Disney Skyliner (Gondola Transportation System) Read Post 1 Now Open!

[OSUZorba]

I find it doubtful that the gondolas can load a plane full of people such that there will be little to no wait. The London gondola, which is supposed to be a similar model as the Disney one (2500 capacity per hour each direction), is described by some online reviewers as follows:

"We visited this on bank holiday Sunday and wished we hadn't bothered - we were told by one of the staff that the queue for the tickets was about 5-10mins - that was a lie it was nearer 25mins and then you had to join another queue to go up to the cable car itself - that was another 10-15mins wait."

"We had to wait in an enormous queue to get to the cable car. It was probably around 45 minutes wait."

"Bad Customer Service. Huge Queuing Times. rushed approach to load you into the cable car."

"Waited 15 minutes to ride. Ten minutes of which was because the attendant was chatting to his mates while several half empty gondolas went by."

"Bought Viator tickets for river cruise and cable car. Excitedly followed instructions to ticket kiosk. Queued for very long time. Presented voucher and told we could not go as cable car closed for 'planned maintenance'"

"The worst complaint is that you cannot simply stay in a cable car for a full round-trip ride (not explained before boarding). You HAVE to get off at the end and re-join the long queues even if you want to come straight back. Even on the windy/drizzly afternoon yesterday, the queues weren't short. I can't imagine how long they get when the weather is fine and more people deciding to try out the cable cars."

"Oh, by the way, if you get stuck up there you are being evacuated onto a boat, straight down. Just so you know."

"You're more likely to queue up for longer than it takes to cross the Thames in the cable car which is approximately 20 minutes."

"The return trip later that day involved a 20 minute queue to get on though."

"there didnt seem to be a quick and efficient way of loading people into the cars when it was really busy (they need some tips from disney!)"

"There was heavy wind on the day so the cable car was closed we waited for an hour then decided to give it a miss."

"The queue was very long as expected,but it does move fairly quickly so you're not having to wait an excessive amount of time."

"Show up early in the day. The cable cars are slowed down below what you'd normally expect from them to make the trip longer - fair enough for having more time for the views, but it leads to ridiculous queues."

"The queues at the weekend can get very long as they are slow moving."

"The cars gold up to 10 people and you are expected to share with strangers to fill the car to capacity. Of course we ended up with the guy who thought it was funny to try and rock our car."

"We queued up for about an hour got on the cable cart and it was over within about 10 minutes and when we got off at the other side there wasn't much to do at all so i was disappointed with that."

"Then a little wait to actually get on the carts too."

"Each car can hold up to 10 people, so it's quite likely that you will be sitting with strangers, even if you are part of a group. I found that the staff generally did not fill the cars up, but sometimes one or two riders would push forward and jump in a car that had only 5 or 6 people."

Sounds like most of that is poor operation, which won't happen at Disney. Again, Disney treats ride loading like a manufacturing line. They have a nice industrial engineering department and they monitor throughput and tach time just like Ford would on an assembly line.

This is like saying you don't believe Disney could actually get 1500 people per hour on a rollercoaster then posting reviews from six flags as proof.

I do doubt they'll ever truely hit 4500 an hour, since that is the theoretical max, but there is no transportation system at Disney that could get people to the thing quicker than it'll take them away averaged out over 15 minutes.

 

[OSUZorba]

Having worked for a public utility in New England for almost 40 years I'm not aware of any instance where a customer was shut down for too much consumption. It may be that the customer realized that they could generate their own electricity cheaper from time to time than the power from the grid.

Companies typically have a max peak they can use. If they go over they get hit with huge penalties that affects their rates for at least a year.

I haven't heard of mandatory load shedding with power, but it is common with natural gas during the winter. Basically a major user is told they can no longer draw NG for X amount of time.

 

[rteetz]

PHOTOS: Exterior Nature Art Applied, More Supports Erected at Epcot’s Disney Skyliner Station

 

[CarolynFH]

PHOTOS: Exterior Nature Art Applied, More Supports Erected at Epcot’s Disney Skyliner Station

Obviously WDWNT didn’t follow the extensive discussion of avian species in this thread.

 

[Tigger's ally]

Obviously WDWNT didn’t follow the extensive discussion of avian species in this thread.

must have had their heads in the sand.

