RaySharpton
Retired and going to Disney.
- Joined
- Oct 28, 2000
Walt Disney World Skyliner Gondola cabin video, photos, info.
There has been so much information since the Disney Skyliner has opened up to guests with personal experiences using the Disney Skyliner wheelchair/mobility scooter loading zones. And how things work for loading and unloading for the regular and wheelchair/mobility scooter.
The following comments were gathered from my previous posts of other guest's experiences in this thread offering their personal observations over time.
I don't know if these observations are all factual since I haven't read anything officially from Disney.
I don't know if all my following comments from others will hold in the future, but I enjoyed learning so much from other DIS posters.
I guess I am just trying to organize all of the information I've learned so far.
Four of the five Disney Skyliner Gondola Stations have separate loading and unloading queues. A longer regular Disney Skyliner for walkers and strollers. And a smaller, separate queue for wheelchairs and mobility scooters.
Those stations with a separate queue for wheelchairs and mobility scooters are:
The Disney Caribbean Skyliner Gondola Station (Main hub connecting three stations.
The Disney EPCOT Skyliner Gondola Station
The Disney Pop Century Resort, and the Disney Art of Animation Skyliner Gondola Station.
The Disney Hollywood Studio Skyliner Gondola Station.
The fifth Skyliner Gondola Station is not an end station like the other four Skyliner Gondola Stations.
The Disney Riviera Skyliner Gondola Station is a mid-station located between the two end stations called the Disney Caribbean Skyliner Gondola Station and the Disney EPCOT Skyliner Gondola Station.
The Disney Riviera Skyliner Gondola Station also has a 90-degree Turn Unit. And the Disney Riviera Skyliner Gondola Station has a longer loading/unloading station platform with no separate loading zones for wheelchairs/mobility scooters.
The diagram of loading and unloading gondolas by bioreconstruct. When I rode the gondolas, they behaved exactly as bioreconstruct described.
There were never more than two gondolas stopped in the wheelchairs/mobility scooters section or second row.
When waiting in the queue, the Disney cast member always instructed the wheelchair or mobility scooter to slowly enter first to the opposite side of the gondola with a metal bar or footrest before other guests enter.
Then the Disney cast member placed rubber chocks behind the rear wheels after turning off the wheelchair or mobility scooter power off.
You will be facing a huge window.
There are fold-up windows on three sides except on the doors that others can open or close if needed. There are also air vents under the benches.
When exiting backward at my destination, I could usually see my reflection of myself and wheelchair and open doors in the window to help me back up. I also looked at the edges of the benches to help me back up by keeping equidistance between them.
After I loaded into the gondola, I always saw the gondola in front of me waiting to get back in line with the other gondolas. It usually was a short wait.
Once I moved into that same space, I could also eventually see another gondola across from me leave the regular line. When that happened, my gondola moved into the regular first row.
When looking up near the end of the station, I saw a big wheel which was the main cable. When reaching about halfway to the wheel, I could feel the gondola latch on to the main cable.
Inside the station the gondola ran on small wheels instead of the main cable.
I found this interesting to me. Sachilles explained why the Disney Riviera Skyliner Station didn't have a separate handicap wheelchair and mobility loading zone like the three other Skyliner Stations.
Sachilles says the three other Skyliner Stations are a destination or end Skyliner Stations. The Disney Riviera Skyliner Station is located between two end stations of the EPCOT Skyliner Station and the Caribbean Skyliner Station.
Here is some information about how the Riviera station works differently.
I like reading all of joelkfla's posts detailing his reliable info on the gondolas.
https://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads...-been-discussed.924477/page-1095#post-8904632
Everything about wheelchair cabin management:
The photo below shows a larger ScooterBug mobility scooter entering the gondola. This scooter almost looks like the design of the older ECV's that I used to rent from the WDW parks.
The photo below shows a larger Walker's Mobility ECV entering the gondola.
Cool video by Skip Porter showing one of the wheelchairs that Sue was talking about entering a Disney Skyliner Gondola in the station's accessible queue. The Disney cast member requests the wheelchair enter first. Then the Disney cast member places the chocks behind the rear wheelchair wheels. Then Disney cast member allows the rest of the gondola guest(s) to enter.
Please feel free to correct me if I have posted anything incorrectly.
There has been so much information since the Disney Skyliner has opened up to guests with personal experiences using the Disney Skyliner wheelchair/mobility scooter loading zones. And how things work for loading and unloading for the regular and wheelchair/mobility scooter.
The following comments were gathered from my previous posts of other guest's experiences in this thread offering their personal observations over time.
I don't know if these observations are all factual since I haven't read anything officially from Disney.
I don't know if all my following comments from others will hold in the future, but I enjoyed learning so much from other DIS posters.
I guess I am just trying to organize all of the information I've learned so far.
Four of the five Disney Skyliner Gondola Stations have separate loading and unloading queues. A longer regular Disney Skyliner for walkers and strollers. And a smaller, separate queue for wheelchairs and mobility scooters.
