Disney Skyliner Gondolas Closed Indefinitely After Accident & Evacuation
Last night at Walt Disney World, there was an accidental collision at one of the Disney Skyliner stations, causing the Epcot line to close. Thereafter, Reedy Creek Fire Department evacuated guests on that line via lifts over the course of a few hours. In this post, we’ll look at what happened and our commentary about the future impact of this incident on the Disney Skyliner’s operations.
Sometime between 8 and 9 pm, at the Riviera/Caribbean Beach Skyliner station, the aqua-colored gondola cabin did not attach to the cable to dispatch from the station en route to Epcot (see top image via @Ada58974405 on Twitter). The gondola cabins behind it slowly crashed against it. The crushing of the vehicles caused the glass to shatter on the impacted vehicle and several of the yellow cabins behind it to be damaged.
Consequently, the Epcot line went down for several hours, necessitating an evacuation by Reedy Creek Fire Department. This process was done via lift on a cabin by cabin basis, and reportedly took until after 11 pm to complete. Some guests report being stuck for as long as 3 hours, and the entire Skyliner system remains closed today…
Thankfully, Walt Disney World is reporting that no guests were injured in the accident. (It’s also fortunate that this happened at night, as the lack of air-conditioning definitely would have been an issue had this occurred during the middle of the day yesterday.)
Walt Disney World has informed Orlando-area media outlets that there has not been an accident, but rather “unexpected down time” of the Skyliner. That is quite the disappointing spin, especially with widely-circulated photos on social media reflecting what actually happened.
As compensation, stranded guests are reporting that Walt Disney World Guest Relations provided each of them with a $100 gift card, 2 park tickets, and taxi vouchers. Some guests who were stuck stated in the “Disney World Junkies” Facebook group that they applaud how Disney handled the situation.
Many of the guests who saw the crash first-hand or were stranded on the Epcot line of the Skyliner posted photos to social media. Here’s a look at some of those:
Not a fun experience on the new skyliner. @WaltDisneyWorld @WESH pic.twitter.com/fwuXjlN9wg
– Ada (@Ada58974405) October 6, 2019
What happened with this new ride? Feeling sorry for the people still trapped. @WaltDisneyWorld @WESH pic.twitter.com/mAjcH7hD5o
– Ada (@Ada58974405) October 6, 2019
Part 2 Disney Skyliner Stuck @ the Boardwalk #disney #skyliner #disneyworld #epcot #epcotforever #disneyskyliner #disneypark #disneysboardwalk @WESH pic.twitter.com/QLR7gE5Znr
– JK DeLaCruz (@JK2559) October 6, 2019
More trucks now being dispersed for evacuation. This one has parked directly under us for Disney Skyliner. #disneyskyliner #disneyworld @WDWToday pic.twitter.com/ml64YWAoC7
– Aaron Murray (@WaltyDis) October 6, 2019
– Theme Park Alex (@themeparkalex) October 6, 2019
Well here’s a look inside the emergency kit on the #Skyliner. We were just told we could open it. There’s water inside, a note pad, cups (possibly in case nature calls), light stick … hitting 90+ min @WaltDisneyWorld @WFTV pic.twitter.com/3xyvrHGyUO
– Cierra Putman WFTV (@CPutman_WFTV) October 6, 2019
Evacuating two people at a time off of the Disney World Skyliner… could be very slow with 10 capacity gondolas…. #disneyskyliner #disneyworld @WDWToday pic.twitter.com/y5S1IJxhtP
– Aaron Murray (@WaltyDis) October 6, 2019
UPDATE the gondolas #Skyliner are moving! pic.twitter.com/WH5WytPlFc
– Jena Polyak (@jenapolyak) October 6, 2019
Additionally, our friends over at BlogMickey.com headed to the scene and captured some good photos of the evacuation as it was in progress. Coincidentally, we were driving on Buena Vista Drive shortly after the accident but before road closures started and the evacuation began. Oblivious to it all, we didn’t see anything even though we were right there!
