| Skyway | |
| Land | Fantasyland; Tomorrowland |
|---|---|
| Designer | WED Enterprises |
| Manufacturer | Vonroll LTD |
| Attraction type | Vonroll Type 101 detachable monocable gondola lift |
| Propulsion method | Top-mounted, 55HP electric motor |
| Soft opening date | June 10, 1956 |
| Opening date | June 23, 1956 |
| Closing date | Nov 9 1994 |
| Vehicle type | Passenger |
| Vehicle names | Cabin, Gondola cars |
| Vehicle capacity | 4 |
| Guests per car | 4 |
| Ride duration | 3:36 minutes |
| Length | 1200 ft (365.8 m) |
| Total height | 60 ft (18.3 m) |
| Maximum speed | 4.0 mph (6.4 km/h) |
| Ticket | D |
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| Skyway | |
| Disneyland | |
| Opening date | June 23, 1956 |
|---|---|
| Closing date | November 9, 1994 |
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| Skyway | |
| Magic Kingdom | |
| Opening date | October 1, 1971 |
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| Closing date | November 10, 1999 |
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| Skyway | |
| Tokyo Disneyland | |
| Opening date | April 15, 1983 |
|---|---|
| Closing date | November 3, 1998 |
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The Skyway was a gondola lift attraction at Disneyland, at the Magic Kingdom, and at Tokyo Disneyland. Since all versions of this attraction took riders back and forth between Fantasyland and Tomorrowland, the route from Tomorrowland was called Skyway to Fantasyland, and the route from Fantasyland was called Skyway to Tomorrowland.
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The Skyway at Disneyland opened on June 23, 1956. It was built by Von Roll, Ltd. based in Bern, Switzerland. It was the first Von Roll Type 101 aerial ropeway in the USA. Walt Disney Imagineering bought the ride from Switzerland. It was a 1947 Vonroll sidechair model. In 1959, a major renovation added The Submarine Voyage, the Disneyland Monorail, the Matterhorn (now a Fantasyland Attraction), and the Motorboat Cruise, but when the Matterhorn was planned it was designed to be built right in the path of the Skyway, so without a single closure of the Skyway, the Matterhorn was built around the Skyway.
During the Fantasyland renovation at Disneyland in the mid-1980s, the Skyway made only roundtrips from Tomorrowland.
The Disneyland Skyway was removed on November 9, 1994 due to stress cracks in the Matterhorn roller battery supports. At Disneyland, the Fantasyland Skyway station remains but is off limits to guests and completely empty (no machinery), and the Tomorrowland Skyway station has been demolished. The holes in the Matterhorn were filled in and the Skyway supports were dismantled within weeks.
In 1998, Tokyo Disneyland closed their Skyway. The Fantasyland station was removed to make room for Pooh's Hunny Hunt, while the Tomorrowland station was remodeled into a candy store.
At the Magic Kingdom, the Skyway was removed in 1999. The Tomorrowland station was demolished in the summer of 2009, while the Fantasyland station is now used for stroller parking, but will soon be demolished to make way for the expanded restrooms for Peter Pan's Flight.
The Skyways had their own share of accidents, mostly in later years.
On Sunday morning, 17 April 1994, a 30-year-old man named Randle Charles jumped approximately 20 feet from one of the Skyway cabins and landed in a tree near the "Alice in Wonderland" attraction. He was helped out of the tree by paramedics and taken to nearby Western Medical Center, where he was treated for minor injuries and released. Charles later filed a $25,000 negligence lawsuit against Disney, claiming that he had suffered permanent neck and back injuries as a result of his fall.
Despite the initial assertion of Charles' attorney that Randle "wasn't doing anything improper, and he certainly wasn't trying to get out of the ride," Charles indeed jumped, not fell, from his Skyway cabin. Charles' lawsuit was dismissed just before it was to go to trial on 23 September 1996; at that time he admitted that he "came out" of his Skyway cabin and that his lawsuit against Disney was "ill-advised."
On February 14, 1999, a park custodian at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom was killed when the skyway started up while he was cleaning one of the platforms at the Fantasyland terminal. Raymond Barlow, 65, was sweeping off a narrow skyway platform inaccessible to park guests an hour after the park's 9 a.m. opening when Cast Members, unaware of his presence, started up the ride. Barlow, startled by the approaching gondola, grabbed onto it and tried to climb inside; he fell 40 feet into a flower bed, hitting a tree on the way down, and died. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration later ruled that the area in which Barlow had been working violated federal safety codes and fined Walt Disney World $4,500 for a "serious" violation of safety standards. Several months later, on November 9, 1999, the Magic Kingdom's skyway was also permanently closed. Once again, the decision to close the attraction was allegedly based on factors other than its being involved in a recent accidental death. Some say it was closed due to the widow's request. In October 2011 the station was removed.