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

[Weedy]

The cabins will look like this


Inside will have wooden benches

 

[rteetz]

More like this

The images show the same system just Disney is installing cabins instead of ski lifts.

 

[rteetz]

The cabins will look like this
View attachment 370139

Inside will have wooden benches
View attachment 370140

Yes we are all aware.

 

[OSUZorba]

Right - it's easy enough to think about. If Disney is gunning for 5000 per hour -that's 83 people per minute or 8.3 cars per minute (assuming 10 people is used for the capacity calculations) or a car leaving every 7.2 seconds).

Personally I don't think this is all that realistic, so I am not sure where the 5000 per hour each way number came from. If that's really the capacity each way - that's also a full bus in less than a minute, or around 80 busses an hour. I am sure Disney wants to make sure they don't have bottlenecks, but even 3000 per hour is 50 buses an hour, and that's more than twice the CURRENT bus capacity, and also a more reasonable 12 seconds per car.

In the end - I don't think it really matters - capacity is NEVER going to be an issue.
The big issue will be how they handle shutdown for weather.
And of course we can't forget air conditioning.

Any idea on the number of doombuggies per minute in at HH?

Even at the higher speed, the cabins would be in the slow part of the station for ~70-90 seconds. I think that'll be enough time if Disney has enough CMs running it.

This is the system Disney is installing

https://liftblog.com/2018/12/15/big-sky-doppelmayr-christen-ramcharger-8/

That is really cool, I've never seen a detachable chairlift before. That post shows that they can change the spacing in the station, which is what I think they'll do at Riveria for slow loads.

 

[Q-man]

Any idea on the number of doombuggies per minute in at HH?

I have no idea how capacity is calculated per doom buggy but HM max capacity is 3200pph. Real world capacity is 2880pph. Max capacity with 2 people to a doom buggy would be 4.4 doom buggies per minute and real world would be 4 per minute. https://crooksinwdw.wordpress.com/2013/12/14/theoreticaloperational-hourly-ride-capacity-at-wdw/

Someone will be along shortly to tell me how bad my math is.

 

[Turn the Page]

I have no idea how capacity is calculated per doom buggy but HM max capacity is 3200pph. Real world capacity is 2880pph. Max capacity with 2 people to a doom buggy would be 4.4 doom buggies per minute and real world would be 4 per minute. https://crooksinwdw.wordpress.com/2013/12/14/theoreticaloperational-hourly-ride-capacity-at-wdw/

Someone will be along shortly to tell me how bad my math is.

Or like 24 per minute.

 

[skier_pete]

Any idea on the number of doombuggies per minute in at HH?

Even at the higher speed, the cabins would be in the slow part of the station for ~70-90 seconds. I think that'll be enough time if Disney has enough CMs running it.

That is really cool, I've never seen a detachable chairlift before. That post shows that they can change the spacing in the station, which is what I think they'll do at Riveria for slow loads.

Well, you are correct - the way you load 8 cars per minute is to be loading more than one car at a time - in other words, you have say 8 cars in the load area at the same time.

 

[Q-man]

Or like 24 per minute.

I knew I screwed something up. Should have been a doom buggy every 2.5-3 seconds not 4 per minute.

 

[OSUZorba]

Or like 24 per minute.

If they can load 24 doombuggies a minute all day, I think they'll be able to hit 8 gondolas per minute. Disney are the master's at treating ride loading as an assembly line.

What might hurt them with hitting that speed is it won't be any where near capacity most of the time, so the CMs may get a bit lax.

 

[Mikey15]

I knew I screwed something up. Should have been a doom buggy every 2.5-3 seconds not 4 per minute.

2,880 people / 2 per buggy / 60 minutes = 24 buggies per minute. Nice clean math Don't even need to get down to the seconds.

And HM has to stop for wheelchair transfer, right? Thankfully it sounds like Skyliner's designed to avoid that.

 

[Turn the Page]

If they can load 24 doombuggies a minute all day, I think they'll be able to hit 8 gondolas per minute. Disney are the master's at treating ride loading as an assembly line.

