The Tower of Terror in 2023...and 2024!

                 In 2023, I had the unexpected privilege of getting to visit Walt Disney World.  And, of course, I had to take the opportunity to ride my favorite ride of all time while I was there!  Having already thoroughly documented the Floridian version of the ride in 2017 “just in case” it ended up a victim of Marvel synergy like its Californian counterpart, I figured I could just enjoy the ride this time around.  After all, I hadn’t heard wind of any major changes happening, and Cosmic Rewind, in addition to being an awesome ride in its own right, lessened my worries over Mission Breakout taking over Florida Tower.  No need to document any major changes…right?

                Well, okay, to the average guest they might not be major changes.  But to someone who dedicated a whole blog to documenting every little detail of the ride…well, there’s quite a bit!

                And I was supposed to post this last year when I first got back from the trip.  I just realized I didn't.  Whoops.

                Anyways...

                To start off with, there’s the nighttime lighting package.  In 2017 when I last visited, the exterior nighttime lights were entirely blue—a point I even incorporated into my analysis of how color is used to signify the supernatural in the Tower of Terror.  Tower was the “Beacon of Magic” for Hollywood Studios for Walt Disney World’s 50^th Anniversary Celebration, and thus got a new projection-mapped nighttime look as seen in this photo by @because-i-love-chess on tumblr:

Early April 2023

                By the time I visited though, the 50^th Celebration had just officially ended, although many of the decorations and merchandise was still around, so I feel like I basically got to celebrate it anyways.  The Beacons of Magic shows, however, were immediately switched out for more “normal” nighttime lighting, including on Tower of Terror.  It was not the same uniform blue as before, however.  Tower’s nighttime lighting package was now a combination of blue, purple, and possibly pink lighting.  It’s unclear if the pink is part of the lighting, or just the actual pink paint color of the Tower itself showing through.  I remember DCA Tower once having lighting like this, so it was nice to see it again.

June 21, 2023

Another June 21, 2023 photo that shows more of the pink lighting.

Back view from the Fantasmic theater, June 20, 2023

                The sign also seemed to possibly be upgraded with brighter LEDs; at any rate, it was now SO much brighter than the rest of the Tower it made photography difficult, despite having a newer camera than my last visit.  Indeed, the color variations between the two front views above were the results of focusing the camera differently to try and accommodate the brightness variation from the sign.  In real life, it looked about in-between the two pictures, having a very distinct pink-purple-blue palette.  A friend of mine compared it to the bisexual pride flag.

2017 Tower looking EXTREMELY blue by comparison; and yes it did look like this IRL

                Heading into the Tower grounds, the “fog” misters in the garden were only working intermittently; they were only working consistently on the last day of my trip.

                 There was actual real damage on the outside of the Tower visible while walking toward the trellis/drained fountain area.  A piece of façade had fallen away to reveal the modern construction material underneath.  This was fully visible with no signs of work being done my entire trip, and in my opinion was pretty obviously “real” damage and not part of the “show damage” meant to make the place look like an abandoned haunted hotel.

Damage circled for your convenience

 2024 Update: The damage has been repaired, but strangely the entire column has been re-done with a black granite appearance

Photo from @chunkecheeks

                Now, moving into the lobby.

                Remember the Directory sign?  And how I said that I’d read that it used to have a hidden message in the fallen letters, but the message had disappeared long ago?

 

                IT’S BACK!

And it is NOT easy to get a photo of!

 

                Well, perhaps not the same message.  It now reads “take the stairs” instead of “evil tower ur doomed,” as it allegedly did before.  A bellhop, whose name unfortunately I did not catch, saw me lingering to look in the directory case.  When I flinched, thinking he was going to tell me off for not walking over to “fill in the space behind the yellow line” waiting for the library, instead waved me back over to the case and told me to look closer.  Indeed, deep in the bottom of the directory, to the point where you almost have to press your nose to the glass to see it, are letters reading “take the stairs.”

