Having finished our tour of the exterior, let's enter the building!
Guests caught their first glimpse of the lobby through the gorgeous glass entry doors:
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| Photo c. November-December 2014 |
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| View from the inside looking out, courtesy Mrbellcaptain |
Inside was a detailed, spooky scene brimming with details. How much time one had to enjoy these details differed, however. Fastpass holders zipped straight through the right side of the lobby, while standby guests got to zig-zag through the center and see a bit more of the scene. Once again, a quick diagram might be helpful:
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| Keep in mind that this is very rough and out of scale. |
Guests found the eerie lobby just as it had been abandoned one fateful night in 1939. Cobwebs and thick dust covered everything, and newspapers and luggage were strewn about as if the hotel had been in service when the guests just mysteriously vanished. Cracks adorned the plaster on all the walls, with some walls having chunks missing to show the wood underneath.
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| Cracked plaster detail from somewhere in the lobby, taken December 2016 by Commander Corn of Micechat |
The tall ceiling was tiled with a geometric design crisscrossed with beams. Speakers for
background music were cleverly disguised among the tiles, but one could still spot them due to being darker than the actual tiles.
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| December 2016 photo of the ceiling by Mrbellcaptain. |
Here's a rather relaxing atmospheric video of the cobwebs swaying on the first chandelier after the entry doors:
And here's another atmospheric video of the lobby ceiling, taken 30 September 2016:
Both of those videos were kindly donated to this blog by a reader.
Although all of the
Twilight Zone Towers' lobbies looked similar, there were differences that allowed one to spot which Tower a particular photo depicted. One difference was the ceiling. California and Paris had the flat tiled ceiling pictured above, while Florida had this elaborate vaulted ceiling:
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| Photo courtesy the-magic-sets-us-all-aglow.tumblr.com |
The lobby area was roughly divided into thirds, divided by arches. The central area had the line zig-zags and the main part of the show scene with the sitting area and fireplace. The left side had the smaller show scenes of the card game and tables, and the right side had the "crashed" main elevators and the two waiting areas for the pre-show rooms.
I'll go clockwise around the room for organization's sake, starting with the card game scene.
Immediately to the left of the front door, in front of one of those real windows seen in the exterior queue, was a setup of an interrupted card game. The dusty table and chairs remained just as they were when the players vanished, even leaving behind their open champagne bottle and drinking glasses.
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| May 2016 |
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| The chandelier and ceiling above the card game, beyond the arch. December 2016 photo by Mrbellcaptain |
Apparently, in Florida this scene was a mahjong game rather than a card game.
Beyond the card game and in front of another window on that side of the room was a decorative table with a dragon statue and some lamps on it. This window was also visible from the exterior queue.
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| May 2016. Note that the lamp is genuinely burned out in this picture; other people's pictures I've seen show both lamps lit, so this wasn't intentionally done to make the place look more derelict. |
EDIT: As some fun additional trivia, apparently that dragon statue is quite valuable, being worth $20,000 according to Mrbellcaptain.
/EDIT
At the next window past the dragon statue was another table, this time set up with what appeared to be a tea set and a sweater draped over the back of a chair. A service tray was near the table, and according to the
Casi Smith video this table also had an unfinished postcard where the writer got zapped into another dimension mid-sentence. I'm not sure if this postcard actually existed in this scene, as its positioning would have made the average guest unable to view it.
EDIT: As it turns out, the postcard actually was there, stopped mid-sentence. This was confirmed by a former Tower employee.
/EDIT
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| May 2016 |
As you can see, my picture is rather blurry, but unfortunately this is the best I currently have. This scene seems to not have been photographed much, possibly because at this point the line turned right to go past the main sitting area scene. The emergency exit for the lobby was, as you can see in the photo, located past this table in the rear corner of the room. If the postcard Easter egg existed in the actual version of this scene, it would only have been visible to people using that emergency exit. The only other decent pictures I have of this small table scene are these:
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| 2016 photo of dragon statue and tea table scenes by knocturnalliewitchstew of Tumblr |
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| December 2016 photo by Mrbellcaptain. The "Silver Lake Sisters" sign is blocking the serving tray, but this gives a clear view of the table itself. Zooming in on the table, I can barely see the postcard in front of the chair with the jacket. |
Moving onward, we come to the main focus of the lobby scene: the main sitting area and the grand fireplace! At the back was the fireplace with its fancy art-deco grille, with a collection of fancy couches in the center and a carved owl statue covered in dead plants and spider webs in the front. The fireplace also had a banner with the HTH logo.