What might hurt them with hitting that speed is it won't be any where near capacity most of the time, so the CMs may get a bit lax.

If it is nowhere near capacity most of the time then the load speed isn't going to matter.

 

[OSUZorba]

If it is nowhere near capacity most of the time then the load speed isn't going to matter.

At park closing is when it would matter. Any other time of the day if you have to skip a gondola or two because you got behind I don't think it'll be a big deal.

 

[scrappinginontario]

People talk of the safety yet after being at Disney last week, if I didn't realize how many buses are on the road I'd be hesitant to step on a Disney bus. In the 1 week we were there there were 2 accidents, each involving 2 Disney buses. And, these are only the ones I'm personally aware of. Possibly there was 1 or more others that were not publicized?

There was the one at Epcot that sent 14 people to hospital when one bus hit the other one in the parking plaza.

Saturday night when we were on our way back from the MK around 8:30 we saw 2 Disney buses run off the road. It was hard to tell exactly what happened but both were sitting in the grassy area between the main highway and an exit ramp. Not sure which bus might have changed it's mind but it appears that's what happened. Guessing there were not any injuries (at least that we heard of) but the next day when we passed the same spot it was very easy to see all the ruts in the grass where the 2 buses had come to rest. When we passed by there were many police cars there and large vehicles so guessing it had happened a while before we arrived.

All this to say is that accidents can happen but personally I'll choose to trust the safety of the gondolas possibly even more of the buses based on recent experiences.

I will say I'm also happier when I get on a bus with a more mature driver. The younger ones seem to be a little more aggressive and speedy then some of the more seasoned drivers. Again, just my opinion.

 

[scrappinginontario]

We were there last week and I looked often but didn't see anything as exciting as the pictures of the work gondolas in the air. Cool!!

Is there any speculation that the construction of the stations has anything to do with the fall opening? Are most of the stations close to completion?

I understand they can work fairly quickly on the stations but after seeing all of them last week I can't say any of them appear to be close to completion at this time. They all appear to need quite a bit of finishing work to make them as complete to the Disney standards we know. That being said, we could see (and sometimes hear) construction workers at all of the stations 7 days a week.

 

[scrappinginontario]

I recall there was long lines for the gandola that was in the MK. now those only held 4 people but there was still a long wait as I remember I can see a long wait(20-30 minutes ) in the morning and park closing

I agree.

Remember, 4500/hr is a full 737 worth of people every two minutes. Even big groups will be sent on their way quickly.

Just curious as to where these numbers are from? Is the 737 worth of people the combined number of people at all 5 load points? Even that seems high as it would be 147.4 people per station loading every 2 minutes or, 73.7 people per minute. If each gondola holds the anticipated number of 8 people that means each gondola needs to arrive, load and be on it's way in less than 10 seconds. I just can't see that happening! I've seen a lot of gondolas in operation and none of them move at that speed in the stations nor is it humanly possible for each person to fully load the gondola in 1 second which is what it would take for these numbers to happen.

After being in the MK during an extremely busy night Saturday and seeing even the continuously moving rides (Haunted Mansion, People Mover, Buzz Lightyear, etc) with extremely long lines (45 mins plus for each except the People Mover which still snaked back and forth about 6 times before ending over by Astro Orbiter) I can't see the gondolas being able to keep up with the crowds.

I'm not saying the lines will be huge all the time but I'm fully anticipating waiting for a while at park opening and close.​

 

[rteetz]

If each gondola holds the anticipated number of 8 people that means each gondola needs to arrive, load and be on it's way in less than 10 seconds. I just can't see that happening! I've seen a lot of gondolas in operation and none of them move at that speed in the stations nor is it humanly possible for each person to fully load the gondola in 1 second which is what it would take for these numbers to happen.

After being in the MK during an extremely busy night Saturday and seeing even the continuously moving rides (Haunted Mansion, People Mover, Buzz Lightyear, etc) with extremely long lines (45 mins plus for each except the People Mover which still snaked back and forth about 6 times before ending over by Astro Orbiter) I can't see the gondolas being able to keep up with the crowds.