We did, however, head out to Disney’s Hollywood Studios early this morning to confirm that the Skyliner would remain closed today (our photos in this post are all from this morning).
Although there was no signage outside indicating as much, Cast Members posted outside the Skyliner station indicated that it would remain closed today. We could see from a distance that the Epcot line was likewise not moving. No one with whom we spoke has insight into when it’ll reopen, and as such, this closure should be treated as indefinite.
It seems likely that safety inspections or more will need to occur before the Skyliner can resume operations. We hesitate to speculate as to when it’ll return, or what training, technical, or other safety adjustments might need to be made before Walt Disney World is comfortable running the Skyliner again.
For us, this news is incredibly disappointing. It’s no secret that we’re huge fans of the Skyliner and have been strong advocates of this system since even before it was officially announced two years ago. This has been among our most anticipated additions in a long time at Walt Disney World.
It’s also no secret that the Skyliner has been dogged by delays and closures throughout the first week of operations, but we chalked these up to early growing pains. Given the uptime and reliability of the thousands of similar Doppelmayr gondola systems around the world, it seemed likely that these would be resolved in the near future and the Skyliner would become a reliable–and beloved–form of transportation at Walt Disney World.
In fact, our experiences with the Skyliner have been resoundingly positive. Since publishing our Skyliner Gondola Review: Disney World’s Most Magical Flight on Earth article, our rides have been even better. We’ve used the gondolas for Extra, Extra Magic Hours at Disney’s Hollywood Studios and Epcot’s rope drop a couple of mornings and had zero delays, zero wait in line, and zero other guests in our cabins. It has been (had been?) smooth and flawless.
Despite our unblemished firsthand experiences, there is no denying that others have not had similarly glowing results. Last week, the Art of Animation and Pop Century station had a delayed opening by 2-3 hours on at least one morning. The Epcot line has had a lot of sporadic downtime leading to backups at the International Gateway station, and one evening we saw it down completely for the rest of the night while walking over to Crescent Lake.
Those are just the issues we’ve been on hand to observe or hear about–it’s possible there have been more. Given the reliability of these gondola systems elsewhere and the fact that Walt Disney World has been testing the Skyliner for months, we’re left scratching our heads. What happened? Why have there been so many operational challenges?
Still, all of what happened prior to last night would be fairly easy to shrug off as early hiccups (so long as you aren’t a first-time visitor who was delayed for a prolonged period by one of the outages). Short stoppages, delayed openings, or early closures would be long forgotten after a few months of reliable operations with minimal downtime. None of those are stories that would stick with visitors and cause them not to use the Skyliner in the future.
Judging by social media, this incident is quite clearly different. Some guests already had understandable fears of being so high up in an aerial transportation system, and reports of being stuck for 2-3 hours in a small cabin is only going to give more guests pause about riding. For many Walt Disney World fans, images of the collided gondolas and the evacuation process will cast a long-term pall over the Skyliner.
We’re still incredibly enthusiastic about the Skyliner, but have to admit that this one really stings. However, we have to report the realities of the new gondola transportation system, rather than what we want it to be.
As much as we’d like to convince ourselves otherwise, this is a serious issue for the long-term perception of the Skyliner. This will be a PR nightmare for Walt Disney World–especially as the story is already making international news.
We will continue to use the Skyliner as normal with zero hesitation just as we would automobiles, airplanes, bicycles, monorails, peoplemovers, our feet, or any other mode of transportation with an imperfect record. More concerning than safety is reliability and up-time.
If you’re traveling to Walt Disney World in the next couple of months, you should keep apprised of Skyliner operations to determine whether it’s sufficiently reliable for you to use during your trip. For Walt Disney World vacation planning purposes, we’ll keep you posted on that and everything else to do with the Skyliner.