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| May 2016. It's a bit dark because this is a nighttime photo, and the windows in the lobby actually let a lot of natural light in during the day. |
Despite being one of the more recognizable features of the hotel lobby, that owl statue wasn't there for the Tower's final months. It was moved to the side to make room for a stage for the Silver Lake Sisters, who entertained guests in the lobby at the end of 2016.
As for that sitting area, it had some interesting Easter eggs. Here's a detail photo of the left-hand couch:
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| May 2016 |
As you can see, the left side couch had abandoned books, a lost coat... and one very creepy doll. This doll might be a reference to "Talky Tina" from the
Twilight Zone episode "Living Doll." However, the doll's design here was different from the doll in the episode, so this might just be the standard "creepy doll" trope in action without any specific reference attached.
Unfortunately, I don't currently have a detail photo of the right side of the sitting area that I have clear permission to use here. However, I'll do my best to describe it.
The right side had two soft sitting chairs that matched the design of the left side's sofa. The chair farther from the audience (closer to the fireplace) had a coat draped over it. The table in between the two chairs had a lamp and some dusty, abandoned books. The chair closer to the audience had a dusty brown suitcase next to it, and had a newspaper draped over the armrest. Although the newspaper had some headlines that were readable to guests standing in line, as far as I have researched, none of them were plot-relevant or contained any
Twilight Zone Easter eggs.
EDIT: However, it is notable that the paper was the Tuesday October 31, 1939 edition of the
Los Angeles Examiner, as this gives a specific date for the ride's story.
/EDIT
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| The closest I have to a detail picture of the right side chairs. October 2016 photo by knocturnalliewitchstew |
EDIT: Here is a lovely detail of the right side chairs by Dusty Sage of Micechat:
/EDIT
For those curious, here is a picture of the Paris version of the sitting area scene, taken from
inside the scene:
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| Note how the patterns on the couch/chairs and on the area rug differ from the California version. Photo courtesy Mrbellcaptain |
EDIT: Supposedly, one of the books in the sitting area was a first-edition copy of
The Wizard of Oz. Sadly I don't currently have a photo of this.
/EDIT
Past the sitting area was the check-in desk.
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| May 2016 |
The carved wooden desk was set in one of the "arches". It featured a coat, hat, and umbrella in addition to a hefty layer of dust. It also had two suitcases in front. Presumably, these suitcases and the other items belonged to the unfortunate person checking in when the Twilight Zone disaster happened. The clock behind the desk gave the exact time that the lightning bolts hit: 8:05pm. All clocks visible to guests in this attraction were set to 8:05. The diamond plaque on the wall also gave the Hollywood Tower Hotel a 13-diamond rating, despite real AAA hotel ratings being on a scale of 1-5 diamonds. The number 13 was a recurring feature in the Tower of Terror, presumably because of the whole "13 is unlucky" trope. Many of the hotel room keys seen in that case behind the desk had the number 13 in them, i.e. keys for "813", "1213", "1313", etc.
Although it's not very clear because of the lighting (and resulting blurriness) in my photo, those lamps on the check-in desk had the HTH logo printed on their lampshades. The little sign on the desk was set in Banhof Regular font, and read:
Guest Registration
Cashier
Information
EDIT: Here's a better detail photo of one of the lamps on the check-in desk:
And here's a nice detail picture of the sign and assorted props on the desk:
/EDIT
The check-in desk also had an open guest book (that was not readable from a guest's view) and a bell.
In the middle of the arch to the right of the check-in desk was the cast member (CM) podium. This podium was carved wood that matched the check-in desk. On the top of the podium was a glass lamp with an Egyptian scene on it, as well as phones and other devices necessary for the CM to help run the attraction. The bellhop here would send guests to either the King's or Queen's pre-show waiting areas.
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| Carving on CM podium, Mrbellcaptain |
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| Egyptian lamp and phone on top of CM podium, Mrbellcaptain |
Beyond the CM podium and between the two waiting areas were the Hollywood Tower Hotel's crashed main elevators.
Due to the space involved, it wasn't really possible to get a straight-on photo of the whole scene. To do that, one would have to stand in the place of the CM podium, which wasn't exactly a practical possibility. Here's a slight side view, as I was going into the King's waiting area.
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| May 2016. Note that the lights in the "directory" sign were out when I took this photo. |
There were two elevators with iron grating on the doors and the arch above. In front of them was an "out of order" sign, and between them between them was a "directory" sign, with the place name letters askew.
