Disney Skyliner shutdown and evacuation - October 6 2019

[BromBones]

As with all things Disney, this has once again become a battle against pixie dusters who cannot abide any factual information that reflects negatively on the Mouse.

While I don't think Tom-level negativity is warranted, it's perfectly reasonable for the average guest to have some concerns about this system given that a major shutdown -- and an emergency evacuation -- occurred in its first week. Disney doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt until they have months' worth of regular operation without major issues.

Me personally? I booked a Pop Century stay in a few months because of the Skyliner access and I'm seriously considering moving off site instead.

That's what I was saying. Not even a full week in and Disney has a crash and a major evacuation.
Now if they have years of reliable, incident free usage of the Skyliner then maybe it's time to have confidence in the system.
But you're right. The "pixie dusters" (I love that term) think everything Disney does is infallible and it looks like they attack anyone who thinks otherwise.

 

[Santa Raccoon 77]

That's what I was saying. Not even a full week in and Disney has a crash and a major evacuation.
Now if they have years of reliable, incident free usage of the Skyliner then maybe it's time to have confidence in the system.
But you're right. The "pixie dusters" (I love that term) think everything Disney does is infallible and it looks like they attack anyone who thinks otherwise.

So by your logic the monorails shouldn't still be there. The was an accident in 1974 in which people were injured. Should have just shut it down then.

 

[Sir_Cliff]

As with all things Disney, this has once again become a battle against pixie dusters who cannot abide any factual information that reflects negatively on the Mouse.

While I don't think Tom-level negativity is warranted, it's perfectly reasonable for the average guest to have some concerns about this system given that a major shutdown -- and an emergency evacuation -- occurred in its first week. Disney doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt until they have months' worth of regular operation without major issues.

Me personally? I booked a Pop Century stay in a few months because of the Skyliner access and I'm seriously considering moving off site instead.

I would still ride the Skyliner without any real qualms and this incident doesn't seem like the disaster that some are painting it out to be. It's also not nothing, though.

Surely the fact that this new transportation system couldn't run a week without a crash (however minor) and the evacuation procedures proved so slow after all the time and money invested in making it a relatively easy system to evacuate counts as at least a minor crisis internally at WDW? Presumably, they now must be scrambling to figure out why both those things happened and make sure they don't happen again which could take some time.

Again, I personally like the gondolas as a system of transportation. But scanning (admittedly) through this thread, I don't get this polarisation between "nothing to see here" and "the sky(liner) is falling". I'm also sympathetic to those who suffer from anxiety based on heights and enclosed spaces, as they do now have some reason to be even more wary of stepping foot on this system.

 

[Santa Raccoon 77]

I would still ride the Skyliner without any real qualms and this incident doesn't seem like the disaster that some are painting it out to be. It's also not nothing, though.

Surely the fact that this new transportation system couldn't run a week without a crash (however minor) and the evacuation procedures proved so slow after all the time and money invested in making it a relatively easy system to evacuate counts as at least a minor crisis internally at WDW? Presumably, they now must be scrambling to figure out why both those things happened and make sure they don't happen again which could take some time.

Again, I personally like the gondolas as a system of transportation. But scanning (admittedly) through this thread, I don't get this polarisation between "nothing to see here" and "the sky(liner) is falling". I'm also sympathetic to those who suffer from anxiety based on heights and enclosed spaces, as they do now have some reason to now be even more wary of stepping foot on this system.

It does seem strange how they can't run a proven system without incident.

 

[disney4life2008]

As with all things Disney, this has once again become a battle against pixie dusters who cannot abide any factual information that reflects negatively on the Mouse.

While I don't think Tom-level negativity is warranted, it's perfectly reasonable for the average guest to have some concerns about this system given that a major shutdown -- and an emergency evacuation -- occurred in its first week. Disney doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt until they have months' worth of regular operation without major issues.

Me personally? I booked a Pop Century stay in a few months because of the Skyliner access and I'm seriously considering moving off site instead.

