- Feb 15, 2012
- 17,141
- 47,078
I'd be surprised if this wasn't functioning by the end of the year, next spring at the latest.
Disney Skyliner - Gondola Transportation System
- Thread starter Parkscope Joe
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I'd be surprised if this wasn't functioning by the end of the year, next spring at the latest.
I don't think the redo of CB will be done by then so a main station won't have a real function.
- Jun 10, 2014
- 875
- 620
depends on what they use if its a concrete towers that you ride along then maybe next year. but if they just use steel then there wouldn't be any reason why they couldn't do it this year.
I would think steel. I can't imagine it being cheaper or easier to build concrete supports. Plus Florida building codes and such point toward steel for structures that have to withstand wind over concrete for things like lighting posts, traffic signals, etc.
- Aug 12, 2009
- 34
- 25
Close to that idea, put the Up balloons on it & paint a house scene on the gondola, and Disney can market it as an IP attraction.
Martin said the other day that these gondolas will be wrapped and I wouldn't be surprised if there was one or two themed to Up.
I think, they will probably have it ready by May at the earliest of next year.
I can't see the end of this year, even with it being a simple job that if it was Universal's, they'd probably have it done sooner. But, I think more so they can test it, make sure it's running at a large amount once it opens to the public. As, when it does; it will be helping the transportation situation tremendously.
I can't see the end of this year, even with it being a simple job that if it was Universal's, they'd probably have it done sooner. But, I think more so they can test it, make sure it's running at a large amount once it opens to the public. As, when it does; it will be helping the transportation situation tremendously.
And since it's Disney add a few more months and several million dollars in cost over runs.
Well then... hopefully Reedy Creek is building it instead.
Reedy Creek has a lot on their plate right now with all of the road construction going on and the third garage at DS getting underway.
I wonder if part of the reason it will be taking longer is due to so many important projects going on and the gondolas aren't "needed" until SWL is open.
I wonder if part of the reason it will be taking longer is due to so many important projects going on and the gondolas aren't "needed" until SWL is open.
- Jun 10, 2014
- 875
- 620
when the land opens i can see Disney doing VIP parking for the lot.Which means most will have to park at Epcot then get funneled over using the new gondola.
The stops seem to indicate, for the most part; that parking may be almost non-existant for it, and that it will be a perk for those who go to resort property.
Actually, come to think about it; wasn't there rumors that the hotels would've started paying fees for parking. This, is probably why then.
I'd think something like this would be installed by the manufacturer and their contractors. Disney might contract out the footer work and "ride building", but all the vert work they shouldn't be touching. If that's the case, I'd think it would be a quicker install. That and it seems like a fairly simple system.
I really don't think this is finishing before Coronado Springs and Caribbean Beach finishes. The gondolas are going to be a linchpin in destroying the hotel tiers. But, they need to raise the gondola hotel standards up before they can do that.
- Feb 15, 2012
- 17,141
- 47,078
- Jun 30, 2014
- 72
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Okay, I'm probably the person who suggested that Universal should use gondolas as an inventive way to get from UO North to WnW to UO South. I doubt Universal saw my post and immediately decided upon using them - these systems are becoming popular all over the world lately so they surely would be on Universal's radar - but I don't doubt that Universal looking into them made Disney look into them, or to at least accelerate their usage of them. Not so Universal would cancel plans for a system, but more so Disney fans would see Universal building one and say, "Oh, look, Universal is copying Disney AGAIN!" a sentiment Disney does rely on.
Anyhow, since mentioning it, I've done a lot of research, and then I got into a discussion with Lance from Screamscape about them. I formulated my plan on what I've read and heard. (Lance doesn't buy into all of this, so if I'm wrong on something, it's probably me!)
1) GIVE UP ON THE MONORAIL. They are TOO expensive to build (just ask Vegas). And the Disney ones break down a lot because they are OLD. Gondola systems are surprisingly cheap, they are more reliable and they are easier to evacuate. (Most systems have a backup power source and/or ways to move the cable to bring in gondolas. If those fail, these will be only be high enough to clear traffic and trucks with lifts can easily get to almost the entire line. Check out the pictures circulating of the Construction Zones and you'll see three roads being created, most likely for this purpose.)