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Your Thoughts
Did you witness the Skyliner accident? Does this crash have you more hesitant to use Walt Disney World’s newest form of transportation in the future, or will you stick to buses? Anything else to add? Any questions we can help you answer? 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!
After looking at additional images and videos more closely it would seem that the aqua vehicle was entering the station not leaving the station. This makes the assumption that it is the Riviera station. Unless something very strange happened that would mean that the aqua vehicle pushed into the yellow vehicles not the other way around as most seem to assume. This would also mean that it was not a problem with attachment to the main haul rope.
I was wrong. The contradicting footage I saw of the Riviera station was while it was under construction and testing and the movement was in the opposite direction than of in production videos that I just found. I find that some of the testing was in the other direction but then switched at some point interesting as well.
Thank you for clarifying! The images clearly show that the aqua gondola got stuck and yellow gondolas piled up behind it! It was likely a mechanical system failure in the mechanism that pulls the gondolas off the cable to slow them down and turn them around.
I read it as “In the long run we have no concerns about safety while riding the skyliner. For day to day use we are however, worried about reliability and up time”.
I like you…I like reading your articles.
“More concerning than safety is reliability and up-time.”
Please just delete that sentence entirely. Context is everything, but that’s a sentence you shouldn’t have typed. Nothing’s more concerning than safety, ever.
It’s a bit awkwardly worded, but I believe they mean they are not worried that the Skyliner is unsafe, but they are concerned that reliability may be an issue.
I agree with the other poster that it may be awkwardly worded (I also doubt that Tom really thinks safety is not important; it’s just not something he is worried about here), but it is important to note that this sentence reflects Tom’s (and Sarah’s?) personal views. The comment is prefaced with “We will continue to use the Skyliner as normal….” His later sentence is explaining *why* they will continue to use the Skyliner, i.e., they are not concerned with its safety ostensibly because they believe that these types of systems are “safe,” despite the incident.
Notably, he is not saying that others should feel the same way or that this is Disney’s general philosophy. Thus, there is no need for him to censor his personal views or to change them to correspond with your (or anyone else’s) values. Others can disagree with their view, of course, but to say that their comment should be deleted goes way beyond that. If he wants to edit it for clarification, that’s cool too, but to demand that a sentence be deleted is unjustified.
I can think of dozens of things that are more concerning than safety to me when I go about the activities of my daily life. I feel bad for people whose lives are consumed by an obsessive fear about what could go wrong. I fully support Tom’s sentence!
The question is this a minor glitch or the the lull like after the Lion Air crash before another 157 people found out just how flawed the 737-max was designed.
I am absolutely baffled by the way people on social media are gloating about this. The way people are responding to both this and Galaxy’s Edge on social, it’s like they actively want Disney World to take a hit and fail. I’m open to criticism of the parks (there’s certainly room for it.) But glee over something like this? What is going on?
Social media is a way for people to be critical and feel superior even though most of the time the topic is something they couldn’t do in a lifetime. It’s chasing 10 seconds of attention because, frankly, a whole lot of people aren’t happy and need to be snarky on social to compensate.
Eh, I kind of get it. The lack of a/c on these is perceived as a cost-cutting move by many, myself included, and making a big deal about something like this might have the effect of Disney actually making a change.
Similarly, Galaxy’s Edge opened without much of the promised character interaction because of cost-cutting. Low attendance is therefore looked on favorably in hopes they will have to “do more” to get people to come.
If we all love everything they do, it gives them license to continue raising prices and cutting costs. Complaining online may not *actually* do anything to change that, but it feels like doing something, and is about all we can do, other than just not going.
Oh, yes,go ahead and cause delays for the rest of us.
Oh yes you are handicap too but it’s much more insidious
Yes I use an ECV and have for the past 24 years. (spinal cord injury) I get the looks from people that think I can walk. I use a scooter because it gives me independence that I can not get from a wheel chair. The next time some of you and only some of you that are upset when you see someone in an ECV think wheel chair. I wait my turn for everything including buses. I am not there to get any special treatment.