I'm not saying the lines will be huge all the time but I'm fully anticipating waiting for a while at park opening and close.

The cabins hold up to 10 people.

Disney is looking to hit roughly 4500-5000 an hour I believe. Also remember these stations have two loads something never really done before.

While there may be a minimal wait at peak times I don't think it ever hits 20-30 minutes due to nature of this system and its capacity.

 

[scrappinginontario]

The cabins hold up to 10 people.

Disney is looking to hit roughly 4500-5000 an hour I believe. Also remember these stations have two loads something never really done before.

While there may be a minimal wait at peak times I don't think it ever hits 20-30 minutes due to nature of this system and its capacity.

Will the majority of people load in one location and others (wheelchairs, ECVs, etc) in the other line or do you anticipate them splitting the lines in 2 and each line will handle 50% of the people?

Cannot wait to see these in action and ride them! We'll be at Pop in April and I'm hoping to see some of the Disney gondolas in test mode. We're heading back in September and I'm really hoping they're open by them but also understand that we might be just a bit early.

 

[OSUZorba]

Just curious as to where these numbers are from? Is the 737 worth of people the combined number of people at all 5 load points? Even that seems high as it would be 147.4 people per station loading every 2 minutes or, 73.7 people per minute. If each gondola holds the anticipated number of 8 people that means each gondola needs to arrive, load and be on it's way in less than 10 seconds. I just can't see that happening! I've seen a lot of gondolas in operation and none of them move at that speed in the stations nor is it humanly possible for each person to fully load the gondola in 1 second which is what it would take for these numbers to happen.

After being in the MK during an extremely busy night Saturday and seeing even the continuously moving rides (Haunted Mansion, People Mover, Buzz Lightyear, etc) with extremely long lines (45 mins plus for each except the People Mover which still snaked back and forth about 6 times before ending over by Astro Orbiter) I can't see the gondolas being able to keep up with the crowds.

I'm not saying the lines will be huge all the time but I'm fully anticipating waiting for a while at park opening and close.​

Although I didn't mean 737 people, the math actually works out right. I meant a 737 airliner, such as all the ones Southwest flies. Typical load on a 737 airliner is about 150 people. At 4500 people per hour, per direction, that would be up to 75 people per minute per station, or a planeload of people every 2 minutes.

As for your load times, you are calculating the load time as if there was only one gondola in the station at once, while there will actually be around 10, meaning there would now be ~80 seconds to unload and reload. This will be helped by the fact that it would be unusually for on line to be loading and unload a lot of people at the same time, except maybe the Epcot line going into CBR. Also remember that they do not have to wait for one gondola to load, before sending people to the next gondola. It'll be much like HM where there are several cars worth of people getting on at one time, in a continuous fashion.

I don't know that comparing the capacity of gondola to rides is really fair. I think it is much better to compare to the current bus capacity going to these resorts from these parks, which on a high end might be ~36 buses (1 bus every 10 minutes per resort&park) in the hour after closing, or about 2200 people max from both parks, while this system will be able to do 9000/hr from both parks.

Here is a good video from Vail:

 

[Moliphino]

Saturday night when we were on our way back from the MK around 8:30 we saw 2 Disney buses run off the road. It was hard to tell exactly what happened but both were sitting in the grassy area between the main highway and an exit ramp. Not sure which bus might have changed it's mind but it appears that's what happened. Guessing there were not any injuries (at least that we heard of) but the next day when we passed the same spot it was very easy to see all the ruts in the grass where the 2 buses had come to rest. When we passed by there were many police cars there and large vehicles so guessing it had happened a while before we arrived.

We passed that, too. My sister thought maybe one bus broke down and the second bus was there to pick up the passengers. I never heard anything more about it, either.

 

[OKW Lover]

Will the majority of people load in one location and others (wheelchairs, ECVs, etc) in the other line or do you anticipate them splitting the lines in 2 and each line will handle 50% of the people?

Most likely the majority of people will load in one location while those that need extra time to board will load in the secondary location.