Good morning, my friends!  How are you this great Wednesday!

While Rod Serling and his “terrifying tower” are settling in on their newly won “throne”, you get a well-earned chance to rest from three days of arduous and, sometimes, traumatic voting.  Enjoy!

Of course, I’m still not quite done.  As usual, I thought it would be very revealing to take a deeper look at this past weekend’s events.  What secrets do you think hide behind the numbers?

The “terrible” Tower reigns supreme!

So, we christened The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror the 2015 All in WDW Readers’ Favorite WDW Attraction.  Was it a convincing victory?

In the finale, Tower was victorious by one meager vote.  Remember?  Here are the results …

1. The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror (42 votes)
2. Haunted Mansion (41)
3. Splash Mountain (35)
4. Expedition Everest – Legend of the Forbidden Mountain (26)

The haunted hotel won its 1st Round grouping too.  But, how did it fare in the 2nd Round semi-finals?  Why, it lost to fellow-finalist Splash Mountain by 17 votes!  Huh?!  17?!  Really?

• Splash Mountain (73 votes)
• The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror (56)

Want more?  OK.  Haunted Mansion out-tallied Tower in both Round 1 (47 to 38) and Round 2 (78 to 56).  Of course, they weren’t matched against each other, but still … not a strong showing, “champ”.

Then, of course, we have to consider total votes accumulated throughout the entire competition to truly reveal this tournament’s hidden secret.  When we do, the “Final” Top 4 becomes …

1. Haunted Mansion (166 total overall votes)
2. Splash Mountain (140)
3. The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror (136)
4. Expedition Everest – Legend of the Forbidden Mountain (103)

Same four.  Much different result!  Wow.  Now, that ought to give some satisfaction to you Mansion and Splash fans out there. No?

Hey, I’m not trying to “trash” the “champ”, my friends.  All sixteen attractions that waged battle this weekend are fantastic!

The morale of my message is this … any one of the (what did I call them?) “Four Formidable Foes” could have won Monday’s big event.  It just so happened that the thrilling and crazy elevators ruled the day!

Anyway, all of our efforts left us with 2015’s All in WDW Readers’ Top 15 Favorite WDW Attractions!  See?

1. The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror
2. Haunted Mansion
3. Splash Mountain
4. Expedition Everest – Legend of the Forbidden Mountain
5. Toy Story Midway Mania!
6. Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster Starring Aerosmith
7. IllumiNations: Reflections of Earth
8. Epcot International Food & Wine Festival
9. Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
10. Pirates of the Caribbean
11. Spaceship Earth
12. Soarin’
13. Kilimanjaro Safaris
14. Festival of the Lion King
15. Fantasmic!

My comments?

Well, the thing that sticks out to me, first, is the fabulous job turned in by the most-maligned of WDW’s four parks!  Uh, no, I’m not talking about Disney’s Animal Kingdom.

Look at the 1st, 5th, and 6th Place rankings posted by Disney’s Hollywood Studios!  Wow!  The attractions might be slowly disappearing from that park but those that are still there are outstanding!

On the other hand, I’m utterly devastated by the miserable showing delivered by my favorite park – Epcot.  7th, 8th, 11th, and 12th Places?!  The defending “champion”, Soarin’, didn’t even break out of the 1st Round?

If you listened to my latest appearance on the WDW Main Street Podcast, you’d know that we never expected that.

In fact, Doug Davis, Dennis Conroy and I all predicted IllumiNations to win this whole “enchilada”!  7th Place?  Boy, were we wrong!  And, that was the highest placing for an Epcot experience?  Yikes!

My friends, I want to, once again, thank you for all your support and votes.  With over 1,300 total votes cast for the “competition”, you did a phenomenal job!  And, you “elected” a fabulous “champion”!  Congrats!