Sorry for the long post…
Just returned yesterday evening from 4 days at WDW. We stayed at AoA and I just wanted to relay our experience and some tips for anyone traveling to Batuu or planning on using the Skyliner for HS GE EEMH or staying at a Skyliner resort.
4:50am Monday-We left our room traveling with 5 people, 1 ECV and a 19-month old in a stroller.
4:55am-Arrived to the bus stop. A bus was sitting there only partially full, but we could not load with the ECV because people were already on the bus.
5:05am-That partially full bus pulls away from us. No problem, we would wait for the next one. We sit for a bit waiting to find out when the next bus would arrive, but the digital bus board was not showing the ETA for the next bus. It just kept flashing the words ‘Use Skyliner’. We had the opportunity to ride the Skyliner on opening day with the ECV and it was relatively easy, but it takes a LONG, LONG time (but that’s a story for another thread). I had read here that the Skyliner was not going to open on Monday until 5:45am but I thought maybe they had changed their minds considering the crowds.
5:15am-So when the bus board had still not updated with a time and it was still flashing ‘Use Skyliner’ we started to wonder if the bus had been delayed or they had reduced the number of buses because of the Skyliner. So I walked inside to ask at the desk what we should do. The desk clerk told us the Skyliner was open and running (I clarified twice).
5:20-We headed to the Skyliner. Still no bus, and no one else but us in line for the bus. I know at one point the
MDE app had bus times but for the life of me I could not find them on the app while we were there. So we make the trek back to the Skyliner bridge station and I’ll ruin the surprise for you now: The Skyliner was NOT open. Lol. The line was soooooooooo long they had to curl it back around and over the bridge again. The desk clerk unfortunately told us incorrect information.
5:30am-The CM tells us that they would be opening in 5 minutes. So we decided to wait because we still had no idea what was going on with the buses. Welllll, 5 minutes pass, then 10 minutes, then 15 minutes pass and we are still standing there as the line grows.
5:45-And FINALLY they start running and loading shortly after. Now this is where it starts to get fun! *eye roll* The stroller and 3 people in the party waited in the regular line for the Skyliner (longer line, shorter launch time) and the ECV with two people waited in the handicap line (shorter line, much longer launch time). The stroller crew got through the entire line and all the way through the length of the Skyliner flight path before the ECV crew even departed the station.
6am-While the ECV group is sitting in the gondola waiting to depart, we get a phone call from the stroller crew saying ‘We are stranded at the Caribbean Beach Club because there is such a mass influx of people from 3 resorts for 2 parks that they had to shut down the Skyliner because they couldn’t handle the crowd and they are shipping everyone out in buses that aren’t here yet. They are saying the wait for the bus line will be over an hour long. Get out of the gondola now!’.....and just as the stranded stroller crew speaks those final words over the phone and we turn to ask to get out of the gondola the CM says ‘Have a nice flight!’ as the door to the gondola closes. At this point we have officially missed rope drop.
6:15ish am-By the time we get to the CB Skyliner station the CMs had figured out to tell people to head back to their resorts to catch buses and we have to disembark and re-board the gondolas back to AofA.
6:25am-After arriving back to AofA, we stopped briefly at the front desk to let them know the Skyliner was down and that it had not been running early that morning so they could let others know if they asked.
6:35/6:40-We went to stand in the bus line. Again no time showing on the digital board which is still flashing ‘Use Skyliner’, even though the Skyliner is officially closed.
6:55am-We board the bus and by the time we get to HS, get through bag check, and scan our tickets it was...
7:20am-We head back to GE after a brief hold up while they moved the stage through the park
7:35am-We arrived on Batuu at 7:35. Bright Suns all!
You know how they say to allow an hour for travel time on Disney property? It took us nearly 3 HOURS to get to Galaxy’s Edge. By the time we arrived, the wait for Smuggler’s Run was 75 minutes long which was exactly what we were hoping to avoid. We didn’t want my 19-month old niece to have to sit out and wait that long. I don’t even know what to say at this point. I tried laughing through the setbacks but I’m not going to lie; that morning SUCKED. We were so excited to be in Galaxy’s Edge in the dark of the early morning as the sun was rising and instead we got there in the heat of the morning crowd.
I can't even tell you there's a moral to this story or what I could have done differently to have avoided missing rope drop. I seriously believed that leaving more than an hour early would be plenty of time to get there and be near the front of the pack, but it unfortunately was not. If the bus boards had accurately reflected either the time of the next bus or the fact that Skyliner was actually not operating, we would have never left the bus line. If the cast member hadn’t told us the Skyliner was running, if we hadn’t been told they would be up in 5 minutes, or if they would have communicated between stations about the shutdown, if just one of those things hadn’t happened we would have gotten there on time.
Take-Away Tips for traveling to EEMH:
-The bus boards are currently not reflecting the accurate operating times of the Skyliner.
-The bus boards are currently not reflecting the ETA of the buses at the Skyliner resorts for HS or Epcot.
-The Skyliner is a fast and convenient mode of transportation for the average guest when operating.
-The Skyliner is a convenient mode of transportation for guests in wheelchairs or ECVs, but not a fast mode of transportation.
-The Skyliner is not a reliable transportation method for getting to EEMH rope drop at this time.
TL: DR-No matter what amount of planning and double-checking you do, sometimes things just don’t work out the way you want at Walt Disney World.