An essential part of Riviera will be the gondola system. The gondola will be significantly faster than standing out in a bus stop, waiting for a bus. By the time the bus arrives and you load up on the bus, the gondola will already have taken you to your destination, and that is before the bus actually travels and unloads. It will move at 11 mph pretty much constantly, even with with loading and unloading. It will be made of Heat reflective materials and with the forced airflow from the venting system it will be just fine. Also keep in mind that every time the gondola passes through a station and the door opens, the station will probably be airconditioned. Cold air will go into the gondola. It will help keep it cool for the next 3 to 6 minutes until it gets to the next station at its destination.
Keep in mind they use longer gondola systems in multiple countries where the temperatures are even hotter than here. None of them to my knowledge have an air-conditioning system. But you don’t hear people complaining about the heat and they are very popular.
Disney has thought about this, and made plans about this, and studied it COMPLETELY. They have been considering this for decades and made plans for many years before they even started to let out rumors that it might come to pass. This was far from a spur of the moment decision and every detail has been worked out.
The fact is, that the Gondolas make absolutely the most sense of any public transportation system for Disney world going forward. Buses are a continuing drain on the system and wages and cost many millions of dollars a year. Monorails cost between $100 million and $300 million per mile, and maintenance is very expensive. Boats are relatively inexpensive but cannot go everywhere. Meanwhile it only costs approximately $5 million per mile to extend the gondola system.
Like magic bands, in a few years people wonder how they ever got by without them. But the impact of the gondolas will actually be much greater than the impact of magic bands, and the impact of the magic band is tremendous.
Since the Riviera will be the first luxury and the first DVC resort with gondolas, that alone will help make the Riviera into a big success. People will find the gondolas to be much more convenient and much faster than the monorails, the boat, the buses, and walking. Soon we will start classifying Resorts as either Gondola resorts, or non-gondola Resorts. And that will leave most of the other resorts out in the cold, at least until they make the gondola extensions.
I think in the future extensions will take place in three phases. First phase will be to extend the gondolas from Epcot to Typhoon Lagoon, Old key west, Saratoga Springs, and Disney springs. Second phase will be to extend the gondolas to Caribbean beach and animal kingdom then on to the animal Kingdom Lodge. Third phase will be to extend it to Magic Kingdom and Resorts such as wilderness Lodge. And by that point they will also be making plans to complete the system by extending the gondolas to all of the other resorts including all of the value resorts.
It isn’t just by chance that this gondola system connects to two theme parks, one deluxe DVC resort, one moderate resort, and two value resorts. Disney looked at it and decided that this first phase will be the test for the whole system and for all of the resorts.