One of the best themed rides at Walt Disney World, The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror also happens to be one of the scariest.. This ride takes place in an old decrepit hotel called The Hollywood Tower Hotel where, as the story goes, on the stormy night of October 31, 1937, lightning struck the hotel causing a whole guest wing and an elevator full of people to dissapear; since then the hotel has been abandoned. Guests who are brave enough to get on the ride will walk through the old cobwebbed lobby, through a library (where they see on a TV, Rod Serling telling people that in this episode of the Twilight Zone the stars are you!), to an old boiler room where guests board an old service elevator. The elevator carries guests up several floors where the doors open and guests see some ghostly sights. After this paranormal encounter the doors close and you continue your ascent. Ounce you get to the 13th floor, the elevator car actually gets out of the elevator shaft and starts travelling along a track past many sights and sounds from the old Twilight Zone TV series. Large doors then open in front of you to reveal yet another elevator shaft where, unlucky for you, lightning does strike twice in the same place and the elevator falls a short distance, before quickly zooming back up to the top. The doors of the elevator then open for a few seconds so you can see how amazingly high you are, then the doors close and you plummet down, down, down to the first floor where the elevator whisks guests back up to the 13th floor for another faster than gravity fall to the 1st floor. The ride is even more unpredicatble than it used to be though, so the elevator drops you down at least a few more times before the elevator comes to a complete stop on the ground floor. Just remember, that next time you book into an old hotel be sure to take the stairs.
Interesting and little known facts
-the motors that run the elevator cars are three times as powerful as the ones used at the World Trade Center in New York City!
-the Hollywood Tower hotel is 199 feet tall, if it was a foot taller it would have needed an airplane warning light!
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