And….what is “truly disabled” in your view? Only those with visible disabilities?? How insensitive!
My family and friends family were in the 3rd yellow skyliner car that collided with the the 2 other yellow cars into the “stalled” blue car. We were trapped in this car for close to an hour due to the blue one being “stuck”. Cast members were unable to open our doors. Everyone around us was evacuated and they finally were able to open the doors to our skyliner. Moments after we got put our skyliner moved on the line as did the other two yellow cars, slamming in to the “stuck” blue skyliner. We watched staff trying to figure out why the blue car was stalled and observed they clearly had no idea why.
Thank you for sharing glad you guys got out okay. I have been wondering this whole time if people were in the cars that collided. I know they say no one was injured but still was not sure with the photos circulating of the collided cars.
Really saddened me to see this happen – although, so very thankful that no one was injured!! Hoping that Disney can get some help from the gondola maker to figure out why this happened and ensure that it doesn’t again. We have a trip in November and as long as they get the system up and running and thoroughly tested, we’ll definitely be trying it out!
Wonder how long it will take to retrofit all those gondolas with big rubber bumpers on the side??
I have been stuck on gondola style rides too many times to feel excited about Disney introducing one. The first time was on the way from Fantasyland to Tomorrowland, when i was a small child. The heat was unbearable, despite the fact that we only stopped for 15-minutes or so. The last time was when my kids were 5 and 7, at Six Flags in NJ. We were stuck for 90-minutes. The sun went down, and the wind kicked up. We were freezing, needed a restroom and missed dinner. I swore “never again” for gondolas. The positive Skyliner reviews had me rethinking my position, but this accident just confirms what my life experience has taught me!! A smooth ride may be delightful, but the potential downsides are not things I’m willing to deal with on my vacation.
After the crashes of the Boeing 737max planes but before it was grounded, an aviation expert was asked if he’d fly on it. From what I remember, he said, ‘I’m 70, I’ll fly on it, but would I put my granddaughter on it – absolutely not’. I don’t know if I’ll put my kids on this until they tell us what caused it. this isn’t about safety inspections it’s aboit Disney and dopplemayer explaining why it happened and why it wont happen in the future. I was excited about the Skyliner but am not excited about being stuck for 3 hours or worse with my kids. Any time savings or nice view isn’t worth it. We’ve ridden another gondola system in Jackson hole and loved it. I don’t think the analysis will be done quickly enough to get the line back running very soon.
We rode the Skyliner for the first time just hours before the accident on the Epcot line. While up in the air we had a discussion about how they would get us down if we got stranded. I had been taking videos for my YouTube channel of our perfect ride, but decided not to post them due to not knowing the outcome of the rescue out of respect for the victims. I’m glad they all came down without major injuries, although, I’m sure some may have lingering issues of acc anxiety for a while. Now. I’m thankful it wasn’t our trip as we were on it when the sun was blazing. The Dusney Hollywood line was down when we got there, which was why we took the Epcot line. What do y’all think? Should I post my videos now that we know the outcome?
My husband and I rode the Epcot line Friday afternoon. We were stopped for about ten minutes. The gondola became very warm inside. I can’t imagine being stuck for three hours. Go ahead and post your video, but it might be wise to add a few words about the accident.
One of the reasons I may have to stop going to Walt Disney World is how some will perceive my need to use an ECV. I have congenital hip dysplasia. I can walk perfectly well, but for no more than a short distance at a time. I love to visit the parks but it is truly disheartening to know I will be judged for an invisible disability I cannot change. Please do not assume you can diagnose what it took a specialist and an MRI to find.
Very well said! Its so unfortunate and disappointing that others judge what they cannot see. MANY struggle with “invisible” problems!
For the first time and maybe my last I rented a scooter to go to Disney. People gave me dirty looks cut me off on single rider lines and ran in front of me. I had Disney bus drivers yell at me and people say do you think I am going to let you go just because your in that.
