Well, maybe "lives" is the wrong term, but it's apparently not as completely destroyed as I thought. Well, allegedly. Sadly this post involves a lot of "trust me, bro," but there was still enough information that I thought deserved to get a post here.
Over the past year on visits to Disneyland, I've had the luck to be able to talk to a few cast members about California Adventure's Tower of Terror, and it's yielded some surprising claims from them.
In September 2023, I talked to a cast member working at Monsters After Dark, who I noticed had a tattoo of California's HTH logo on his wrist. It turned out he had worked at DCA Tower, and stated that he was one of the few remaining ex-bellhops still working on Breakout/Monsters by that point. The combination of the re-theme and Covid-19 pandemic closure meant that most of the employees had moved on to other jobs. He was the one who confirmed to me that Monsters After Dark uses a modified version of DCA Tower's original drop profile, which is apparently shared with the "Born to be Wild" track on default Mission Breakout. (Side note: what a difference custom music makes! "Born to be Wild" seems to have one of the most ill fitting music/drop profile combinations, while Monsters has the custom music and drops work together to great effect)
He also made the interesting claim that at least one of the hallway scenes from Tower of Terror is still present in the ride, simply hidden behind the screen for GOTG: Mission Breakout. He said it was in poor condition, but that it was still there. I was surprised at this, since I figured that the projectors etc. needed for the Guardians re-theme would've taken up enough room to merit gutting the whole scene, but I guess it's nice to think at least part of my favorite ride still exists in the building. And that's not the only part--according to him, some of the cables hanging by the Yeti animatronic in the queue are actual elevator cables from the Tower era.
I thought that was the last I'd hear of DCA Tower's remnants, until August of this year. At the park entrance security screening, a security guard noticed my Twilight Zone tattoo and Hollywood Tower themed "Disneybound" outfit and went, "Hey, you know the sign's still here, right?"
"What?" I asked, confused.
"The big sign. 'Hollywood Tower.' Yeah it's still just sitting there in the back in a cast member area."
WHAT.
That was a shock! I'd thought that for SURE that sign was LONG gone, especially since that was the first thing removed after the Breakout conversion announcement. And even more so, since it could presumably have been sent to Paris as convenient spare parts for their sign (I don't think Orlando could use it, as their sign uses a different configuration).
Nope! Disney has been far lazier than I thought in actually scrapping Tower of Terror. It seems especially odd in space-strapped Anaheim; the Florida property has the space to just abandon whole attractions (Wonders of Life Pavilion) and even a whole water park (River Country), but you'd think Anaheim would hesitate to keep a GIANT sign around for a ride they don't plan to ever bring back.
Of course, it's entirely possible that the CMs are just spinning stories. I've seen no physical or photographic evidence of these claims, and doubt that I ever will unless someone definitely breaks some rules. Still, it's nice to imagine that maybe, just maybe, DCA Tower isn't completely dead after all.
