Day three/Hollywood Tower Hotel/ Rainy Day

The infamous Hollywood Tower Hotel/Twilight Zone Tower of Terror. This is one freaky ride.

The attraction features three elevator shafts. Each shaft, in theory, is its own separate ride with its own separate operating system. Doing this made it easier to repair individual areas of the attraction without causing the entire attraction to go down. Each shaft has two vehicles and two load levels. It is designed so that the lower vehicle can be in its ride profile while the upper vehicle is loading, giving the attraction the ability to move its line much faster. Since each vehicle loads and unloads from the same point, it ended up saving space.
When the show cycle starts, the vehicle pushes backwards away from the elevator door while a starfield appears around it and a purple spiral appears on the doors. The narrator (Rod Serling) says, "You are the passengers of a most uncommon elevator, about to take the strangest journey of your lives. Your destination...unknown, but this much is clear, a reservation has been made in your name for an extended stay." A door closes, placing riders in darkness as the elevator rises.
The first stop for the elevator is a large mirror. Rod Serling tells riders to "wave goodbye to the real world." As they do, lightning strikes and electricity begins to arc around the mirror and the reflection of the riders is replaced by a ghostly silhouette of themselves. The passengers' reflection then disappears with the narrator saying "For you have just entered ... the Twilight Zone!" This is actually a thermal-mirror, which shuts off to reveal the dummy vehicle behind it. The elevator shudders as the door closes and the elevator moves to the next show scene. As the door opens, it reveals a corridor of the hotel, with an elevator door located on the far end of it. Here, the narrator says, "What happened here to dim the lights of Hollywood's brightest show place is about to unfold once again," which is followed by an appearance of the hotel's permanent residents. Electricity courses through the hallway after their disappearance as Rod Serling continues his narration: "One stormy night long ago, five people stepped through the door of an elevator and into a nightmare...."
The hallway slowly fades away into a starfield with the permanent residents standing in the now open elevator that was at the end of the hallway. Serling then says "That door is opening once again, but this time, it's opening for you." Then the elevator at the end of the hallway with the permanent residents has a little "show sequence," when it shows them standing helplessly in the shaft then their elevator drops. Then your ghostly elevator drops, and then a second later, the passenger elevator begins its drop sequence: a drop from the show scene to the first floor, then a rise to the "13th" floor. After flashing strobe lights and the photo opportunity, the elevator has a short drop, followed by a longer one, then a rise that goes up 2/3 of the way up to the top and an immediate fall down to "B3." The lights flicker as the elevator goes all the way back up to the top, it is then that the top floor doors open and riders are treated with a sky high over view of both Disneyland and California Adventure. It pauses there a moment and falls to place between the load levels (so that both load levels give the same ride) and a door opens again and you see an elevator door. The vehicle begins moving toward the door. The Twilight Zone theme begins again as Rod Serling says, "The next time you check into a deserted hotel on the dark side of Hollywood, make sure you know just what kind of vacancy you're filling or you may find yourself a permanent resident of...The Twilight Zone." The door opens, and a bellhop is standing in the doorway to greet you.

Oh in the afternoon we were greeted by rain showers. This was the most miserable day there. By the time we got back to the hotel we were soaked and freezing. But hey, it was snowing back home, so I won't complain :)

Here we are on the California Screaming Roller Coaster. It was still raining. As we boarded, the ride operator told us "Welcome to the Californa Screaming roller coaster. It is raining today. The rain will hurt your face. Have a nice ride!" It was fast, fun, wet and slightly painful. I put my sunglasses on and held my hoodie over my face the best I could. Andrew obviously didn't care. He loved it!