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| "Out of Order" sign. Photo by Dusty Sage of Micechat, from this article. |
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| "Directory" with lights on. Photo by Mrbellcaptain. |
If the font used for "directory" looks familiar, it might be because you've seen it before at the Disneyland Resort. The "directory" font was Rubens. The Haunted Mansion logo font is Ravenscroft, which is an elongated version of Rubens. Rubens font was also used in some other signage in the exit hallways of the Tower, which I'll point out later in the walkthrough.
EDIT: It turns out that this font is in fact NOT Rubens, but a very, very similar font called Farquharson. It is incredibly easy to mistake the two for each other. /EDIT
Upon looking at the elevators, that "out of order" sign seemed almost redundant. It was quite clear that those elevators weren't working anytime soon. Their metal doors were severely bent and even slightly askew, the indicator dials above the doors read below "basement", and the walls and floor around them were significantly cracked.
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| Cracked floor tile in front of the elevator, May 2016 |
What exactly happened here was explained in the upcoming video pre-show, but for now first-time guests were left to ponder how this scene came to be.
From here, guests would proceed to either the King's or Queen's waiting areas to wait for entrance into the pre-show. I refer to these areas by these names due to the large portraits hanging above the respective sections.
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| May 2016 |
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| May 2016 |
Getting good photos of those portraits was surprisingly difficult, given glare from the lighting and also the limitations of taking photos while in a crowd waiting for the pre-show. At least those pictures also give a view of the upper walls and ceilings in the waiting areas.
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| Here's a better picture of the Queen's portrait, October 2016. By knockturnalliewitchstew |
Also note that the excessive webbing hanging over the portraits and around the lobby wasn't always there. Though the lobby always had some webs, the extreme ones that obscured the paintings don't seem to have appeared until around the time of World of Color's premiere.
Now, readers might be wondering: Who were these people, and what did a king and queen have to do with an old Hollywood hotel?
I have been able to identify which royals were depicted in these paintings. They are Napoleon III of France and his wife Eugenie. These particular paintings are cropped versions of the original portraits. The originals are in the Louvre in Paris, and they look like this:
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| It's too bad I don't have any photos from a wider angle that shows the wallpaper on which these portraits are displayed. It's a damask pattern that I'm sure Haunted Mansion fans would love. |
For anyone interested in seeing the originals in person, they're in the Napoleon III Apartments in the Louvre. That's how I found out who the paintings depicted. When I was lucky enough to visit, I was just enjoying the museum when I stumbled upon these and went, "Hey, wait, I've seen those portraits before!" It actually felt a bit surreal to see them there, when I was so used to seeing them in the Tower of Terror.
As for why Napoeon III and Eugenie have their portraits in this particular Disney ride... I have no idea. The only possible clue comes from
this blog post by disneylandguru, which states that the Tower paintings were "produced by a court painter for Queen Victoria" and that the Imagineers found someone selling them for way less than they were actually worth (being vintage copies would make them valuable, despite being copies). The paintings then just ended up in the Tower of Terror. However, that post notably doesn't cite any sources, so I'd take the information with a grain of salt.
The presence of these portraits is another way to differentiate DCA from Paris or Florida. Florida has its pre-show waiting area decorated completely differently. Paris has a big emergency exit door in place of the King's portrait and display case, and a portrait of a different female royal above the display case in the other waiting area. I don't currently have a photo of the Paris painting, but it was of a different woman with dark hair and an elaborate blue dress.
Since the King's waiting area had less detail going on, I'll describe it first.
The back of the waiting area butted up against the incoming fastpass line. Some railings in between the archways kept the sections separate. A gate in the railing served as a potential emergency exit.
Near the back of the area, there was a little window looking out the front of the hotel.
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| Photo by Mrbellcaptain |
Next to the window was the room capacity sign, which wouldn't be of note if it hadn't been cleverly put on a bronze plaque with Banhof Regular font to blend in with the theme!
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| Photo by Mrbellcaptain |
If one faced the doors to the pre-show library, Napoleon III's portrait hung on the right wall. Underneath the painting was a dresser-like cabinet. It was dark wood with a green stone (or faux-stone) top, a short mirror along the back, and two glass display cases. In the center between the two display cases was a brass candle holder. Each display case contained a weird curio: a strange blue thing that looked like a combination between a rooster, a wagon, and a vase.
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| The right-side display case in the King's waiting area. Note the weird rooster thing, and the brass candle holder to the left. Photo by Mrbellcaptain |
The display cases also had
Twilight Zone Easter eggs. The right case, pictured above, had a dented thymbal with a card that (in Banhof Regular font) stated, "Looking for a gift for mother? It's the very thing you need, available in our gift shop." This is a reference to the
Twilight Zone episode "The After Hours", which interestingly also features an elevator that seemingly travels to a nonexistent floor.