2) THE MAPS ARE ALL WRONG. I haven't seen a correct map of my predicted layout, but I think I've read FINALLY - maybe on here? - that they will be separate routes. I am 99.9999999% positive this is correct. Because throughput falls apart once cars full of people are moving through stations. For throughput to max, every single car entering that station must be empty. Furthermore, the maps show a line going over the hotel rooms in Caribbean Beach. THIS WILL NEVER EVER EVER HAPPEN! Remove that line from the maps, and that's my predicted layout. The Caribbean Beach and DVC people will get on at a station built right between the new DVC building and Aruba and get off at the International Gateway. The Budget Resort people will get on at a station near their resorts, transfer to another line in the building being built south of Jamaica, and end their trip in front of DHS. The people from Caribbean Beach who want to go to DHS will not be able to get on at the Jamaica station, as that would reduce throughput (see my empty gondolas comment). They will instead get on a boat at the International Gateway and ride it to DHS, which is getting a new boat launch right next to the gondola station, if I am reading the construction blueprint correctly. And vice-versa for someone from Pop Century wanting to go to Epcot. It sound's complicated, but this system will get THOUSANDS of people off the roads down here where traffic is getting worse and worse.
3) IT IS GOING TO BE AS CHEAP AS POSSIBLE. Because this is Disney. That means it won't be more than about 15 feet off the ground, as high towers are costly. (Also, it helps with evacuation, wind and lightning - the towers DO have lightning rods, BTW.) I believe the entire system will remain at the same height throughout, though I'm not as certain about it. There will be NO turns. Those turns you see on the maps are not part of one line. People will have to get out of one and transfer to another. All the lines being built throughout the world are almost all straight lines. It's far less expensive to turn a large gondola 180 degrees than it is to turn it 90. (Without going into too much detail, 180 degrees means the gondola stays on the same cable through the turn. A 90-degree turn is simply impossible to do on one cable. It can happen on the outside of the turning wheels, but not on the inside. A similar system in Colombia was the FIRST to turn 90 degrees, requiring MANY turning wheels. And it was only created earlier this decade!) Turning stations are HUGE and COSTLY. As you can see on the maps, the "turning station" located in the V-shaped building near the Boardwalk parking lot is NOT huge. People will simply get out of one gondola and step into another waiting gondola to finish their trip to the International Gateway. NO HIGH-VOLUME GONDOLA SYSTEM CURRENTLY MAKES A TURN OF MORE THAN 90 DEGREES (barring turnarounds). This turn is closer to 45 degrees. Do NOT expect Disney to be an innovator here. The real question is whether the gondolas will stop or not. Many of these systems transfer to a slower cable, making entrances and exits like those on the Haunted Mansion. (Yes, they are also wheelchair-friendly.) Others are removed completely from the cable system and returned to it when emptied and/or filled. The continuous system keeps throughput up, so if it isn't too expensive, expect Disney to go with that.
Disney doesn't care enough about their guests to elevate the costs of this system (not to mention that the more you add to it, the costlier it is to fix it). A fact that can be seen by the horrible location of the Budget Resorts Station, which is a good .6 of a mile from the opposite end of those resorts. Some may notice the new Jamaica building is huge, but I think that's because Caribbean Beach is going to get a new lobby, as the current one will soon be separated from the rest of the resort by a new DVC building. The transfer station will probably be built into the new lobby building. It will also NOT be done anytime soon. Disney drags out their building process because they can brag about it on their stockholder reports. They will also bury the cost of this system into the "Caribbean Beach upgrades and new DVC" budget, because stockholders LOVE them some DVC and not all of them read every single expense attached to a project. (Which is how MyMagic+ was part of an "Upgrades" budget and how DCA's non-attraction changes were added into the "Disneyland Resort Upgrades" budget.)
4) WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THIS IS DONE? We're already hearing about a third line, which would most likely get people from the other populous resort area - the All Stars - out of buses. But will it happen? It's important to realize what this first system will do. Art of Animation has 1984 rooms. Pop Century has 2880. Caribbean Beach has 2112 (which will change when the DVC gets built, but we'll go with these numbers for now.), totaling 6976 rooms. This is the most-congested area of WDW. In comparison, the Boardwalk area has 4672 rooms and the MK Monorail resorts have 3191 rooms, and they all have easy transportation to at least two of the parks. If we imagine these three resorts as full, at just 3 people per room we have nearly 21,000 people in this small section of WDW. If half of them are planning on heading to Epcot and DHS for the day, that's about 10,000 people out of buses. And you can't just imagine 10,000 people spread throughout the day. These 10,000 people will be hitting those two parks in a period of 2-3 hours. Which means throughput MUST max out then, as well as when the parks close. Which might not be as bad if they stagger park closings, but there will still be more people shoved into one park's closing hour than there are before lunch.
