Avoid Staying at Skyliner Resorts During Disney World’s Worst Weeks of 2026 & 2027

One of our favorite new Walt Disney World “attractions” of the last decade is the Skyliner. It wouldn’t be #1 or #2, rankings reserved for Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance and Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind, but it’d be higher on our list than most other new rides. Easily top 5, and ahead of anything that’s opened at Magic Kingdom.

As avid aficionados of transportation who appreciate the unique modes of transit at Walt Disney World, we ride the Skyliner more than most traditional attractions in the parks–sometimes just for fun! In fact, transportation a big part of why Walt Disney World is our favorite ‘city’ in America.

Too many people view the monorail, boats, and gondolas as simply means to an end–getting to the parks efficiently. We even enjoy the ordinary ole buses more than is probably reasonable; they’re a great way to relax, reflect and decompress before, between, or after the action.

Suffice to say, we use the Skyliner a lot. From early mornings to midday breaks to late nights, the gondolas are an easy, efficient, and predictable mode of transportation. The Skyliner is also novel–the type of thing you might see in mountain regions, but isn’t particularly common elsewhere. The views are great, it’s fun, and most of the time, it’s better than a bus or normal vehicle.

There’s something to be said for the journey, with its scenic beauty and atmosphere, and we’ve found that some of the best communal moments at Walt Disney World occur aboard transportation. Alternatively, the early morning and late night trips offer tremendous solitude. We could wax poetic about the magic of Walt Disney World transportation all day; this post is (more or less) about the opposite of that. It’s another set of dates to add to our list for skipping stays at the Skyliner resorts…

The first time to avoid the Skyliner resort is the obvious one: the routine refurbishment window, which is typically in late January after MLK Day Weekend. Since you’re paying a premium for Skyliner resorts, you should not book them during this timeframe in 2027. If you’re already looking ahead to 2028 or beyond, it’s worth keeping these refurbishment dates in mind.

Another window of (potential) avoidance is longer: Storm Season at Walt Disney World. if you’re visiting Walt Disney World from June 1 through November 30, the official Atlantic hurricane season according to NOAA, you should be prepared for rainy days–or worse.

Storm season overlaps with summer, and the hottest months of the year. Since the Skyliner is not air-conditioned, this might enter the calculus when determining whether you want to stay at a Skyliner resort during your trip during these months of the year.

When the Skyliner does go down due to inclement weather, Walt Disney World dispatches buses as an alternative. Unfortunately, this leaves a lot to be desired. Not only is Skyliner downtime poorly (or not at all!) communicated, but obviously, a whole bus fleet doesn’t materialize out of thin air the second there’s a lightning delay. It can take a while, and sometimes be frustrating.

Despite this, we only take Skyliner shutdowns into consideration when booking during storm season. It can tip the scales when there’s a close call based on pricing, but it’s not conclusive. Paying attention to the weather forecast and radars can go a long way in mitigating the impact of closures.

The ‘new’ time of year that we will avoid certain Skyliner resorts is during the peak weeks of the year. Basically, everything on the ‘worst’ side of our list of the 10 Best and 10 Worst Weeks to Visit Walt Disney World in 2026 & 2027.

During a recent stay at Disney’s Pop Century Resort during Easter week, I was once again reminded of this. This was a reminder because I had a similar experience almost exactly one year ago, but nevertheless rebooked for Pop. Part of that was excitement over the redone rooms and finished refurbishment. Another element was hoping that Disney had heard guest feedback and fixed the problem.

Spoiler alert: they have not. The dates I stayed at Pop Century were 5/10 to 10/10 on the crowd calendar at EPCOT and Disney’s Hollywood Studios, with one of the two parks being a 9/10 or 10/10 every single day in that stretch. (The more relevant consideration since it’s all one route on the way out.)

At the risk of ‘spoiling’ future Early Entry recaps, DHS was the busiest I’ve seen it in the first hour of the day since late 2019 or early 2020 (back in the heyday of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge and the virtual queue–good times). EPCOT wasn’t awful on my one morning there, even though the whole-day wait times data suggests otherwise.

Occupancy at Art of Animation and (especially) Pop Century was presumably sky-high since this was Easter week. When I checked shortly before my travel dates, neither resort had any availability in the standard rooms. Art of Animation did have family suites available, though. Occupancy all across Walt Disney World is high this time of year.

All of my park days were when both EPCOT and Disney’s Hollywood Studios opened at 9:00 am. This has been the norm for over a year, as it’s exceedingly rare for either to extended their hours to 8:30 am opening times. Frustratingly, hours extensions for DHS occurred both before and after my dates, when crowd levels ended up being lower.

