Six operations happen at each gondola station:
1. Cable brings gondolas in, approximately one every 10 seconds.
2. Gondolas are slowed down into a slowly moving clump for unloading.
3. Gondolas reload while still in the clump,
4. An occasional gondola is stopped for a guest in a wheelchair, etc.
5. Gondolas exit and accelerate, and are released approximately one every 10 seconds.
6. Cable carries gondolas away.
It seems to me that at Riviera, when a gondola stops anywhere (always in step 4) all steps stop within a few seconds.
It seems to me that the machinery can be re-engineered so steps 2 through 5 are more independent of each other even within the existing length of the station so that stopping of the cable (steps 1 and 6) occurs only rarely.
(copied from another post) A clump may need to be part of step 5 to assure proper spacing on the cable and this will impose an added delay on each and every guest at all times.
(Step 4 as shown here might occur before step 3 as shown.)
... we definitely felt rushed trying to make it on. We were in fact the culprits that made it stop ...
Right now all I can think of is that incidents like this, fortunately not frequent, may have to be accepted as normal. For strangers, give the boarding guest the last word on electing whether to wait for the next gondola. I could rattle off a whole host of suggested formulas for loading gondolas with or without children or strollers. But there are so many low information voters among CMs, guests, and the general public that all I would get in reply would be the cyanotic emoticon with steam looking like question marks coming out of its head or with twirling pointing thumbed hands at its ears.
Oh, by the way, at every station, alighting guests have a second chance at the loading area although there may be a space in between where the gondola makes a U-turn. A CM may shoo the guest out prior to reaching that space, sometimes stopping the gondola and perhaps everything else in the process.
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