The left case had a broken stopwatch alongside the rooster. The card accompanying the stopwatch read, "A great conversation piece. Available in our gift shop." The stopwatch is from the episode "A Kind of a Stopwatch."
I don't have clear photos of the stopwatch and thymbal and their cards, but
this blog post has some nice ones (taken in the Queen's waiting area).
The only other thing in the King's waiting area were the doors to the library. Guests knew this was the library because a helpful bronze plaque next to the doors labeled them as such. The doors were dark wood double-doors carved with the same pattern as the check-out desk and the CM podium. The "Library" plaque was set in (of course) Banhof Regular font.
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| I didn't have any photos of the library doors, so this screenshot from this Martin Smith documentary shall have to suffice. Note that the documentary also has some nice, clear footage of the display cases starting at around the 20-minute mark. |
EDIT: Here's a nice shot of the entire King's waiting area, including the library doors:
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| By Dusty Sage of Micechat, from here |
/EDIT
The tile in front of the doors was made of small brown tiles in the same color as the large decoratively-shaped tiles that served as flooring for the rest of the lobby. The small tiles indicated where the doors opened.
Now, for the Queen's waiting area.
To make their way to the Queen's waiting area, guests had to pass through a small "hallway" formed by the crashed elevators and the back of the check-in desk. On the wall in back of the check-in desk was a dark wood cabinet with a small clock on it. Of course, the clock read 8:05 to match the clock above the desk. Above the cabinet and clock was a Greek-style relief carving depicting children carrying books.
Next to the clock and the artwork was a carved wooden door with the number "22" on it. It appears that this would have led inside the check-in desk area. A plaque next to it, in that now-familiar font, read "Hotel Staff Only".
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| The dresser with the clock on it. Picture was taken while standing with the "22" door to the right. Photo by Mrbellcaptain |
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| Photo by Mrbellcaptain |
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| Photo by Mrbellcaptain |
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| "Hotel Staff Only." Photo by Mrbellcaptain |
I feel that I should note that lighting conditions in this little hallway were
not good for photography. These are the best pictures I have of the details in this area. Every photo I tried to take here myself ended up a dark and/or blurry mess.
The "22" on the door was a reference to the
Twilight Zone episode "Twenty-Two." In that episode, a hospitalized woman has recurring nightmares where, awakened by the ticking of a desk clock, she takes the spooky elevator to the basement and discovers Room 22: the morgue. The placement of the 22 door next to a desktop clock in a ride about spooky elevators made this an especially strong reference to the show. Fans of the Tower of Terror will probably appreciate the entire opening few minutes of this episode. From the shots of the elevator to Rod Serling's opening narration, the ride had a lot of echoes of those opening scenes.
In the Queen's waiting area itself there was a display case identical to the King's display case, with the exception that there were blue vases, rather than weird roosters, displayed alongside the Easter eggs. The blue floral pattern on the vases matched the pattern on the roosters, however. The Queen's portrait and the display case were along the left-side wall of the area, if one was facing the library doors.
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| Vase with stopwatch. Photo by Mrbellcaptain |
The back of the Queen's waiting area had a much more interesting view than the King's waiting area. Whereas the King's side overlooked the switchbacks of the lobby line, the Queen's side got a unique scene of discarded luggage as well as an alternate view into the main seating area and the side of the check-in desk.
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| Looking straight out the back of the Queen's waiting area, May 2016. That's the side of the check-in desk at the left of this photo. |
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| A better look at that luggage pile, showing the door behind it, May 2016 |
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| The side of the check-in desk visible from the Queen's waiting area, May 2016 |
Those flowers on the side of the desk remind me of one of the unused Haunted Mansion changing portrait arts--a display of flowers that rotted before guests' eyes. For those curious about comparing the displays, scroll down on
this Long Forgotten Haunted Mansion post to see both the 3-slide and 6-slide versions of the artwork.
Also, you may have noticed that light plug by the desk. As it turns out, even the plugs were themed for this attraction:
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| Another plug in the waiting area. Photo by Mrbellcaptain |
Disney really went all-out with the details.
After waiting in their respective areas for a few minutes, guests would hear a ghostly voice announcement:
"Welcome to the Hollywood Tower Hotel. In just a few moments, the library doors in front of you will be opening.
Please, stand
back from the doors, as they will be opening toward you.
Thank you."
Guests would hear this same ghostly voice again in later safety spiels. Unfortunately, I don't have isolated audio of this spiel, but it can be heard at around 20:27 in the
DCA Martin Smith video.
Not long after this spiel, the doors opened and a bellhop ushered guests onward into the library.
Thus ends our tour of the lobby.
