Drop Your Expectations: A Review of Tokyo DisneySea’s Tower of Disappointment

The second I arrived at DisneySea, I went straight for the Tower of Terror.  Not only was it the only incarnation of my favorite ride that I hadn’t ridden yet, but it had quite the hype built up for it.  I’d heard endless praise for its original story and beautiful design, and even heard a few essays (both written and video-based) on how this was the “best Tower” and the shining example of the ride.

I knew not to go in expecting the “best ride ever” because, quite frankly, no attraction can ever live up to hype of that level.  I knew it used the same ride system as DCA and Paris so I went in expecting something of at least that level of fun.  As I explored the exterior and went through the queue and pre-show, everything seemed to be going according to expectation.  A dense story fans can really sink into?  Beautifully detailed sets?  Fun Easter eggs connecting to other properties?  All check!

But then I rode the ride.

And holy crap, was that a MASSIVE letdown.  And not in the way a drop tower is SUPPOSED to make you plummet.

There’s no gentle way to put this, but Tokyo’s drop set is EMBARASSINGLY tame.  I’ve had many regular rides on actual elevators that were more eventful.  The elevator at my hotel gave me just as much airtime.  It’s gentle enough to be a child’s ride.  All of that epic suspense and meaty story build up to a whole lot of NOTHING.  If the drops are supposed to represent Harrison Hightower’s punishment, I assume his punishment is being bored to death while being gently lifted and lowered in an elevator.

At first I wondered if the more restrictive restraints on Tokyo’s version dampened the experience, but I did a test that proved otherwise.  I wear a lanyard to the parks to keep my tickets and fastpasses handy, and I know that on any other Tower I have to remove the lanyard if I don’t want it flying up into my face during the ride.  On Tokyo’s, I left the lanyard on and not restricted by the seatbelt—and it barely lifted off my chest.  Tokyo’s is without a doubt a slower, gentler drop sequence.

Tokyo seems to forget the “thrill ride” half of a highly themed thrill ride experience.  The observable and experiential stories both build up and intertwine to promise an intense finale for guests, and it utterly fails to deliver.  I wrote down notes on my initial impression upon exiting the ride for the first time, and honestly, I felt almost pranked.  All this praise from the fan community, and all this intense story buildup in the attraction itself, for a ride that apparently forgets its ride portion.  Which is, you know, a rather important part of the equation.  Did some of those essayists even ride this?

I know an easy counterargument to this is “But Haunted Mansion provides chills and thrills while going at a walking pace!”  However, there are a few reasons Haunted Mansion doesn’t disappoint.  Mansion doesn’t advertise its ride system upon first look at the exterior.  Once we’re inside, we’re promised a haunted tour, and we get a haunted tour, in beautiful theatrical detail.  Tower, in all its versions, advertises its ride system right on its front; we see the drop shafts from the open doors.  This sets up certain expectations.  Upon entering the ride, we’re promised something of a tour through a haunted hotel, AND promised to re-live the terrifying elevator-dropping circumstances that led to the haunting.

Tokyo’s Tower of Terror only delivers on the “haunted hotel tour” portion of the expectations it sets, and it does that rather well.  Indeed, if the whole thing were set up as a Haunted Mansion or Mystic Manor type attraction, with focus on the show scene and story elements rather than trying to shoehorn in a thrill ride, I probably wouldn’t feel disappointed at all, and would be endlessly praising it instead.

I also should note that someone else in my party initially mistook the Hotel Hightower for being Harrison’s mansion rather than a hotel (…despite the obvious hotel elements… and the sign on the front of the building…), which I can’t help but feel underscores how the story might actually suit a Mansion type ride better.

I also initially wondered if maybe the ride was toned down because, obviously, Tokyo DisneySea was built for Japanese audiences, and maybe intense thrill rides aren’t so popular there.  But then I rode Journey to the Center of the Earth, Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull, and Thunder Dolphin (the coaster at the nearby Tokyo Dome City park), which were all every bit as intense (and popular) as anything else I’ve ever been on.  Clearly the Tokyo area has a healthy appreciation for thrill rides.

I realized that my disappointment felt awfully familiar.  It was entirely parallel, yet almost opposite, to my feelings towards Mission Breakout.  Mission Breakout has extremely intense and thrilling elevator motions, sometimes to the point of being nauseating, but utterly fails to deliver any kind of satisfying story or beautiful design.  The Hotel Hightower and the Collector’s Fortress are dark reflections of each other: the beautiful and the ugly, the well-written and the thrown-together, the too tame and the too intense.

Both are equally missing a vital part of what makes a highly themed thrill attraction feel complete: the thrill in Tokyo, and the theme in Breakout.

And, I can’t help but notice, but both of these Towers are generally credited to Joe Rhode.  Maybe the moral of the story is to just not let Joe Rhode design your Tower?

This also applies in-universe.

Now, to make it entirely clear, I don’t hate the DisneySea Tower.  It’s such a beautiful building, with such artistry put into the story, small details, and creating suspense, that I can’t help but like it.  It’s an art piece, every bit as much as Florida Tower, the Haunted Mansions, and the Indiana Jones rides are.  However, failing to provide an appropriate payoff for all that wonderful setup is an especially glaring weakness.  If it had a drop sequence at least equivalent to DCA, I’d probably rank it as my second favorite Tower after Florida, but, unfortunately, as it stands it’s easily the weakest version not named “Mission Breakout”.