Embrace Your Inner Took By Braving the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror

When I went to Florida recently with my aunt, uncle and cousin, one of the rides my aunt was most anxious to get me on was the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. We hit this park toward the end of our trip, and a couple of its big attractions were closed. As we entered the park, she expressed disappointment that it looked as though the Tower of Terror was one of the rides not in operation at that time. I confess I felt slightly relieved at the thought that I might not have to brave the Tower of Terror after all. I’ve been trying to embrace my inner Took lately, but the same old Baggins keeps bubbling up to the surface. In other words, I have a pretty wimpy disposition. I wasn’t sure if I could handle this infamous ride.

But it wasn’t closed after all, and since this is the most lauded ride in the park, I knew I had to give it a try. As we were getting in line, a woman came up to us and randomly handed us a trio of Fast Passes for the 200-foot-tall Tower of Terror, so we only spent about five or ten minutes in line, just enough time to catch a glimpse of some of the fancy props adorning the waiting area in this most unusual hotel. “It’s better that we don’t really have to wait,” Aunt Barb told me. “There’s less time to get nervous.”

She said that when she had ridden it before, the ride employees, all bedecked in snazzy bellhop uniforms, had gone out of their way to creep passengers out as much as possible beforehand. Our bellhops really didn’t have much to say, but Aunt Barb did a sufficient job of letting me know just how creepy the ride was. Plus there was the ever-present distant sound of screaming… Preceding the ride is a video in which Rod Serling introduces the curious circumstances of this hotel, which sets the stage well. As we approached the elevator where we would be getting our ominous tour of the hotel, we saw several families with young children. One parent exited the ride with her kids before getting on; another tried to convince them that it wouldn’t be so bad. It does strike me as a ride that’s best for older riders, though the personality of the child makes a difference.

The ride itself has a fairly small capacity, with several rows of seating and room for a few people on each bench. I sat between my aunt and cousin in the front row, and after buckling up and listening to a bit of ominous narration, my aunt and I clutched each other’s hands and held on for dear life. I can remember going to Cedar Point with my family and watching my dad and brother go on the drop tower ride at Cedar Point, which looked pretty terrifying to me. You can’t really see what’s going on inside of the Tower of Terror from the outside, so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. But with a name like Tower of Terror, I figured it had to be pretty scary.

The ride is very well done, definitely capturing the feel of a Twilight Zone episode as it slowly raises you and then drops you, giving you glimpses of the ghostly family said to be residing within the hotel before plunging you into darkness again. It’s quite disorienting, especially when you suddenly find yourself staring out at the park with bright sunshine streaming in after all the blackness of that elevator shaft and try to figure out how high up you are. There are several quick drops on the ride, and the first one startled me a fair bit, but by the time we got to the major one, I felt kind of used to it, and it barely freaked me out at all.

I’ve never really been on a ride like this one before, and my conclusion was that, for me at least, it sounded a lot scarier than it was. Not to say that it was disappointing; I was quite fine with not having a heart attack while I was on board. And when I’m nervous, I tend to be even more quiet than usual, which is something of a feat for me, but my aunt screamed enough for the both of us. We didn’t buy the photo they snapped of us on the way down, but it’s fun to sneak a peek at those on the way out. You see some pretty interesting expressions. The shop you enter after the ride ends also offers an array of other Tower of Terror souvenirs from t-shirts to pressed quarters, and the ride is clearly visible from several points in the park, so it’s easy to get a picture of it from a distance.

While I would never really call myself a thrill ride enthusiast, I seem to be finding that anxiety before the fact usually exceeds fear during the ride itself. Tower of Terror certainly delivers a thrill, but it’s not as chilling as I expected, and that’s okay by me. If I ever make it back, I’ll gladly ascend the elevator again.