before starting their next act, the Muppets look around the theater. Fozzie wrongly accuses a couple of audience members of being Waldo, which is shown by a screen on the screen and a spotlight shining on that audience member. Waldorf and Stalter heckle them, saying how their show was good and the best part was when they messed it up, but they ignore the old men and keep looking. Little do they know that Pepe is after Waldo with a butterfly net, looking for him. Pepe appears on the other balcony, looking for the CGI Muppet but failing as a production of The Lion King starts. This features a Circle of Life scene where Sweetums (who plays Rafiki) raises Rizzo (who plays Simba). Backstage, Honeydew and Beaker meet with Pepe, discussing their search for Waldo. Just then, Waldo turns into a ninja and ties the three of them up. Gonzo shows up and sees this, and goes after Waldo. Unfortunately, his fireworks go off and he goes into the production, crashing through Rizzo and the rats as they sing “I Just Can’t Wait to be King.”
A discouraged Kermit walks off the stage, but Honeydew and Beaker meet with him, discussing how they will find him. Seeing how unhappy the Muppets have become, Waldo feels bad for this and instead tries to help them. He apologizes to Kermit for his actions and decides to help them with the finale. During a production of Hamilton, he concludes the act with “The Battle of Yorktown,” making cannons boom and fires spread, as well as a surrender flag. Following the big finale, Kermit thanks the guests for coming as the penguins have turned to rock and roll instead of symphony music. After the film, the curtains close and he notes how the guests should applaud, but the old men heckle them. Waldo mimics them, which makes the old men fall backwards in their seats. Stalter says how this is impossible since they are nailed to their seats, but Waldo says that anything is possible before disappearing again.
After the show, guests walk out of the theater and back into the studio area. They drop off their 3-D glasses in the bin nearby.
We will finish up the attractions of California Coast tomorrow with a Studio Tour and a Rockin' Rollercoaster ride.