News New Gondola Transportation - Disney Skyliner -

[Grimley1968]

The Blog Mickey post about Friendship Boat service has a great picture of the IG station. It's significantly taller than I thought. I had always seen the ramp on the left, but from the photo it looks like it raises an entire story not just a slight increase. What I had thought was enough lift to make it easy for the gondolas level entry instead looks like an entire story.

With that change in perspective, the questions about the rate of climb, size of the garden keeping people away, and amount of clearance for people walking by on the path are all changed. Starting an entire story off the ground vs the walking path makes all of those distances easier to understand. All those mock up photoshops guessing at the path spacing effectively had the gondoals 10 feet to low at the start. Much easier to visualize the clearance with the gondola never getting all the way to ground level.

That post also mentions that suspensions of boat service to EPCOT will change from all day for a time window to just nightly closures after 9:30 PM. That's good news.

That photo pretty convincingly shows that, at least when it opens, the gondola station will be outside the bag check. I think if there was any chance of bag check being moved to the other side of the station before it opened, they would have already done so. Great photo, though, and that really does, ahem, clear up the clearance questions.

 

[truecoat]

I'm all for memes, as long as the photos they use are the latest ones and show the progress of the system, and the text is tiny.

Ok, I'll go first.

 

[EvilChameleon]

Kind of creepy posting that earthquake map, and then hours later a big one hits Alaska.

 

["El Gran Magnifico"]

This has probably been discussed somewhere in the 705 preceding pages.......Does anyone know what the rationale behind the Gondola station being placed at International Gateway was?

 

[Kamikaze]

This has probably been discussed somewhere in the 705 preceding pages.......Does anyone know what the rationale behind the Gondola station being placed at International Gateway was?

Cost first, feasibility second. Much easier to run the line to the back then all the way around the park to the front. But mostly because it would cost more to run it to the front. Additionally the plans for putting a hotel at the entrance may have played a part in the logistics of placing everything in front.

 

[GoofGoof]

This has probably been discussed somewhere in the 705 preceding pages.......Does anyone know what the rationale behind the Gondola station being placed at International Gateway was?

The gondola runs in straight lines. If you want to deviate from that you need a turn station. In order to get to the front of EPCOT they would have either had to run it through the park ruining site lines or run it around the outside perimeter but that would require at least a few additional turn stations. Plus the ride would be a lot longer. They could have had it exit at a country instead but that would have required another entrance/exit being put in. IG was the cheapest, easiest and most practical option.

 

["El Gran Magnifico"]

Cost first, feasibility second. Much easier to run the line to the back then all the way around the park to the front. But mostly because it would cost more to run it to the front. Additionally the plans for putting a hotel at the entrance may have played a part in the logistics of placing everything in front.

Thanks.

I thought it would have been kinda cool if they created a path to the MK and monorail resorts for those staying at POP, AoA, CBR, and Riviera without sole reliance on a Disney bus. You'd just transfer at EPCOT over to the TTC monorail. You could still do it, but you'd need to walk through EPCOT to get there - and depending on the type of ticket you have - it may not be an option at all.

 

[danlb_2000]

This has probably been discussed somewhere in the 705 preceding pages.......Does anyone know what the rationale behind the Gondola station being placed at International Gateway was?

There just isn't a good route to the front of the park without adding a couple more turn stations. Continuing the current line to the IG would take it over the park which is probably something the didn't want to do no to mention there are a couple large buildings that might have been in the way. Continuing the CBR line straight would have taken it over a lot of back stage areas and without a second turn would hit the parking lot far from the entrance.

 

[GoofGoof]

One more benefit to using IG instead of front of park is it opens up a ton of dining options at BW/BC/YC to guests at CBR and AoA/Pop. It will just be a short gondola ride now to those resorts similar to how staying at a monorail resort opens up all those convenient dining options.

 

[lazyboy97o]

The Blog Mickey post about Friendship Boat service has a great picture of the IG station. It's significantly taller than I thought. I had always seen the ramp on the left, but from the photo it looks like it raises an entire story not just a slight increase. What I had thought was enough lift to make it easy for the gondolas level entry instead looks like an entire story.

With that change in perspective, the questions about the rate of climb, size of the garden keeping people away, and amount of clearance for people walking by on the path are all changed. Starting an entire story off the ground vs the walking path makes all of those distances easier to understand. All those mock up photoshops guessing at the path spacing effectively had the gondoals 10 feet to low at the start. Much easier to visualize the clearance with the gondola never getting all the way to ground level.

The difference between the first tower and the station floor is more like 4 feet. 10 feet would require four ramps.

 

[Kamikaze]

One more benefit to using IG instead of front of park is it opens up a ton of dining options at BW/BC/YC to guests at CBR and AoA/Pop. It will just be a short gondola ride now to those resorts similar to how staying at a monorail resort opens up all those convenient dining options.

And if they decide to keep Skyliner running late, it makes Jellyrolls an option for a lot more guests.

 

[TrojanUSC]

Thanks.

I thought it would have been kinda cool if they created a path to the MK and monorail resorts for those staying at POP, AoA, CBR, and Riviera without sole reliance on a Disney bus. You'd just transfer at EPCOT over to the TTC monorail. You could still do it, but you'd need to walk through EPCOT to get there - and depending on the type of ticket you have - it may not be an option at all.

The current routes are all relatively short distances. The route to the MK is much, much longer.

 

["El Gran Magnifico"]

One more benefit to using IG instead of front of park is it opens up a ton of dining options at BW/BC/YC to guests at CBR and AoA/Pop. It will just be a short gondola ride now to those resorts similar to how staying at a monorail resort opens up all those convenient dining options.

I hope connecting more resorts is being considered.

 

[GoofGoof]

I hope connecting more resorts is being considered.

It doesn’t sound like they plan to add on to this particular section but it’s a good test case. If the system works well and is also popular with guests they could look to add more somewhere else.

I think this works well over shorter distances. Not as practical for long stretches. There are still other clusters of resorts/parks/DS they could add on to.

 

[GeneralKnowledge]

One more benefit to using IG instead of front of park is it opens up a ton of dining options at BW/BC/YC to guests at CBR and AoA/Pop. It will just be a short gondola ride now to those resorts similar to how staying at a monorail resort opens up all those convenient dining options.

Maybe, just maybe someone will finally step foot inside the Atlantic Dance Hall.

 

[GoofGoof]

Maybe, just maybe someone will finally step foot inside the Atlantic Dance Hall.

These things look pretty cool, but they aren’t magic so don’t count on a miracle

One of those most under utilized buildings in all of WDW.

 

[monothingie]

I hope connecting more resorts is being considered.

I think it would really be so lovely to have many many more galvanized steel towers crisscrossing the property.

 

[larryz]

Kind of creepy posting that earthquake map, and then hours later a big one hits Alaska.

Alaska gets an average 12,000 earthquakes a year; fortunately, most are much less powerful.

The closest I ever came to feeling an earthquake in Florida was when a big truck rumbled by on the street outside my home or office.

 

[larryz]

I think it would really be so lovely to have many many more galvanized steel towers crisscrossing the property.

They're really missing an opportunity by not coloring the cables and towers -- then they could call them "The Red Line," "The Blue Line," and "The Green Line."

 

["El Gran Magnifico"]

The closest I ever came to feeling an earthquake in Florida was when a big truck rumbled by on the street outside my home or office.

Don't forget about the "Air Shows". One year I was convinced we were going to break off and float away or we were under attack.