So IF this ends up being successful - and it's difficult to see how it couldn't be as any system would be hard-pressed to be worse than the current bus fiasco. Just do the math. If 10,000 people are taken out of buses, that's at least 30 buses removed from the system, an extremely conservative number. With that type of success, then we probably will see a future line. But Disney may have cut itself off at the knees with how the Epcot/DHS area is set up. For a complete transportation system, someone should be able to get to all four parks from a hotel connected to the non-bus transit system. AK is still out of the loop. And you can't easily climb off the monorail at Epcot and get to DHS, which will still only be reachable by the people staying in the larger southern hotels. What WDW needs down here is another TTC, a central hub that would tie the monorail to the gondolas, or at least to the boat system between them.
I don't think Disney is being realistic as to what all these people will do to the Boardwalk area. Not everyone is going to dutifully hop off a gondola and wait for a boat. Hundreds of people will just hoof it to the other park, which will be putting hundreds of extra bodies into the Boardwalk area. This will not please the people staying at these Deluxe resorts, and ditto for the Swan and Dolphin guests. Once they start getting complaints about how hard it is to move around here, I can't see them deciding on adding the All Stars to the mix. I can't imagine them being dumped into the other Budget Resorts either, as they would add thousands more people to what will already be the busier of the two original lines. These systems were not made for that kind of throughput. I think this will force WDW to seriously think about expanding the water system around these two parks, possibly extending it all the way up to the monorail stop, or finally getting the monorail out of Epcot (Yes, this has been talked about in Disney circles. Disney can't put any Universal Marvel characters on this line because the trains enter a WDW park. Removing this unnecessary loop would allow them to put whatever wraps they wish on the trains... as long as they don't mention Marvel by name!). Anyhow, unless they can show that they saved millions upon millions with the first two gondola lines, I don't see the being able to sell stockholders on a more extensive - and expensive - third line.
Anyhow, since mentioning it, I've done a lot of research, and then I got into a discussion with Lance from Screamscape about them. I formulated my plan on what I've read and heard. (Lance doesn't buy into all of this, so if I'm wrong on something, it's probably me!)
1) GIVE UP ON THE MONORAIL. They are TOO expensive to build (just ask Vegas). And the Disney ones break down a lot because they are OLD. Gondola systems are surprisingly cheap, they are more reliable and they are easier to evacuate. (Most systems have a backup power source and/or ways to move the cable to bring in gondolas. If those fail, these will be only be high enough to clear traffic and trucks with lifts can easily get to almost the entire line. Check out the pictures circulating of the Construction Zones and you'll see three roads being created, most likely for this purpose.)
2) THE MAPS ARE ALL WRONG. I haven't seen a correct map of my predicted layout, but I think I've read FINALLY - maybe on here? - that they will be separate routes. I am 99.9999999% positive this is correct. Because throughput falls apart once cars full of people are moving through stations. For throughput to max, every single car entering that station must be empty. Furthermore, the maps show a line going over the hotel rooms in Caribbean Beach. THIS WILL NEVER EVER EVER HAPPEN! Remove that line from the maps, and that's my predicted layout. The Caribbean Beach and DVC people will get on at a station built right between the new DVC building and Aruba and get off at the International Gateway. The Budget Resort people will get on at a station near their resorts, transfer to another line in the building being built south of Jamaica, and end their trip in front of DHS. The people from Caribbean Beach who want to go to DHS will not be able to get on at the Jamaica station, as that would reduce throughput (see my empty gondolas comment). They will instead get on a boat at the International Gateway and ride it to DHS, which is getting a new boat launch right next to the gondola station, if I am reading the construction blueprint correctly. And vice-versa for someone from Pop Century wanting to go to Epcot. It sound's complicated, but this system will get THOUSANDS of people off the roads down here where traffic is getting worse and worse.
3) IT IS GOING TO BE AS CHEAP AS POSSIBLE. Because this is Disney. That means it won't be more than about 15 feet off the ground, as high towers are costly. (Also, it helps with evacuation, wind and lightning - the towers DO have lightning rods, BTW.) I believe the entire system will remain at the same height throughout, though I'm not as certain about it. There will be NO turns. Those turns you see on the maps are not part of one line. People will have to get out of one and transfer to another. All the lines being built throughout the world are almost all straight lines. It's far less expensive to turn a large gondola 180 degrees than it is to turn it 90. (Without going into too much detail, 180 degrees means the gondola stays on the same cable through the turn. A 90-degree turn is simply impossible to do on one cable. It can happen on the outside of the turning wheels, but not on the inside. A similar system in Colombia was the FIRST to turn 90 degrees, requiring MANY turning wheels. And it was only created earlier this decade!) Turning stations are HUGE and COSTLY. As you can see on the maps, the "turning station" located in the V-shaped building near the Boardwalk parking lot is NOT huge. People will simply get out of one gondola and step into another waiting gondola to finish their trip to the International Gateway. NO HIGH-VOLUME GONDOLA SYSTEM CURRENTLY MAKES A TURN OF MORE THAN 90 DEGREES (barring turnarounds). This turn is closer to 45 degrees. Do NOT expect Disney to be an innovator here. The real question is whether the gondolas will stop or not. Many of these systems transfer to a slower cable, making entrances and exits like those on the Haunted Mansion. (Yes, they are also wheelchair-friendly.) Others are removed completely from the cable system and returned to it when emptied and/or filled. The continuous system keeps throughput up, so if it isn't too expensive, expect Disney to go with that.
