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[king_spoon_ian]

Hi all,

I'm not sure if you remember me, but I was the guy lucky enough to win the Disney "Design a Radio Ad" competition, and as such, I was the lucky recipient of the grand prize – a holiday to Disneyland Paris, for eight people, including an exclusive cocktail party in the Twilight Zone Tower of Terror.

What followed was an absolutely amazing holiday – sometimes for the right reasons, but sometimes for the wrong ones. What I'm going to do is post three topics (if that's OK with the admins) – one about the good things (The Tower of Terror Cocktail Party), one about the bad things, and one about the ugly – a bit of a nasty incident that threatened to spoil the atmosphere on the holiday. Luckily, nothing could come close to taking the shine off how incredible this prize was.

And so, on with the show!

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We arrived outside Disney Studios around 8:30, French time, ever so slightly ahead of the official arrival time of 9 pm. It was a beautiful scene, with the sun setting over an empty Disney studios park, and thankfully, the temperature wasn't too bad either. When we arrived, we showed our passes to the people on the front gate, who initially seemed rather confused, until our guide for the evening, Pierre-Marie Darricau arrived. Pierre was the epitome of class and courtesy, and he made sure to take good care of us for the entire evening. This was apparently his job – taking care of corporate events, and ensuring their guests are kept happy. As the evening went on, and he started to relax a bit (he actually seemed nervous about having us there), we started to get a bit more chatty, and he told us some interesting things, such as how much the party would cost to buy if you were to try and arrange it yourselves through Disney (let me know if you're interested), and the fact that they usually cater for three hundred people. A little more than the seven they got.

Anyway – to get back on track, Pierre invited us into the entrance to Disney studios, to wait until we could be taken through to the Tower of Terror. This is what it looked like.



Absolutely stunning. It was actually really eerie in the park when it's just you there. The music was still playing, the weather made it look even more beautiful, and when there's just seven people in the park, you can really start to feel the magic.



When the time was right, we were lead through towards the ominous Tower itself. Walking through the rest of the park at this time of night, with no-one else there, felt even weirder...







Having never ridden it myself before, going inside the building was something of an ominous experience. Something about it really feels spooky, although I'm in no doubt that this was mostly due to the excellent Bellhops, who really did their best to make you feel uncomfortable.



I would like to point out here that the Bellhops really made this evening what it was. They really went all out to make the "stay" at the hotel as enjoyable as possible, and did everything they could to unnerve you, whilst always somehow managing to make you feel really comfortable. They really were the nicest cast members I've ever met at Disney, and, in my opinion, should all have received a promotion by the time I've finished writing this  <!-- s:P --><!-- s:P -->



The ride itself, in case you've never been on it, was absolutely terrifying. I have no idea what it must be like in a lift full of people - I'd imagine mass hysteria must kick in, but with just three of us in the lift (yep, the others were all too chicken to even ride it once!), it was pretty damn scary. Especially as I hadn't realised I had big handles next to my seat to hold on to. Instead, I chose the rather unwise option of trying to cling to the back of the seat in front of me. So every time we dropped, I'm come up out of my seat, lose my grip on the rounded back of the chair, and spend the entire duration of the drop desperately flailing to grab the back of the seat in front of me and bring myself down!



After a few rides, I was way too shook up to ride again, so I headed off to get some more drinks and food. The problem was, this left the ten year old in our party with no-one to ride with. Luckily for us, the bellhops ever so kindly offered to take her on - and promptly spent the rest of their night rocketing up and down the Tower of Terror. They really made the night special for her too - pointing out a hidden mickey in the one level, and even explaining how in the morning, they stop the lift on the one level, get out, and walk down the corridor to check everything's OK. Thanks to the staff, she rode the Tower of Terror until the second they shut it, and made a fair few friends in the process.



The ride shut at around ten, and the cocktail party then finished around 11. I don't think I've even begun to give the experience justice, as I don't think any amount of praise could describe how amazing it was. If seven people getting to have the Tower of Terror to themselves sounds fantastic, it was about a billion times cooler than it sounds, and something money couldn't buy. I'm saving my pennies in the mean time.

If you want some more pictures, I've got a few more pics of the Tower of Terror, and my brother has LOADS of High Definition footage he shot with his camera. If DLRP have somewhere we could upload it to, I'd be more than willing to try - problem is, as it's HD, the filesize is huge... Still, it's good quality, and well worth a watch.

[Willow]

If you want some more pictures, I've got a few more pics of the Tower of Terror, and my brother has LOADS of High Definition footage he shot with his camera. If DLRP have somewhere we could upload it to, I'd be more than willing to try - problem is, as it's HD, the filesize is huge... Still, it's good quality, and well worth a watch.

You can upload HD footage on Vimeo

Sounds like you had a great time at the Tower