A Touch of Tomorrowland

The new Hilton hotel at Walt Disney World Village in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., has telephones that would fit into Disney's Tomorrowland. With 35 buttons instead of the standard twelve, the UTX Five Star phones do a lot more than just give a dial tone. As in many hotels, guests can press different buttons on the phone for food, a bell captain, a maid, the valet service or medical aid. But they can also hit other buttons to adjust the temperature setting, change the speed of the fan and switch channels on the TV. If a guest forgets to bolt the door, a red light appears on the phone. Each unit is connected to a smoke detector, and if a fire breaks out, the phone automatically alerts the hotel's security desk. The staff can then broadcast evacuation instructions to all guests through speakers in the phones.

The phones, which are made by United Technologies, occasionally malfunctioned when the hotel opened late last year. The general manager once pushed a button to speak to his secretary. Within minutes, the director of housekeeping popped in to tell him his conversation was being broadcast to every room on the fifth floor. But guests report that the system is working fine now. Says John Genzano, a Philadelphia computer programmer, who was honeymooning last week at the hotel: "This is the neatest thing in the world. Everything you need runs from the telephone."