Disney doesn't care enough about their guests to elevate the costs of this system (not to mention that the more you add to it, the costlier it is to fix it). A fact that can be seen by the horrible location of the Budget Resorts Station, which is a good .6 of a mile from the opposite end of those resorts. Some may notice the new Jamaica building is huge, but I think that's because Caribbean Beach is going to get a new lobby, as the current one will soon be separated from the rest of the resort by a new DVC building. The transfer station will probably be built into the new lobby building. It will also NOT be done anytime soon. Disney drags out their building process because they can brag about it on their stockholder reports. They will also bury the cost of this system into the "Caribbean Beach upgrades and new DVC" budget, because stockholders LOVE them some DVC and not all of them read every single expense attached to a project. (Which is how MyMagic+ was part of an "Upgrades" budget and how DCA's non-attraction changes were added into the "Disneyland Resort Upgrades" budget.)
4) WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THIS IS DONE? We're already hearing about a third line, which would most likely get people from the other populous resort area - the All Stars - out of buses. But will it happen? It's important to realize what this first system will do. Art of Animation has 1984 rooms. Pop Century has 2880. Caribbean Beach has 2112 (which will change when the DVC gets built, but we'll go with these numbers for now.), totaling 6976 rooms. This is the most-congested area of WDW. In comparison, the Boardwalk area has 4672 rooms and the MK Monorail resorts have 3191 rooms, and they all have easy transportation to at least two of the parks. If we imagine these three resorts as full, at just 3 people per room we have nearly 21,000 people in this small section of WDW. If half of them are planning on heading to Epcot and DHS for the day, that's about 10,000 people out of buses. And you can't just imagine 10,000 people spread throughout the day. These 10,000 people will be hitting those two parks in a period of 2-3 hours. Which means throughput MUST max out then, as well as when the parks close. Which might not be as bad if they stagger park closings, but there will still be more people shoved into one park's closing hour than there are before lunch.
So IF this ends up being successful - and it's difficult to see how it couldn't be as any system would be hard-pressed to be worse than the current bus fiasco. Just do the math. If 10,000 people are taken out of buses, that's at least 30 buses removed from the system, an extremely conservative number. With that type of success, then we probably will see a future line. But Disney may have cut itself off at the knees with how the Epcot/DHS area is set up. For a complete transportation system, someone should be able to get to all four parks from a hotel connected to the non-bus transit system. AK is still out of the loop. And you can't easily climb off the monorail at Epcot and get to DHS, which will still only be reachable by the people staying in the larger southern hotels. What WDW needs down here is another TTC, a central hub that would tie the monorail to the gondolas, or at least to the boat system between them.
I don't think Disney is being realistic as to what all these people will do to the Boardwalk area. Not everyone is going to dutifully hop off a gondola and wait for a boat. Hundreds of people will just hoof it to the other park, which will be putting hundreds of extra bodies into the Boardwalk area. This will not please the people staying at these Deluxe resorts, and ditto for the Swan and Dolphin guests. Once they start getting complaints about how hard it is to move around here, I can't see them deciding on adding the All Stars to the mix. I can't imagine them being dumped into the other Budget Resorts either, as they would add thousands more people to what will already be the busier of the two original lines. These systems were not made for that kind of throughput. I think this will force WDW to seriously think about expanding the water system around these two parks, possibly extending it all the way up to the monorail stop, or finally getting the monorail out of Epcot (Yes, this has been talked about in Disney circles. Disney can't put any Universal Marvel characters on this line because the trains enter a WDW park. Removing this unnecessary loop would allow them to put whatever wraps they wish on the trains... as long as they don't mention Marvel by name!). Anyhow, unless they can show that they saved millions upon millions with the first two gondola lines, I don't see the being able to sell stockholders on a more extensive - and expensive - third line.
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