To look at me there’s no visible clue what wrong with me. 2014 I had ovarian cancer had 6 rounds of chemo with large does of steroids they blew me up I was 120 lbs. it’s been four years and they expect it will be back soon. I have diabetes, severe neuropathy in my feet and hands. I also have pad my left leg was getting minimal blood flow they did a right iliac bypass so one artery brings blood to both legs but there is muscle damage in my left leg because it took so long to diagnose. But I can tell you, you cannot tell any of this by looking at me. And oh ya I can walk some. I was an RN I worked with critical care pediatrics.
How rude! I have a scooter here in Las Vegas have used it many times on Streets, and casinos, and on the strip. Usual comments I get are, “you should slow down,” “win the race,” “do you have a driver’s license,” all attempts at humor, not censure, and “can I use it?”. The only clue to any problems is I have a cane. I am shocked Disney drivers would yell at you. I’ve also had nothing but people helping me by holding doors and elevators and such. Same for taking scooter through airports and on cruises. So maybe the hot, humid weather was making everyone in Disney Annoyed…or the crowds. DO NOT TAKE IT PERSONALLY IF SOME PEOPLE ARE IDIOTS! ignore them and enjoy yourself.
We need an ECV in my family. Specifically in WDW, people make the false assumption most ECV riders only ride because their too lazy to walk the big parks. It’s easy to have that reaction when their own feet hurt and they see what they think is an able bodied person scootin’ around.
But I don’t think many people opt for the inconvenience and cost of a scooter just to avoid walking the park. In our case the ECV rider can walk a mile or stand 30 minutes when necessary. Nerve damage from the spine into the legs and feet are excruciating beyond that. Without an ECV they’d need to leave the park after the first hour.
My question is “just how prepared was Disney for a mass evacuation?” How many first responders were available? How much equipment was available and used in the evacuation? What was the initial response time until the first passengers were rescued? How many gondolas were occupied and how many people rescued? Did the system restart allowing some passengers to be evacuated at the station stops? Has Disney considered the consequences of such an occurrence at mid day on a hot summer afternoon?
RCFD is funded for almost enough staff to cover an incident like this. In the case another emergency erupted within that time, maybe Disney is confident enough in their brand that fans within the area would volunteer their time and expertise just to be part of the Disney Experience?
Better than seemingly stupid
Hi! So is the Skyliner and the Busses are the only mode of transportation from Disney’s Pop Century, besides Lyft, Uber and driving your own car? Right? How long would an Uber or Lyft take at 5:30am, to Epcot from Disney’s Pop Century on Monday, Oct 28, 2019. That’s the end of this month. Or should we drive. Being told there are no Extra Disney Magic Hours on that day, is that true???? Not super surprised by the Skyliner. It’s “mechanical“ and that stuff happens on rides all the time, when they first open even if they are “Beta” tested by Cast Members. It’s a shame, but they will work out the kinks, they always do.
Staff training would be a big one. Disney should contract with ski resorts to bring in their staff that aren’t working yet. Key difference in the seasonal staffing is that ski resorts have long tenured experienced staff: millwrights, electricians etc that complete their apprenticeships on these lifts.
Don’t know what happened but it looks like the staff didn’t e-stop when they needed to and a fault didn’t trip the stop.
The problem is those technical abilities are outside Disneys PayGrade, perhaps it’s time WDW reap what they soe.
My suspicion is a defect in the manufactures system, whatever caused the Gondolla being brought back on line to not engage the carrier cable, either mechanical, or software would be prime suspect. Outside the ability of the operator, although they should have an emergency STOP at athere disposable!
Jane I agree 100% and had the exact same thoughts; this was (it seems to me as an Engineer and with experience working with these systems) a minor malfunction which became a major situation due to poor staff response. Based on the observations and comments of witnesses, the staff was clueless as to what happened, why it happened and what to do about it, that’s what should trouble folks…