 

[RRB]

I find the math of 3000 or 5000 people per hour rather odd, because if they can load that many people, that would mean besides park opening and closing times, the gondolas will be running practically empty all day long. Perhaps they will then take most of the gondolas off line late morning, and put them back on before the evening rush? That should save some energy and reduce wear and tear on the gondolas. So that during the day, you would only see a gondola once every few minutes, and you might have to wait some minutes before a gondola shows up, even when there's no line.

I was thinking along these lines too until I remembered that a previous poster on this thread stated that almost 10,000 rooms are being served by the gondola. Granted, this could include the Swolfin and other resorts that aren't immediately close but that is allot of rooms and by serving 2 different parks, the Skyliner could be busy all day long. Disney counts the number of riders on the buses so they probably have a good amount of data to draw from. I don't think they would invest $300 million (according to liftblog) in a system that wouldn't be used by allot of people

 

[skier_pete]

PHOTOS: Exterior Nature Art Applied, More Supports Erected at Epcot’s Disney Skyliner Station

Oh come on! Cranes?!? How did we all miss that pun! "I kept Crane-ning my neck to get that photo." My wife and I spent 10 minutes to come up with "stork-ing".

Also - WDWNT - those are clearly egrets, not cranes.

 

[DanBoris]

Honestly similar things to what have been said in here - worried about it being hot and not sure how many people it would transport

Also covered that they would have to fix up some back stage areas if you are now up high and looking out and down (recalling the old skyway where you could see the roofs of showbuildings, etc)

They weren’t necessary bashing it - more concerned about what it might be and a bit of a “wait and see” view more than “this is a terrible idea” ... but they also didn’t seem to be reading the info in this thread that artery and others have provided, and some of us that were in the Chat Room were trying to add some info

Backstage areas shouldn't really be a concern since the only area that would probably have a backstage view is as you are approaching the International Gateway, and that will be taken care of by the Ratatouille expansion.

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Backstage areas shouldn't really be a concern since the only area that would probably have a backstage view is as you are approaching the International Gateway, and that will be taken care of by the Ratatouille expansion.

yeah, I am not that worried about it either - maybe see some of the roofs in Caribbean Beach?

They seemed to be picturing this being similar to the old skyway based on a number of their comments (but I could be reading between the lines)

 

[danikoski]

yeah, I am not that worried about it either - maybe see some of the roofs in Caribbean Beach?

They seemed to be picturing this being similar to the old skyway based on a number of their comments (but I could be reading between the lines)

Yeah, not sure about the worry about backstage. Everything indicates that the gondolas are actually pretty close to the ground and a lot of the backstage stretch is through trees.

It also isn't going to be any worse than what can be seen on the monorail. Actually, in looking at the route, it appears they may be able to cover up more back stage areas from the gondola than the monorail.

 

[BabybetterDisney]

I just had an obvious thought that I'm sure has been discussed before, but I haven't read it anywhere. Let's say that once the gondola gets going, Disney removes the buses unless the gondola gets cancelled. Now suppose there's lightning when Epcot closes and people go to the IG only to find that the gondola is down. Doesn't that mean the huge crowd from Pop/AofA/CB/Riviera will have to walk all the way back to the main gate to get to the buses? Isn't that like a 20 minute walk? That's not going to sit well, is it? And there is no way to set up an extra bus station near IG, is there?

For similar situations, such as when the monorail or the boats are down, people never have to walk that far to get to the buses. Say if there's no boat at the Beach Club dock, they just go back to the front of the hotel to catch the bus. That's not too bad. But now now people have to cross Epcot to get to the bus.

 

[scrappinginontario]

There are many unknowns until more details are announced. I don’t think anyone can say what will actually happen until the system is up and running.

People have opinions both ways (imagine that!) about the option of buses once the gondolas are running. Personally I cannot imagine them stopping the bus system 100% on a normal (I.e. gondolas running) basis as there are some people who due to fear of heights, claustrophobia, etc will not ride the gondolas. That being said you will find others who completely disagree with me and feel the buses will be stopped when the gondolas are running.

Time will tell....

