The reasonable part of my brain is telling me to stay out of this discussion, especially as a newbie, but the wiseass part won so here we go.
1. I would much rather be stuck on a gondola without a/c but another type of ventilation than on one with a/c. The thing with moving enclosed spaces with a/c is that they often have no other source of ventilation because the operators want to avoid that passengers open windows with the a/c blasting at full power. It's a waste of energy. Having been stuck for hours on a high-speed train on a hot Summer day here in Europe we were wishing the damn thing didn't have a/c because in a loss of power situation there was zero ventilation. Windows could not be opened, doors could not be opened and people were passing out due to lack of fresh air. So I'll gladly take any type of ventilation which does not require power, or which can operate independently when the rest of the system is down. And to those of you who continue to whine about the lack of a/c I suggest you stay at a bus resort. More space for the rest of us.
2. I have predominantly stayed at high-volume value resorts, as well as CSR and CBR. Never have I seen more people arrive at a single bus stop at the same time than a gondola system could handle. In extreme cases there may be a short wait, yes, but the main difference between a gondola system and the buses is that there is a constant flow, so there would not be a 20-minute buildup of people waiting for a bus to arrive. As others have mentioned, ski resorts, much like WDW, deal with peak periods of people wanting to get up the mountain and these types of systems deal with that demand very well. Having been on the Peak2Peak in Whistler imo it is nothing short of awesome and I have the utmost confidence in Doppelmayr and Disney for this project. I can't wait for the gondolas to operate in WDW and if you don't like them, don't ride them. Plain and simple.
3. To
@thomas998, the guy who talked about 2 gondolas coming in and only one going out: this is a non-issue as there will always be people exiting at the center point. There is only one scenario where I could see things slowing down, namely the CBR transfer point at park closing may involve a little bit of a wait for people going from DHS to PopArt.
Based on the number of rooms for each resort:
- PopArt 4864;
- CBR roughly 1800, assuming they demolished 312 rooms;
- DRR roughly 336 to end up with the nicely rounded number of 7000 rooms having access to the gondola;
the traffic mix would be roughly 70% PopArt, 25% CBR, and 5% DRR.
During a morning peak they can fill the gondolas to capacity at PopArt and as long as an average of roughly 43% of PopArt guests go to DHS there will always be enough capacity on the Epcot line to accommodate CBR and DRR guests going to Epcot, because they only represent 25+5=30% of the total number of rooms. So as long 30% out of PopArt's 70% share of the total number of rooms (=43%) go to DHS there is no issue, even in the extreme case where ALL of the guests at CBR and DRR would want to go to Epcot. The same is true if you switch the parks: let's say
all of the guests at CBR and DRR want to go to DHS (unlikely), then it would be sufficient for 43% of PopArt's guests to go to Epcot for the DHS line not to jam up at CBR. For EMH mornings when everyone wants to go to the same park I could see them letting 1 out of 3 gondolas leave PopArt empty so CBR and DRR could flow in seamlessly.
During an evening peak they could fill to capacity at the Epcot station and by the time they reach CBR an average of 30% of the capacity would open up for the DHS-PopArt traffic to flow in. Assuming that all lines run at the same capacity (number of gondolas per minute) and that the Epcot to PopArt line is continuous (no transfer required, which is not a given) then the wait time to get from CBR to PopArt could theoretically become higher because only 1 out of 3 gondolas would be available. Again this is assuming that you don't have to transfer when going from Epcot to PopArt. If you do have to transfer then the wait time would even out between the ex-Epcot and the ex-DHS guests because they would feed into the same line. Theoretically, a wait time could indeed occur here because you would have a demand of 140% of your gondola capacity.
In practice the traffic mix will not be constant and not all people of CBR and DRR will want to visit the same park, nor will everyone want to leave at the same time. I believe that CMs will be instructed to let every xth cabin leave empty at the end stations if there is an expected buildup at CBR or DRR, much like spots are left open on the Railroad to accommodate guests at the next stations. They will probably have to finetune things during early operation to reach an optimal guest flow. For guests the waiting time should also be a lot more pleasant because it will be a moving line instead of a static one. I'd much rather wait in a moving line than to have to wait for a bus to show up for 20 minutes while standing still. From my pov this project is an absolute winner and I can't wait for the system to be operational!
Now I'm gonna go hide from a potential counterattack.