                Later in the trip, I was able to discuss hidden details again with a bellhop named Mike (who had awesome glasses: square on one side and round on the other, but that’s beside the point) who explained that the current (as of June 2023) team of bellhops are responsible for the “take the stairs” message.  Management, for unknown reasons, doesn’t want them putting a hidden message in the fallen directory letters, but the current team is “fighting” to keep it.  He didn’t have any idea of what the previous hidden message(s) in the directory might have said, just what the current one was and that management does not want it.

                Moving into the libraries…

                One thing that was present before, but I did not notice or mention, is that the dragon motif from Florida’s specific HTH logo continues onto the curtain pattern for the libraries.

 

See those three sets of dragons at the top?

                I was able to confirm the presence of the To Serve Man cookbook this time around:

 

                The trumpet is still there as well:

 

                The tiny spacemen from “The Invaders” and the Mystic seer were still on the top shelf, as always.

                There was also the prominently placed Ouija Board behind the trumpet, as well as a set of shoes… 

Sorry for the blurry picture

 ...but I cannot seem to find any specific Twilight Zone connection to either of them.  Although the Twilight Zone episode “Dead Man’s Shoes” prominently featured shoes, these do not appear to be the same type.  But why would you display shoes in a library?

                The broken glasses do NOT appear in the library, but instead were (as of 2023) in another place that’s going to get its own special post!  Likewise, there’s a special detail in the library carpet that will be mentioned there as well.

                Speaking of the carpet, it no longer rumbles with the lightning, which seemed much less intense than in 2017.  The lighting pattern of the lights remaining on during the pre-show remained, however.  I wonder if having the library go completely dark in the past ended up being some sort of safety issue.

                The right-side (“King’s”) library also had some specific Easter eggs on the desk.  One was a Mystic Seer fortune-telling card reading “It is quite possible.”  It is behind a card that appears to depict a classical statue.  Can anyone help me identify the statue in question?  At first I thought it looked like “Laocoon and his Sons”—depicting mythical figures being killed in agony for wrongdoing against the gods—but it’s definitely not that statue.

 

Mystic Seer card

                Elsewhere on the desk is this note on HTH stationery:

 

                I cannot figure out that first word due to the font, but the rest appears to read: “…of Europe, although susceptible to earthquake damage, are an important element in films and attractions of Hollywood.”

                It would be VERY helpful if anyone could figure out that first word, as there are other HTH stationery notes throughout the Tower that have very specific and rarely-reported Twilight Zone Easter Eggs on them, and I would like to confirm if this is one of them/link it to a specific episode. (Once again, more on these secret notes in another post I’m preparing)   

UPDATE: The first word is "Porcelains."  So it's "Porcelains of Europe, although susceptible to earthquake damage, are an important element in films and attractions of Hollywood."--deciphered by @chunkecheeks 

She also provided a clearer picture of the note

 There is also air mail on this desk and its equivalent in the left/Queen’s library, but as far as I can tell the addresses on the mail do not correspond to any Twilight Zone Easter Egg.

 

The mail

View of the desk

                This library also had the trumpet sheet music, but was missing its trumpet.

Sorry for the blurry photo again.  Trying to photograph things quickly in the dark is difficult!

                 One of the libraries—I cannot tell which one from the photo, but I think it was the right/King’s—also had one of the few clocks to NOT be stopped at 8:05 (the canonical time the lightning struck).  Instead, as you can see in this admittedly poor picture, it was stuck at 6:40.

 

                Oh, and before we leave the libraries, I thought I’d point out one last detail that somehow, I only JUST noticed.  The TV cabinets are different between the Florida and DCA/Paris libraries.  Florida has the dials and speaker on one side of it, while DCA/Paris have a wider cabinet with the speaker on one side and the dials on the other. 

