
A Walt Disney World Resort guest recently recounted their unusual experience passing the time on a broken-down Twilight Zone Tower of Terror.
The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror opened at Disney’s Hollywood Studios in 1994, with the now-rethemed Disneyland Resort version following a decade later. Disney’s Hollywood Studios still operates its version of the sci-fi attraction, while Disney California Adventure Park rethemed its Tower of Terror to Guardians of the – Mission: BREAKOUT!.
During a recent discussion about ride breakdowns, Redditor u/ledaswanwizard recalled getting stuck on The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror with their daughter last December.
“My daughter and I were just at the point at the top of the ride where we were just about to move forward into the drop-zone shaft when it broke down,” the Disney Park guest recalled. “We were all sitting in darkness for a few minutes when someone next to us said ‘I think we actually entered the Twilight Zone!’ and we all laughed.”
“The lights came on and we could see the entire empty shaft section,” they continued. “We heard voices over the loudspeaker from the control room telling us the usual info about the ride being stopped temporarily and going through various startup codes/routines etc. trying to get the ride going again, and how the ride would be restarting ‘momentarily.'”
The Walt Disney World Resort guests were stuck for 15-20 minutes, but the Redditor and their daughter found an unusual way to pass the time.
“At one point, I looked down at the floor where I had set my loungefly backpack and noticed that the keychain I had hanging off one of the zipper pulls was ‘stuck’ in the floor grating,” they wrote. “It took me and my daughter a while to get it unstuck and (this is probably a coincidence) almost to the second that we got it unstuck the ride was successfully restarted and we finished it without incident.”
The family jokes that their keychain broke The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror.
“My daughter and I joke about ‘maybe my keychain tripped a sensor or something in the floor track causing the ride to stop,'” the Redditor concluded. “We laugh about it now.”
Have you ever been trapped on an attraction at Magic Kingdom Park, EPCOT, Disney’s Hollywood Studios, or Disney’s Animal Kingdom Theme Park? Share your story with Disney Dining in the comments!