The curse of -those details which have been on the California Tower all along but you probably never noticed- returns! For example — we know a whole front section of this deserted hotel was blown to pieces by the lighting bolt on that “fateful night”, but did you know the Imagineers would fully decorate the remaining corridors and walls as if real rooms within the hotel, before giving them their lightning-struck purple scorch marks?

Disneytheque.com brings the latest construction pictures…

Hollywood Tower Hotel – ready for reopening? (Photo: Disneytheque.com)

The rooms are certainly bright and modern for the era – the Art Deco favourite of turquoise has arrived on the remaining walls of Paris’ front wing, with the completed Californian version showing the wood panelling, window details and — eventually — purple cracks and scorches still to come.

The design of the corridors matches with that seen in the two show scenes below — the elevator’s disappearance in a mirror and the ghostly corridor where The Twilight Zone takes hold of you.

Corridors in Paris (Photo: Disneytheque.com) …and California (Photo: Sun-Mountain.net)

Currently looking a rather innocent shade of pale yellow, the completion of this corridor decoration will then allow for the heavier signs of the lightning strike to give the resort’s newest icon a quite surprising sense of devastation. This is no Sleeping Beauty Castle!

The cracked and broken wall around the front portion of the building has now nearly completed its purple lightning overcoat, jutting up across the facade to further push the “story” to guests that the Tower is missing a large portion of its original 1920s structure.

More destruction, but rooms are bright are airy! (Photo: Disneytheque.com)
/ Rear paintwork completed (Photo: NeMo, Disney Central Plaza forum)

Finally, more signs elsewhere show the exterior theming project wrapping up remarkably fast — the vertical line of windows on the far left of the building’s behind has now been surrounded by a finished coat of pale yellow paint and 15 years-worth of dirt. The final piece of construction scaffolding — two small steel towers for the “real” service elevators — should be removed soon, finally marking the completion of the rear wall.

The opening date, you ask? The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror is still most definitely on track for an official opening in January 2008, it’d be suicide for the resort to begin the full launch any earlier, but word from insiders continues to confirm that guests visiting from 22nd December 2007 onwards could be treated to a special “soft-opening” test ride during their visit. This would then put the attraction in line for a proper launch in the early weeks of January — exactly when many European families begin to plan their holidays for the year.

Will the five-star luxury and bright and airy rooms of The Hollywood Tower Hotel win them over?

You can see the rest of Disneytheque.com’s latest update here.