Originally Posted By Rebekah This topic is for discussion of the 1/14/2003 news item <b><a href="http://www.wdwmagic.com/whatsnew.htm" target="_blank">WDWMagic: Tower of Terror 4 Info</a></b> According to <I>WDWMagic</I>, Tower of Terror 4 is now Tower of Terr4r and offers video of the commercial which touts the attraction as "never the same fear twice."
Originally Posted By cefillerup Has anyone ridden them yet? If so I'd love to hear what you think. I was priveledged to be involved in the test rides done in Spring of 2001. If the final product is remotely like those, I can't wait to check it out! Also, as a former Bellhop I'd be glad to answer any questions you may have regarding the ride system, rumors, etc. Oh, and yes, "Delta" drop shaft is most definately haunted, as is the Majong table in the lobby. I'd be happy to post my experiences if anyone's interested.
Originally Posted By leeharrell Please feel free to post away! I'd love to hear about your experiences with the haunts at ToT. As for ToT4, been there, rode it, loved it! The new effects are great and the drop sequences are much better. I got 3 of the 4 profiles and each dropped us at least 5 or 6 times. It is a long way from the single drop when it first opened.
Originally Posted By kennect OK Lee, I need your opinion here....I am a major weinie when it comes to these type things but I have managed the TOT a couple of times in the past after a great deal of persausion from the groups I have been with....Sad part is the ride really is rather tame considering the hype...I just rode it not that long ago before the new changes went into affect....It is really that different from a scardy cat's veiwpoint or just more interesting now?
Originally Posted By leeharrell "It is really that different from a scardy cat's veiwpoint or just more interesting now?" It's not scarer, if anything it's just more fun. The drops aren't scarier, there is just more of them. Plus you stop in the shaft a couple of times for special effects such as lightning, ghostly figures, etc. I had grown somewhat bored with ToT,and was just riding RnRC a lot, until this new incarnation. It has given the ride a whole new life for me.
Originally Posted By BrigmanMT 2 cefillerup could you please elaborate on the haunts? Always interesting stories in the parks. I understand if the game is haunted since it is a really old piece, but why is a newly built shaft haunted? Whats the story behind this? And what kind of occurences have caused these beliefs to come around?
Originally Posted By cefillerup Let me preface this with two comments, the first is that I've never been a believer in the supernatural, EVER. However, after working Tower for six months I have no doubt there are things we can't see or understand. My second comment is this: The origins of the haunts are nothing more than rumors, and I'm sure you can hear a million different versions of how they came into being. Regardless, or origin, they exist, quite peacefully most of the time. I will tell you the version I was told of how "he" came into being. Apparently before Tower opened there was a maintenance worker who died on Delta platform. Weird thing, is it wasn't violent at all. He died of a heart attack. So maybe it's not him, but it's something!
Originally Posted By cefillerup First the majong table: Quite a few of the antique pieces were purchased at an estate sale in Southern California. It is rumored that the late owner of the estate killed his family -- thus the antiques, particularly the majong table are haunted. All rumors, of course. However, something definately "haunts" those pieces. It is tradition at Tower for a departing CM to take a majong piece from the table. It is also tradition for the ride to go down directly after the piece was taken. I can personally vouch for this happening three times in the six months I was a bellhop (this was a three for three ratio.) The evening I and another CM took our pieces from the table nothing happened. An extreme dissapointment to be sure! It seemed our haunt, had different ideas. Upon arriving to work the next day Foxie was down (Foxtrot drop shaft, or the right drop shaft facing them at unload.) Thinking nothing about it I continued to the breakroom to change and gossip for a few minutes with the other Bellhops. I was swarmed! "What did you do?" That morning Foxie wouldn't power up, but Echo (the other drop shaft) was doing fine. Upon further investigation it was found that some sort of a power arc (maintenance's word for it, not mine) had fried the rides system. (Keeping in mind that each drop shaft has it's own ride system housed in its own room on different sides of the Tower it was not surprising that Echo had not been effected. Foxie was down for a week while they repaired her. They couldn't explain what happened.
Originally Posted By cefillerup Want another story? One night after a convention we were doing ride-throughs (every morning and every night CMs ride, mostly to check the show elements.) This was in the days when the GSMs still allowed us to do ridethroughs in pairs. So Bryan and I (keep in mind that Bryan is a six foot tall black man who weighs 250 pounds and is all muscle) decided to ride together -- on Delta. Bellhops argue over who has to ride Delta (Delta is the load dock and lift elevator closest to the libraries), it's always creepy and sometimes more. We're waiting to ride and Bryan says, "Bring it on, ghost, I'm not afraid of you!" We all laugh, (may I add this was very early in my bellhop dyas) and the elevator arrives. The elevator doors open halfway, the close, then open halfway, and the audio is already halfway through the spiel. A little freaky, right? Well Tower Control makes a ride anyway. They say it's just show problems and we'll be fine. We get in the elevator and start to ride (without the audio as it's already completed.) We got stuck crossing the fifth dimension THREE times, the first two were just five minutes each, but the second was 45 minutes and after the show elements had run for they're allotted time, only the time it takes for the vehicle to cross the fifth the lights went out! So there we are sitting in the fifth for almost an hour, most of it in pitch blackness. Would the evacuate us? Oh, no, we're CMs we can hack it. Well, they finally get us throught the drop sequence without mishap, but we get stuck on the unload floor. Tower Control decides to finally evac us, as they can't find what's causing these problems. We get off and are standing behind a supposedly dead vehicle, waiting to see what the *&^% just happened when the vehicle moves! And these things don't stop, if we hadn't gotten out of the way, we'd have been crushed! When Bryan and I got to work the next morning Delta was still down (which also means that Foxie drop is down.) Still no diagnosis as to why. Finally the GSM on duty jokingly tells us to apologize, and the other bellhops make us do it. So we go up to Delta load and apologize. Within five minutes the ride is fully 102 (operational) again. I don't know who or what is there, but something is, and it just likes to be respected.
Originally Posted By BwanaBobby I rode the TOT 4 times 2 weeks ago and hit 3 of the 4 programs. 1 of the programs was not that much different than before the changes. One of the programs was dynamite, fantastic!! The 3rd one was also very good, not quite as good as the 1 that was fantastic but close. The changes are awesome. You're in the elevator much longer and the special effects really add to the experience.
Originally Posted By dennis-in-ct Cool stories cefillerup, thanks for sharing. Last Oct I was stuck in the unload area. It was very creepy. I can't imagine doing the 5th dimension room for 45 mins!!!! yikes.
Originally Posted By BrigmanMT 2 cefillerup those are some good stories. The sacariest is the fact that you could have been killed when the ride restarted. Very wierd. Very interesting.
Originally Posted By Stu Does anyone have a breakdown of all the new effects for the 4 different new profiles? I was able to go on ToT 3 times last weekend -- and I think experienced 3 different profiles. Two of them had about the same number of drops as before -- but were a bit more unpredictable -- and the other seemed to go on forever, with what seemed like more 7 drops. This was, obviously, my favorite! In one of them we saw 2 ghosts (the actor and actress, standing to the left) for a few seconds; in another one, we saw the same 2 ghosts very, very briefly; and in the third, we saw the ghosts of the child star and nanny, one on the left and one on the right (I think). Other than the ghosts in the drop shaft, though, I didn't notice any other new effects -- the lightning effect was there before, wasn't it? Are there really fog/sparks/rubber-burning effects on some of the profiles, or were those just rumors?
