I recently had the pleasure of exchanging emails with Bruno, a Croatian student studying in the Netherlands. He is a former Tower of Terror bellhop from the Disneyland Paris park, and he graciously agreed to be interviewed for TowerSecrets.

I hope you enjoy his bellhop stories as much as I do!

Tell us how you got the job as a Tower of Terror bellhop.

I was a bellhop for 3 months, 2 years in a row (so 6 months overall). That was my summer job and so far the best student job ever. I worked in Paris Tower of Terror in boiler room and on boarding the elevators. I requested any “fun” job in my student union and they gave me bellhop job and I was amazed.

What was your favorite part of being a Tower bellhop?

My favorite part of the bellhop job was that it’s like you are in a movie. You have your role and you must play it well and it was hard to stay “creepy” and “serious” in some cases, but roleplaying like that was thrilling.

Have you ever seen guests do something special on the tower (like a marriage proposal)?

There are always some people that are trying to do something “special”, but I haven’t seen anything even close to the famous proposals. There was one guy that removed his seatbelt as soon as the doors closed but all of our elevators are monitored so ride stopped immediately. That passenger was kindly asked to belt himself up over intercall system and he did. Later, I asked him why he did that and he said that he wanted to see if he would feel “zero gravity” while dropping.

Did you ever see the ride break down, and if so, what happened?

Breakdowns in Paris tower are very rare but I saw it once. The problem was that elevators were not synchronized. That means one elevator was leaving station while second one was still in the shaft. Luckily, whole tower went to emergency stop so everything was all right. We had to evacuate elevators to synchronize them again and in half an hour we were back on track.

Where do items lost on the Tower show up? Do they land at the bottom?

In the elevator’s cabin I’ve found 2 wallets, a cell phone, glasses, and 3 bags, but everything was returned to their owners same day. When something falls in the shaft we can’t collect it same day, but we collect stuff from the shaft once a month and we return everything that we find to its owners (if there is a name tag or something on it, of course).

Are the Tower bellhops the best cast members? I’m pretty sure they are 🙂

All of the bellhops are one big cast and we have to be in creepy mood all of the time. We have only few mins to rest from being serious in the hallway between boiler room and elevator when both of the doors are closed. We often look at each other and we just laugh 🙂

Before we go, do you have any funny stories you would like to share?

Once a granny was entering an elevator cabin and she asked me, “Son, are you really that disappointed with your job? Because I have been watching you for few minutes now and I haven’t see you smiling or talking to the riders.” I just said, “Ma’am, if I tell you that being serious is part of this job you wouldn’t believe me.”

Then there was one little boy that was so scared that he was shaking and he asked me if I can go in with him. Since that was our last ride of that day anyway I asked my colleague if he could start the show so I could ride with the boy. He was so happy that after ride, he gave me a hug and he said “thank you” to me at least 5 times. That was really a moment to remember inside the Tower.

Another interesting story is that every morning we have to check if sound and light effects are synchronized with the ride itself and only way to test that is to ride it so every morning at about 7:30 a.m. we rode the Tower and that was just amazing. When I first came to the Tower job they asked me if I had ever been on the Tower and I said no, so the first thing they did was, of course, give me opportunity to ride it! And believe me, riding the Tower in the bellhop uniform was just amazing. 🙂

Thank you, Bruno, for the fascinating interview and wonderful stories from your time as a Tower of Terror bellhop!