Florida

 

DCA; Photo by Dusty Sage/Micechat

 Here's also some clear 2024 pictures of the Rod Serling and Victoria West letters from the libraries:

photo by @chunkecheeks

photo by @chunkecheeks

                In the boiler room, both the left and right paths had these radios prominently placed and lit up:

I'm pretty sure this is the right path one

 

And this is the left path one

                Neither radio appears in my 2017 pics, so they are a relatively new installation.  I did not hear any specific radio sounds such as DCA/Paris’ radio loop coming from them.

UPDATE: per @chunkecheeks, as of 2024 the left radio is indeed playing a static loop, which is probably the DCA/Paris loop.

                The ride experience seemed much the same as before, albeit a bit rougher than I recall.

                The 5^th dimension scenes both seemed to be performing decently well, although both eyeball effects were in B mode, showing a stock image rather than a photo of your elevator.  Furthermore, only the left boiler room path’s 5^th dimension had the shattering window as well as the eye; the right path’s shaft only had the eye.

                During the pullback to the unload, I noticed an Easter Egg I haven’t really seen mentioned.  In the right-path shaft’s unload area, there is the haunted slot machine—a detail many a Tower fan will point out.  However, up and to the left of the slot machine, hanging from the ceiling?  A flying saucer!

 

                Presumably, it is the one from “The Invaders,” given how those aliens are elsewhere in the Tower.

                This has me wondering what other Easter Eggs might be hidden in the “junk rooms” during the exit pullback.  Unfortunately, you don’t get much time to examine them in person, and it’s very difficult to take pictures of them.  I keep my phone/camera securely stowed throughout the ride itself (my very first ride on Tower in 2002 broke the unsecured family camera and I don’t want to repeat that!) and there’s not quite time to get it out and take good pictures while the elevator is pivoting around to unload.

Here's a decent pic I managed to get of the ventriloquist dummy, though

                 In the exit area, of course there is the “Little Girl Lost” chalk mark.  That’s not new, but I did learn some new things about it!  According to Bellhop Mike, when the Tower first opened, that was literally drawn on with chalk by the bellhops.  It kept getting taken down—I can’t recall if it was from maintenance wiping it off or from accidental wear from, for example, guests sitting in front of it/leaning against it.  I think he said maintenance, since he mentioned the employees having to tell the higher-ups that it was an intentional design element that should be left in place, eventually getting the “chalk marks” more durably painted on the actual wall.

 

                Mike also confirmed that their version of the chalk wall NEVER had any sort of sound effects or hidden speakers associated with it like DCA and Paris.  Apparently there is literally no room in that particular wall there to put any special effects in it.

                I was able to get a better look at the cork board and the “Picture if You Will…” photo viewing area.  There is a small, spooky Halloween cat decoration among the junk in the office room that appears to be new; it references that the fateful lightning strike happened on October 31^st, 1939.

Overall view

 

The central shelf with the Halloween Cat

View into the side office

Half of that front cork board

 

The other half

A telegram on one of the boards.  It's hard to read but seems to be about a deal with someone named Platt?

 

A handwritten posting on the board, advertising a Model T for sale

Another handwritten posting, advertising a used microscope

Posting advertising a chess table

                Other than that, though, this area is frustratingly apparently free of Twilight Zone references or other Easter eggs.  An area so visually dense seems like it’d be the perfect place to hide all sorts of things, but nope.  To this day, it still just seems to be a very realistically designed junk room/janitor’s office...

OR SO I THOUGHT.

In August 2024, as I was revising and updating this post, @chunkecheeks, the same Tumblr blogger who helped explain the drop profiles, told me that there is in fact one confirmed Easter Egg in the janitor's office.  And it may have been there for 30 years, unnoticed by almost everyone!

 The best photo of it I have is from my 2017 collection, where I accidentally captured it.  I circled it in the photo since it's so hard to notice.

 What?  That's just a broken lamp, right?  Nope, it's another UFO!

Here's some flash pictures sent by @chunkecheeks:

Hmm, could still be a lamp...

Nope, not a lamp!