I'm just saying but why would you stay somewhere because of a skyliner. That's a waste of money

 

[Timmay]

Good grief, emergency evacuation was only because some person was having a panic attack. There’s no need for Disney to prove this, cause they didn’t build it, Doppelmayr did. And they are already proven all over the world. The whole thing was just a fluke with bad timing and some delicate passengers. Enjoy the bus rides.

Not trying to be rude here...but I am grateful you’re not on the root cause analysis team for this.

 

[Chet Dakota]

Unfortunately statistics and facts are meaningless to people who have fears(irrational or not). A well known Disney Vlogger's wife will never ride the Skyliner again because of this incident. Here is her explanation(It starts at 4:55)...



She goes on to explain she will not ride the Monorail or Disney buses, if there's ever a problem with the ferry's I'm guessing she'll never make it to MK again.

She is not unique. There are millions of people like this who will never ride the Skyliner no matter how safe it's proven to be.

Shorter lines for when I ride.

 

[Heppenheimer]

I like facts so I went to an article published by The National Ski Areas Association on chairlift safety. I know they want to promote the safety of their operations but their report primarily talks about chairlifts where the occupants are unrestrained and not gondola systems which I would rate as safer due to being enclosed.

"In short, a passenger is five times more likely to suffer a fatality riding an elevator than a ski lift, and more than eight times more likely to suffer a fatality riding in a car than on a ski lift"

I won't have an issue riding the Skyliner when it opens as they will definitely have the root cause identified and fixed.

I'm going to make the assumption that if you could separate the gondola data from the chairlifts, injuries would be much lower for gondolas. Mainly because chairlifts require some ability to control yourself on skis, whereas gondolas only require you to be able to walk in ski boots.

 

[matt9112]

Disney should commision gene Simmons to write a song titled "cabins of death" to pump you up at load and unload. He will do anything for money. And this way your only suprised when it dosent have any issues and works fine and in the rare cases it has an issue everyone was exspecting it.

 

[danlb_2000]

Not if you have a wide enough base.

Then you get back to the size problem. All the paths into the IG area are just big enough to get a Friendship boat through, so they would end up having to store the rescue boat in that area. Since there are only ever at most 4 cars over that area, I assume Disney felt an alternate evacuation method was a better option then going through the expense of having another custom evac boat created.

 

[ImperfectPixie]

That's what I was saying. Not even a full week in and Disney has a crash and a major evacuation.
Now if they have years of reliable, incident free usage of the Skyliner then maybe it's time to have confidence in the system.
But you're right. The "pixie dusters" (I love that term) think everything Disney does is infallible and it looks like they attack anyone who thinks otherwise.

Okay...if we're going to really discuss this, let's at least make sure we're talking facts. It wasn't really a "crash". Car #108 failed to launch, and the cars behind it DID launch, so it was more of a case of they bumped into each other, stacked up, and the pressure caused one of #108's windows to break and some fiberglass damage to at least 2 or more cars. You can see what I'm talking about in all the pictures floating around.

Any off-the-ground evacuation of this system is going to appear to be "major", but this one really wasn't. The Orlando Sentinel quoted RCFD as saying they only evacuated ONE car containing six passengers. The reason it took 3 hours to get the cable moving again is because the emergency services teams were in the direct path of the gondolas, so the system couldn't be restarted until they were out of the way. Possibly compounding this issue was a problematic cherry picker or scissor lift (not sure of source or reliability on this one). All remaining passengers remained in their cars until the system was restarted and were able to leave the system via the stations. If it weren't for the need of a medical evacuation (the person who called 911 due to having claustrophobia, hyperventilating, and a history of seizures), the system could have been restarted much sooner.

