Critics Were Wrong About the Disney Skyliner

Disney Hate is real.

For some odd reason, some people really dislike an adorable cartoon mouse and all his friends. And their antipathy makes them irrational.

Why else would everyone make a mountain out of a molehill when it comes to the Disney Skyliner?

Roughly four years ago, everyone predicted the gondola system’s doom. And it’s time for them to own up to it.

Critics were wrong about the Disney Skyliner. Let’s talk about why.

About the Disney Skyliner

In September 2019, Disney returned to its roots.

The company introduced a new transportation system that looked eerily familiar to longtime Walt Disney World guests.

During the earliest days of Magic Kingdom, the park hosted an attraction called the Skyway, which came in two forms.

The Skyway to Fantasyland Skyway to Tomorrowland identified their ultimate destinations.

Guests would board gondola ride carts and take to the sky. An intricate pulley system would carry these guests to their destination.

Magic Kingdom visitors would watch cast members in Fantasyland-style outfits secure them in the vehicle.

Then, when they reached the other side, cast members in Tomorrowland-style outfits would help them exit.

This method efficiently transported park guests from one themed land to the other, and it only took about four minutes of airtime.

While riders soared through the air, they enjoyed an unprecedented bird’s eye view of Magic Kingdom.

People could appreciate all the sights like Cinderella Castle and Space Mountain from mid-air.

Alas, a certain percentage of guests never felt entirely safe leaving the welfare of their children to these devices.

Simultaneously, Disney faced constant maintenance issues in keeping the mechanical parts safe and fully operational.

Eventually, Disney dropped the attraction in 1999. However, many Magic Kingdom vacationers remembered the gondolas.

Over time, this style of transportation came back into vogue at various ski resorts, places that were otherwise hard for guests to traverse.

Some third-party businesses reinvigorated the gondola rides in a safer, more efficient way. And Disney noticed.

Thus, the Disney Skyliner debuted almost exactly 20 years after the Skyway system had closed “for good.” 

The new version came with a unique distinction, though. This gondola system worked as transportation, connecting Disney theme parks and resorts.

Questions about the Disney Skyliner

When park officials first announced the Disney Skyliner, many fans relished the thought of themed gondolas.

A solid percentage of them had ridden similar gondolas at ski resorts and other mountainous tourist destinations.

They understood how much the technology had improved and what that could mean for Disney.

On September 29^th, 2019, the Disney Skyliner opened to much fanfare and more than a fair share of early concern.

Disney critics harped repeatedly on the fact that these gondolas didn’t offer air-conditioning.

Instead, the manufacturer built each gondola cart with an air vent.

The design presumed that higher altitudes would keep the vehicles comfortable in Florida, even in summer.

The manufacturer based this thought process on testing and years of experience.

As often happens with these situations, people with zero experience in design threw tantrums and alleged that Disney had cut corners.

These folks didn’t understand that the decisions had little to do with Disney. But disingenuous arguments are a fact of life when it comes to Disney.

In an odd twist of fate, something happened that provided much more fodder for criticism.

The Disney Skyliner crashed less than a week after it opened for the first time.

Early reviews had expressed a fear that the gondola carts were flying into the stations too quickly.

Those worries proved valid when one gondola slammed into another.

Eyewitnesses suggested that an incoming gondola moved too quickly and entered the station before another vehicle had exited the space.

The fire department eventually had to help some guests off the gondola. Some of the riders found themselves trapped for nearly three hours.

The mainstream media covered the story, and Disney haters rushed to judgment.

At the time, some wondered aloud whether Disney should scrap the Skyliner altogether.

What Happened Next

After that initial incident, park strategists reevaluated the gondola system and adjusted some problematic parts of the stations.

Obviously, a high-profile snafu like that one caused everyone to prioritize the matter.

To Disney’s credit, it worked with the manufacturer to find the best on-the-fly improvements possible.

While critics wondered aloud how long the Skyliner would remain offline, the answer proved to be a week.

The sudden reopening led to additional, often visceral criticism of Disney’s handling of the matter.

Some repeatedly suggested that another serious incident was just a matter of time…and they meant that October, not a year or two down the line.

Notably, such an incident never really happened, at least not to the scale of the first one.

During the first half of 2021, two minor mishaps occurred, but they didn’t require evacuations as the initial one had.

In fact, the second incident involved a malfunctioning door. Before that, two gondola carts banged into each other in April 2021.

The collision led to some broken glass, but that was the extent of the problem.

Since then, the Disney Skyliner has experienced several hiccups, as you’d expect from heavily used Disney transportation.

Once a year, usually in January, Disney closes the entire system for about a week.

At this point, cast members clean up all the wear-and-tear issues that have cropped up during the previous year.

Other than that, the Disney Skyliner has performed admirably. In truth, it’s handled exactly the job park strategists envisioned.

Disney has created a newer, more efficient form of transportation.

Why Critics Were Wrong

Did you watch a recent professional sporting event and think, “What an idiot?” about some coach or player?

When I was writing this article, the Miami Hurricanes just did this:

Sure, we can point at this error and wonder how someone could make that mistake. Let’s be honest, though.

If any of us tried coaching the Miami Hurricanes, the team would lose every game, and our own players would probably try to Waterboy us.

Now think about how you’d do in creating an intricate gondola system that soars above Walt Disney World.

If you screwed that up, your mistakes would be visible from miles away. It’d be humiliating.

Despite this fact, people with ZERO experience in the industry pretended as if they knew the proper manufacturing and operation of a gondola system.

You have to laugh at the ego and absurdity of the thought process.

Disney spent countless hours planning, constructing and perfecting the Disney Skyliner system.

Why would anyone predict its failure, especially when the same manufacturer had built similar transportation systems elsewhere?

Simply stated, people who don’t like Disney continue to underestimate the company, even in the theme park division, where it has gained a de facto monopoly.

At some point, another Skyliner incident is likely to occur, just as fender benders happen every day. That’s just the law of averages coming into play.

Still, Disney deserves a ton of credit for what it has achieved here. The Disney Skyliner has transformed Walt Disney World transportation.

Meanwhile, critics were totally wrong about the Disney Skyliner.

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Photo: Disney