This is relevant because the current standard operating procedure is for the Skyliner to open only an hour before Early Entry starts. On these days, that meant 7:30 am. The Skyliner used to open at 7 am daily with regularity, but that hasn’t been the case for two or more years. If my experiences are any indication, it needs to go back to opening at 7 am!

This is highlighted because it changes the calculus on using the Skyliner for Early Entry. Morning crowds are worse with later start times and better with earlier ones because some people (weirdos, if you ask me) like to sleep-in on vacation (can you even imagine?!). This shrinks the pool of participants for Early Entry as the start time moves earlier.

More important, it asks as a release valve on demand. In talking to Cast Members and making a lap of the resort one day for sunrise photos, it’s common for guests to start lining up around 6:30 am for the Skyliner to beat the rush. An hour before it opens! As you can imagine, this creates a backlog that takes a while to ‘process.’

Consequently, starting the Skyliner at 7:30 am puts more stress on the system whereas opening at 7:00 am helps keep pace with the line. It’s “only” 30 minutes, but it makes a big difference in efficiency and getting guests to Disney’s Hollywood Studios or EPCOT “on time” for Early Entry.

Art of Animation and Pop Century each have their own lines for the Skyliner that run along the waterfront of the respective resorts. There’s a Cast Member with a sign signaling the end of the line.

If you arrive early, you will nevertheless see a lot of (mostly) dads holding places in line and then the rest of the family to arrive. In other situations, I might scoff at this, feeling the majority of a party should be present for the minority to join them. But even as a solo traveler, I “get it” and the practice is so normalized in this situation that it didn’t bug me in the least.

There’s then a merge point on Generation Gap bridge, which is actively managed by Cast Members. Thankfully, this means that it’s not an awkward free for all with AoA and Pop guests pitted against one another. The downside is that the line starts and stops, and doesn’t constantly move. They let X number of guests through from one side, then hold the line and do the same for the other side.

During normal middle-of-the-day operations, each party will usually get a Skyliner cabin to themselves. That’s not how it works for Early Entry. Cast Members still aren’t filling cabins to their maximum capacity, but my best guess is they’ve learned Disney guests don’t move quickly enough for that–and that assigning a full load to each cabin might make the system less efficient due to slowdowns and stoppages. That’s just a guess, though.

My morning waits for the Skyliner were all over the place. The longest that I waited was 41 minutes for the Hourglass Lake station. The shortest I waited from the Pop Century side was 27 minutes. Keep in mind that this is just that line, and doesn’t account for transit or transfer time. My longest commute was to EPCOT, and clocked in at roughly a full hour.

In talking to other guests, some reported waiting as long as an hour in line for the Skyliner on a different morning. And of course, anyone who lined up at 6:30 am–even guests at the front of the line–was waiting that long.

There was one morning when I intended to do Early Entry at DHS, but the line was significantly longer than the previous morning (which was was already a “fail” for me); the Cast Member holding the sign even commented that it was the longest he’d ever seen. Due to that, I called an audible and went to Magic Kingdom instead. That morning easily would’ve been a 45-55 minute wait.

As a rule of thumb, it seemed like arriving at ~7:40 am was the sweet spot for shorter waits. The Skyliner was already running and processing the early birds who rope dropped it, and the latecomers hadn’t yet arrived. Then again, I was always arriving between 7:20 am and 7:50 am (and not any earlier or later), so I can’t really speak to a wider range of times.

One “hack” that I did test…and am almost reluctant to share for fear of reprisal…is that using the Art of Animation line was faster.

After noticing that the AoA lines was visibly shorter every single morning of my stay, I decided to use it the final morning. I was staying in Building 7 at Pop Century, so it was actually a shorter walk for me around the outside perimeter of the resorts (since the Pop line for the Skyliner started over by the ’50s).

This should be entirely uncontroversial. It’s not like Art of Animation guests paid more for the “perk” of a shorter Skyliner line. And I’m honestly a bit surprised that simply going to the shorter line worked like this, as I would’ve assumed Cast Members would’ve accounted for queue length and merged accordingly. They did not, and my wait in the AoA line was 12 minutes.

This hack may not always work for obvious reasons. The merge process could change. Art of Animation could have higher occupancy. Etc. It’s nevertheless worth watching, especially if you’re staying in the ’80s or ’90s at Pop, as the walks are roughly the same.

Another caveat worth sharing is that there’s a big difference between doing Early Entry from Pop Century and Art of Animation versus Caribbean Beach and Riviera Resort. This is due to the extra transfer. It is always going to take longer to use the Skyliner from the two Value Resorts as a result.

Given this, I was worried that I’d encounter another similarly-long line at the hub station at Disney’s Caribbean Beach Resort. The same guests from the Values would still be in front of me, plus another few thousand more from those rooms–a converging crowd and chaotic situation. That first morning, I was bracing myself for the worst upon exiting at CBR.

