Disney Skyliner Accident

[Spridell]

It's apples to oranges though. It's just not that hard to evacuate a monorail or a bus in the event of an emergency. You don't have hundreds of people stranded in small boxes 60 feet up in the air spread out over several miles. You can walk off a bus if it breaks down.

This is a good point. monorail breaks down the evacuation is localized to that one area the monorail is at. With the gondola its spread out over miles and miles.

 

[jhoannam]

I haven’t read the entire thread, but any idea how many hours of training the CMs received? Yes, the system was tested for months but how many hours were done by CMs?

 

[rteetz]

I haven’t read the entire thread, but any idea how many hours of training the CMs received? Yes, the system was tested for months but how many hours were done by CMs?

We first started seeing them in early September.

 

[EmJ]

It's apples to oranges though. It's just not that hard to evacuate a monorail or a bus in the event of an emergency. You don't have hundreds of people stranded in small boxes 60 feet up in the air spread out over several miles. You can walk off a bus if it breaks down.

This ^^^

If a bus without A/C breaks down, they can... open the door. If the monorail breaks down, they might not be able to just open the door, but it also won’t take 3.5 hours to evacuate a tiny percentage of the passengers. Context matters. In this case, context requires either (a) cooling, or (b) an extremely rapid emergency response and evacuation plan. As of right now, it looks like the gondolas have neither.

 

[The Pho]

I haven’t read the entire thread, but any idea how many hours of training the CMs received? Yes, the system was tested for months but how many hours were done by CMs?

The ski industry’s standard is a single 8 hour day for training. Disney trained for longer than that, but actual time wise I’m uncertain of.

 

[StacyStrong]

Probably because a lot of us are, in fact, doctors, engineers, and lawyers? This forum is a population that can afford Disney after all... I'm an attorney.

So am I and I think you're treating this like a mass casualty.

 

[jhoannam]

We first started seeing them in early September.

So if a CM was working their full 40 hour schedule for 3 weeks, they had at most 120 hours? But my guess is that’s probably not even close to the hours the received?

 

[Future_WorldPhonencian]

Monorails are no doubt more expensive to build today then they were in the 70s or 80s even when adjusted for inflation. But the same is true when you look at how much a disney vacation is today vs that time period too.

These were clearly meant to be the alternative to expanding the monorail throughout the resort. Its a poorly kept secret that they want to expand these to disney springs, coronado, and animal kingdom. The anticipation for these was mixed at the outset. Imagine how much more excitement would have been generated if they built a monorail line between Epcot and DHS stopping at these hotels.

 

[KYMickey]

I'm sure that most of the posts criticizing the systems design were written by people who have never ridden a gondola system nor have significant technical knowledge of their operation.

There are many other gondola systems around the world that operate in similar temperature areas (Rio is a good example) that are used as daily transportation systems without problems. In many ways they are less sophisticated than this system yet after initial startup problems which I'm sure they had, they operate daily moving people around.

Time will certainly tell if these systems were a good choice or not but the long-term effectiveness can certainly not be determined after a weeks worth of operations.

 

[SarahD112]

I’ve followed the other Skyliner thread for months now and I don’t remember ever seeing a reason there’s no secondary loop at Riviera Resort. Anyone know?

 

[rteetz]

So if a CM was working their full 40 hour schedule for 3 weeks, they had at most 120 hours? But my guess is that’s probably not even close to the hours the received?

Which is longer than the typical employee at a ski resort as pointed out above. Again we don’t know the specifics but if there was CM error even with 300 hours of training it can still happen. Human error can happen in anything.

 

[rteetz]

I’ve followed the other Skyliner thread for months now and I don’t remember ever seeing a reason there’s no secondary loop at Riviera Resort. Anyone know?

The riviera station is a turn. It is not an endpoint like the other stations.

 

[BaymaxFan78]

I’ve followed the other Skyliner thread for months now and I don’t remember ever seeing a reason there’s no secondary loop at Riviera Resort. Anyone know?

I think because its not an end station, there is no where to put it

 

[rteetz]

Monorails are no doubt more expensive to build today then they were in the 70s or 80s even when adjusted for inflation. But the same is true when you look at how much a disney vacation is today vs that time period too.

These were clearly meant to be the alternative to expanding the monorail throughout the resort. Its a poorly kept secret that they want to expand these to disney springs, coronado, and animal kingdom. The anticipation for these was mixed at the outset. Imagine how much more excitement would have been generated if they built a monorail line between Epcot and DHS stopping at these hotels.

It also would continue to drive up those resort prices. There is a huge premium on a monorail resort. They wouldn’t put a monorail station at a value.

 

[Brianstl]

I agree. The PR response has been terrible.

I also wouldn’t be surprised by CM error here.

Possible, but there should have been a fail safe in place to prevent what happened at Riviera.

 

[Fido Chuckwagon]

So am I and I think you're treating this like a mass casualty.

The point isn’t that this incident wasn’t that bad. This incident wasn’t that bad relatively speaking. I certainly don’t compare it to a mass casualty incident, we haven’t even heard of serious injuries. However it seems like, from reports so far, the only reason this incident wasn’t much much worse was dumb luck on Disney’s part, that being that this happened at 10 pm in October instead of 2 pm in July. This incident should be a major warning signal about this system.

 

[jhoannam]

The ski industry’s standard is a single 8 hour day for training. Disney trained for longer than that, but actual time wise I’m uncertain of.

But when you have all new operators you need way more than that, even if it’s industry standard. Disney trained for 3 weeks but how many CM were there all 3 weeks?

They should have opened one line at a time, to allow training at full capacity.

 

[UmmGooD]

Lots of internet doctors, engineers, and lawyers in here.

I just got my degree in all three tonight. And on top of that it cost me nothing!

Probably because a lot of us are, in fact, doctors, engineers, and lawyers? This forum is a population that can afford Disney after all... I'm an attorney.

In jest above but I have an engineering degree too.

 

[rteetz]

But when you have all new operators you need way more than that, even if it’s industry standard. Disney trained for 3 weeks but how many CM were there all 3 weeks?

They should have opened one line at a time, to allow training at full capacity.

They went through roughly two weeks of cast testing prior to official opening. Disney did train for more than that industry standard. I’m not sure opening one line at a time would’ve made anything better. They hire enough CMs for all three lines not one line at a time.

 

[StacyStrong]

The point isn’t that this incident wasn’t that bad. This incident wasn’t that bad relatively speaking. I certainly don’t compare it to a mass casualty incident, we haven’t even heard of serious injuries. However it seems like, from reports so far, the only reason this incident wasn’t much much worse was dumb luck on Disney’s part, that being that this happened at 10 pm in October instead of 2 pm in July. This incident should be a major warning signal about this system.

You are basing this off of absolutely nothing but Twitter posts. Why did they only evacuate 6 cars? I don't know, do you? Maybe knowing the temperature and time of day, they conserved their resources. Maybe they didn't know what they were doing. I have no idea.

Do the gandolas become "hot boxes" and "death boxes" after a few hours in the sun? I don't know. I'm sure they do. A few reports of "I felt warmer!" certainly isn't real evidence.

It's fine, we can speculate all we want. This was a major incident. Disney messed up. It needs to be fixed. But we also don't know what happened yet.

But nah, let's get our internet slueths on it, ambulance chase, and get those free vacations for those non-existent injuries!