 

[OKW Lover]

I just had an obvious thought that I'm sure has been discussed before, but I haven't read it anywhere. Let's say that once the gondola gets going, Disney removes the buses unless the gondola gets cancelled. Now suppose there's lightning when Epcot closes and people go to the IG only to find that the gondola is down. Doesn't that mean the huge crowd from Pop/AofA/CB/Riviera will have to walk all the way back to the main gate to get to the buses?

Well, first off lightning doesn't cause Epcot to close. Second, it hasn't been established that lightning will close the gondolas which are designed to continue to work in extreme conditions.

But those things aside, yes it would certainly be a walk for people to go to the front of the park. No doubt they will be disappointed.

 

[daannzzz]

I am from the west coast so call me a wimp but if there was enough lightning to close the gondolas I would, most likely, not walk all the way to the front of Epcot. I would find some place to sit it out (or stand it out). If

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

Now suppose there's lightning when Epcot closes

I'm unaware of a time when lightning has closed a park? Close outdoor rides (especially Test Track) sure but people either leave the park or seek shelter inside somewhere either eating, resting their feet, on a ride, or another attraction, shopping, etc. I haven't heard (to my knowledge though) of Epcot closing due to lightning.

OR

Are you meaning when Epcot closes as in end of the night park hours closing?

 

[Farro]

I think @BabybetterDisney means when Epcot is closing for the night, what if there is lightening at the same time and the Gondola goes down.

Yes, those guests would have to go to the front of the park. Or go to Beach Club to call an Uber. Or maybe take the boat to DHS and catch their resort bus from there (if DHS is still open). Or some other contingency plan Disney may have that we don't know about!

 

[joelkfla]

I just had an obvious thought that I'm sure has been discussed before, but I haven't read it anywhere. Let's say that once the gondola gets going, Disney removes the buses unless the gondola gets cancelled. Now suppose there's lightning when Epcot closes and people go to the IG only to find that the gondola is down. Doesn't that mean the huge crowd from Pop/AofA/CB/Riviera will have to walk all the way back to the main gate to get to the buses? Isn't that like a 20 minute walk? That's not going to sit well, is it? And there is no way to set up an extra bus station near IG, is there?

For similar situations, such as when the monorail or the boats are down, people never have to walk that far to get to the buses. Say if there's no boat at the Beach Club dock, they just go back to the front of the hotel to catch the bus. That's not too bad. But now now people have to cross Epcot to get to the bus.

I agree that's an issue. It's also an issue to a lesser extent at Pop & AoA, where Guests would have to walk from the Generation Bridge to outside the front lobby of one of the resorts. And how will Disney communicate a closure to Guests inside Epcot or a resort, letting them know not to head to the Skyliner station?

The only roadway close to IG is backstage at Epcot. It's a rather long drive all the way around the back of WS to where buses exit the backstage. They could also shuttle Guests from there to an unused backstage gate near the front bus area, but the Guests would have to walk a short distance to the bus stops. I don't think Disney would want to do either for an extended time.

 

[Moliphino]

I think @BabybetterDisney means when Epcot is closing for the night, what if there is lightening at the same time and the Gondola goes down.

Yes, those guests would have to go to the front of the park. Or go to Beach Club to call an Uber. Or maybe take the boat to DHS and catch their resort bus from there (if DHS is still open). Or some other contingency plan Disney may have that we don't know about!

The boats close for lightning, so that wouldn't be an option.

 

[Farro]

The boats close for lightning, so that wouldn't be an option.

Well, Uber it is!

 

[Donna M]

After reading through all these posts along with other threads I am looking forward to riding the gondola. Disney and the builder have thought through what it would be like in the middle of August, and wouldn't be investing this amount of money on something they believe people won't ride when it's hot and sunny. It's a 10 minute ride, the cabins have some type of film on the glass to provide shade (I read somewhere), and there will be air flow. How many of us have stood on line for over an hour waiting for a theme park attraction when it was miserably hot, and did it repeatedly.

For the people afraid of heights, claustrophobic, concerned about emergency situations, and too much heat, they would need to give their choice of resort a second look. There are so many resorts; if you're afraid of animals you wouldn't stay at AKL. People will end up doing the same here. If they know the only means of Disney transportation is the gondola then they would need to choose a better accommodating resort for their needs; maybe it will become their favorite.

I'm excited to ride.