I was very happy to be wrong, and thankfully, this was never even remotely the case. Every single morning, both the DHS and EPCOT lines were well within their normal switchbacks. Almost all of the backup that I encountered during my multiple mornings of testing was on the first leg.

This could be in part because I never got to Caribbean Beach at the height of the morning rush, but the “backup” at the hub station was never more than 10 minutes (my average wait at the hub station was around 5 minutes–perfectly reasonable). It was a complete non-issue every morning. Diluting the demand to two park routes and having two stations is sufficient for addressing that.

Consequently, our advice to avoid the Skyliner resorts during peak season applies only to the Value Resorts. Although I have encountered a backup at Caribbean Beach before, the worst I’ve experienced since the physical distancing days of 2020 was still under 15 minutes. That’s nothing. Well within the realm of reasonableness, if you ask me.

I have less experience with the Riviera station and hesitate to make sweeping statements there since those cabins are arriving with guests (and we’ve always been a party of 1-2, which is easier to “sneak” into a somewhat full cabin than a party of 6), but have no reason to believe that station has any issues. The resort is pretty small, and the guest burden on that station (even accounting for the nearby CBR rooms) is lower than even reduced capacity.

The backup being so much worse for the Pop Century and Art of Animation route is a simple math problem.

Between the two Value Resorts, there are nearly 5,000 rooms. And at Art of Animation, a large number of those are family suites, so there are more guests per room on average. This is a lot of guests being serviced by a single station. During peak season, there’s not just high occupancy, but also higher crowds, creating a greater incentive to take advantage of Early Entry.

By contrast, there are under 2,000 rooms in total between Caribbean Beach and Riviera Resort. Granted, the latter is DVC and has a variety of larger rooms, but roughly two-thirds of the rooms are standard studios or the smaller 2-person studios. There are also two separate stations at CBR and Riviera, and separate routes for EPCOT and DHS.

Even though these stations have to process the combined ~7,000 rooms, all of that is spread out across more routes.

Not accounting for occupancy differences, it would thus seem that 3,000 or so rooms served by a single Skyliner route is the ‘magic number’ for keeping up with demand and preventing a line from becoming overly-long.

This would also explain why this problem is only pronounced at the Value Resorts during peak season, or when occupancy is otherwise high. To be sure, I’ve waited ~15 minutes in the morning other times of year from Pop Century, but nothing like my experiences the last two spring break seasons (knock on wood). I’d say 10-20 minutes is reasonable, whereas 30+ minutes is not. YMMV.

For whatever it’s worth, I was still able to get to both Disney’s Hollywood Studios (on multiple mornings) and EPCOT well before Early Entry started when I queued up for the Skyliner around 7:30 am.

However, my arrival times took Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance and Slinky Dog Dash off the table. It’s a similar story with EPCOT and Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind or the Rat Ride. For these headliners, if you’re on time for Early Entry, you’re late. As a result, I went 1 for 4 on my Early Entry priorities via the Skyliner. (0 for 3 via the Pop line; 1 for 1 via AoA.)

Honestly, I’m skeptical that even lining up for the Skyliner at 6:30 am (an hour before it opened) would’ve been sufficient for those headliners on these dates. I usually aim to arrive to DHS for Early Entry around 7:30 am!

Ultimately, just a warning if you’re planning to use the Skyliner for Early Entry at EPCOT or Disney’s Hollywood Studios to do Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, Slinky Dog Dash, Remy’s Ratatouille Adventure, or Guardians of the Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind. You’ll probably want to avoid the Skyliner Value Resorts during peak season.

The only truly workable solution to this is Walt Disney World moving forward the Skyliner opening time to 7 am. It’s absurd that this hasn’t already happened, after over a year of this being a common problem. It’s a matter of Disney being cheap and cutting corners, all while guests are paying a premium price for these resorts.

The key amenity that makes these resorts more expensive should actually be usable for the Early Entry perk. Guests staying at the Skyliner Value Resorts shouldn’t be at a disadvantage versus All Star Resort guests, and they are.

The gondola is a great feature, but this lengthy line is a sour start to the day and there’s not a huge margin for error if you’re trying to do one of the top 4 rides at DHS or EPCOT from Art of Animation or Pop Century Resorts. Your only real alternative is driving or spending extra by taking an Uber, Lyft, or Minnie Van from the Skyliner Value Resorts. But in that case, why pay more to stay at a Skyliner resort in the first place?!

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Your Thoughts

Have you used the Skyliner for Early Entry at EPCOT or Disney’s Hollywood Studios from the Hourglass Lake Value Resorts? What time did you arrive at the station? How long was the line? Were you still able to beat the crowds to E-Tickets? Anything to add? Do you agree or disagree with our assessment? Any questions? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!