This is also definitely the Invaders ship.  It's no wonder that this Easter Egg is rarely ever discussed; it's nigh impossible to see!  Compare this 2023 photo I took where its entire corner is completely dark.

What UFO?

There's no way I would've known this was there, unless I was looking for it.  It's pure luck that I managed to get that accidental photo of it in 2017.

                In this exit area, if you have a MagicBand+, it will display a special effect.  Many rides at WDW now have “goodbye waves” at the end of rides, where MagicBand+ will light up with special colors or sequences related to the ride’s theme.  For example, at the end of Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, the band will light up with the colors of the French flag, while at the load and unload of Florida’s Haunted Mansion, it pulses red with the heartbeat of the undead bride (Anaheim’s Mansion only has this at the unload).  Perhaps fittingly, given how much else the two rides share in common, Tower’s effect most resembles Mansion’s being a pulsing red pattern.  It’s not quite regular enough to be a heartbeat, so I’m not entirely sure what it represents, especially since it sticks to the red color rather than doing, say, red and gold to match Tower’s colors.

                 Now, on to some new details behind the Photopass desk!

                This shelf display is new; it is not in my 2017 photos.  Prominently featured in the center is a “guest book”.  On the lower left is a typewriter—perhaps the type to write “get out of here Finchley”?  To the right are a prominently displayed set of round glasses; however, they are NOT broken.  Thus, the typewriter and the glasses are in the “iffy” category regarding whether they’re official references or not.

 

2024 Update: The typewriter has had a "Get out of here Finchley" paper added, making it an official Twilight Zone reference!

photo by @chunkecheeks

                On the upper shelves, however, are some definite brand new Twilight Zone Easter Eggs!  On the left and right, are two stacks of displayed envelopes.  The writing on them is not entirely visible, however, it is clear from what can be seen that they are addressed to rooms at the Hollywood Tower Hotel, and bear the names of guests.

                 The left side gives the name “Templeton.”  This references S2E9 “The Trouble with Templeton,” where the main character is an aging actor named Booth Templeton.

 

                On the right side, the front envelope is addressed to Pamela Morris, main character of S5E23 “Queen of the Nile.”  In that episode, Pamela is revealed to be an immortal Cleopatra, who keeps reinventing herself—including a turn as a movie star—in order to keep her secret, draining the life from those unfortunate enough to figure it out.

                Behind Pamela’s envelope is one that’s much more difficult to see, but appears to be addressed to “Jerry Etherson.”  This was the main character of S3E33 “The Dummy.”  Etherson is a ventriloquist…perhaps it is fitting that his dummy (alongside the one from the OTHER ventriloquist themed Twilight Zone episode, “Caesar and Me”) is one of the prominent references in the “junk rooms” during the pullback to unload.

                Fittingly, all of the characters referenced are entertainers—the type of people you might expect to all be staying at a highly glamorous Hollywood hotel.

2024 Update: @chunkecheeks from Tumblr informed me that these envelopes had changed placement slightly on the shelves, with the addition of further Halloween decorations. The Templeton letter had been placed in such a way that she had to ask a cast member to see it, and there also appeared to be a second Pamela Morris letter behind some decorations.

photo by @chunkecheeks

 

photo by @chunkecheeks

photo by @chunkecheeks

                On the way to the exit, there was a Fuel Rod phone charger station, a name tag engraver, and a new set of designs for pressed pennies.

 

                Inside Tower Hotel Gifts, Talking Tina was above the cash register, just as she was in 2017.

                 However, some of the other upper displays had been refreshed.  I didn’t catch anything especially notable, though, despite one cast member advising me to “look up” to find some new details she’d added in the last set dressing.  I still can't tell if there's any specific new references or what she may have been referring to.

One of the upper displays

Another upper display

A third upper display

Looking down, though, there was new carpeting with the HTH logo near the exit doors.

 

                So that’s all I could find for now regarding basic updates and new Easter Eggs… however, that’s not all I have to say about Tower in 2023…

                Stay tuned for that VERY special post!