Those stations with a separate queue for wheelchairs and mobility scooters are:
The Disney Caribbean Skyliner Gondola Station (Main hub connecting three stations.
The Disney EPCOT Skyliner Gondola Station
The Disney Pop Century Resort, and the Disney Art of Animation Skyliner Gondola Station.
The Disney Hollywood Studio Skyliner Gondola Station.
The fifth Skyliner Gondola Station is not an end station like the other four Skyliner Gondola Stations.
The Disney Riviera Skyliner Gondola Station is a mid-station located between the two end stations called the Disney Caribbean Skyliner Gondola Station and the Disney EPCOT Skyliner Gondola Station.
The Disney Riviera Skyliner Gondola Station also has a 90-degree Turn Unit. And the Disney Riviera Skyliner Gondola Station has a longer loading/unloading station platform with no separate loading zones for wheelchairs/mobility scooters.
The diagram of loading and unloading gondolas by bioreconstruct. When I rode the gondolas, they behaved exactly as bioreconstruct described.
There were never more than two gondolas stopped in the wheelchairs/mobility scooters section or second row.
When waiting in the queue, the Disney cast member always instructed the wheelchair or mobility scooter to slowly enter first to the opposite side of the gondola with a metal bar or footrest before other guests enter.
Then the Disney cast member placed rubber chocks behind the rear wheels after turning off the wheelchair or mobility scooter power off.
You will be facing a huge window.
There are fold-up windows on three sides except on the doors that others can open or close if needed. There are also air vents under the benches.
When exiting backward at my destination, I could usually see my reflection of myself and wheelchair and open doors in the window to help me back up. I also looked at the edges of the benches to help me back up by keeping equidistance between them.
After I loaded into the gondola, I always saw the gondola in front of me waiting to get back in line with the other gondolas. It usually was a short wait.
Once I moved into that same space, I could also eventually see another gondola across from me leave the regular line. When that happened, my gondola moved into the regular first row.
When looking up near the end of the station, I saw a big wheel which was the main cable. When reaching about halfway to the wheel, I could feel the gondola latch on to the main cable.
Inside the station the gondola ran on small wheels instead of the main cable.
I found this interesting to me. Sachilles explained why the Disney Riviera Skyliner Station didn't have a separate handicap wheelchair and mobility loading zone like the three other Skyliner Stations.
Sachilles says the three other Skyliner Stations are a destination or end Skyliner Stations. The Disney Riviera Skyliner Station is located between two end stations of the EPCOT Skyliner Station and the Caribbean Skyliner Station.
Here is some information about how the Riviera station works differently.
You misunderstand. You can load and unload an ECV there, it's just a different style than the other stations. The other stations have a separate area to load the ecv's. The Riviera Station doesn't have a separate area, but they can load in the general area. That has the potential to delay things, as they may have to slow the line (or stop altogether) some to accomplish it.
The whole separate line thing is quite rare for a lift system, so many make due just fine with a station like Riviera. It just has a greater potential to slow the system down.
Its because it's in the middle of a line. It's a mid-station, so you can't really do that. You'd have to cut the line in half and have two end stations meet there. Which would cause people to have to transfer.
What you end up with is a station where the cabins stay in it longer, which is almost as good. It's made more complex because folks arriving at that station might not get off.
I like reading all of joelkfla's posts detailing his reliable info on the gondolas.
https://forums.wdwmagic.com/threads...-been-discussed.924477/page-1095#post-8904632
Everything about wheelchair cabin management:
- Wheelchair cabins are assigned at the beginning of the day, and are identified by setting a plunger near the top of the hanger.
- The plunger causes the door opening rail to collapse, so the doors stay closed through the main unload platform.
- The plunger also activates the track switch into the wheelchair unload area. As a flagged cabin approaches the switch, a chain drive activates and pulls the cabin across the switch.
- Doors open as the cabin enters the wheelchair unload position.
- Wheelchair cabins are unloaded and loaded simultaneously.
- The chair is backed out.
- The control podiums at both unload and load have a countdown timer.
- Operators at both positions must be holding in a button on the panel when the counter reaches zero for the cabins to advance. If either is not holding in the button when the timer is approaching zero, a reminder chime sounds. (The chime can be heard in the door opener video above.)
- The cabin advances from unloading to load position, while the cabin in load position moves around to prepare for re-entering the mainstream.
- Doors remain open between unloading and loading.
- The load operator briefly inspects the cabin, and then loads the wheelchair in a forward direction, instructing the rest of the party to wait.
- Seats will never be folded during operation.
- The wheelchair is instructed to move forward as far as possible. ECV’s are instructed to pull up against a guide rail along the floor.
- Rubber chocks are placed behind the rear wheels.
- Then the rest of the party is invited to enter.
- Both operators release the cabins as described above.
- Doors close immediately upon leaving the load position.
- After advancing around the curve, the cabin pauses for a few seconds before re-entering the mainstream.
- Empty wheelchair cabins will not be available to load at the regular load platform. Doors will remain closed, and the cabins remain empty.