My biggest concern after this incident is that the human race does some really stupid things sometimes, and I worry that people who have phobias and shouldn't ride will do so anyway and we'll see more calls for emergency services than are truly needed - which not only wastes resources, but also places other passengers in danger of heat stroke during the hottest parts of the day. My other concern is that people are more likely to grab their phones to dial 911 than they are to look for and/or figure out how to use a call-box. (The call-box system becoming overloaded and failing to work was also supposedly part of the problems during this incident, as well as missing and pilfered emergency kits.)

ETA: They'll figure out what went wrong, fix the issues, and I'll ride on my next trip.

 

["El Gran Magnifico"]

I'm just saying but why would you stay somewhere because of a skyliner. That's a waste of money

Maybe the same reason people stay somewhere because of a monorail...

 

[starri42]

For those that have ridden it or spent more time looking at pictures of the interiors, do they have any instruction signs for the call boxes? I'm just reminded of the signs the NYC subway where there are signs not to pull the emergency stop cord for most things, particularly medical emergencies.

It seems like it would be a good idea to clearly state people shouldn't use them just to report that they're stopped (Disney already knows, guys) and to reserve for actual medical emergencies.

 

[Heppenheimer]

Maybe the same reason people stay somewhere because of a monorail...

Heck, one the reasons I stay at the Wilderness Lodge is the quiet little boat ride to and from the Magic Kingdom.

 

[Sir_Cliff]

Heck, one the reasons I stay at the Wilderness Lodge is the quiet little boat ride to and from the Magic Kingdom.

That may be my favourite of all the transportation options at WDW!

 

["El Gran Magnifico"]

Heck, one the reasons I stay at the Wilderness Lodge is the quiet little boat ride to and from the Magic Kingdom.

The only thing I would add there (which will never happen) is a footbridge across that small island so you could walk to the Contemporary (and/or MK)

 

[BlindChow]

I am curious about the latest status of the skyliner. Was there an official announcement of the actual reason it failed? Any idea when it is going to reopen.

It isn't worth looking through pages of comments to find the news. It would be great to have a pinned thread that only contains the latest news and not every comment, complaint and whine"

You know what would solve this? A way to set the thread to only show posts with at least x amount of likes...

For instance, if you chose 10 likes as the minimum here, you'd get all the news posts (plus a few jokes), and it would be an easy 3 pages. None of the petty bickering or off-topic rambling.

Just a thought...

 

[Disstevefan1]

This isn't a question. This is a known potential outcome.. and the very reason WDW has specialized equipment on hand specifically for the task and why staff trained for these situations. This is now 'new' nor 'news'. The unexpected portion was that it happened so quickly after opening as it should be a rare situation.. not a common one.

That is distortion of the information and is incorrect.
1) They do have a plan going forward for evacuating guests. Nothing has changed here nor did that plan fail here in this situation.
2) The statement that 'Reedy creek has already warned WDW they do not have the manpower to handle such an evacuation' - That is not correct. A union spokesperson made statements about their opinion on the impact of such needs have on their job and what they think RCID should be doing for staffing levels. That is not a statement from RC fire department management and they have reconfirmed they are capable of doing the job.

You've distorted basic information into some new crisis that has no answers or uncertainties but is not accurate to the facts of the matter.

Thank you for correcting my distortions..

In my opinion

1. RCID may have a plan, but I would hate to be one of those folks stuck in a skyliner in the sun waiting for evacuation.

2. The skyliner will go back online with whatever evacuation plan they have in place. Like Galaxy’s Edge, the skyliner is too big to fail.

3. Discussion boards are fun, we exchange commentary but keep in mind, no matter what we say on these boards, Disney will do what ever it thinks is best and it doesn’t always work out as well as they expected, see Galaxy’s Edge.

In the end, I am sure all will be fine with the skyliner....... maybe.

 

["El Gran Magnifico"]

skyliner in the sun

I just got a Violent Femmes flashback. It kind of fits the situation - if you were stuck in the middle of the day. In fact, If I do get stuck, I'm gonna blast "Blister in the Sun" from my Gondola. Thanks.

 

[flynnibus]

Not if you have a wide enough base.

The canal is not getting any bigger...