- Wheelchair entrance to Pop/AoA, DHS and Epcot stations is through the exit.
- You may request an unwrapped cabin for better sightseeing, but the wait maybe longer.
- Capacity is 1 wheelchair/ecv plus 6 more but maybe less for very large ecv, as they do not fold the seat.
- I was told that the Epcot line will be stopped for wheelchair loading at Riviera. In fact, I was going to get off at Riviera on my ecv to look around, but they requested that I not.
- CBR station has wi-fi, but it's neither Disney-Guest nor any of the resort wi-fi. Instead, they named it Disney Skyliner. You might have to connect to it the first time.
- The mysterious green and red lights behind the doors are nothing more than a power indicator. Close up, they have the familiar I within a circle. When they're green, lights and sound are powered on. They look like they may actually be a push-button switch, but the cm I talked to didn't know.
- I was riding on my ECV. The cabins also got a bit uncomfortable in the stations, but I attribute that to the fact that the wheelchair cabins spend a lot more time in the stations, much of it with the doors closed. There's no perceptible airflow when the cabins are moving at load speed.
- Lines at the CBR station seemed to build throughout the day. As others have said, they were a tangled mess, especially the line for Epcot, which overflowed both the permanent queue and the extension taped out on the floor. It made getting to the restrooms difficult.
- CM's said it's perfectly OK to request an unwrapped cabin, even in the wheelchair line. But it may take a while on the wheelchair line because there maybe only 1 or 2 unwrapped cabins assigned.
- People on the board were wondering how the spurs to the storage yard connect to the main track at a 90-degree angle. It's simply 2 small radius curve tracks on both sides, with switches and a chain drive.
- The CBR internal shuttle bus stops at the Skyliner station in both directions, between Trinidad and Jamaica, and on the return from Aruba to Martinique. The number of buses on the route has been increased from 1 to 2, so they're probably running about every 10 minutes.
- I noticed the walkway from the bus stop to the storage yard didn't have any restrictive signs, so I rolled up and peeked through the fence. Very interesting. A chain drive moves cabins across the top of the yard. Drive tires move them through the switches onto the individual legs -- just the opposite of the switch into the wheelchair platforms. Those boxes are seen above the middle of the legs in the overhead photos shelter another set of drive tires.
- The Wheelchair Accessible Vehicles can be any cabins, but they are predesignated at a specific spacing. Switching into and out of the WAV area is automatic; the cm's at the unload & load positions just need to hold in a dispatch button to enable it. A countdown timer on the consoles tells the cm's when the next WAV is expected to arrive. If either cm is not pushing the dispatch button when the timer approaches zero, a chime sounds to remind them to push it.
- The WAVs are designated by a plunger being extended on the hanger. You can see the plunger next to the door opening mechanism. The plunger signals the doors to remain closed through the regular unload area and also activates the track switch into the WAV area. You can see this in action if you locate the door opening rail at the entrance to the regular unload area, and watch the rail move out of the way when a cabin with plunger extended approaches.
- Since the plunger would have to be positioned by a tech person, I assume the WAVs are assigned at the beginning of the day and do not change during the day. That's when the chocks would be placed in the cabins.
- You can hear the reminder chime sounding as a designated WAV approaches the regular unload area.
- Question about where the wheelchair/mobility scooter chocks are kept? They stay with cabins that have been designated WAVs. It looked like they just tossed them under the seat when not in use.
- Question about gondola cables outside and inside the Skyliner Stations. The cabins detach from the cable when they enter a station. Inside the stations, they run on an overhead track and are propelled by rotating tires above the track or chains in some places.
- Question about the 90-degree turns in the Riviera Skyliner Station and big turn. On the turns, while the cabins are detached, the cable goes around a series of wheels which allows it to cross over itself and make the turn. It's a single cable from Epcot to CBR, powered at CBR.
- Question about what joelkfla thinks the gondolas stop in the air sometimes. I don't know. A lot of people are guessing that cm's are stopping the line because Guests are not getting into or out of the cabins quickly enough. Another possibility IMO is that safety sensors are being tripped excessively.
- The cabins do detach at the BW big turn. The cable goes around a series of bull wheels and crosses over itself to make the turn. I believe the design is for each carrier to always be in contact with one or more tires, a chain, or clamped to the cable at all times. The first and last sets of tires are turning at the same speed as the cable is moving, so the carrier can briefly be in contact with them before detaching and after attaching to the cable.
The photo below shows a larger ScooterBug mobility scooter entering the gondola. This scooter almost looks like the design of the older ECV's that I used to rent from the WDW parks.
The photo below shows a larger Walker's Mobility ECV entering the gondola.
Cool video by Skip Porter showing one of the wheelchairs that Sue was talking about entering a Disney Skyliner Gondola in the station's accessible queue. The Disney cast member requests the wheelchair enter first. Then the Disney cast member places the chocks behind the rear wheelchair wheels. Then Disney cast member allows the rest of the gondola guest(s) to enter.
Please feel free to correct me if I have posted anything incorrectly.
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